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journeys with jesus - The Gospels

  The word gospel means good news.  Each of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are considered to be good news because they tell of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  The gospel of Mark which is considered by most scholars to be the earliest of the gospels written around 66-70 CE.  The other gospels are considered to have been written at later dates; Matthew 80-90 CE, Luke in 80-100 CE and John, the last gospel, a little later than Luke, closer to 90-100 CE.

     There are several reasons that Mark is considered the oldest Gospel.  First it is the shortest.  Scholars believe that no one would shorten an earlier story, but that they would add to it.  Second 97% of Mark is included in Matthew and 88% of Mark is included in Luke, while only 60% of Matthew and 47% of Luke can be found in Mark.  This strongly suggests that both Matthew and Luke built their gospels upon the work of the writer of Mark.  Third Mark contains many Aramaic (the language spoken by Jesus and his followers) expressions not found in the other Gospels.  Fourth Mark's grammar is not as polished as that of the other Gospels.  Fifth, when Mark has a passage that could be misunderstood, both Luke and Matthew clean it up.  Finally Mark repeats himself in places, and those places have been removed in Matthew and Luke. 

     There is a theory that a further source called Q (from the word Quelle which means source) composed of other Jesus' stories was used by both Luke and Matthew.  This accounts for the common stories between those two books which are not found in Mark.  Because of their strong connections Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. 

     John, it is theorized, was composed by a very different community, isolated from the communities in which the synoptic gospels were conceived.  This theory rests on several foundations.  First John contains only about 10% of the synoptics and 90% original material.  Second, it has Jesus moving in cycles in and out of Jerusalem, while the synoptics have the adult Jesus only going to Jerusalem at his death.  Finally the story is focused on a series of seven signs rather than the better known stories of the other gospels. 


     Each of the Gospels is composed to tell the Jesus' story from a particular point of view and for a particular audience.  We will cover these elements in the articles on the gospels.  

     Authorship of the Gospels is pseudonymous.  The names attached to the Gospels were assigned by church tradition.
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