Gospels
Essay by 24 • August 26, 2010 • 589 Words (3 Pages) • 1,416 Views
The new testament contains four (4) accounts of the story of Jesus' life, death and resurrection as presented by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The 3 accounts are similar, while Johns bible presents Jesus in a unique way. These differences exist because Matthew and Luke got their information from Mark and John got his information from another source, maybe John did not have access to the other gospels or he chose not to use them. No one really knows the source of John's gospel and we don't know for sure who wrote the gospels. Scholars refer to the authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, this may not even be their real names. The Gospel were not first hand accounts except for Mark. John did not seem to have known the existence of the other 3 gospels. The Gospels were wrote about 90 - 100 c.e. This particular Gospel was compressed from a number oral (and perhaps a few written) stories and sayings. The composer of Johns Gospel took some stories and arranged them in his own way.
When considering the history of the Gospels and its origination, its essential to know the three stages. First Stage: occurs during Jesus' ministry life at times of Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke his stories to make a point and in one wrote them down , Oral Tradition. Jesus performed miracles and retold stories.
Second Stage: begins after death and resurrection. Christian preachers, active, what they have seen or heard. These early Christian missionaries were forced with such challenges as:
Could Gentiles (non-Jewish) become Christians ,directly or did they convert to Judaism first before adopting this new Christian faith.
Statement was translated to mean that when Christians were forced with the question of whether gentiles Christians should still practice the special Jewish food (kosher) laws or could Gentiles eat what
they wished (non-kosher) and this would not make them unclean and unacceptable as members of the early Christian community.
This means that during the second stage many of Jesus' sayings were not simply treated as things to be
...
...