Gospels

Gospels are early Christian writings that tell about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. At least several dozen gospels were written in the first few centuries after Jesus’s death. The earliest known gospel, the Gospel of Mark, uses the Greek word euangelion, meaning good news, to describe its message. Gospel writers often are called evangelists. The word gospel comes from godspell, an Old English word meaning good news.

The most prominent and influential gospels are the four included in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Christian tradition identifies their authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, who were apostles of Jesus or associates of apostles. But modern scholars tend to doubt these men actually wrote the Gospels. The authors of the Gospels appear to have used oral tradition and written sources, rather than personal memories, to produce their accounts.

Scholars usually fix the date of the Gospel of Mark about A.D. 70. They believe the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written between 80 and 90, and the Gospel of John, between 90 and 100. Scholars generally accept that Matthew and Luke used Mark’s Gospel as a source. Some scholars think they also used a sayings gospel (collection of things Jesus said) known as Q, which was later lost. Others think Luke used Matthew’s Gospel as a source. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke have a similar structure and tell many of the same stories. The Gospel of John contains many of Jesus’s talks. All four Gospels end with the story of Jesus’s Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Gospels that do not appear in the New Testament are called noncanonical or apocryphal gospels. They often reflect the views of Christian groups that came to be considered heretical (having beliefs not accepted by the Christian church). Some of these gospels are sayings gospels. Others contain accounts of Jesus’s deeds as well as his words. Probably the most famous apocryphal gospel is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, a sayings gospel found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.