The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written independently, each using Mark and a second hypothetical document called "Q" as a source. Q was conceived as the most likely explanation behind the common material (mostly sayings) found in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke but not in Mark.

The Q source (also Q document, Q Gospel, Q Sayings Gospel, or Q) is a hypothetical collection of sayings of Jesus, assumed to be one of two written sources behind the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Q (short for the German Quelle, or "source") is defined as the "common" material found in Matthew and Luke but not in their other written source, the Gospel of Mark. This ancient text supposedly contained logia or quotations from Jesus.^[1]

Along with Markan priority, Q was hypothesized by 1900, and it is one of the foundations of modern gospel scholarship.^[2] B. H. Streeter formulated a widely accepted view of Q: that it was a written document (not an oral tradition) composed in Greek; that almost all of its contents appear in Matthew, in Luke, or in both; and that Luke more often preserves the original order of the text than Matthew. In the two-source hypothesis, Matthew and Luke both used Mark and Q as sources. Some scholars have postulated that Q is actually a plurality of sources, some written and some oral. Others have attempted to determine the stages in which Q was composed.^[3]

The existence of Q has sometimes been challenged.^[3] One of the most notable skeptics of Q is Mark Goodacre, a New Testament professor at Duke University.^[4] The omission of what should have been a highly treasured dominical document from all the early Church catalogs and from mention by the fathers of the early Church, might be seen as a great conundrum of modern Biblical scholarship.^[5] However, other scholars explain this by pointing out that copying Q was unnecessary, since it was embedded in other texts, namely, two now-canonical gospels, that gained greater prominence. The editorial board of the International Q Project writes: "During the second century, when the canonizing process was taking place, scribes did not make new copies of Q, since the canonizing process involved choosing what should and what should not be used in the church service. Hence they preferred to make copies of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, where the sayings of Jesus from Q were rephrased to avoid misunderstandings, and to fit their own situations and their understanding of what Jesus had really meant."^[6] Despite challenges, the two source hypothesis retains wide support.^[3]

History[link]

Nineteenth-century New Testament scholars who rejected the traditional perspective of the priority of Matthew in favor of Markan priority speculated that the authors of Matthew and Luke drew the material they have in common with the Gospel of Mark from that Gospel. Matthew and Luke, however, also share large sections of text which are not found in Mark. They suggested that neither Gospel drew upon the other, but upon a second common source, termed the Q.^[7][8]

In modern times, the first person^[9] to hypothesize a Q-like source was an Englishman, Herbert Marsh, in 1801 in a complicated solution to the synoptic problem that his contemporaries ignored. Marsh labeled this source with the Hebrew letter beth (ב).

The next person to advance the Q hypothesis was the German Schleiermacher in 1832, who interpreted an enigmatic statement by the early Christian writer Papias of Hierapolis, circa 125: "Matthew compiled the oracles (Greek: logia) of the Lord in a Hebrew manner of speech". Rather than the traditional interpretation that Papias was referring to the writing of Matthew in Hebrew, Schleiermacher believed that Papias was actually giving witness to a sayings collection that was available to the Evangelists.

In 1838 another German, Christian Hermann Weisse, took Schleiermacher's suggestion of a sayings source and combined it with the idea of Markan priority to formulate what is now called the Two-Source Hypothesis, in which both Matthew and Luke used Mark and the sayings source. Heinrich Julius Holtzmann endorsed this approach in an influential treatment of the synoptic problem in 1863, and the Two-Source Hypothesis has maintained its dominance ever since.

At this time, Q was usually called the Logia on account of the Papias statement, and Holtzmann gave it the symbol Lambda (Λ). Toward the end of the 19th century, however, doubts began to grow on the propriety of anchoring the existence of the collection of sayings in the testimony of Papias, so a neutral symbol Q (which was devised by Johannes Weiss based on the German Quelle, meaning source) was adopted to remain neutrally independent of the collection of sayings and its connection to Papias.

This two-source hypothesis speculates that Matthew borrowed from both Mark and a hypothetical sayings collection, called Q. For most scholars, the Q collection accounts for what Matthew and Luke share — sometimes in exactly the same words — but are not found in Mark. Examples of such material are the Devil's three temptations of Jesus, the Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer and many individual sayings.^[10]

In The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (1924), Burnett Hillman Streeter argued that a third source, referred to as M and also hypothetical, lies behind the material in Matthew that has no parallel in Mark or Luke.^[11] Furthermore, some material present only in Luke might have come from an also unknown L source. This Four Source Hypothesis posits that there were at least four sources to the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke: the Gospel of Mark, and three lost sources: Q, M, and L. (M material is represented by green in the above chart.)

Throughout the remainder of the 20th century, there were various challenges and refinements of Streeter's hypothesis. For example, in his 1953 book The Gospel Before Mark, Pierson Parker posited an early version of Matthew (Aramaic M or proto-Matthew) as the primary source.^[12] Parker argued that it was not possible to separate Streeter's "M" material from the material in Matthew parallel to Mark.^[13][14]

In the first two decades of the 20th century, more than a dozen reconstructions of Q were made. However, these reconstructions differed so much from each other that not a single verse of Matthew was present in all of them. As a result, interest in Q subsided and it was neglected for many decades.

