This is a series of posts to start a discussion about the alleged harmony of the gospels. Growing up Mormon, the idea that the four gospels could disagree with each other was never presented to me. Even thought mormons teach that the bible is only as accurate as its translated correctly, in practice they do not actually teach that or believe that. All of scripture is read literally.
In this first post on the subject, I will cover the authorship of the gospels and when they were written. These concepts will build the base for us to understand the subject better. Once we have this out of the way, we can jump into the subject of Dissecting the Harmony.
Who Wrote Gospels?
Who wrote the gospels and why does it matter? Each of the four canonical gospels bear a name, but in the earliest known reference to the gospel they did not have the names we give them today. Justin Martyr was an early Christian philosopher. In his work First Apology, he mentions the memoirs of the apostles and cites them as having quotes and stories about Jesus. In fact the first time we see the names of the gospels as we have them today is not until around 200 c.e.
In order to get a full picture of a historical person, you have to read what their followers, enemies and disinterested parties said about the person. This depicts a more full account of an event or person. In order to understand the gospels we’ll discuss as them from these viewpoints.
When dating the gospels the first quotation of them in any other source is from Justin Martyr around the year 150. Since we know they would have to be written after Jesus died and before this quotation, we have narrowed down our timeline from between the year 30 c.e. to the year 150 c.e. Paul wrote his letters between the year 50 and 60 c.e. And interestingly he never mentions the gospels in all of his writings. This further narrows the possible timeline down to between the year 60 c.e to the year 150 c.e.
As I am not a scholar myself, simply a studied enthusiast, I will not go into too much detail on this, but the actual dates where each of these books were written is a widely debated subject. If you’re interested in the subject there are a wide variety of books written on this from various viewpoints.
What Language were the Gospels Written in?
Most assume I wrote the gospels in Hebrew, but Jesus and his apostles spoke Aramaic. Even though they spoke Aramaic, the gospels were written in Greek. This means that before anything was written down it had to jump across a language barrier.
The Gospel According to Mark
Mark is the earliest written gospel and dates to between 60 c.e. and 70 c.e. It was written after Paul wrote and before the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Gospel According to Matthew
Matthew appears to lean on the stories found in Mark as a source for its material and based on the mentions of the destruction of Jerusalem, most scholars believe it was written after 70 c.e. The sources used for this book are Mark, Q and M Source. I’ll cover the sources briefly after covering each book.
The Gospel According to Luke
Matthew appears to lean on the stories found in Mark as a source for its material and based on the mentions of the destruction of Jerusalem, most scholars believe it was written after 70 c.e. The sources used for this book are Mark, Q and L Source. I’ll cover the sources briefly after going through each book.
That notion is derived from the mention of Luke in the book of Colossians, but Paul almost certainly did not *write* Colossians. Paul does mention a companion named Luke in the book of Philemon, but he does not say anything at all about him (not, for example, that he was a gentile or that he was a physician).
The Gospel According to John
John is accepted as the last book written. Its theological views are much more developed than the other three gospels and it covers subjects such as the Jewish rejection of the Christian message, that would not have been a topic of debate earlier in time. John was written around the end of the first century 90 c.e.
Sources for the Gospels
Since the gospels were written so much later, what were their sources for their writings? Each gospel writer had their own source and some shared a source. In these instances where the source is shared it is interesting to see where and how each writer changed the story to fit the narrative they were working on. I won’t dig too deep here, but Matthew and Luke used Mark and a source referred to as “Q” for their works as well as sources known only to them. The Q is short for the german “Quelle,” which just means source in German. Mark seems to have had his own source and so did John.
I need to address the fact that word-of-mouth stories change over time. Let’s put this in perspective. John was written sixty years after the death of Jesus. These stories were passed to friends and neighbors and most assuredly changed slowly with each retelling.
Here’s a modern example. Sixty years ago, John F. Kennedy was elected the president of the United States of America. A few years later he dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights Movement. Googling nothing, can you write a sixteen chapter essay about John F. Kennedy’s life?
Check back soon for the next post where I jump into the Harmony of the Gospels as presented by the Mormon Church.
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