The Four Gospels: History, Differences, and Similarities

Introduction

The Bible is probably the most read and most controversial book in the history of humanity. Much of this controversy can be attributed to the first four books of the New Testament, which are referred to as the four Gospels. The four Gospels chronicle the life of Jesus Christ, including his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. The purpose of this discussion is to examine these books of the Bible with the aim of solidifying the idea that the Gospels are eyewitness testimonies whose differences and similarities are valuable in exploring and proving the historical life of Jesus Christ on earth.

The Intertestamental Period and Its Historical Context

There is a significant period of time that separates the last of the Old Testament writings from the first of the New Testament writings. This period is referred to as the intertestamental period. During this time there are other accounts of Judaism that were never accepted by Judaism or Christianity as canonical or God-inspired. Two main accounts fit this description: the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. Although these accounts are not viewed as canonical, many historians have used them to evaluate the Jewish faith during the period in which the books were written.

An evaluation of the Jewish faith during this time is required to gain a full understanding of the Gospels. Such evaluation gives insight into the socioeconomic and political climate that existed prior to the birth and ministry of Christ. Bloomberg further explains that understanding this period is essential: "Religiously, Judaism was transformed into a set of beliefs and practices often quite different from Old Testament religion. And for those inclined to see the hand of providence in history, numerous events occurred that prepared the way for the first-century world to be more receptive to the message of the gospel than in many other periods of history" (Bloomberg).

It is clear that the events that took place during the approximately 400 years between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament helped to shape the environment of the region before the arrival of Christ. This environment was conducive to allowing some to accept Jesus Christ as Messiah while others rejected him and the message that he brought. Bloomberg writes that very little changed in Jerusalem after the death of Artaxerxes. The Persian rulers continued allowing exiled Jews to return to Israel, a policy created by Cyrus in 539 B.C. During this time the Jews became preoccupied with the law, believing that obedience to it would prevent further exile and lead to complete freedom (Bloomberg).

According to Bloomberg, three major events occurred during the Persian period, which took place right after the last of the Old Testament was written. The first two were the formation of the synagogue and the beginning of oral law. The exiles did not have access to a temple in which to worship and offer sacrifices, so they had to congregate in local places — thus the formation of synagogues. In addition, the Jewish people substituted prayers of repentance and good deeds as a means of atonement for iniquity. Bloomberg insists that "They sought to apply the Torah (Law) to every area of life, so that a body of oral tradition — interpretation and application — began to grow up around the written law of Moses to explain how to implement its commandments in new times and places. Both the synagogue and the oral law featured prominently in Jesus' interaction with Judaism centuries later" (Bloomberg).

The third significant event during this time was the establishment of Aramaic as the language used in international dealings and commerce. Bloomberg points out that by the time Jesus walked the earth, it is likely that few Jews spoke Hebrew fluently, as it had become limited to the reading of scripture. Eventually, during the Hellenistic period, the Persians were defeated by the Greeks. During this period, five to seven percent of the population was considered wealthy, nearly fifteen percent was considered middle class, and the rest of the population was composed of struggling craftsmen and laborers (Bloomberg).

Finally, the Roman Empire reigned from 63 B.C. throughout the New Testament period. Although the earlier periods created a certain structure and environment in the region, this period set the stage for the accounts of Jesus given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Roman Empire was remarkable in that it spanned vast geographical areas, including portions of Britain, Spain, and France. Bloomberg explains that during this time King Herod had transformed the region; his rule was marked by major building projects, the most notable being the construction of the temple, which was later destroyed by the Roman armies after the death of Christ. A book entitled The Synoptic Gospels: Conflict and Consensus explains that Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator of Judea from 26–36 C.E., during the earthly ministry of Jesus (Nickle).

Duling and Perrin point out that this period was also marked by a vast business system dominated by international trade, an enforced tax system, and slave labor. In addition, the region was home to "a pluralistic assortment of ethnic peoples, high government officials, merchants, small business people, slaves and minorities" (Duling and Perrin).

History of the Gospels and Critical Assessments

All of these events and circumstances shaped the climate of the region. At the arrival of Christ and during his earthly ministry, these conditions made the people of the region more inclined to receive the message of Christ. It is also the environment in which Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were situated when they encountered Christ and witnessed his earthly ministry.

The Gospels are accounts of the life of Christ given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is believed that Matthew was a tax collector and one of the twelve disciples; Mark was an assistant to Peter; Luke was a friend of Paul; and John was the son of Zebedee and one of the twelve disciples (Nickle).