This state of affairs changed in the 1960s after translations of a newly discovered and analogous sayings collection, the Gospel of Thomas, became available. James M. Robinson of the Jesus Seminar and Helmut Koester proposed that collections of sayings such as Q and Gospel of Thomas represented the earliest Christian materials at an early point in a trajectory that eventually resulted in the canonical gospels.

This burst of interest after the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas led to increasingly more sophisticated literary reconstructions of Q, and even to redactional speculation, notably in the work of John S. Kloppenborg. Kloppenborg, by analyzing certain literary and thematic phenomena, argued that Q was composed in three stages. In his view, the earliest stage was a collection of wisdom sayings involving such issues as poverty and discipleship. Then, he posits, this collection was expanded by including a layer of judgemental sayings directed against "this generation". The final stage included the Temptation of Jesus narrative.

Although Kloppenborg cautioned against assuming that the composition history of Q is the same as the history of the Jesus tradition (i.e., that the oldest layer of Q is necessarily the oldest and pure-layer Jesus tradition), some recent seekers of the Historical Jesus, including the members of the Jesus Seminar, have done just that. Basing their reconstructions primarily on the Gospel of Thomas and the oldest layer of Q, they propose that Jesus functioned as a wisdom sage, rather than a Jewish rabbi, though not all members affirm the two-source hypothesis. Kloppenborg is now a fellow of the Jesus Seminar himself.

However, scholars supporting the hypothesis of the three-stage historical development of Q, such as Burton L. Mack, argue that the unity of Q comes not only from its being shared by Matthew and Luke, but also because, in the layers of Q as reconstructed, the later layers build upon and presuppose the earlier ones, whereas the reverse is not the case. So evidence that Q has been revised is not evidence for disunity in Q, since the hypothesised revisions depend upon asymmetric logical connections between what are posited to be the later and earlier layers.^[15]

Composition[link]

In the study of biblical literature, some scholars believe that an unknown redactor composed a Greek-language proto-Gospel. It may have been in circulation in written form about the time of the composition of the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., between 65 and 95 AD). The name Q was coined by the German theologian and biblical scholar Johannes Weiss.^[16]

Synoptic Gospels and the Nature of Q[link]

The relationship among the three synoptic gospels goes beyond mere similarity in viewpoint. The gospels often recount the same stories, usually in the same order, sometimes using the same words. Scholars note that the similarities between Mark, Matthew, and Luke are too great to be accounted for by mere coincidence.^[17][18]

If the two-source hypothesis is correct, then Q would probably have been a written document. If Q were merely a shared oral tradition, it could not account for the nearly identical word-for-word similarities between Matthew and Luke when quoting Q material. Similarly, it is possible to deduce that Q was written in Greek. If the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were referring to a document that had been written in some other language (for example Aramaic), it is highly unlikely that two independent translations would have exactly the same wording.^[19]

The Q document must have been composed prior to the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke. Some scholars even suggest Q may have predated Mark. A date for the final Q document is often placed in the 40s or 50s of the first century, with some arguing its so-called sapiential layer (1Q, containing six wisdom speeches) being written as early as the 30s.^[20]

If Q did exist, it has since been lost. Some scholars believe it can be partially reconstructed by examining elements common to Matthew and Luke (but absent from Mark). This reconstructed Q is notable in that it generally does not describe the events of the life of Jesus: Q does not mention Jesus' birth, his selection of the 12 disciples, his crucifixion, or the resurrection. Instead, it appears to be a collection of Jesus' sayings and quotations.

Case for Q[link]

The existence of Q follows from the argument that neither Matthew nor Luke is directly dependent on the other in the double tradition (defined by New Testament scholars as material that Matthew and Luke share that does not appear in Mark). However, the verbal agreement between Matthew and Luke is so close in some parts of the double tradition that the most reasonable explanation for this agreement is common dependence on a written source or sources. Even if Matthew and Luke are independent (see Markan priority), the Q hypothesis states that they used a common document. Arguments for Q being a written document include:

• Sometimes the exactness in wording is striking, for example, Matthew 6:24 = Luke 16:13 (27 and 28 Greek words respectively); Matthew 7:7–8 = Luke 11:9–10 (24 Greek words each).
• There is sometimes commonality in order between the two, for example Sermon on the Plain/Sermon on the Mount.
• The presence of doublets, where Matthew and Luke sometimes each present two versions of a similar saying but in different context, only one of those versions appearing in Mark. Doublets may be considered a sign of two written sources, i.e., Mark and Q.
• Luke mentions that he knows of other written sources of Jesus' life, and that he has investigated in order to gather the most information.^[21][22]

The fact that no manuscripts of Q are extant does not necessarily argue against its existence. Many texts of early Christianity are no longer extant, and we only happen to know they once existed due to their citation or their mention in existing texts. Since the text of Q was incorporated into the body of Matthew and Luke, the importance of preserving it became less vital, much like the interest in copying Mark seems to have died out substantially once it was incorporated into Matthew.^[23]

Case against[link]

Although most scholars accept the Two Source Hypothesis, many have never been entirely happy with it.^[24] The difficulty tends to center around Q. The Two Source Hypothesis explains the double tradition by postulating the existence of a lost "sayings of Jesus" document known as Q. It is this, rather than Markan priority, which forms the distinctive feature of the hypothesis.

