Gospel

:For the genre of Christian-themed music, see gospel music.

Canonical Gospels

Of the many gospels written in antiquity, exactly four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament, or canonical. An insistence upon a canonical four, and no others, was a central theme of Irenaeus of Lyons, c. 185. In his central work, Adversus Haereses Irenaeus denounced various Christian groups that used only one gospel, such as Aramaic Matthew, as well as groups that embraced the texts of new revelations, such as the Valentinians (A.H. 1.11.9). Irenaeus declared that the four he espoused were the four pillars of the Church: "it is not possible that there can be either more or fewer than four" he stated, presenting as logic the analogy of the four corners of the earth and the four winds (1.11.8). His image, taken from Ezekiel 1, of God's throne borne by four creatures with four faces—"the four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and the four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle"— equivalent to the "four-formed" gospel, is the origin of the conventional symbols of the Evangelists: lion, bull, eagle, man. Irenaeus was successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively, and exclusively these four, contained the truth. By reading each gospel in light of the others, Irenaeus made of John a lens through which to read Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Related Topics:
New Testament - Canonical - Irenaeus of Lyons - 185 - Aramaic ''Matthew'' - Valentinians - Analogy - Ezekiel

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• Gospel according to Matthew
• Gospel according to Mark
• Gospel according to Luke
• Gospel according to John

Origin of the canonical Gospels

:Main discussion: Synoptic problem.

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Among the canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke include many of the same passages in the life of Jesus and sometimes use identical or very similar wording. John expresses itself in a different style and relates the same incidents in a different way— even in a revised narrative order— and is often full of more encompassing theological and philosophical messages than the first three canonical Gospel accounts. It is John that explicitly introduces Jesus as God incarnate.

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(The non-canonical Gospel of Peter reports much of the same material as canonical Matthew, Mark and Luke'; and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas reports many of the same sayings of Jesus.)

Related Topics:
Gospel of Peter - Gospel of Thomas

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The parallels among the first three Gospel accounts are so telling that many scholars have investigated the relationship between them. In order to study them more closely, German scholar JJ Griesbach (1776) arranged the first three Gospel accounts in a three-column table called a synopsis. As a result, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have come to be known as the synoptic Gospels; and the question of the reason for this similarity, and the relationship between these Gospel accounts more generally, is known as the Synoptic Problem.

Related Topics:
JJ Griesbach - 1776 - Synopsis - Synoptic Gospels - Synoptic Problem

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The understanding found among early Christian writers and scholars has been that the first account of the Gospel to be committed to writing was that according to Matthew, the second Luke, followed by Mark and the final one John; and this order is defended today by proponents of the "Two-Gospel Hypothesis". However, since the Enlightenment scholars have been proposing also many other solutions to the Synoptic Problem; and the dominant view today is that Mark is the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke borrowing passages both from that Gospel and from at least one other common source, lost to history, termed by scholars 'Q' (from German: Quelle, meaning source. This view is known as the "Two Source Hypothesis". The related "Four Source Hypothesis" maintains that Matthew and Luke also had independent sources, termed by scholars M and L.

Related Topics:
Q - "Two Source Hypothesis" - M - L

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Another theory which addresses the synoptic problem is the Farrer Hypothesis. This theory maintains Markan priority (that Mark was written first) and dispenses with the need for a theoretical document Q. What Austin Farrer has argued is that Luke used Matthew as a source as well as Mark, explaining the similarities between them without having to refer to a hypothetical document.

Related Topics:
Farrer Hypothesis - Markan priority - Austin Farrer

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Estimates for the dates when the canonical Gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Conservative scholars tend to date earlier than others. The following are mostly the date ranges given by the late Raymond E. Brown, in his book An Introduction to the New Testament, as representing the general scholarly consensus in 1996:

Related Topics:
Raymond E. Brown - 1996

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• Matthew: c. 70–100 as the majority view, with conservative scholars arguing for a pre-70 date, particularly if they do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
• Mark: c. 68–73
• Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85
• John: c. 90–110. Brown does not give a consensus view for John, but these are dates as propounded by C K Barrett, among others. The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

The general consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical Gospels were originally written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Orient. On the strength of an early commentator it has been suggested that Matthew may have originally been written in Aramaic, and was known to Church fathers as the Gospel of the Hebrews, or that it was translated from Aramaic to Greek with corrections based on Mark. Regardless, no Aramaic original texts of the Gospel accounts have ever been found, only later translations from the Greek (see Peshitta).

Related Topics:
Greek - Lingua franca - Aramaic - Church fathers - Gospel of the Hebrews - Peshitta

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