Contents

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 confronts the Pharisees, dies on the cross and is raised from the dead.^[16] Each has its own distinctive understanding of him and his divine role^[14][17] and scholars recognize that the differences of detail among the gospels are irreconcilable, and any attempt to harmonize them would only disrupt their distinct theological messages.^[18]

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are termed the synoptic gospels because they present very similar accounts of the life of Jesus.^[19] 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 have followed him come to his tomb, they find it empty.^[20] 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;^[21][22] 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.^[23]

The authors of Matthew and Luke added infancy and resurrection narratives to the story they found in Mark, although the two differ markedly.^[24] 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,^[25] and the "young man" who appears at Jesus' tomb in Mark becomes a radiant angel in Matthew.^[26][27] 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.^[28]

John, the most overtly theological, is the first to make Christological judgements outside the context of the narrative of Jesus's life.^[14] He presents a significantly different picture of Jesus's career,^[19] omitting any mention of his ancestry, birth and childhood, his baptism, temptation and transfiguration;^[19] his 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.^[29] 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.^[30]

Composition

Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek.^[32] The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70,^[5] Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90,^[6] and John AD 90–110.^[7] Despite the traditional ascriptions, most scholars hold that all four are anonymous^{[note 1]} and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses.^[8] A few scholars defend the traditional ascriptions or attributions, but for a variety of reasons, the majority of scholars have abandoned this view or hold it only tenuously.^[34][33]

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.^[35] The stages of this process can be summarized as follows:^[36]

• Oral traditions – stories and sayings passed on largely as separate self-contained units, not in any order;
• Written collections of miracle stories, parables, sayings, etc., with oral tradition continuing alongside these;
• Written proto-gospels preceding and serving as sources for the gospels – the dedicatory preface of Luke, for example, testifies to the existence of previous accounts of the life of Jesus.^[37]
• Gospels formed by combining proto-gospels, written collections, and still-current oral tradition.

Mark is generally agreed to be the first gospel;^[9] it uses a variety of sources, including conflict stories (Mark 2:1–3:6), apocalyptic discourse (4:1–35), and collections of sayings, although not the sayings gospel known as the Gospel of Thomas, and probably not the hypothesized Q source used by Matthew and Luke.^[10] The authors of Matthew and Luke, acting independently, used Mark for their narrative of Jesus' career, supplementing it with the hypothesized collection of sayings called the Q source and additional material unique to each called the M source (Matthew) and the L source (Luke).^{[11][note 2]} Mark, Matthew, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels because of their close similarities of content, arrangement, and language.^[38] The authors and editors of John may have known the synoptics, but did not use them in the way that Matthew and Luke used Mark.^[39] There is a near-consensus that this gospel had its origins as a "signs" source (or gospel) that circulated within the Johannine community (which produced John and the three epistles associated with the name) and later expanded with a Passion narrative as well as a series of discourses.^{[12][note 3]}

All four also use the Jewish scriptures, by quoting or referencing passages, interpreting texts, or alluding to or echoing biblical themes.^[41] Such use can be extensive: Mark's description of the Parousia (second coming) is made up almost entirely of quotations from scripture.^[42] Matthew is full of quotations and allusions,^[43] and although John uses scripture in a far less explicit manner, its influence is still pervasive.^[44] Their source was the Greek version of the scriptures, called the Septuagint; they do not seem familiar with the original Hebrew.^[45]

Genre and historical reliability

The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of the ancient genre of bios, or ancient biography.^[46] 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 (preaching).^[47] As such, they present the Christian message of the second half of the first century AD,^[48] 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.^[49]

The majority view among critical scholars is that the authors of Matthew and Luke based their narratives on Mark's gospel, editing him to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies among these three versions and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable with regard to the historical Jesus.^[50] 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, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please".^[51] Most of these are insignificant, but many are significant,^[52] an example being Matthew 1:18, altered to imply the pre-existence of Jesus.^[53] For these reasons, modern scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically. 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 later authors.^[3][4]

Scholars usually agree that John is not without historical value: certain of its sayings are as old or older than their synoptic counterparts, and 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.^[54] 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.^[55]

Textual history and canonisation

The oldest gospel text known is 𝔓⁵², a fragment of John dating from the first half of the 2nd century.^[56] The creation of a Christian canon was probably a response to the career of the heretic Marcion (c. 85–160), who established a canon of his own with just one gospel, the Gospel of Marcion, similar to the Gospel of Luke.^[57] The Muratorian canon, the earliest surviving list of books considered (by its own author at least) 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.^[1][58] He referred to the four collectively as the "fourfold gospel" (euangelion tetramorphon).^[59]