It’s often said that the Gospels are anonymous.

It’s true that none of them has the name of its author embedded in its text.

But, as Martin Hengel has argued, the present titles were unanimously attached by the middle of the 2nd century.  It is highly likely that for this to happen the church would have know for quite some time who wrote which Gospel.  Otherwise, multiple names would have circulated (as was the case with Hebrews).

Craig Evans adds that, in every ancient manuscript where the beginning or ending of a Gospel survives, we have the traditional authorship.  So, for example:

‘In papyrus 75, a papyrus from the middle of the third century, we read “on leaf 47 (recto), where Luke ends (at Luke 24:53), the words εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λουκᾶν [“Gospel according to Luke”]. Below these words is a blank space, the equivalent of two to three lines. Below this space follow the words εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάνην [Gospel according to John and then the opening verses of the Gospel of John.”’

Evans concludes:

‘There are no anonymous copies of the Gospels, and there are no copies of the canonical Gospels under different names. Unless evidence to the contrary should surface, we should stop talking about anonymous Gospels and late, unhistorical superscriptions and subscriptions.’

Based on this, by Bill Mounce.