Much of the controversy about the Gospels has been attributed to the fact that they vary somewhat in their account of the life of Christ. However, historians have noted that these differences do not make the Gospels fraudulent. Instead, the differences are simply accounts of Jesus seen through the eyes of four different men (Bloomberg). This is referred to as theological distinctiveness. Matthew wrote of Christ's humanity, Mark wrote of Christ as prophet, Luke wrote of Christ as priest, and John wrote of Christ as the divine Word of God (Bloomberg).

According to Bloomberg, theologians have historically attempted to harmonize the Gospels: "The most common way of approaching the phenomenon of having four gospels was that of producing a harmony of the four. In other words, a life of Christ was restructured with every text from each gospel fitted into a possible place in one, larger composite whole" (Bloomberg).

Matthew and Mark: Sources, Differences, and Theological Emphasis

Initially the church fathers believed that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written in that specific order, and that Mark and Luke borrowed from Matthew's account. Others believed that the Gospels were part fact and part fiction. Scholars such as Paulas developed a rationalist approach to understanding the miracles described in the Gospels. For instance, they asserted that the feeding of the five thousand occurred because wealthy people in the crowd, observing the generosity of Jesus and the boy, began to share their own food (Bloomberg).

Throughout the 1800s many scholars sought to interpret the Gospels in a similar manner. Many believed in the existence of Jesus but also believed that the miracles recorded in the Gospels were fabricated and that Jesus was simply a "historical figure" (Bloomberg). By the twentieth century, scholars took a redaction approach, asserting that the authors of the Gospels were merely editors who omitted and included material at will. In the latter part of the twentieth century, the Gospels began to be viewed as literary works complete with plot, characters, and setting (Bloomberg). Such literary criticism asserts that reading the Gospels as literature can be quite valuable: "We recognize their artistic merit — their ability to affect our emotions as well as our intellects — as they captivate, encourage and convict us. We are more sensitive to what is more central and what is more peripheral in individual stories. We understand how they function to create multiple levels of meaning — main themes, subordinate motifs, and elusive echoes to other well-known traditions, not least in the Old Testament. But we run across pitfalls as well. Much literary criticism assumes that the gospels are not necessarily historical or else it plays down theological or religious context. However, these assumptions are not inherent in the method; a well-crafted piece of historical writing also promotes certain ideological concerns in an artistic and aesthetically pleasing way" (Bloomberg).

Matthew was a tax collector and one of the twelve disciples. Although the Gospel of Matthew appears first in the New Testament, it has been generally agreed that it was not the first Gospel written. Most experts believe that Mark was written first and that Matthew referenced the Gospel of Mark when writing what became the first book of the New Testament.

Most scholars seem to agree that there are parallels between the structure of the Gospel of Matthew and the Pentateuch. Bloomberg asserts that the Gospel of Matthew highlights five of Jesus' sermons, comparable to the five books of the Pentateuch. Many scholars believe that Matthew intended to provide the church with a new "Law." According to Duling and Perrin, this proclamation of a new law containing the tenets of the Christian faith was chosen as the first book of the Bible: "It is very much a 'church book,' written specifically to meet the needs of the church as a developing organization, and it succeeded magnificently. It provided a basis on which the church could build its life, a clear set of instructions for procedure in its affairs, and an understanding of its past, present, and future that made sense of its ongoing life in the world" (Duling and Perrin). Nickle reports that the book of Matthew has been historically held in the highest regard by the church, in part because it includes more of the traditions about the life and teaching of Jesus than do Mark, Luke, and John (Nickle).

Duling and Perrin insist that Matthew wanted the Jewish people to understand and accept Jesus as Messiah. Matthew uses Old Testament scripture to describe the Messianic attributes of Christ and incorporates Old Testament prophecies into his writings. Bloomberg points out that Matthew emphasizes the ancestry of Jesus, naming Abraham and King David, and also includes Ruth, Tamar, Rahab, Mary, and Bathsheba. Bloomberg explains that many of the women Matthew named as descendants of Christ had complicated sexual pasts, and all except Mary had Gentile ancestry. Bloomberg asserts that the existence of such women in the genealogy of Christ is evidence that he may indeed be the deliverer for all kinds of people, regardless of race or past (Bloomberg).

