If Jesus had twelve disciples, why were only four of them allowed to write gospels for the Bible?

Question

Were the writings of the other eight disciples burned by the Christian Church like so many others? What if the other eight disciples had something important to say from Jesus and now it is missing from the Bible?

Answer 1

The 4 gospels are not even necessarily written by Jesus' apostles. However, they were written by his disciples. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not future apostles but were Evangelists.

A disciple is defined as a follower. While the "12 disciples" were eventually to become apostles (except for Judas Iscariot), there were many other disciples that didnt truly understand the ways of Jesus (see John, chp 6).

So to answer your question, there is no direct answer as the recorded writings and letters of the disciples and apostles are what makes up the New Testament.

Answer 2

Well, they weren't all written by the 12 discples.

Matthew - most people would agree that the book of Matthew was written by Matthew the Apostle.

Mark - was probably written by John Mark, who was mentored by Peter. Mark never meet Jesus. He probably wrote down Peter's account of Christ. So in a sense, this one could be construed as Peter's account, I suppose.

Luke - was NOT an apostle of Jesus. Rather, he collected up stories about Jesus and put them together in one narrative.

John -this may well have been written by the apostle John, but wasn't written until John would've been quite elderly - probably had some form of "ghostwriter" or assistance and does show that memories will change as time passes (there are slight changes in the narrative - the events are there, but in a different order from other Gospels).

The first 3 books seem to have been using a book of "Jesus's quotations" or an earlier gospel as a reference. John struck out on his own and probably wrote what he remembered.

As for why those 4 books made it and others that may have been written by other disciples didn't? Those 4 gave the view that the church in the 2nd-3rd century wanted given and were also considered authoritative. Others didn't give the view the main body of the church wanted preached or were known to be forgeries, so they fell out of favor and/or were labelled "heretical" and destroyed.

And that's why there are 4 gospels, 2 of which weren't written or purported to be written by an Apostle, in the New Testament.

Answer 3

First, Jesus had several disciples, he had only twelve apostles. Secondly, more than 4 wrote gospels but the Church (there are several Christian churchs, but from what I understand, it was the Roman Catholic Church that put together what today we know as the Bible in around 300 A.D.) decided that the gospels they used got their message across best. Also, I think they suspected that some of the other gospels were not authentic. I agree, though, that maybe some of these other gospels writers may have had something important to say.

Answer 4

Who said anything about being "allowed" to write Gospels? Four men wrote gospels (one of them wasn't even a disciple), and the other nine disciples didn't. Why should that be surprising? Not everybody who witnesses a thing necessarily writes a book about it and then goes on Oprah to peddle it, like they do nowadays. Those who have the skill and the disposition for that sort of thing do the writing, and others whose skills lie elsewhere do other things. As to the other "gospels" that have been mentioned- is anybody so foolish as to think that even in the days of the early church, it was impossible for people to create lies and hoaxes to suit their own purposes? Those other writings were judged to be fakes by comparing them carefully and prayerfully against the Scriptures already given, just as all men who claimed to be prophets throughout the ages have been compared. That isn't politics, nor a power play- that's the way a true prophet has always been recognized.

Answer 5

There are more gospels written than the four appearing in the Bible. Upon translating the vast amounts of texts and scriptures, the "publishers" decided to edit the Bible into the parts they considered correct resp. the parts that spoke the Christian message at its best. A good example of this is looking at the alternative versions of Bibles used by Catholics and Protestants. The Bible has undergone several revisions throughout the centuries, and gospels have been added and omitted in accordance with the wishes of the churches. The Apocryphia is a collection of gospels, scriptures etc that are considered important in Christian teachings, but for some obscure reason have not been included in the Bible.

Answer 6

One of them did not live long enough to write a single word, (Judas), so that gets rid of one!
Seriously though, there are other Gospels and Holy writings of that time, but they were not accepted , as deuterocanonicals and are not therefore in the New Testament.
Shortly (relatively) after the death of those people, a group of scholars got together and examined all the Holy writings and Gospels, and put them through a very stringent test called the Canon, which they had to pass before they were accepted for inclusion in the New Testament part of the Bible. It is a long and fascinating subject which I may have over-simplified due to time and space.

Answer 7

There was other writers but some parts of the bible are lost. God didn't only use certain disciples to write but he also used some of the worst people that had changed their lives to write also such as Paul. God is no respecter person. He will use whom he will. Some things we just don't have the answers to so I would try to be careful coming to my own understanding! If there is any lost parts of the bible, then God will reveal it at the appointed time. Some things are to deep for us to understand or to comprehend or either we may take what we do have and make a mess out of it. The information that we do have has been changed, unrightfully divided and coming to our own understanding by "some" and not all. God had his reasons for choosing whom he did! Not everybody is called to write.

Answer 8

Mark and Luke were not even members of the Twelve.The gospels were written long after Jesus died.Catholics believed that the writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit so it may or may not be an actual account of Jesus' life and work.Mark wrote the gospel as to how Peter described it to be. And to be able to preserve the accounts, Mark wrote it the way Peter had preached Jesus' gospel.

Answer 9

The others disciples plus other people who knew Jesus did write gospels, but they were rejected from the bible at the council of nycea ( I think thats how its spelled ). Many, many years after the disciples themselves had died

Answer 10

Some of them indeed did not write, but more did (even Judas apparently wrote one). It was until much later (4-5th century and onwards) that the Church decided which Gospels were going into the Bible and which were just kept as archives.
They chose the four we have today, probably because they were the most complete or because they did not contradict each other that much or because they fitted some misterious Church conspiracy etc. etc.