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Gospel

 Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel") but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In thise sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances. Modern biblical scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless, they provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later Christian authors.

The canonical gospels are the four which appear in the New Testament of the Bible. They were probably written between AD 66 to 110. All four were anonymous (with the modern names of the "four evangelists" added in the 2nd century), almost certainly none were eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmissions. Mark was the first to be written, using a variety of sources. The authors of Matthew and Luke both independently used Mark for their narrative of Jesus' career, supplementing it with a collection of sayings called "the Q source," and additional material unique to each. There is near-consensus that John had its origins as the hypothetical Signs Gospel thought to have been circulated within a Johannine community. The contradictions and discrepancies between the first three and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable.


Many non-canonical gospels were also written, all later than the four canonical gospels, and like them advocating the particular theological views of their various authors. Important examples include the gospels of Thomas, Peter, and Mary; infancy gospels such as that of James (the first to introduce the perperual virginity of the Blessed Mother), and gospel harmonies such as the Diatessaron.

The four canonical gospels share the same basic outline of the life of Jesus: he begins his public ministry in conjunction with that of John the Baptist, calls disciples, teaches and heals, and confront Pharisees, dies on the cross and is raised from the dead. Each has its own distinct understanding of him and his divine role and scholars recognize that the differences of detail between the gospels are irreconcilable, and any attempt to harmonize them would only disrupt their distinct theological messages.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are termed the synoptic gospels because they present very similar accounts of the life of Jesus. Mark begins with the baptism of the adult Jesus and the heavenly declaration that he is the Son of God; he gathers followers and begins his ministry, and tells his disciples that he must die in Jerusalem but that he will rise; in Jerusalem, he is at first acclaimed but then rejected, betrayed, and crucified, and when the women who followed him come to his tomb, they found it empty. Mark never calls Jesus "God" or claims that he existed prior to his earthly life, apparently believes that he had a normal human parentage and birth, and makes no attempt to trace his ancestry back to King David or Adam; it originally ended at Mark 16:8 and had no post-resurrection appearances, although Mark 16:7, in which the young man discovered in the tomb instructs the women to tell "the disciples and Peter" that Jesus will see them again in Galilee, hints that the author knew of the tradition.

The authors of Matthew and Luke added infancy and resurrection narratives to the story they found in Mark, although the two differ markedly. Each also makes subtle theological changes to Mark: the Markan miracle stories, for example, confirm Jesus' status as an emissary of God (which was Mark's understanding of the Messiah), but in Matthew they demonstrate his divinity, and the "young man" who appears at Jesus' tomb in Mark becomes a radiant angel in Matthew. Luke, while following Mark's plot more faithfully than Matthew, has expanded on the source, corrected Mark's grammar and syntax, and eliminated some passages entirely, notably most of chapters 6 and 7.

John, the most overtly theological, is the first to make Christological judgments outside the context of the narrative of Jesus' life. He presents a significantly different picture of Jesus' career, omitting any mention of his ancestry, birth and childhood, his baptism, temptation, and transfiguration. His chronology and arrangement of incidents is also distinctly different, clearly describing the passage of three years of Jesus' ministry in contrast to the single year of the synoptics, placing the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning rather than at the end, and the Last Supper on the day before Passover instead of being a passover meal. The Gospel of John is the only gospel that calls Jesus God, and in contrast to Mark, where Jesus hides his identity as Messiah, in John he openly proclaims it.

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