Duling and Perrin also assert that there is a particularly different slant to Matthew's writing because of the destruction of Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem was significant in that it also destroyed the temple, which became a problem for both Christians and Jews. For the Jewish community, the absence of the temple meant that the worship previously offered there was no longer available as a way of developing a relationship with God, and Jerusalem was no longer the center of religious activity. Additionally, the destruction brought about fundamental changes in the various sects operating in the region. Four main sects arose after the destruction: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. Among the most important of these were the Pharisees, who were able to withstand the Jewish war (Duling and Perrin).

The Pharisees were the popular religious leaders devoted to studying and interpreting the Law, obeying it, and practicing forms of piety such as synagogue attendance, prayer, almsgiving, and punctilious payment of tithes. Since it was difficult to understand how a law written centuries earlier applied to all the circumstances of a changed and changing culture, "the Pharisees developed an oral tradition of interpretation of the Law that answered any questions. Fundamentally, the Pharisee understood the Law as revealing the will and purpose of God for men in the world, by obedience to which they achieved the blessing of God" (Duling and Perrin). The Pharisees were able to triumph after the war because they possessed the resources needed to build synagogues even though the temple had been destroyed. Because the Pharisees were able to preserve the Law, they had authority in the Jewish community and played a significant part in the religious climate that existed during the time of Christ (Duling and Perrin).

The role of the Pharisees is evident throughout the book of Matthew. The Pharisees created a new center at Jamnia, located northwest of the territory of Judah, where they established what is now known as the Old Testament canon. They systematized beliefs and practices and codified the interpretation of the law. This form of Judaism still exists today and is referred to as "rabbinic Judaism, because its center is the authoritative interpretation of the Law by the rabbis. In essence, it is Pharisaism redefined in view of the changes necessitated by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple" (Duling and Perrin). Matthew's gospel is therefore written as "a constant dialogue with the developments going on at Jamnia… with the synagogue and Jewish community as it responded to what was happening there" (Duling and Perrin).

The most identifiable characteristic of Matthew is his use of the Jewish Scriptures to explain the life of Jesus. Nickle explains that Matthew uses allusions and citations correlated with the same religious traditions found in the Jewish Scriptures, doing so more often and with greater emphasis than Mark. In doing this, Matthew combined two things essential to the early church: the accounts of Jesus' life and the Jewish Scriptures (Nickle).

Nickle describes Matthew's use of the Old Testament as perplexing in some cases. Matthew used certain methods to correlate Jesus' life with Old Testament texts, sometimes quoting a passage without regard for its original context: "'Out of Egypt have I called my son,' which Matthew (2:15) applied to the flight of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus to Egypt, described originally, in Hosea, the Exodus deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery (Hos. 11:1). Jeremiah's lament for an Israel herded away to exile (Jer. 31:15) is converted into anticipation of the grief caused by Herod's murder of the male children of Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16–18)" (Nickle). In other cases, Matthew cites Old Testament passages that are difficult to identify. In Matthew 2:23, for example, the assertion that Jesus would "be called a Nazarene" refers to a text that is obscure; the Old Testament mentions neither the village of Nazareth nor the term for its inhabitants (Nickle).

Nickle also asserts that portions of Matthew's gospel were arranged specifically to make scripture correspond with prophecy from Isaiah, and that Matthew added supplementary details to Jesus' trip to Galilee as it appears in Mark. Additionally, instead of describing the bribe Judas received for betraying Jesus as "money," Matthew describes it as thirty pieces of silver, likely to align the passage with Zechariah 11:12–13 (Nickle).

Matthew is also often criticized for his literalism. When describing Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, Matthew described Jesus as riding on two animals (Matt. 21:7; compare Mark 11:7) because of the double expression in the Old Testament text: "Lo, your king comes to you… humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass" (Zech. 9:9). As Nickle notes, "Such a flagrant disregard of typical Hebrew parallelism… has caused skepticism about Matthew's Jewish background. Yet rabbinical literature amply testifies that not only extreme literalism but also all of the other interpretive methods Matthew employed with Jewish Scripture were common rabbinic exegetical devices" (Nickle).

In writing his account of Jesus' life, Matthew chose to focus first on the events surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus — what scholars refer to as the infant narrative. The infant narrative is present only in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. According to Bloomberg, there are quite a few differences between the two accounts, but they contain the same basic facts: Jesus was born of a virgin (Mary) and conceived of the Holy Spirit; Mary and Joseph were an engaged couple living in the days of Herod; an angel announced the pregnancy to Mary; and the child was named before his birth. These similarities provide evidence in support of the assertion that the Gospels are eyewitness testimonies whose differences and similarities are valuable in exploring and proving the historical life of Jesus Christ (Bloomberg).

