The GospelsAn OverviewBible books contents | Introduction | Authorship & dates| the Synoptcs | summary | The first four books
of
the New Testament are
referred to as the 'Gospels'. Of course there is only but one
Gospel, but what is meant is that these four books are accounts of the
earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ. But why four, and not say five?
Each book
is written from a different a perspective and to a different initial
audience. In them we see different aspects of the Lord's life
and
ministry emphasised.
1. Authorship and dates The modern view
that the
gospels,
particularly the synoptics, were written quite late after the
events is designed to discredit the gospel accounts. Some place the
dating of the gospels 50-60 years after the crucifixion! The
traditional dating of the gospels still holds up
and has
yet to be disproved beyond doubt by those who question it. It
is
beyond the scope of this page to deal with the technical details, but
we will give an outline of the arguments for an early dating.
For a more detailed study the reader is directed
to the book
Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke (Hodder
& Stoughton)
1991 John Wenham
1.2 AuthorshipAs far as authorship goes the testimony from the second century is unanimous that the four gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The dating is early because we know that the so called ' church fathers' quoted from the NT in their writings. For example Clement of Rome quoted the gospels in his letter to Corinth in 95 AD. Why does this matter? Simply because if they were written early we have first hand witness accounts of the life of Jesus.1.3 Dates1.3a LukeThe key is the dating of Acts. We know from the opening verses that it was written by the same person as the third gospel. This is accepted as being Luke the beloved physician. Luke finishes his account when Paul was at Rome and had spent two years there. He never mentions Paul's first appearance before Nero (II Tim.4:16) as Paul did in his letter to Timothy, let alone his martyrdom.So we can conclude that Acts was written c. AD 62. This would also mean that the third gospel was written pre- AD 62. Now let us consider the following scripture:
Thus we
conclude that at the time of the writing
of
I
Timothy, Luke's gospel was already in circulation and was accepted
by apostolic authority as being scripture. It
is also
believed
by some critics that the scripture below is a reference to
Luke
and
the third gospel:
If that be the case then we have a mid AD 50s dating for Luke's gospel. So we can safely say that that the third gospel was written c. 50 - 60 AD, giving a wide margin for error. But note it is still an early date! 1.3b Matthew & MarkMatthew and Mark can not be dated by the internal evidence of the NT. unless one takes Luke's introduction as meaning Matthew and Mark, we can not determine if this be the case or not.
We
are
left to consider
external historic evidence; this
is technical and controversial . However
we note that
Eusebius,
a church historian, places Matthew at about 40 AD.
The
second
gospel account was , according to Eusebius, written
by
John
Mark under the direction of Peter whilst in Rome, which would
put
its
dating at c. 45 - 50 AD. The fourth gospel is
accepted as
being
written by John the apostle at the end of the first century.
Whilst acknowledging the debate surrounding the issue, it is interesting to note that the above scenario was accepted until the 19th. century. 2. The synoptics The
first
three gospels are
called the synoptics, because they
give a similar view to the earthly ministry of the Lord
Jesus.
Because of this many academics have proposed that they used a same
source, called Q, in preparing their accounts. No such
document
has been found to date; in any case such discussion is
irrelevant
to the
message and is an unnecessary distraction anyway. The fact is that
these
books are inspired
and are
therefore part of God's written word.
3. Summary
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