Summary 3- What Are the Gospels?

The gospels are stories that are told to convey a message about Jesus and his importance to the people who are reading the gospels. The four gospels in the New Testament are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Although the Gospels focus on Jesus and his message, they are not biographical, and usually are a way for the author to portray his message about Christianity through Jesus, they are not to provide a direct account of Jesus' life. The gospels of Mark and John portray two different images of Jesus; Mark portrays Jesus as begining his life in Galilee, and ending up in Jerusalem while John's narrative suggests that Jesus spent a lot of his life in Jerusalem. Matthew, Luke and Mark are synoptic because Matthew and Luke depend on Mark so they all share similar stories. Many people debate about whether or not the gospels were meant to be taken literally or as allegories, especially because they were viewed as allegories and stories with some true events in them to early Christians. One of the main issues with using the gospels as evidence is that they were all written by different people at different times, so although they are someone historically accurate, they may not be completely true. Also, they all portray Jesus in different ways to make him appeal to the different audiences that they were writing to. The gospels also portray the progressive movement of Jesus's followers away from Judaism, and towards their own religion and provide a way for people to remember what Jesus taught.