Why are there four Gospels?

Four Gospels are a strength, not a problem - to a historian, four independent witnesses are a gift, not a redundancy to explain away. One of the field's chief tools is the criterion of multiple attestation: when the same fact about Jesus turns up in sources that did not copy one another, it is much harder to explain as later invention.

The Gospels are not four copies. On the dominant source theory, Mark is earliest; Matthew and Luke each drew on Mark plus a sayings source (Q) and material unique to them; and John appears largely independent. Add the pre-Pauline creeds Paul says he 'received' from the 30s, plus the non-Christian witnesses Josephus and Tacitus. When a fact crosses these separate streams, the tradition is pushed back behind all of them. That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate stands in Mark, in Paul's creed, and in Tacitus — a hostile Roman with no motive to flatter.

Honesty requires the limits. Since the 1970s scholars like Morna Hooker, and more recently Chris Keith and Dale Allison, have shown the criteria are no precision tool: earliness is not the same as truth, and a widespread conviction could still be mistaken. Multiple attestation counts the witnesses; it does not by itself interrogate them. It works best for the broad shape of Jesus' life, not for certifying the exact wording of a single saying.

But notice what even these critics affirm: that Jesus existed, was baptized by John, was reputed a healer, clashed at the Temple, and was crucified under Pilate. When Christian creeds, Roman annals, a Jewish historian, and independent Gospel streams converge on one Galilean, the convergence demands explanation. The four Gospels are not a redundancy to explain away.