Gospel


Gospel originally meant the Christian message, but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out; in this sense it includes both the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and various apocryphal gospels dating from the 2nd century and later.
The four canonical gospels comprise the first four books of the New Testament of the Bible, and were probably written between AD 66 and 110. All four were anonymous, almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission. They are a subset of the genre of ancient biography, but ancient biographies should not be confused with modern ones, and often included propaganda and kerygma ; yet while there is no guarantee that the events which they describe are historically accurate, scholars following the quest for the historical Jesus believe that it is possible to differentiate Jesus' own views from those of his later followers.
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.

Canonical gospels

Contents

A gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. The four canonical gospels share the same basic outline: Jesus begins his public ministry in conjunction with that of John the Baptist, calls disciples, teaches and heals and confronts the Pharisees, dies on the cross, and is raised from the dead. Despite this, scholars recognise that their differences of detail are irreconcilable, and any attempt to harmonise them would only disrupt their distinct theological messages.
John and the three synoptics in particular present significantly different pictures of Jesus's career, with John omitting any mention of his ancestry, birth, and childhood, his baptism, temptation and transfiguration, and the Lord's Supper. John chronology and arrangement of incidents is also distinctly different, clearly describing the passage of three years in Jesus's 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.
Each gospel has its own distinctive understanding of Jesus and his divine role. Mark never calls him "God" or claims that he existed prior to his earthly life, apparently believes that Jesus had a normal human parentage and birth, and makes no attempt to trace his ancestry back to King David or Adam. Crucially, Mark originally had no post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, 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. Matthew makes subtle changes to Mark's narrative in order to stress Jesus's divine nature – for example, the "young man" who appears at Jesus' tomb in Mark becomes a radiant angel in Matthew. Similarly, the miracle stories in Mark confirm Jesus' status as an emissary of God, but in Matthew they demonstrate divinity. Luke, while following Mark's plot more faithfully than does 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 judgements outside the context of the narrative of Jesus's life.
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 or only the sign of Jonah. 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 described 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's 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 only for the Jews. The Gospel of John is the only gospel to call Jesus God, and in contrast to Mark, where Jesus hides his identity as messiah, in John he openly proclaims it. It represents Jesus as an incarnation of the eternal Word who talked extensively about himself, records no parables spoken by him, and does not explicitly refer to a Second Coming. Jesus preaches in Jerusalem, launching his ministry with the cleansing of the temple. It records his performance of several miracles as signs, most of them not found in the synoptics. The Gospel of John ends: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."

Composition and authorship

Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Despite the traditional ascriptions all four are anonymous, and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.
In the immediate aftermath of Jesus' death his followers expected him to return at any moment, certainly within their own lifetimes, and in consequence there was little motivation to write anything down for future generations, but as eyewitnesses began to die, and as the missionary needs of the church grew, there was an increasing demand and need for written versions of the founder's life and teachings. The stages of this process can be summarised as follows:
The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of the ancient genre of bios, or ancient biography. Ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory; the gospels were never simply biographical, they were propaganda and kerygma. As such, they present the Christian message of the second half of the first century AD, and as Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate.
The majority view among critical scholars is that the authors of Matthew and Luke have based their narratives on Mark's gospel, editing him to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies between these three and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable. In addition, the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great,... either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please". For these reasons modern scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless they do 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 authors.
Scholars usually agree that John is not without historical value: certain of its sayings are as old or older than their synoptic counterparts, its representation of the topography around Jerusalem is often superior to that of the synoptics, its testimony that Jesus was executed before, rather than on, Passover, might well be more accurate, and its presentation of Jesus in the garden and the prior meeting held by the Jewish authorities are possibly more historically plausible than their synoptic parallels. Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that the author had direct knowledge of events, or that his mentions of the Beloved Disciple as his source should be taken as a guarantee of his reliability.

