Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

I would say that it would be a combination of the following:

-- the degree of use of each gospel by the early church (dating from a time when there would still have been eyewitnesses available to verify them); 

-- the guidance of the Holy Spirit with regard to the various councils and ecclesiastical bodies that determined the inspired canon of Scripture over the years; 

-- the authority and knowledge of the purported writer of each gospel; 

-- the gospel's consistency with the remainder of the writings that the church accepted as inspired;

-- the comprehensvieness of the groups to which each gospel was primarily directed (Matthew to Jews; Mark to Romans; Luke to Greeks; and John to a general audience); and 

-- the desire to achieve a balance between comprehensiveness of the gospel accounts and the number of gospels.

(In passing, I also believe that this identical question has been previously asked and addressed on ebible.com.)

September 23 2020 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report