While this hypothesis remains the most popular explanation for the origins of the synoptic gospels, the existence of the "minor agreements" have raised serious concerns. These minor agreements are those points where Matthew and Luke agree against or beyond Mark precisely within their Markan verses (for example, the mocking question at the beating of Jesus, "Who is it that struck you?" [Luke 22:64 // Matt 26:68], found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark; though it should be noted that this "minor agreement" falls outside the usually accepted range of Q). The "minor agreements" thus call into question the proposition that Matthew and Luke knew Mark but not each other, e.g. Luke might have indeed been following Matthew, or at least a Matthew-like source. Peabody and McNicol argue that until a reasonable explanation is found the Two Source Hypothesis is not viable.^[25]

Secondly, how could a major and respected source, used in two canonical gospels, totally disappear? If Q did exist, these sayings of Jesus would have been highly treasured in the Early Church. It remains a mystery how such an important document, which was the basis of two canonical Gospels, could be totally lost. An even greater mystery is why the extensive Church Catalogs compiled by Eusebius and Nicephorus would omit such an important work, yet include such spurious accounts as the Gospel of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas. The existence of a highly treasured sayings document in circulation going unmentioned by the Fathers of the Early Church remains one of the great conundrums of Modern Biblical Scholarship. Pier Franco Beatrice argues that until these issues are resolved, Q will remain in doubt.^{[26][27][28][29][30]}

Some scholars argue that Matthew's Gospel according to the Hebrews was the basis for the Synoptic Tradition.^[31][32] They point out that in the first section of De Viris Illustribus (Jerome), we find the Gospel of Mark where it should be as it was the first gospel written and was the basis of later gospels.^[33] Following it should be Q. But not only is Q not where it should be at the top of Jerome's list, this treasured work recording the Logia of Christ is mentioned nowhere by Jerome.^[33] Rather, the first seminal document is not Q but the Gospel according to the Hebrews.^[34] In "the place of honor" that should be given "the phantom Q" we find a Hebrew usurper.^[35][36]

Austin Farrer,^[37] Michael Goulder,^[38] and Mark Goodacre^[39] have also argued against Q, maintaining Markan priority, claiming the use of Matthew by Luke. This view has come to be known as the Farrer hypothesis. Their arguments include:

• Farrer, in his 1955 paper that first outlined this hypothesis, notes that when we find two documents that contain common material, identical in the words and phrases they use to describe some scenes, the simplest explanation is that one of the two used the other as a source, rather than both using a third document as a source.^[37]
• Goulder points to common Matthean phrases such as "brood of vipers", "make fruit", and "cast into the fire" that each appear in Luke only once, in a Q passage. Goulder's conclusion, based on writing styles, is that Matthew is the source for these "Q" sayings.^[38]
• Goodacre notes that there is no extant copy of Q and that no early church writer makes an unambiguous reference to a document resembling the Q that modern scholars have reconstructed from the common material in Luke and Matthew.^[40]
• While supporters say that the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas supports the concept of a "sayings gospel", Mark Goodacre points out that Q has a narrative structure as reconstructed and is not simply a list of sayings.^[40]

Other scholars have brought other arguments against Q:

• There is a "prima facie case" that two documents, both correcting Mark's language, adding birth narratives and a resurrection epilogue, and adding a large amount of "sayings material" are likely to resemble each other, rather than to have such similar scope by coincidence.^{[citation needed]}
• Specifically, there are 347 instances (by Neirynck's count) where one or more words are added to the Markan text in both Matthew and Luke; these are called the "minor agreements" against Mark. Some 198 instances involve one word, 82 involve two words, 35 three, 16 four, and 16 instances involve five or more words in the extant texts of Matthew and Luke as compared to Markan passages.^{[citation needed]}
• John Wenham (1913–1996) held to the Augustinian hypothesis that Matthew was the first Gospel, Mark the second, and Luke the third, and objected on similar grounds to those who hold to the Griesbach hypothesis.
• Eta Linnemann, formerly a follower of Bultmann, rejected Q, and Markan priority, for a variation of the Two Gospel hypothesis that holds that the Mosaic requirement for "two witnesses" made two Jewish Gospels a necessity in the Diaspora audiences.^[41]

Notable contents of Q[link]

Some of the more notable portions of the New Testament are believed to have originated in Q:^[42]

See also[link]

• Agrapha
• Gospel harmony
• Gospel of Thomas
• List of Gospels
• Logia
• Markan priority
• Synoptic problem
• Two-source hypothesis
• Common Sayings Source

References[link]

External links[link]

• Text and on-line resources for the Lost Sayings Gospel Q
• The New Testament Gateway: The Synoptic Problem and Q
• The Case Against Q, by Mark Goodacre
•  "Jesu Logia ("Sayings of Jesus")". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• Tabor on Q

First page of the Gospel of Mark in Armenian, by Sargis Pitsak, 14th century.

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The most widely-known examples of gospel are the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, the term is also used to refer to the apocryphal gospels, the non-canonical gospels, the Jewish gospels and the gnostic gospels. Christians may additionally use the term "gospel" in reference to the general message of the biblical New Testament, otherwise known as the "good news".