Textual history and canonisation

The oldest gospel text known is, a fragment of John dating from the first half of the 2nd century. The creation of a Christian canon was probably a response to the career of the heretic Marcion, who established a canon of his own with just one gospel, the gospel of Luke, which he edited to fit his own theology. The Muratorian canon, the earliest surviving list of books considered to form Christian scripture, included Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Irenaeus of Lyons went further, stating that there must be four gospels and only four because there were four corners of the Earth and thus the Church should have four pillars.

Non-canonical gospels

, Jerome and other early church fathers preserve in their writings citations from Jewish-Christian gospels. Most modern critical scholars consider that the extant citations suggest at least two and probably three distinct works, at least one of which closely parallels the Gospel of Matthew.
The Gospel of Thomas is mostly wisdom without narrating Jesus's life. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that the original may date from c. 150. It may represent a tradition independent from the canonical gospels, but that developed over a long time and was influenced by Matthew and Luke. While it can be understood in Gnostic terms, it lacks the characteristic features of Gnostic doctrine. It includes two unique parables, the parable of the empty jar and the parable of the assassin. It had been lost but was discovered, in a Coptic version dating from c. 350, at Nag Hammadi in 1945–46, and three papyri, dated to c. 200, which contain fragments of a Greek text similar to but not identical with that in the Coptic language, have also been found.
The Gospel of Peter was likely written in the first half of the 2nd century. It seems to be largely legendary, hostile toward Jews, and including docetic elements. It is a narrative gospel and is notable for asserting that Herod, not Pontius Pilate, ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. It had been lost but was rediscovered in the 19th century.
The Gospel of Judas is another controversial and ancient text that purports to tell the story of the gospel from the perspective of Judas, the disciple who is usually said to have betrayed Jesus. It paints an unusual picture of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, in that it appears to interpret Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. The text was recovered from a cave in Egypt by a thief and thereafter sold on the black market until it was finally discovered by a collector who, with the help of academics from Yale and Princeton, was able to verify its authenticity. The document itself does not claim to have been authored by Judas, and is known to date to at least 180 AD.
The Gospel of Mary was originally written in Greek during the 2nd century. It is often interpreted as a Gnostic text. It consists mainly of dialog between Mary Magdalene and the other disciples. It is typically not considered a gospel by scholars since it does not focus on the life of Jesus.
The Gospel of Barnabas was a gospel which is claimed to be written by Barnabas, one of the apostles. The Gospel was presumably written between the 14th and the 16th century. It contradicts the ministry of Jesus in canonical New Testament, but has clear parallels with the Islamic faith, by mentioning Muhammad as Messenger of God. It also strongly denies Pauline doctrine, and Jesus testified himself as a prophet, not the son of God.
Marcion of Sinope, c. 150, had a much shorter version of the gospel of Luke, differing substantially from what has now become the standard text of the gospel and far less oriented towards the Jewish scriptures. Marcion is said to have rejected all other gospels, including those of Matthew, Mark and especially John, which he allegedly rejected as having been forged by Irenaeus. Marcion's critics alleged that he had edited out the portions he did not like from the then canonical version, though Marcion is said to have argued that his text was the more genuinely original one.
A genre of "Infancy gospels" arose in the 2nd century, and includes the Gospel of James, which introduces the concept of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, both of which related many miraculous incidents from the life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus that are not included in the canonical gospels.
Another genre is that of the gospel harmony, in which the four canonical gospels are combined into a single narrative, either to present a consistent text or to produce a more accessible account of Jesus' life. The oldest known harmony, the Diatessaron, was compiled by Tatian around 175, and may have been intended to replace the separate gospels as an authoritative text. It was accepted for liturgical purposes for as much as two centuries in Syria, but eventually developed a reputation as being heretical and was suppressed. Subsequent harmonies were written with the more limited aim of being study guides or explanatory texts. They still use all the words and only the words of the four gospels, but the possibility of editorial error, and the loss of the individual viewpoints of the separate gospels, keeps the harmony from being canonical.

Citations