...In completing a hundred percent of my reading for session two, I have learned about the important factors of having the four Gospels in the New Testament. "The books called Gospels deal with the life and ministry of Jesus." P.150 Though each of these books hold a significant value of information on thier own the unity of four gospel books multiples the quality of its value. Having the four authors of Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) be a narrator of who Jesus was and what he did, allows us to encounter who God is in a varity of standpoints. "They give us proclamations and instructions written from theological standpoints." P.150Having the four perspectives provide more of a complete picture of Jesus. Through the four Gospels we can get...
Words: 268 - Pages: 2
...The Gospels include the first 4 books of the New Testament which are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These stories in a way show the time period from Jesus' birth to Jesus' death and resurrection. One of the purposes of the 4 Gospels is to share the same stories but from different people with different perspectives from each other. Which has a whole message in it's self. I believe a key theme in these 4 books is the theme of laying down your life for others. Jesus obviously laid down his life in huge ways for all of us and we are to lay down our lives for others as well. We are taught in these books many things that we are called to carry out still to this day. There are so many themes that I can not even begin to list them all. You can get...
Words: 271 - Pages: 2
...Essence of the New Testament: A Survey (2012), and the New Testament documents. Chapter 1: How We Got the New Testament 1. How many documents does the New Testament consist (1)? 27 2. The New Testament was written approximately between AD ¬¬¬_45___ and _100___ (1). 3. What materials were the New Testament documents written upon (1)? Leather and paper scrolls 4. What are the original New Testament document called (1, 2)? autograph 5. What is a codex in reference to the early New Testament writings (2)? Modern day books 6. What is the name of the Latin codex collection (2)? Ta Bibla 7. In the study of the New Testament, to what does the term canon refer (2)? Authoritive books 8. What three languages did God choose as the media for his self-revelation (2)? Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek 9. The Old Testament was primarily written in ____Hebrew__ (2). 10. Parts of the Old Testament were written in __Aramaic____ (2). 11. The New Testament was written in __Greek____ ______(2). 12. New greek______ ______was the language of the common people during the first century AD (2). 13. Why do you think God allowed the autographs to vanish (3)? To avoid biliolatry 14. In spite of the absence of the autographs, approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts and an additional 13,000 fragments of the New Testament documents exist, providing significant manuscript evidence for New Testament scholars (3). compared to early writings 15. Motivators for canonizing the New Testament include the heretic...
Words: 1404 - Pages: 6
...Bible. Texts from the Bible stand at the center of analysis, while accompanying textbooks help us to contexualize biblical materials within history. Each week revolves around a particular theme with one lecture on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and one on the New Testament. Themes include creation, birth, the hero, the mountain, the community, the Temple, suffering, and the end of time. As we place biblical texts in their historical contexts, we will consider the Bible as a literary work with distinct genres, themes and conventions. The thematic connections between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament will be explored at the same time that differences in their style and message are investigated. While reading the Bible, we will develop a vocabulary for discussing literary texts as well as a vocabulary specific to texts from the ancient world. This lively and pluralistic course provides a thorough introduction to the literature of the Bible. Course Objectives The Bible is a central text that has influenced literature, history, and global politics. This course instructs students in reading and interpreting the Bible according to its structure and tropes and within its original contexts. The Bible is read in English according to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Students study theories of biblical authorship and gain insight...
Words: 2487 - Pages: 10
...The author of the Gospel of Mark is never actually referred to or indicated within the text itself. However, an early Christian writer named Papias who was a bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor made a statement referring to the author of The Gospel of Mark as being a disciple of Peter (Harris, 2014). Papias also believed Mark had gathered the information in the Gospel from Peter’s accounts of Jesus’s ministry. Modern New Testament scholars feel it is more likely that Mark collected stories of Jesus’s ministry from several sources due to the lack of fluidity within the book. Scholars believe the Gospel of Mark was written approximately 66-70 A.D. during a time of great persecution of Christians (Harris, 2014). During this time the Jewish Revolt...
Words: 1495 - Pages: 6
...The Gospel and the Four Gospels In the beginning the New Testament is given in metaphor as described as a turtle. The New Testament should be treated just like a snapping turtle. You do not know that it’s a snapping turtle until your each out for it and it quickly snaps back at you. You have to be very careful in approaching both, we have to take into consideration that dealing with them both we have to not only look at the impression or the first impression they give off. You would think you can trust a turtle because it’s so harmless, but you don’t know until you reach out. The New Testament is innocent until you start to read and you start to see that it’s definitely different from your other readings. The first four documents will give us a more mature look about the New Testament. The content of the message is that its important when reading and studying the four Gospels. You have to recognize that each of the Gospels are written and specifically designed for a certain audience and group of people. Matthew is written for the Jewish audience. Mark is written to the Romans. Luke is written to the Greek. John is written to the Christian that is born again. Even though they all generally, but not always, include events that are the same but gives different information from a certain event. The biggest difference in the four Gospels is that God is reaching out to everyone. He created us all different but the bible was that one source that will make us all alike. He creared...