World religions differ in their treatment of documents classified as gospels. Christianity traditionally places a high value on the four canonical gospels, which it considers to be a revelation from God and central to its belief system.^[1] Christians teach that the four canonical gospels are an “accurate and authoritative” representation of the life of Jesus.^[2]

In Islam the Injil (Arabic: إنجيل‎ ʾInǧīl) is the Arabic name for the original gospel of Jesus, and one of the four Islamic holy books the Qur'an records as revealed by God. Islam holds that over time it became corrupt and God sent the prophet Muhammad to reveal the last book, according to the Islamic faith.^[3]

Etymology[link]

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The word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell ^[4] (rarely godspel), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings". It is a calque (word-for-word translation) of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion (eu- "good", -angelion "message"). The Greek word euangelion is also the source (via Latinised evangelium) of the terms "evangelist" and "evangelism" in English. The authors of the four canonical Christian gospels are known as the four evangelists.

Originally, the gospel was the good news of redemption through the propitiatory offering of Jesus Christ for one's sins, the central Christian message. Note: John 3:16.^[5] Before the first gospel was written (Mark, c. 65–70),^[6] Paul the Apostle used the term εὐαγγέλιον gospel when he reminded the people of the church at Corinth "of the gospel I preached to you" (1 Corinthians 15.1). Paul averred that they were being saved by the gospel, and he characterized it in the simplest terms, emphasizing Christ's appearances after the Resurrection (15.3 – 8):

...that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried; and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; And that he was seen of Cephas; then of the Twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once: of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some have fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. Last of all, he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time.

The earliest extant use of εὐαγγέλιον gospel to denote a particular genre of writing dates to the 2nd century. Justin Martyr (c. 155) in 1 Apology 66 wrote: "...the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels".

Henry Barclay Swete's Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, pages 456–457 states:

Εὐαγγέλιον in the LXX occurs only in the plural, and perhaps only in the classical sense of 'a reward for good tidings' (2 Sam 4:10 [also 18:20, 18:22, 18:25–27, 2 Kings 7:9]); in the N.T. it is from the first appropriated to the Messianic good tidings (Mark 1:1, 1:14), probably deriving this new meaning from the use of εὐαγγελίζεσθαι in Isaiah 40:9, 52:7, 60:6, 61:1.

In the New Testament, evangelism meant the proclamation of God's saving activity in Jesus of Nazareth, or the agape message proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth. This is the original New Testament usage (for example Mark 1:14–15 or 1 Corinthians 15:1–9; see also Strong's G2098). The peculiar situation in the English language of an obsolete translation persisting into current usage harks back to John Wycliffe who already had gospel, and whose usage was adopted into the King James Version. The short o in the modern word gospel is due to mistaken association with the word god. Old English gōd-spell had a long vowel and would have become good-spell in modern English.

More generally, gospels compose a genre of early Christian literature.^[7] Gospels that did not become canonical also circulated in Early Christianity. Some, such as the work known today as Gospel of Thomas, lack the narrative framework typical of a gospel.^[8] These gospels almost certainly appeared much later than the canonical gospels, with the Gospel of Thomas being a likely exception.

First accounts[link]

Critical scholars generally agree on several early sayings, collections, and accounts preceding the "canonical" gospels. The dedicatory preface of the Gospel of Luke testifies already to the existence of several "accounts" of the life of Jesus by the time of its composition.^[9] The term Luke uses (διήγησις diēgēsis) is a term used in classical Greek for any historical narrative.^[10] The term "gospel" is not used in the New Testament text for any of the canonical Gospels, though in later centuries a traditional reading of 2 Corinthians 8:18 "the brother whose praise is the Gospel" was to sometimes identify this with Luke, and consequently Gospel of Luke.^[11]

Synoptic gospels[link]

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are considered synoptic gospels on the basis of many similarities between them that are not shared by the Gospel of John. "Synoptic" means here that they can be "seen" or "read together," indicating the many parallels that exist among the three. The synoptic gospels are the source of many popular stories, parables, and sermons, such as Jesus' humble birth in Bethlehem, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, the Last Supper, and the Great Commission. It is widely believed that the three synoptic gospels derive from a common source or set of sources, and that they directly or indirectly borrowed from or were influenced by each other. For example, the vast majority of material in Mark is also present in either Luke or Matthew or both, suggesting that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke. The existence of material in Matthew or Luke not contained in Mark suggests that both Matthew and Luke had at least one other source at their disposal.

The fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, presents a very different picture of Jesus and his ministry from the synoptics.^[12] In differentiating history from invention, historians interpret the gospel accounts skeptically^[13] but generally regard the synoptic gospels as including significant amounts of historically reliable information about Jesus.^[13]

Canonical gospels[link]

Of the many gospels written in antiquity, only four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament, or canonical. An insistence upon there being a canon of four gospels, and no others, was a central theme of Irenaeus of Lyons, c. 185. In his central work, Adversus Haereses Irenaeus denounced various early Christian groups that used only one gospel, such as Marcionism which used only Marcion's version of Luke, or the Ebionites which seem to have used an Aramaic version of Matthew as well as groups that embraced the texts of newer writings, such as the Valentinians (A.H. 1.11). 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 (3.11.8). His image, taken from Ezekiel 1, or Revelation 4:6–10, 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 ultimately successful in declaring that the four gospels collectively, and exclusively these four, contained the truth. He also supported reading each gospel in light of the others.

