Episode 2: Who Wrote the Gospels?

Matthew. Mark. Luke. John.

Four names most Christians recognize immediately—but how much do we actually know about the people who wrote the four accounts of Jesus' life?

In Episode 2 of Under Review: The Verification Project, we examine what the Gospels themselves say about their authors, the ancient traditions connecting them to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and why scholars continue to debate exactly who composed these texts.

Then we go a step further.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John don't always tell the story in exactly the same way.

We examine the literary relationship between the first three Gospels, why scholars believe their authors used earlier sources, and what happens when their accounts differ in wording, chronology, people, or events.

Are those differences contradictions?

Are they normal features of ancient biography?

Can the accounts be reasonably harmonized?

And when does harmonization become a new hypothesis—adding details that none of the individual Gospel writers actually gave us?

We put several examples under review, including Jesus' birth and childhood, the genealogies, Jairus' daughter, the timing of Passover and the crucifixion, the women and messengers at the empty tomb, resurrection appearances in Jerusalem and Galilee, and the placement of Jesus' cleansing of the Temple.

And as always, we don't begin with a verdict.

We establish a hypothesis.

We look for evidence capable of proving it wrong.

We examine the strongest arguments on both sides.

And when the surviving evidence doesn't allow certainty, we say so.

This isn't about proving the Gospels true.

It isn't about proving them false.

It's about understanding what these ancient documents actually are—and allowing each author to tell the story they chose to tell before we combine them into one.

Under Review: The Verification Project

Bigger questions. Deeper evidence. A clearer world.

Don't take our word for it. Verify it.

Episode 1: What Is the Bible, Actually?

Before we can put the claims inside the Bible under review, we need to understand what the Bible itself actually is.

It looks like a single book. Historically, it's much more complicated.

In the first investigation of Under Review: The Verification Project, we start with the fundamentals: how the Bible was assembled, why its books aren't arranged in the order they were written, what we know—and don't know—about who wrote them, why Jesus left us no known writings of his own, and how historians evaluate accounts written decades after the events they describe.

We also address an important point: none of those issues automatically makes the Bible unreliable. Ancient history routinely requires us to reconstruct people and events from later sources, copies, competing accounts, archaeology, and overlapping evidence. The question isn't whether a source is perfect.

The question is: what does the available evidence allow us to say?

Along the way, we introduce the Under Review methodology: develop a hypothesis, identify what would prove it wrong, and then actively search for that evidence rather than trying to confirm what we already believe.

Sometimes a claim survives.

Sometimes it changes.

Sometimes it fails.

And sometimes the most responsible conclusion is simply: we don't know.

This episode isn't an argument for or against Christianity. It's the foundation for everything that comes next.

Before we ask what the Bible says, we need to understand what we're actually reading.

Under Review: The Verification Project

Bigger questions. Deeper evidence. A clearer world.

Don't take our word for it. Verify it.