Gospels

Abstract

In Christian usage, the word “gospel” first referred to the proclamation of good news about Jesus. By sometime in the 2nd century ce it had come to be used also of books that claimed to present the teaching and/or deeds of Jesus. Questions about the audience for whom the gospels were written have often been linked to questions about what type of books they are. Most scholars continue to think that the gospel writers drew on traditions that had circulated orally before they were included in written gospels. But there is great debate about the extent to which the written gospels reflect the later concerns of those who handed down these traditions rather than the testimony of eyewitnesses to Jesus. Many scholars now think that the canonical gospels are best understood as form of ancient biography, but many noncanonical texts that were also known as gospels do not fit easily in a biographical genre, and they have been marginalized in much recent discussion of the genre of the gospels. One way of addressing this issue is to acknowledge that the canonical gospels are one form of gospel but to recognize that other texts may be read as gospels of other kinds. Another is to maintain a clear distinction between “gospel” as part of the title of a book that claims to present at least some of the teaching or life of Jesus and “gospel” as a clearly delineated genre. Questions about the relative dating of different gospels and the literary relationships (or otherwise) between them continue to be debated. The very particular question of the nature of the relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Luke is known as the synoptic problem. The way in which this issue is resolved has an important bearing on how we use these texts as sources for the study of the historical Jesus, for they differ at significant points. The same issue arises when the synoptic gospels are compared with John and when canonical and noncanonical gospels are considered together as potential historical witnesses to Jesus. Readers who approach the canonical gospels primarily as Christian Scripture will address theological questions to these texts that they may not wish to address to noncanonical gospels. Readers whose interests are primarily historical or literary may wish to ask similar questions of all these texts. If so, the fact that early Christians gave a privileged position to four gospels (as have most Christians ever since) will not in itself be determinative in the way that they approach these texts. Thus, at the end of this article, entries on individual gospels are listed in alphabetical order, not according to their canonical status.