Nickle explains that Matthew had access to the writings of Mark and used them to create his Gospel. There is also the belief that Christians of Matthew's day had knowledge of Mark's writings, which were used in teaching, missionary work, and worship. However, Matthew also believed that Mark's writings were somewhat inadequate in addressing all of the needs and struggles facing the church (Nickle). Nickle asserts that "The artistry with which Matthew combined and organized the traditions which he gathered from a number of different sources was extraordinary. In the process he also molded that traditional material so that it strengthened the faith of the Christian community to which he belonged, supporting it as it struggled with specific issues related to its life and work" (Nickle).

Nickle argues that Mark wrote a basic narrative and that Matthew expanded upon and rewrote the accounts. In the rewriting, Matthew altered much of the original material, corrected Mark's Greek, and altered the tense of several passages. For instance, "In the account of the healing of the paralytic, Matthew replaced Mark's rather crude Greek word for 'pallet' (Mark 2:4) with the more polished word for 'bed' (Matt. 9:2). Mark's imprecise reference to 'King Herod' (Mark 6:14) was corrected by Matthew to 'Herod, the tetrarch' (Matt. 14:1)" (Nickle).

In addition to Mark, many scholars have asserted that Matthew utilized a source designated as "Q." Nickle explains that it is unlikely this source can be reconstructed in detail, but many believe that Matthew used Q in the same way he utilized Mark's writings, and that Luke also used Q when revising the Gospel of Mark (Nickle). There are nearly 400 verses found in the Gospel of Matthew that are not seen in the Gospel of Mark or in the Q documents. Nickle asserts that Matthew's special material includes the birth and infancy stories (Matt. 1–2), the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection (Matt. 28), a notable number of quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, and a large amount of the sayings and teachings of Jesus — most of which are included in the five great discourses. Some narrative accounts are also unique, such as the coin in the fish's mouth (Matt. 17:24–27), the suicide of Judas (Matt. 27:3–10), the dream of Pilate's wife (Matt. 27:19), and the guard at the tomb (Matt. 27:62–66; 28:4) (Nickle). Nickle contends that this information is likely to have come from a tradition known as M — essentially Matthew's combination and interpretation of Mark's Gospel and the document Q (Nickle).

According to Nickle, whereas Mark wrote from the point of view of a preacher, Matthew's gospel was written from the point of view of a teacher. Although Mark paid close attention to the deeds of Christ, Matthew tended to focus on the teachings of Christ and the words that Christ used. Matthew also drew upon Mark's idea that Jesus had greater authority than the religious leaders of the day, making this motif "a repetitive refrain which distinguished the teachings of Jesus from rabbinical instruction… This implied that anyone whose teaching conformed to the teaching of Jesus (i.e., Matthew and his community) taught with greater authority than did those who stood in continuity with the scribes and Pharisees (i.e., rabbinic Judaism)" (Nickle).

Matthew also extended the story of Christ both backwards and forwards, adding narrative related to Christ's infancy, the empty tomb, and the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection — what Nickle describes as a "historizing tendency." In doing this, Matthew tells the story of Jesus in a manner that marks it as a special and distinct period in history, separate from the anticipated church that was to follow the ascension of Christ into heaven (Nickle).

In summary, Matthew's account of Christ's life is a revision of Mark's Gospel that focuses more on the details of his life, portrays Jesus as the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, and sheds more precise light on the role and purpose of the church. Matthew wrote in a different political and spiritual climate than Mark, with concerns about the Jewish community that Mark did not share. Mark's style was related more to preaching in a succinct manner, while Matthew focused more on teaching who Jesus was and went into greater detail. It should also be noted that Matthew was a disciple and had a different — in some ways more intimate — experience with Jesus than Mark. In any case, the Gospel of Matthew does not devalue the account of Christ's life presented in Mark. Instead, it confirms the historical existence of Christ and solidifies the idea that the Gospels are eyewitness testimonies whose differences and similarities are valuable in exploring and proving the historical life of Jesus Christ on earth.

Conclusion

The purpose of this discussion was to examine the first four books of the Bible — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Before examining the Gospels, we reviewed the history of the region where Jesus and these eyewitnesses lived and worked to spread the Gospel. The investigation found that Israel was under the control of the Roman Empire, which dominated many territories throughout the world at the time, and that significant conflict existed within the Jewish community.