The Four Gospels
The Four Gospels
Although there are a few scattered references to Jesus in contemporary secular writings, especially in Tacitus and Suetonius, the main source of our information about him remains the four “Gospels.” They are rightly so called. For strictly speaking they are not biography, but testimony. They bear witness to Christ and to the good news of his salvation. Therefore their authors select, arrange and present their material according to their purpose as “evangelists.” This gives us no ground to doubt their trustworthiness, however. On the contrary, we should approach the Gospels with confidence, not suspicion. There are many reasons for doing so.
First, the four evangelists were certainly Christian men, and Christian men are honest men to whom truth matters.
Second, they give evidence of their impartiality by including incidents they would clearly have preferred to omit. For example, although by that time Peter was a highly respected church leader, neither his boastfulness nor his denial of Jesus is suppressed.
Third, they claim either to be themselves eyewitnesses of Jesus or to report the experience of eyewitnesses. Although it seems likely that no Gospel was actually published earlier than AD 60, we must not imagine that there was an empty gap between the ascension of Jesus and that date. This was the period of “oral tradition,” in which the words and deeds of Jesus were used in Christian worship, evangelism and the teaching of converts, and so began to be collected in writing. Luke says he drew on “many” such compilations (Luke 1:1–4).
Fourth, Jesus seems to have taught like a Jewish rabbi. He gave his instruction in forms (for example, parables and epigrams) which a tenacious oriental memory would have had no difficulty in learning by heart, and in addition he promised that the Holy Spirit would stimulate the apostles’ memory (John 14:25–26).
Fifth, if God said and did something absolutely unique and decisive through Jesus, as Christians believe, it is inconceivable that he would have allowed it to be lost in the mists of antiquity. If he intended future generations to benefit from it, he must have made provisions for it to be reliably reported, in order to make the good news available to all men in all times and places. What he decided to do was to present the one gospel in four Gospels.
As we read the Gospels it becomes clear that they tell the same story, yet differently. The first three (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are usually known as the “synoptic” Gospels because their stories run parallel and present a “synoptic” (that is, similar) account of Jesus’ life. Matthew and Luke appear to have known Mark’s Gospel and to have incorporated most of it in theirs. They also have some additional common material, generally known as “Q” (the first letter of the German word Quelle, a source), though each has independent information as well. Scholars are not agreed how far the Synoptic Gospels were known or used by John, but most believe that his Gospel was the last to be published.
The Gospel of Mark is the shortest and probably the earliest of the four. The style is terse, the stories are vivid and the tone is exciting, with everything happening “immediately” after something else. The apostle Peter referred to Mark as his “son” (1 Pet. 5:13; cf. Acts 12:11–12), and the second-century fathers Papias and Irenaeus described him as Peter’s interpreter. It may well be, therefore, that Peter’s memoirs or preaching or both have been preserved in Mark’s Gospel, which has obvious similarities to Peter’s First Letter.
It is possible that Matthew’s name became attached to the first Gospel because “Q,” consisting largely of the sayings of Jesus, was his collection. We know he was a tax collector (Matt. 9:9), so that he would have been used to making notes and keeping records. Certainly, according to Papias, “Matthew compiled the logia—sayings—in Hebrew (that is, Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus), and everybody translated them as he was able.”1 His Gospel is very Jewish and reveals his special interest in the fulfillment of prophecy.
Luke is the only Gentile among the New Testament authors. He had himself traveled widely and as one of Paul’s companions would have absorbed the apostle’s teaching about God’s grace to the Gentiles. Consequently, he emphasizes the universal scope of Christ’s love, as illustrated in his care for the despised “outsiders” of contemporary Judaism—women and children, publicans and sinners, lepers, Samaritans and Gentiles.
Every reader of John’s Gospel is immediately struck by the differences between it and the Synoptic Gospels in subject matter, theological emphasis, literary style and vocabulary. Its tone is more “philosophical,” as Jesus is presented as the Logos (“Word”) of God and the Light of the World, and his offer is more of eternal life than of the kingdom. His claims to deity are more outspoken. And the Gospel’s framework consists of a series of “signs,” interspersed with and interpreted by long and involved speeches. So great have these differences seemed to many scholars that they have written at length about “The Problem of the Fourth Gospel.” Some deny that it was written by the apostle John, and even attribute it to the second century AD. At the same time, recent writers have drawn attention to the “Jewishness” of this Gospel and have demonstrated that its author was familiar with contemporary Palestinian geography and culture, and is a historically reliable witness. Without doubt the distinctive emphases of the Fourth Gospel enrich the diversity of the New Testament.2
John had evidently meditated long and deeply on the teaching of Jesus. His own thought and language became so completely assimilated to his Lord’s that it is not always easy to tell when the one’s words end and the other’s begin. He leaves us in no uncertainty about the purpose of his Gospel, for he himself defines it for us. He has, he says, recorded a number of the “signs” which Jesus did, so that readers will believe in him as the Christ, God’s Son, and so receive eternal life (John 20:30–31). True to his avowed purpose he assembles a variety both of signs and of witnesses, in order to demonstrate the unique “glory” of Jesus.