Words: 718 - Pages: 3
...2015 The gospel according to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. The book of Matthew basically tells how the Messiah, Jesus Christ, rejected by Israel, finally sends the disciples to preach his gospel to the world. It does not so much indicate a literary genre but characterizes the contents of the book: good news about Jesus Christ. The book of Matthew may be considered a Midrash theological interpretation on the gospel of Mark. Matthew, whose name means “gift of the Lord,” was a tax collector who left his work to follow Jesus (Matthew 9:9–13). In Mark and Luke he is called by his other name, Levi. Although the author did not record his name within the text itself, the first book found in the New Testament has historically been credited to the writing of Matthew, a tax collector and one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Some New Testament scholars doubt the authorship of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew, like all the other New Testament gospels, was originally anonymous and only attributed to Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, later in the second century. The author relied on Mark's Gospel for everything he knew about the life and mission of Jesus. There are two lines of evidence that proves the authorship of Matthew, the superscription of the ancient manuscripts and the patristic witness. According to NT scholar D. Edmond Hiebert, the first gospel’s “identifying superscription, ‘The Gospel According...
Words: 883 - Pages: 4
...A sacred text is used by a religion to understand their worldview and their religion better. A sacred text is what a religion believes is holy and authoritative. Religious texts help its followers to worship and pray. Both Christianity and Judaism are monotheistic and as such there are similarities but also differences within each religion. The sacred text for Judaism is the Tanach while Christianity has the Bible. The essay will explore the structure of each sacred text, what type of literature is in each canon, authorship of the text and how it is used in practice. Structure of each canon Christians believe the Bible is their sacred text. The Bible is a library of 66 books and is made of two parts, Old Testament (39 books) and New Testament (27 books). The Old Testament...
Words: 1107 - Pages: 5
...Theology of the Four Gospels The first three gospels are sometimes called the 'synoptic' or same view gospels. This is because they each cover teaching and miracles by Jesus that are also covered in another account. The fourth gospel, John, writing later, recounts Jesus' other words and miracles that have a particular spiritual meaning. All four gospels present Jesus as both the Son of God and son of man. In this paper information will be provided that describes the major theological differences between the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Information will also be provided that describes a theological perspective of the gospel of John. Finally, information in this paper will include how ones understanding of the various theological perspectives presented in the four Gospels can be used as an additional tool to facilitate the proclaiming of the Four Gospels. Theological Differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John The Gospel According to Matthew The first three books of the New Testament have been identified as the synoptic gospels. These books are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The first book of the New Testament is identified as the book of Matthew. Matthew was one of the first twelve disciples of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 9:1; 10:1-4 and therefore an eye-witness. Matthew records more of Jesus' teaching concerning God's heavenly kingdom than the other writers, Mark, Luke, or John. In the first four books of Matthew, the miracle story of Jesus’...
Words: 1178 - Pages: 5
...and is held by most Christians to be the Messiah, foretold in the Hebrew Bible or “Old Testament”. They believe him to be the savior of mankind, and the son of God. However, in modern times, the use of critical scholarship in analysis of the Bible and to the New Testament Gospels in particular, has lead to an accelerating rate of disintegration in the traditional Christian belief system. The term "scholarship" implies the application of the scientific method of the evaluating evidence on the basis of objective standards unhindered from any personal involvement or biases. The main source of information on Jesus is from the Christian Gospels. Some scholars claim that the sources on which the Gospels are based were written within the living memory of Jesus' lifetime. There are four such Gospels the earliest being Mark (68-73 AD), followed by Matthew (70-100 AD), Luke (80-100 AD), and John (90-110 AD). Many conservative Christians accept these writings as evidence for a historical Jesus and as an account of his life and death. According to the Christian Gospels, Jesus was born in Bethlehem between 6 BC and 6 AD. The Gospel Mark, reports that Jesus was "the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon" he also states that Jesus had sisters. Nothing of Jesus is recorded between 7 AD when Jesus visits the Temple in Jerusalem as a boy, and 25 AD when John baptized Jesus in the river Jordan. The Gospels states that starting around 27 AD, Jesus began traveling the country side performing...