By the turn of the 5th century, the Catholic Church in the west, under Pope Innocent I, recognized a biblical canon including the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which had been previously established at a number of regional Synods, namely the Council of Rome (382), the Synod of Hippo (393), and two Synods of Carthage (397 and 419).^[14] This canon, which corresponds to the modern Catholic canon, was used in the Vulgate, an early 5th century translation of the Bible made by Jerome^[15] under the commission of Pope Damasus I in 382.

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

There was also another order, the "western order of the gospels", so called because it is typical for the manuscripts which are usually a representative of the Western text-type.

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

This order is found in the following manuscripts: Bezae, Monacensis, Washingtonianus, Tischendorfianus IV, Uncial 0234.

Although there is no set order of the four gospels in patristic lists or discussions,^[16] D. Moody Smith suggests that the standard order of Matthew-Mark-Luke-John "projects a kind of intention that can scarcely be ignored".^[17]

In what he calls a "mild form of reader criticism, Greg Goswell suggests a possible rationale that "the commission at the end of Matthew (28:20) is in part fulfilled by the subsequent gospels (and letters)" while for Luke,

The preface to Luke (1:1–4) is a possible explanation for that Gospel’s canonical placement after Matthew and Mark, for its non-pejorative reference to previous "attempts" (επεχειρησαν) at writing an account of what Jesus said and did can be understood in canonical context as referring to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.^[16]

Goswell concludes by suggesting that the self-reference to "this book" in John 20:30, "can be taken as an implicit acknowledgment of other books, namely the three preceding Gospels".^[16]

Medieval copies of the four canonical gospels are known as Gospel Books or also simply as Gospels (in Greek as Tetraevangelia). Notable examples include the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 700), the Barberini Gospels, Lichfield Gospels and the Vienna Coronation Gospels (8th century), the Book of Kells and the Ada Gospels (c. 800) or the Ebbo Gospels (9th century).

Origin of the canonical gospels[link]

The majority 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".^[18] The two-gospel hypothesis, in contrast, says that Matthew was written first (by Matthew the Apostle), and then Luke the Evangelist wrote his gospel (using Matthew as his main source) before Mark the Evangelist wrote his gospel (using Peter's testimony). John was written last and shares little with the synoptic gospels.

The gospels were apparently composed in stages. Mark's traditional ending (Mark 16:9–20, see Mark 16) was most likely composed early in the 2nd century and appended to Mark in the middle of that century.^[19] The birth and infancy narratives apparently developed late in the tradition.^[20] Luke and Matthew may have originally appeared without their first two chapters.^[20]

The consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical gospels were originally written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Orient.

Dating[link]

Estimates for the dates when the canonical gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Because the earliest surviving complete copies of the gospels date to the 4th century and because only fragments and quotations exist before that, scholars use higher criticism to propose likely ranges of dates for the original gospel autographs. Scholars variously assess the majority (though not the consensus ^[21]) view as follows:

• Mark: c. 68–73,^[22] c. 65–70^[23]
• Matthew: c. 70–100.^[22] c. 80–85.^[23]
• Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,^[22] c. 80–85^[23]
• John: c. 90–100,^[23] c. 90–110,^[24] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.

Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates. Some historians interpret the end of the book of Acts as indicative, or at least suggestive, of its date; as Acts mentions neither the death of Paul, generally accepted as the author of many of the Epistles, who was later put to death by the Romans c. 65^{[citation needed]}, nor any other event post AD 62, notably the Neronian persecution of AD 64/5 that had such impact on the early church^[25]. Acts is attributed to the author of the Gospel of Luke, which is believed to have been written before Acts, and therefore would shift the chronology of authorship back, putting Mark as early as the mid 50s. Here are the dates given in the modern NIV Study Bible:

• Matthew: c. 50 to 70s
• Mark: c. 50s to early 60s, or late 60s
• Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70s to 80s
• John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50s to 70

Such early dates are not limited to conservative scholars. In Redating the New Testament John A. T. Robinson, a prominent liberal theologian and bishop, makes a case for composition dates before the fall of Jerusalem.

