Studies in the Gospels (Part One)
The word "gospel" means "good news." Each gospel is the story of the life of Jesus, mostly focusing on the short time of his ministry (perhaps three years), culminating in his execution by the Roman government and his resurrection. Those events happened around 30 CE in Jerusalem. The four gospels originally circulated as anonymous writings. It was only around 150 CE that author’s names were assigned to them. We really don't know who wrote each gospel.
There were no printing presses in these days. Each gospel was written in Greek and then meticulously copied by hand. Most people in that time and part of the world were illiterate, but each house church had at least one literate person who fulfilled the role of a reader. One can find references to this role in Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 1:3. A house church was a gathering of Christians who met in a home for a common meal, the celebration of the Eucharist (the eating of bread and drinking of wine in remembrance of the death of Jesus), prayer and the reading of sacred texts. They would read portions of the gospels aloud during these meetings as well excerpts from the letters of Paul and perhaps some portions of the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The size of each house church was probably no more than 40 people since most houses were small and could not accommodate larger numbers. The average house church probably had around 20 members including children.
The gospel of Mark was written first, probably around 65 CE, and copies began to circulate among the house churches scattered throughout present day Israel, Syria, Turkey and Greece. The gospel of Mark was based on oral traditions that had been circulating among early Christians since the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection around 30 CE. There is an early tradition that the gospel of Mark was based on the preaching of Peter in Rome, but we don’t know if this is true or not.
The gospels of Matthew and Luke contain most of the material in Mark (with slight editorial changes) along with another body of material not in Mark but common to Matthew and Luke. This body of material is composed primarily of sayings of Jesus – short wisdom sayings and parables. This material has been called “Q,” from the German word “Quelle,” meaning “source.” No one knows if this material was part of a separate document at one time or not. In addition, both Matthew and Luke contain their own unique material not found in any other gospel.
Here is a listing showing the components of each gospel along with their date of composition:
Mark = oral traditions about the life of Jesus (65 CE)
Luke = Mark + Q + L (material unique to Luke) (80-85 CE)
Matthew = Mark + Q + M (material unique to Matthew) (80-85 CE)
John = some material found in Luke and Matthew with large amounts of unique material (90 CE)
Most scholars think that Luke and Matthew were first circulated around
80-85 CE. Luke was probably written first,
followed by Matthew. John's gospel was first circulated in the decade of the 90's.
As I’ve noted in my earlier blog posts, we see a developing Christology (beliefs about the nature of Jesus) in the books of Mark, Luke and Matthew. Mark does not present Jesus as Divine. In the gospel of Mark Jesus is called the “son of God”, which was a Jewish term meaning “the King of Israel.” We learn this by studying 2 Samuel 7:14, Psalm 2:7-12 and Psalm 89:26-27 in the Hebrew Bible (what Christians often call “the Old Testament”), where the King of Israel is also called the “son of God.” Mark has no miraculous birth story for Jesus and no connections for Jesus with names like “Emmanuel” (God with us). There are stories in Mark that suggest Jesus is chosen and empowered by God. For example, in Mark chapter 4 we read that Jesus miraculously calms a storm on the waters of the Sea of Galilee. After this the disciples exclaim, "who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" However, the implication here is merely that Jesus was someone specially chosen and empowered by God, not that he was in any way divine. As modern Christians we tend to read our doctrines back into the text rather than trying to understand what the author intended and what 1st century Jewish people would have understood when reading the text. It's very important that we learn to avoid reading our 21st century beliefs back into the text when they are not there. In order to do that we need to study what words and phrases meant to the people of that time in their social, religious and political context.
Reading the gospel of Mark as a 1st century Jewish person, one would have come away believing that Jesus was a man chosen by God to be Israel's King ("son of God"), who spent time teaching people about the "kingdom of God" through a series of stories and parables. We would also learn that this man was empowered by God to do many miracles. We would read of his execution at the hands of the Roman officials and the amazing fact that he had risen from the dead. An interesting thing to note in passing, is that there is almost nothing written in the gospel of Mark about the purpose of Jesus' death. In future posts we'll look at the developing Christology in Luke and Matthew and then we will spend some time looking at John's gospel, where Jesus is portrayed as the "logos", the revealer of the invisible God.
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