Gospels, the good news

 Aside from the structure of the New Testament, I particularly focus on the gospels. This is because they are the documents that are closest to the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. 

 The word gospel comes from the Old English godspel, literally “good spell,” from god “good” and spel “story, message.” It's a translation of Latin bona adnuntiatio, itself a translation of Greek euangelion “reward for bringing good news.”

 The good news in the four NT narratives known as gospels follow the story of Jesus, with particular emphasis on his public life as known to the apostles. We don't have the original writings and there is some debate as to authorship.

 We do know that nowhere in the text is there a mention of the authors. The titles ascribing the gospels to four evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — were added around the 2nd century of our era, long after the putative authors would have been dead. 

 Keep in mind that the notion of authorship was very loose in biblical times. No one actually meant that Moses took up a quill and wrote Genesis, for example. A book “of Moses” means merely a work inspired by or originally told by Moses or one of his followers.

 The four canonical — or accepted into the NT — gospels were probably written between AD 66 and 110. Mark probably dates from about 66 to 70 AD, Matthew and Luke from around 85 to 90 AD, and John from about 90 to 110 AD. By written, scholars mean when the actual texts were set down by a quill to papyrus, not when the story was first told by a presumed witness.

 Of the four, Matthew and John were unquestionably witnesses of the ministry and passion of Jesus — they were apostles by any account. Mark may have been a more distant witness, but he was later an assistant of Peter’s in Rome. Luke was a follower of Paul, who was not a witness at all.

 Presumably, Matthew and John told the stories to their communities and scribes eventually wrote down what was passed by word of mouth. Mark learned his story similarly from Peter. Luke, however, was the only literate Greek author —he was reputedly a doctor — and his material, which is distinct in its infancy narratives, may have come from his contact with Mary in Ephesus, as Luke traveled there with Paul.

 Matthew, Mark and Luke are called synoptic gospels because they present a summary, or synopsis, of the outline of Jesus life. John is distinct, being the more theological and the more open to proclaim Jesus divine.

 Finally, why were they good stories? Because in an era dominated by an all-powerful emperor-god and his Mafia-like extortion of his empire, they told the story of a humble and marginal person from a far-away province who, alas, rose from the dead after being executed. 

 It was the stunning event that was the first thing people learned about Jesus: he rose!