Location[link]

Matthew was probably written in Syria, perhaps in Antioch,^[23] an ancient Christian center. Mark has traditionally been associated with Peter's preaching in Rome, and it is well-suited to a Roman audience.^[23] Various cities have been proposed for the origin of Luke, but there is no consensus on the matter. Ephesus, in Western Anatolia, is a popular scholarly choice for the place of origin for the Gospel of John.^[23]

Following Raymond Brown's postulation of a Johannine community having been responsible for John's gospel and letters,^[26] other scholars have identified localized communities behind each of the other gospels and Q. This assumes the relative isolation of early Christian communities in which distinctive traditions concerning Jesus thrived. Other scholars have questioned this hypothesis and have stressed the constant communication between early Christian communities.^{[27][28][29][30]}

Oral tradition[link]

One of the most important concerns in accurately accounting for an oral Jesus tradition is the model of transmission used. Form criticism (Formgeschichte) was developed primarily by the German scholars Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolf Bultmann.^[31][32][33] The oral model developed by the form critics drew heavily on contemporary theory of folkloric transmission of oral material, and partly as a result of this form criticism posited that the Jesus tradition was transmitted informally, added to freely, and was uncontrolled.^[34] However, "Today it is no exaggeration to claim that a whole spectrum of main assumptions underlying Bultmann's Synoptic Tradition must be considered suspect."^[35]

A number of other models have been proposed which posit greater control over the tradition, to varying degrees. For example, largely in response to form critical scholarship, Professor Birger Gerhardsson examined oral transmission in early rabbinic circles, and proposed that a more controlled and formal model of orality would more accurately reflect the transmission of the Jesus tradition in early Christian circles, and therefore that the oral traditions present in the gospels have been fairly reliably and faithfully transmitted.^[36] However, other scholars contend that early rabbinic transmissons were not all that concerned with historicity and were not "controlled" until 70 CE.^[37] Professor Kenneth Bailey, after spending a great deal of time in remote and illiterate villages in the Middle East, used his experience with orality in such places to formulate a similar model of controlled transmission within the early Christian communities, but posited an informal mechanism of control.^[34]

Controlled models of the Jesus tradition, and with them an evaluation of the gospels as possessing greater historical reliability, have been accepted by some scholars in recent years.^[38][39][40] However Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld adds that the early followers of Jesus were not interested in simply preserving the past but were also interested in fitting the narratives to suit urgent information, audience interest and creativity in communication and believed that they were in direct communication with Jesus though the Holy Spirit, thus making it still difficult for historians to assess the historical reliability of the oral tradition.^[41] With regards to Bailey's studies, Maurice Casey writes that they cannot be applied to 1st century Jews as they were about a different culture at a different time.^[42]

Historicity of the canonical gospels[link]

The historicity of the gospels refers to the reliability and historic character of the four New Testament gospels as historical documents. Historians subject the gospels to critical analysis, attempting to differentiate authentic, reliable information from what they judge to be inventions, exaggerations, and alterations. However, all four of the Gospels meet the five criteria for historical reliability.^[13]

Biblical scholars consider the synoptic gospels to contain much reliable historical information about the historical Jesus as a Galilean teacher ^[43][44] and of the religious movement he founded, but not everything contained in the gospels is considered to be historically reliable.^{[45][46][47][48][49][50][51]}

The baptism of Jesus, his preaching, and the crucifixion of Jesus are deemed to be historically authentic.^{[citation needed]} Elements whose historical authenticity is disputed include the two accounts of the nativity of Jesus, as well as certain details about the crucifixion and the resurrection.^{[52][53][54][55][56][57]} The fourth gospel, John, includes a number of historically reliable details, but it differs greatly from the first three gospels, and historians largely discount it. The canonical gospels, overall, are considered to have more historically authentic content than the various non-canonical gospels.^{[citation needed]}

Some Christian scholars maintain that the gospels are inerrant descriptions of the life of Jesus.^[58] On the other extreme, some scholars have concluded that the gospels provide no historical information about Jesus's life since the first gospel account (Mark) may have appeared as much as forty years after Jesus's death.^[59]

Content of the gospels[link]

The four gospels present different narratives, reflecting different intents on the parts of their authors.^[60]

All four gospels portray Jesus as leading a group of disciples, performing miracles, preaching in Jerusalem, being crucified, and rising from the dead.

The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as an exorcist and healer who preached in parables about the coming Kingdom of God. He preached first in Galilee and later in Jerusalem, where he cleansed the temple. He states that he offers no sign as proof (Mark) or only the sign of Jonah (Matthew and Luke).^[61] In Mark, apparently written with a Roman audience in mind, Jesus is a heroic man of action, given to powerful emotions, including agony.^[23] In Matthew, apparently written for a Jewish audience, Jesus is repeatedly called out as the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy.^[23] In Luke, apparently written for gentiles, Jesus is especially concerned with the poor.^[23] Luke emphasizes the importance of prayer and the action of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' life and in the Christian community.^[62] Jesus appears as a stoic supernatural being, unmoved even by his own crucifixion.^[60] Like Matthew, Luke insists that salvation offered by Christ is for all, and not the Jews only.^[62][63]

The Gospel of John represents Jesus as an incarnation of the eternal Word (Logos), who spoke no parables, talked extensively about himself, and did not explicitly refer to a Second Coming.^[23] Jesus preaches in Jerusalem, launching his ministry with the cleansing of the temple. He performs several miracles as signs, most of them not found in the synoptics. The Gospel of John ends:(21:25) "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."

Gospel genre[link]

One important aspect of the study of the gospels is the genre under which they fall. Genre "is a key convention guiding both the composition and the interpretation of writings.^[64] " Whether the gospel authors set out to write novels, myths, histories, or biographies has a tremendous impact on how they ought to be interpreted. If, for example, Rudolf Bultmann was correct, and the gospel authors had no interest in history or in a historical Jesus,^[33] then the gospels must be read and interpreted in this light. However, some recent studies suggest that the genre of the gospels ought to be situated within the realm of ancient biography.^{[65][66][67][68][69]} Although not without critics,^[70] the position that the gospels are a type of ancient biography is the consensus among scholars today.^[71]

Non-canonical gospels[link]

In addition to the four canonical gospels, early Christians wrote other gospels that were not accepted into the canon, some of which are discussed below.

