What about James.

*Why*, pray tell?! ;-)

We don't *really* know who wrote any of those Gospels. "The four canonical texts are the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke and Gospel of John, probably written between 65 and 100 AD. They appear to have been originally untitled; they were quoted anonymously in the first half of the second century (ie 100 - 150) but the names by which they are currently known appear suddenly around the year 180. The first canonical gospel written is Mark (c 65-70), which was probably used as a source for the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke appear also to have used a common source, the hypothetical Q document. These first three gospels are called the synoptic gospels because they share a similar view. The last gospel, the gospel of John, presents a very different picture of Jesus and his ministry from the synoptics. Scholars maintain that the gospels and all the books of the New Testament were written in Greek." "More generally, gospels compose a genre of early Christian literature. Gospels that did not become canonical circulated in early Christianity. Some, such as the Gospel of Thomas, lack the narrative framework typical of a gospel. These gospels are later than the canonical gospels, though in the case of Thomas, scholarship is divided on the exact date." "Matthew was probably written in Syria, perhaps in Antioch, an ancient Christian center. Mark has traditionally been associated with Peter's preaching in Rome, and it is well-suited to a Roman audience. Various cities have been proposed for the origin of Luke, but there is no consensus on the matter. Ephesus is a popular scholarly choice for the place of origin for the Gospel of John." "The four gospels present different narratives, reflecting different intents on the parts of their authors. All four gospels portray Jesus as leading a group of disciples, performing miracles, preaching in Jerusalem, being crucified, and rising from the dead. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as an exorcist and healer who preached in parables about the coming Kingdom of God. He preached first in Galilee and later in Jerusalem, where he cleansed the temple. He states that he offers no sign as proof (Mark) or only the sign of Jonah (Matthew and Luke). In Mark, apparently written with a Roman audience in mind, Jesus is a heroic man of action, given to powerful emotions, including agony. In Matthew, apparently written for a Jewish audience, Jesus is repeatedly called out as the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. In Luke, apparently written for gentiles, Jesus is especially concerned with the poor. Luke emphasizes the importance of prayer and the action of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' life and in the Christian community. Jesus appears as a stoic supernatural being, unmoved even by his own crucifixion. Like Matthew, Luke insists that salvation offered by Christ is for all, and not the Jews only. The Gospel of John represents Jesus as an incarnation of the eternal Word (Logos), who spoke no parables, talked extensively about himself, and did not explicitly refer to a Second Coming. Jesus preaches in Jerusalem, launching his ministry with the cleansing of the temple. He performs several miracles as signs, most of them not found in the synoptics." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

Unlike the pseupidgraphal gospels, the 4 canonical Gospels are technically anonymous. Papias, writing around 105 AD, identifies the four authors - though a small minority of scholars contend that he was talking about a different John ("John the Elder"), supposedly a disciple of John the Apostle. Church Tradition (meaning the traditions of hundreds of different churches scattered from Spain to India) always affirmed these attributions. The Heresiarchs and pagan apologists do the same. In fact the oldest NT commentary was a commentary on John written by Gnostics around 160-175 AD. Also, Irenaeus who was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John, and who had every motive for discreditting the Gospel of John (it was the principle proof-text source for his Gnostic adversaries) simply and matter-of-factly states that John wrote it, and evidently finds nothing controversial or questionable about the claim, indicating that by 185 John's authorship was thoroughly accepted. In the case of the synoptics, if they are false attributions, they're very silly ones: pseudepigraphal gospels were always attributed to the big names or those persons who (exaggerating certain references to them in the canonical Gospels) had access to some special revelation; i.e., Peter, Mary Magdalen, Nicodemus, James the Just, Joseph of Arimathea, Thomas, et al. But Matthew the publican seems a most unlikely choice unless it was true. The same can be said for Mark and Luke as niether were witnesses, the latter was a Gentile, and the former had gotten a bad reputation and fallen out for many years with his cousin Barnabas and his partner Paul. In that society, a work by any one of these three was ipso-facto suspect: the three weren't regarded as special authorities, and that was in an age when arguments from authority were not only accepted but demanded. So no one would have attributed authorship to them if it weren't true AND reasonably well known to be true. Also, all ancient sources that touch on the subject - pagan, Jewish, heretical, and Christian - make and/or accept the traditional attributions and nobody ever challenges them. As for internal evidence: Matthew was clearly written by a 1st century reasonably well versed Palestinian Jew with an Eastern/Pharasee paradigm and style of argumentation; it's very much an apologetic work targeting Jews of Palestine, Syria, and the Parthian Diaspora. For what it's worth, this also happens to be Matthew's mission field according to Church Tradition. And Papias states that Matthew wrote his Gospel "in the idiom of the Hebrews" meaning "in the style of the Eastern Jews of the Parthian Diasora", which pretty fairly describes the Gospel of Matthew we have today. It is absolutely certain that Luke was written by the same person who wrote Acts, and that the author was a very educated Greek proselyte and almost certainly a doctor/physician. In most of Acts, the author describes Pauls movements and travels in the 3rd person, but at certain places he switches to the 1st person plural, indicating he was there with Paul at those times. Examining Paul's letters, these line up exactly with the times and places where Paul indicated Luke was with him. Mark was also known as "the memoires of Peter" in the earliest times, and Tradition has it that Mark wrote it on the basis of Peter's oral rendition, told while imprisoned during Nero's persecution with an emphasis on comforting and encouraging his fellow Christian prisoners. It's not much, but the story was the same in Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Caesarea, and Ephesus as early as the 2nd century. The author of John was clearly a 1st century Palestinian Jew and seems to have a lot of personal knowledge of events in Judah at the time of Jesus' ministry. The author certainly presents himself as an intimate and eyewitness, identifying himself only as the beloved disciple. But every place the author says he was, and eveything he says he did, matches up with what the Synoptics say of John. Unlike the Synoptics, if the author isn't an eyewitness, and the words and deeds attributed to Jesus are fabrications, then the work in its entirety is utterly blasphemous. So basically, the evidence is at least consistent with the traditional attributions. The evidence is very strong for Luke, almost as strong for John, but significantly weaker for Mark and Matthew. Finally, there is not one shred of internal or external evidence that the Gospels weren't written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John respectively. There are no alternate attributions, no chalenges against their authenticity any time during the early centuries of the Church -- or even until the 18th Century. Does that prove beyond all doubt that the attributions are correct? No. But the attributions ARE reasonable, plausible, totally consistent with the internal and external evidence, and absolutely uncontraried by any early source. And considering that the one inarguable criteria for canonization was "Apostolicity" (authored by one of the apostles or by someone directly under the wing of one), one has to wonder how any single fraud, let alone 4 frauds, managed to convince every single church from Gibraltar to Hormuz, from the Crimea to Ethiopia, that they were Apostolic and authentic: it's so grossly improbable as to be ridiculous.