Among the four canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke are sometimes referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels.” Literally, synoptic means “with the same eye” and refers to the fact that these Gospels share the same material and are closely related to each other. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tweet about it Tell a friend Read More →
The Passion Narratives were some of the earliest oral or written accounts of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. The term passion comes from the Latin for “suffering” (patior/passus) and is found in the King James Version of the Bible in Acts, “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, emphasis added). Although scholars differ on where the Passion Narratives begin and end in the individual canonical Gospels, they usually agree that the material dealing with the period from Gethsemane through the Grave is included (see Matthew 26:36-27:66; Mark 14:32-15:47; Luke 22:39-23:56). In the Fourth Gospel the material found in John 18:1-19:42 is often associated with the Passion. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tweet about it Tell a friend Read More →
The modern student of the New Testament is presented with a wide variety of possibilities for dating the various books of the New Testament. The dates provided by scholars appear in textbooks and dictionaries as though they are based on concrete historical information; however, most readers of the New Testament would be surprised to learn how little is actually known about when the books of the New Testament were written. Dating any text from antiquity should proceed from physical to literary evidence, with preference being given to such historical factors as location of the manuscript find, time needed for a text to circulate, and number of manuscripts found. Surprisingly, one of the texts typically assigned the latest date in the New Testament-the Gospel of John-is the first physically attested book. The earliest fragment of the Gospel of John can be dated to A.D. 125 and was found in Egypt, indicating that the original text must have been written before that date. Therefore, we can conclude... Read the rest of this entry »
Although the synoptic Gospels contain much common material and frequently “have the same view,” the Gospel of John contains much unique information, some 92 percent of its text being exclusive material. This fact, combined with the Gospel’s often unique understanding of the person and mission of Jesus Christ, led the early Church father Clement to write, “Last of all, John, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel” (c. A.D. 150-215, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.14.7). Implicit in this statement is the idea that John purposely avoided much of what the other Gospels had already recorded, focusing on events and teachings that had deeper spiritual significance. Some scholars have noted, however, that the Gospel of John need not necessarily be a late composition. Of the synoptic gospels, Luke has the greatest amount of unique material: approximately... Read the rest of this entry »
One document that has recently come to public attention is the Gospel of Judas. This text was discovered near El Minya, Egypt, in the early 1970′s. Like other New Testament documents and the Nag Hammadi codices, this papyrus manuscript survived because of the dry conditions of Egypt. The text was moved from Egypt to Europe to the United States, where it was kept in a safety deposit box in Long Island, New York, for sixteen years. Eventually, the manuscript was acquired by National Geographic, through a series of institutional contributions and private donations. Like many previous manuscript discoveries, several individuals attempted to use the manuscript for personal gain, which delayed the process of publication. The Gospel of Judas was discovered together with three other badly damaged texts, but at this stage only the gospel has been translated and made public. Perhaps surprising to some is the fact that the Gospel of Judas, or perhaps a version of it, was in circulation at the... Read the rest of this entry »
Scholars have long considered the Gospel of John to be one of the latest written texts in the New Testament. The reasons for the conclusion that the Gospel of John was written after the letters of Paul, the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and many of the later letters, is based on a variety of evidences that when considered collectively suggest a post-90 AD composition. Perhaps the most basic assumption regarding the date of composition of the Gospel of John is its theology in comparison to the other three gospels. Specifically, the fourth gospel emphasizes the divinity of Jesus and his premortal role as deity (John 1:1, 14). Jesus also appears to be omniscient in several episodes, such as the story of the woman at the well in Samaria, when Jesus knows intimate details concerning the woman’s marital status without being told them (John 4:16-18). Jesus also declares that he is God in the Gospel of John (John 8:58) and associates himself with Jehovah of the Old Testament.... Read the rest of this entry »
The genealogy that opens Matthew’s Gospel begins with the formula, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Beginning with Abraham, it ends with Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16). Although the subsequent text makes it clear that the infant Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, Joseph accepted full responsibility for Jesus Christ, as illustrated by his formal naming of the baby in Matthew 1:25. This act constituted legal recognition of Jesus as Joseph’s son and helps explain the prominence of Joseph in Matthew’s infancy narrative-as compared to Luke’s, where Mary takes the more central role. The Matthean genealogy is broken into three sets of fourteen generations. These divisions stretch from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile to Jesus Christ. The first of these periods was roughly 750 years,... Read the rest of this entry »
A supposed letter of Clement of Alexandria (c. A.D. 150-c. 200) refers to a second edition of the Gospel of Mark, a private account, known today as the “Secret Gospel of Mark.” A medieval copy of the letter was purportedly discovered in the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba in the Judean wilderness in 1958 and was published in 1973 (see The Secret Gospel of Mark, 15-17). The letter provided a previously unknown tradition about Mark and his writing activities. “As for Mark, then, during Peter’s stay in Rome he wrote an account of the lord’s doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting those he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former book the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge (gnōsis). Thus... Read the rest of this entry »
The Synoptic Gospels-Matthew, Mark, and Luke-contain a significant number of similarities in wording and order of events as they relate the life of Jesus Christ. Some of those similarities are rather distant, but other parallels are so significant that it appears that the authors borrowed from one another when they wrote. The challenge that has faced scholars has been to unravel the direction of borrowing; and no easy solution exists that would explain which gospel was written first, second, or third. Faced with this challenge, scholars have concluded that the Gospel of Mark was written first. That conclusion is based on the fact that Matthew and Luke often correct difficulties in Mark’s grammar and geography as well as reordering the events as he recorded them. Building on this conclusion, scholars then noticed that Matthew and Luke share a significant number of stories that are not found in Mark but that are shared only between them. To explain the origin of these stories, or more... Read the rest of this entry »
The Gospels record very little about Jesus Christ‘s life between his birth and baptism. Matthew states that by the time the Wise Men appear in Bethlehem, following his birth, Jesus is no longer an infant but a child, suggesting that Joseph, Mary and Jesus lived in the town of his birth for sometime, maybe as long a two years: “And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshiped him” (Matthew 2:11, emphasis added). Matthew continues his story as Joseph took Mary and the “young child” to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-14). Both Matthew and Luke agree that at some point Joseph, Mary and Jesus eventually moved to Nazareth at an early age (Matthew 2:19-23; Luke 2:39-40). The only hint about the intervening years, until he began his ministry, is a brief story about Jesus Christ‘s journey to Jerusalem when he was twelve’s years of age. Luke notes: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at... Read the rest of this entry »