Jewish-Christian gospels[link]

Epiphanius, Jerome and other early church fathers preserve in their writings citations from one or more Jewish-Christian gospels, versions of Matthew used by Ebionites and Nazarenes. Most modern critical scholars consider that the extant citations suggest at least two and probably three distinct Jewish-Christian versions of Matthew, and that the source language of these is probably Greek.^[72] A minority of scholars, including Edward Nicholson (1879) and James R. Edwards (2009) have suggested that the surviving citations are all from one gospel, which is, as Jerome himself records that the Nazarenes claimed, the original, and Hebrew, Gospel of Matthew.^[73]

According to Eusebius, Origen said the first gospel was written by Matthew (Church History 6.25.4). Jerome reports that the Nazarenes believed that this gospel was composed in Hebrew near Jerusalem for Hebrew Christians and Jerome claimed to have translated parts of it into Greek, but if so any the Greek translation has not survived. Jerome reports that the Nazarenes' Hebrew original was kept at the Library of Caesarea and that the Nazarene Community transcribed a copy for him which he used in his work (On Illustrious Men 3:7) Jerome refers to this gospel sometimes as the Gospel according to the Hebrews (3.7) and sometimes as the Gospel of the Apostles (Against Pelagius 3.2).

Gospel of Thomas[link]

The gospel attributed to Thomas is mostly wisdom without narrating Jesus's life. A few scholars argue that its first edition was written c. 50–60, but that the surviving edition was written in the first half of the 2nd century.^[74] This would mean that its first edition was contemporary with the earliest letters of Paul the Apostle. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that the original may date from c. 150.^[75] It may represent a tradition independent from the canonical gospels, but that developed over a long time and was influenced by Matthew and Luke.^[75] While it can be understood in Gnostic terms, it lacks the characteristic features of Gnostic doctrine.^[75] The Jesus Seminar identified two of its unique parables, the parable of the empty jug and the parable of the assassin.^[76] It had been lost but was discovered, in a Coptic version dating from c. 350, at Nag Hammadi in 1945–46, and three papyri, dated to c. 200, which contain fragments of a Greek text similar to but not identical with that in the Coptic language, have also been found.^[75]

Gospel of Peter[link]

The gospel of Peter was likely written in the first half of the 2nd century.^[77][78] It seems to be largely legendary, hostile toward Jews, and including docetic elements.^[77] It had been lost but was rediscovered in the 19th century.^[77]

Gospel of Judas[link]

The Gospel of Judas is another controversial and ancient text that purports to tell the story of the gospel from the perspective of Judas, the disciple who is usually said to have betrayed Jesus. It paints an unusual picture of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, in that appears to interpret Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. The text was recovered from a cave in Egypt by a thief and thereafter sold on the black market until it was finally discovered by a collector who, with the help of academics from Yale and Princeton, was able to verify its authenticity. The document itself does not claim to have been authored by Judas (it is, rather, a gospel about Judas), and dates no earlier than the 2nd century.

"Q" sayings collection[link]

According to scholars proposing the existence of a hypothetical sayings-source, a Redensquelle, "Q" (following the terminology of Johannes Weiss) at some time there existed a document comprised mostly sayings of Jesus with little narrative. It is presumed the source for many of Jesus' sayings in Matthew and Luke, and accordingly must have preceded these gospels. It is believed that the earliest form of the sayings were written c. 50–60.^[74] However Mark Goodacre and other scholars have questioned the existence of a Q document.^[79]

Infancy gospels[link]

A genre of "Infancy gospels" (Greek: protoevangelion) arose in the 2nd century, such as the Gospel of James, which introduces the concept of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the absolutely different sayings Gospel of Thomas), both of which related many miraculous incidents from the life of Mary and the childhood of Jesus that are not included in the canonical gospels.

Harmonies[link]

Another genre is that of gospel harmonies, in which the four canonical gospels were selectively recast as a single narrative to present a consistent text. Very few fragments of harmonies have survived. The Diatessaron was such a harmonization, compiled by Tatian around 175. It was popular for at least two centuries in Syria, but eventually it fell into disuse.

Marcion's Gospel of Luke[link]

Marcion of Sinope, c. 150, had a version of the gospel of Luke which differed substantially from that which has now become the standard text. Marcion's version was far less Jewish than the now canonical text, and his critics alleged that he had edited out the portions he didn't like from the canonical version, though Marcion argued that his text was the more genuinely original one. Marcion also rejected all the other gospels, including Matthew, Mark and especially John, which he alleged had been forged by Irenaeus.

