St Faith's Anglican Church Burwood

Introduction to the Gospels

There are a few contemporary references to Jesus Christ in non-Christian literature but we are dependent on the books of the New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, for details of the life, work and sayings of Jesus. The scholar, Erasmus (1466-1536) in his Preface to the first published, printed edition of the New Testament in Greek (1516) wrote, "These holy pages will sum up the living image of his mind. They will give you Christ Himself, talking, healing, dying, rising, the whole Christ in a word; they will give Him to you in an intimacy so close that He would be less visible to you if He stood before your eyes". We see God in Jesus Christ and the only authentic picture of Jesus Christ comes from the Scriptures. As our primary source of our knowledge of God, they can never be superseded.

The Gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of the term; rather they are portraits. The material is selective and has a theological purpose, viz. to portray Jesus as the Messiah, Saviour and Son of God. All of our Gospels are anonymous and we are uncertain who were their authors. In the 2nd century A.D. the Gospels were attributed to Matthew, the tax gatherer and disciple of Jesus, Mark, the companion of Paul and Barnabus, Luke, the 'beloved physician' and companion of Paul, and John of Zebedee, the intimate disciple of Jesus; the Gospels have been named after these disciples ever since.

The Gospels were written in Greek, like the rest of the New Testament. The everyday language of Jesus was Aramaic, a Semitic language allied to Hebrew, but there are only a few Aramaic words recorded in the Gospels (Mk.5.41; Mk.7.34; Mk.14.36; Mk.15.34) where translations of them are given in Greek. The sayings of Jesus are thus in translation and we can only guess the exact words that Jesus used.

The Gospels evolved over a period of several generations. The basis is the witness of the disciples who were with Jesus. Stories about the life, work and sayings of Jesus would have been told and re-told in the church gatherings and in preaching. At first they would have been in Aramaic but as the church spread beyond Palestine, they would have been told in the common language of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, where Christianity first developed, which was Greek .As stories are re-told by word of mouth, variations occur; the speakers give their own interpretation of the events and sayings and stress the elements that they think are relevant to their hearers. This is how the variations in the stories arose that are evident as we read the different Gospels. It is probable that some written records were also produced in the first generation but, if they existed, they have not survived.

By the end of the first generation, many of the first witnesses had died and it became vital to record the events in the life of Jesus in writing. This became particularly important in the 60s when the three 'pillars' of the church, Peter, Paul and James, the Lord's brother, were all martyred. Most scholars think that the first Gospel produced was Mark's Gospel and that it was written just before or just after 70 A.D. The writer gathered together the stories about Jesus and placed them in some sort of order. The next two Gospels (Matthew and Luke) were written between 70 A.D and 90 A.D. and Luke tells us (Lk.1.1-4) that many had tried to set down an orderly account. Matthew and Luke drew heavily on Mark; over 90% of Mark is present in Matthew and Luke or both, often with the exact words, showing that they copied from Mark. In addition to Mark, Matthew and Luke also seem have drawn on a written document (not now existing) which contained many of the sayings of Jesus. Added to these two sources, each Gospel has material which is peculiar to that Gospel and the writer was drawing on other sources unknown to us, probably stories current in the local communities.

John's Gospel was written between 90 A.D. and 100 A.D. and was little, if at all, influenced by the other three Gospels. A community had grown up, probably in Asia Minor (now western Turkey), around the figure of John, the disciple of Jesus, whom they revered. Out of the traditions of this community some writer of genius produced John's Gospel. John's Gospel is quite different in content and style from the first three Gospels.

Links to the books

Introduction to the Gospels
Book of Matthew
Book of Mark
Book of Luke
Book of John
Acts of the Apostles

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