The christian gospels
The christian gospelsThe Christian Gospels
The Christian Bible has been a mainstay in society for the past two thousand years. At the heart of this ancient work, one finds the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These Gospels serve as a religious foundation for Christianity as well as a historical record of the time. Faithful followers believe that authors who were possessed by the Holy Spirit, which explains their similarity in style and content, wrote the Bible. However, through archeological findings and scholarly analysis, the origins of the Bible begin to take on a new light.
Studies done by modern scholars have sparked some interesting debates about the writings found in the Christian Bible. Many, such as Professor L. Michael White, believe that each Gospel was written for a specific region with a specific purpose. That would explain the distinct differences in the tones that they are written. Another theory emphasizes the use of a common text as a point of reference in writing these Gospels. In scientific terms, this would explain the similarity in the sayings and teachings that appear throughout all the Gospels, both Biblical and Gnostic. Together, these two beliefs form a basis for a number of new theories about how the Gospels were written.
All the Gospels were written after the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70A.D. The first to be written was the Gospel of Mark around 75A.D. This work was intended for the Jewish audience of Judea, which had just gone through a bloody war with the Roman Empire. With that in mind, Mark focuses his story on the Death of Jesus as its underlying message. As L. Michael White states in his book, Images of Jesus: The Shape of the Gospels and the Making of Tradition, “ Mark’s gospel is really about the death of Jesus. It’s a passion narrative with an extended introduction, some people would say…” (White49). By concentrating on the aspect of his death, Mark could gain the support of the people around him, for they have seen the merciless killing of their own by the Roman soldiers.
The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes the truth that Jesus was of Jewish descent. Matthew lived in the area around Jerusalem and wrote his gospel around the year 85A.D. The people he preached to be in the midst of re-building their lives after the destruction of the Temple. For that reason, Matthew felt that he needed to show that Jesus was not a foreigner, but rather one of them. Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through David and back to Abraham, enforcing his point to the surrounding people.
Another main point for the gospel of Matthew was to attack the Pharisees, the quickly growing Jewish group that would later form into Rabbinic Judaism. This point would prove to be very intriguing, as L. Michael White states, “ … in Matthew's gospel, the Pharisees are Jesus' main opponents throughout his life. Now, in Jesus' own times, the Pharisees weren't that prominent a group.” He goes on to explain, “It's precisely because that's what's going on in the life of Matthew's community after the war. The Pharisees are becoming their opponents and we're watching two Jewish groups, Matthew's Christian Jewish group and the local Pharisaic groups in tension over what would be the future of Judaism”(White187). Therefore, Matthew is able to intertwine the message of Jesus with the struggles faced by the Christians around him and bring a sense of hope to them all, as well as draw a clear line between the two spawning religions.
The Gospel of Luke is clearly the best written, grammatically, of the four Gospels. His Gospel was written around the end of the first century and was aimed at the gentiles of Asia Minor, present-day Turkey. One of the major differences between Luke and the other gospels is that Luke’s is a two-volume work. The author of Luke was also the author of ACTS, a book that speaks about the life of early day Christians.
In Luke’s Gospel, there is one clear-cut theme that is repeatedly driven home: Christian believers can make good citizens of the Roman Empire (Attridge1). This is a very important message to drive across, especially when the founder of your belief, Jesus Christ, was executed as a political criminal. Luke accomplished this by appealing to the intellectual and cultured Gentiles of the surrounding area. Therefore, if non Jewish people were able to believe in his teachings and not be worried about clashing with Roman rules, that would bring hope and allow this new religion to flourish.
The last of the four Gospels is the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel is the last one to be written around the beginning of the second century A. D. Of the four Gospels found in the Bible, John’s is the most antagonistic. “John's gospel is witness to a Christianity that's moving farther and farther away from Jewish tradition. And in fact it's seeing Jewish tradition often as actually hostile to the Christian movement”(White163). The main point of this writing is to show the clear rift that has formed between the two forms of Judaism and in fact, the separation of Christianity from Judaism. The best example of this is John’s telling of the Passion story. In his version, Jesus dies on a different day then when told in Mark, Matthew, or Luke. Instead of dying the day after Passover, John has Jesus dying the day before the Passover; which is the day when all the Jews went to the Temple to have their lambs’ slaughtered for the meal. “John's gospel is forcing us, dramatically at least, through the storytelling mode, to think of Jesus as a Passover lamb. Jesus doesn't eat a Passover meal; Jesus is the Passover meal, at least within the Christian mind” (White94).
Now that we have lent more to the argument of why these Gospels read so differently, it is time to turn the attention on why they have such distinct similarities. After all the earliest of these Gospels, Mark’s, was written around 75A.D.: well over forty years after the death of Jesus. Yet the stories are so vivid and full of detail, especially when you consider two of the Gospel writers weren’t even Apostles.
Years of pondering this question have led to the belief that there must have existed a written work of Jesus’ sayings before the Gospels were written. After all, many of the sayings that are found in all four Gospels are identical: word for word. The name that scholars have given this work is simply Q. Q is thought to be a collection of Jesus’ sayings during his years spent teaching. Mark is the only one believed to use this collection as a direct source for his Gospel. “Matthew and Luke both used Mark as the core, sort of the basic story line that they tell. Mark is completely incorporated - 16 chapters - into both Matthew and Luke”(Pagels83).
The Gospel of John is thought to incorporate another collection of quotes from Jesus’ teachings. Though some of his writings coincide with the other three Synoptic Gospels, John has several sayings and parables that are unique to his work. That alone does not lend much proof for a second source existing, however. It was not until the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in Nag Hammadi, Egypt that this theory began to receive a solid foundation. These Gnostic Gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, contained sayings that, until then, were only seen in the Gospel of John. Some scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan, believe that the Gospel of Thomas might even be a copy or translation of the original resource that is thought to have existed. After all, the Gospel of Thomas is merely a collection of sayings; some of which are found in all four Biblical Gospels (Pagel26).
All of these scientific theories are not meant to explain the teaching of the Christian Bible or to criticize its religious importance and emphasis. Instead, this is just a view of the historical events and climate that might have shaped the minds of these Biblical authors. When composing these works, the Holy Spirit might very well have enlightened the writers of these Gospels. However, these theories attempt to shed some light as to why each writer had his own distinct interpretation of the Holy Spirits message.
Works Cited
Attridge, Harold W. “ The Gospel of Luke: A novel for gentiles.” Frontline Home Page. (1998).
Koester, Helmut. “ The Gospel of Matthew: Jesus as the New Moses.” Frontline Home Page. (1998).
Pagels, Elaine H. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House, 1978
White, L. Michael. Images of Jesus: The Shape of the Gospels and the Making of Tradition. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1999
White, L. Michael. “The Gospel of John: The Spiritual Gospel.” Frontline Home Page (1998).
White, L. Michael. “The Gospel of Mark: A Story of Secrecy and Misunderstanding.” Frontline Home Page (1998).