Christian/Religion Studies

The Gospels:

The Gospels - They could be called records of Jesus and his works. The four accepted Gospels are: Matthew - Mark - Luke - John. Gospel is the modern form of the Anglo-Saxon word "godspell". Some thought that it meant "good story". Some say it is "the truth", such as "the Gospel" or "I speak the gospel." To some it is accepted to mean "God story". The Gospels are the portrait of the person called the Christ. The person called Jesus and His ministry, as Servant, as King, as Man, and as God. Mark chapter 1, verse 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; Mark chapter 1, verse 14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, The word gospel is now attached to the preaching of Jesus and said to be "The Good news" or even the "glad tidings". The good news to mankind. The good news told by Jesus of the Kingdom of God, the freedom of God's love, and the ways of God that we should follow and the truth of salvation. The first three gospels are called the "synoptic" Gospels. They are all similar in content and can be seen as from different peoples eyes and that is said to explain the differences. Like three people going to a fair and writing three different reports on what they saw and these reports would all be different even though they all walked around the fair together, side by side. There is also a chance that these three Gospels were written at different times in history, that along with human perception of the events would be another explanation of the differences.  The content of the New Testament books Matthew, Mark and Luke are much the same and give the impression that they were written by the authors who were  giving their view of the events they had seen and wrote as they understood them to be. The Oxford Hypothesis The Gospels were spread through word or mouth and eventually somebody wrote them down. The written work has been referred to as Q (in German Quelle means source and that is where Q comes from).  It appears that some people believe that the authors of these Synoptic Gospels (Books Matthew, Mark and Luke) used the document Q as a reference for their Gospels and that is why they are similar, yet different. You must remember that these are theories. An example of the differences in the Bible Gospels: Matthew 5:3  Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.  Matthew 5:5  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.  Luke 6:20  And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor:  for yours is the kingdom of God.  Luke 6:21  Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.  Luke 6:22  Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.  But still we have an understanding of what the text means and that is what is important. Some of the text of the Gospels is unique to each Gospel. There is also the Griesbach Hypothesis where it is said that Matthew first wrote his Gospel. Then along came Luke who used Matthew's Gospel, rearranged some of the  text and then added his own additional Gospel text. And last of all Mark abbreviated or condensed what Matthew and Luke had written. Historical texts always will gain great interest and especially Holy text due to the belief that there is something special about this written work and we could gain some mystical information from it. So there will always be scholars trying to work through old written works, including the Christian and Hebrews text to try to understand more about them, whether they hold truth etc.  There are many theories and claims where God's scriptures are concerned. Ours is to gain spiritual guidance from a Holy source to help us understand these written works.