Islamic view[link]

The original gospel of Jesus is named the Injil (Arabic: إنجيل‎ ʾInǧīl) in the Qur'an. The word Injil occurs twelve times in the Qur'an and refers to the book of revelation given to the prophet Jesus. God taught Jesus both the law and gospel.^[80] Muslim scholars generally agree that Injil refers to the true gospel, bestowed upon Jesus by God. The word Injil is used in the Qur'an, the Hadith and early Muslim documents to refer specifically to the revelations made by God to Jesus. Muslims reject that Jesus or any other person wrote the Injil, instead crediting its authorship to God. Many Muslim scholars believe that the gospel has undergone alteration, that the words and the meaning of the words have been distorted, with some passages suppressed and others added.

See also[link]

Christianity portal

• List of gospels
• Acts of the Apostles (genre)
• Agrapha are the collection of religious sayings attributed to Jesus Christ that are not found in the canonical gospels.
• Apocalyptic literature
• The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
• Bodmer Papyri
• Godspell is a musical based on the gospels of Jesus Christ. The word "Gódspell" is Anglo Saxon (c. 1000 AD) for Gospel.^[81]
• Good news (Christianity) concerning the content of the Bible's message about Jesus Christ
• Gospel harmony
• Gospel (liturgy)
• Jesusism
• Theology

References[link]

This article lacks ISBNs for the books listed in it. Please make it easier to conduct research by listing ISBNs. If the {{Cite book}} or {{citation}} templates are in use, you may add ISBNs automatically, or discuss this issue on the talk page. (November 2011)

Further references[link]

McGrath, A. 2001. In the Beginning the Story of the King James Bible and how it changed a Nation, a Language and a Culture. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-78585-3.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gospel

Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Gospel.

• BibleGateway.com has the text of the New Testament gospels in various translations and versions
• A detailed discussion of the textual variants in the gospels — covering about 1200 variants on 2000 pages.
• Greek New Testament — the Greek text of the New Testament: specifically the Westcott-Hort text from 1881, combined with the NA26/27 variants.
• Introduction to The Complete Gospels — an excerpt and information about this compilation of canonical and non-canonical gospels in translation.
• Tessarôn Euaggeliôn Sumphônia – The Greek harmony of the Gospels
• Quattuor Evangeliorum Consonantia – The Latin harmony of the Gospels (1)
• Quattuor Evangeliorum Consonantia – The Latin harmony of the Gospels (2)
• The Case against Q collects resources for considering the Q hypothesis and evidence that Luke used Matthew
• Parallel Gospels in Harmony Online version of the public domain book Parallel Gospels in Harmony — with Study Guide
• Synoptic Parallels A web tool for finding corresponding passages in the Gospels

vep:Evangelii

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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2007)

Donald James "Don" Moen^{[citation needed]} (born June 29, 1950 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American singer-songwriter, pastor, and producer of Christian worship music.

Before Moen was hired to work for Integrity Music, he attended Oral Roberts University and became a Living Sound musician for Terry Law Ministries and traveled with Terry Law for ten years.^[1] He produced 11 volumes for the Hosanna! Music series of worship albums. His first album under his own name, Worship with Don Moen, was released in 1992. His music has total global sales of over five million units.^[2]

Moen worked for Integrity Media for over 20 years, serving as creative director and president of Integrity Music, president of Integrity Label Group, and an executive producer of Integrity Music albums.^[2] He left Integrity Media in 2008 to start a new initiative, The Don Moen Company.^[3] The Don Moen Company acquired MediaComplete, the church software company that created MediaShout. Moen became a radio host for Don Moen & Friends in 2009. Moen received a Dove Award for his work on the musical God with Us in addition to amassing nine nominations for his songs. Moen is also a prolific songwriter, having worked with Claire Cloninger, Paul Overstreet, Martin J. Nystrom, Randy Rothwell, Ron Kenoly, Bob Fitts, Debbye Graafsma, Paul Baloche, Tom Brooks, among many others. He has also worked with talented musicians, Abraham Laboriel, Alex Acuna, Paul Jackson, Jr., Lenny LeBlanc and Carl Albrecht. His name is associated with some of the most well-known songs in Contemporary Christian Music.^[4]

Notable recordings[link]

Moen's first album for Hosanna! Music, Give Thanks, became the label's bestseller. He followed this with a number of successful albums of his own including two, En Tu Presencia and Trono De Gracia, in Spanish. God with Us won Dove Award for Best Musical. On an Asian tour in 1999 he recorded The Mercy Seat at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore and Heal Our Land at Yoido Park in South Korea, which was released in 2000. One of Moen's albums, I Will Sing, was recorded at Christian Broadcasting Network.

God Will Make a Way: The Best of Don Moen was released in 2003 and features 19 greatest hits. The title song was written for his wife's sister and her husband, who lost their oldest son in an auto accident while three other children were seriously injured. Moen's album, Hiding Place, became his first studio album which was recorded at Paragon Studios in Franklin, Tennessee and was released in the autumn of 2006. I Believe There Is More released on fall 2008. His third studio recording titled Uncharted Territory (funded successfully through Kickstarter) released on March 27, 2012.^[5] His third Christmas album is expected to release on 2012.^{[citation needed]} Moen will release a new album titled Hymnbook as a celebration of reaching over 1 million likes on his Facebook page.^[6][7]

Personal life[link]

He lives in Tennessee with his wife Laura and their five adult children.^{[citation needed]}

Discography[link]