Words: 2308 - Pages: 10
...The image of women in the Gospel of Luke Name: Instructor Affiliated Institution Paper: Date The image of women in the Gospel of Luke Abstract Many studies have been carried out show the image given to women in the traditional context. These studies show that a woman was inferior to the man who made her perform inferior tasks such as cooking and giving birth. Studies have also been carried out to show the image of women in the New Testament. Luke is one of the gospels that show the clear intention of Jesus mission on women than any other gospel. This research seeks to discuss some of the images that Luke gives to women in the society. The first part of the paper gives a brief introduction to the topic and defines some of the terms the reader will often encounter. The second part analyzes some of the images given to women in the Gospel of Luke. Finally, the third part compares the nature of women in the Gospel of Luke and their nature in the Old Testament. Data for this paper was collected from peer-reviewed journal articles and the Gospel of Luke. Table of Contents Abstract 1 Introduction 2 Definition of terms 3 The image of women in the Gospel of St. Luke 3 Introduction 3 Women as the chosen ones 4 Women as witnesses of the ministry of Jesus 4 Women as examples of faith 5 Women as good examples in Jesus teachings 6 Women as part of the mission of Jesus 7 A comparison of the image of women in ST.LUKE and in the Old Testament 8 Conclusion 9 References 10 Introduction...
Words: 3099 - Pages: 13
...same meaning in the gospels as they have in the Hebrew Bible? (30% of exam) Messiah is a Hebrew word. It means to be anointed- the king. In David, the word Messiah means the son of God was first used in the story of the descendants. Saul was referred as a Messiah by Samuel in Samuel 1but he failed to please God and David was the one who was Messiah and even God favored him. In the New Testament: all the gospels like in Mark1:1, Mathew, 1:1, Jesus, were referred as Son of God and even Messiah. Peter also addresses to the crowd after Jesus’ death that Jesus, the crucified person was the King- the Messiah, who protected the people of Israel which was the Christianity message indeed. The son of god means in Hebrew bible that someone who is the King, basically the king of Israel and who is faithful to God. In the New Testament, Jesus was referred as Son of God as he used to do miracles by curing the sick and possessed. Jesus was the king of Jews. He proved this by sacrificing his life and forgiving all the sins of the people. Messiah mean anointed one, in Hebrew bible, Messiahs were priests and the kings like David was referred as Messiah and even son of God and even Cyrus was referred too. But Jesus was being called as Messiah in the gospels. After Jesus’ death, his death was referred as” death of anointed”. 2. We discussed how each of the gospels finds some salutary meaning in Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Briefly, what does Mark’s gospel...
Words: 1020 - Pages: 5
...the New Testament, the Historical Jesus, and How Manuscripts Can Reveal What Texts Conceal Tom Dykstra I grew up with a picture of Paul traveling through Asia and Europe, founding congregations, counseling and teaching the men and women who had given their life to Jesus. If he could not visit them, he sent letters. When Paul died, his letters were kept as treasures. Each church that had received one of his letters saved it, had it read during worship services, and exchanged copies of the letter with other congregations close by. Later the congregations tried to complete their collection. But this view does not match the uniformity of manuscript evidence. --David Trobisch 1 It is even more remarkable that attempts to reconstruct the supposed document 'Q' (the lost collection used by both Matthew and Luke postulated by those who argue that Matthew and Luke are independent) use text-critical terminology to describe their activities. However, since all they are doing is making selections from a twentieth-century printed text, which does not even presume to provide confidently the text of the four-Gospel collection, never mind that of the independent first-century texts, this use of language must be dismissed as illusory. --David Parker 2 Modern scholarship has produced detailed biographies of Paul, massive multi-volume inquiries into “the historical Jesus,” and mountains of exegetical literature that claims to extract the author’s meaning from each word of each New Testament book...
Words: 12334 - Pages: 50
...The Canonization of the New Testament When we think about the New Testament in our Bibles today most of us pay little attention to, or have little regard for the history that surrounds how it came to be. This is partly because of the high position we as Evangelicals have for our Bibles. We are taught that the Bible is infallible and never contradicts itself. I agree whole heartedly that the Bible is God's Holy Word and infallible non contradictory. But two weeks ago if you were to ask me how the Bible was put together or "canonized", I would have told you that there was some sort of council that decided which books should be in there, but ultimately it was God's sovereign will. Now the last part would be correct, but the rest is at best debatable. So how was the Bible put together? Since the argument is extremely complex and much of the details are lost or were never recorded, we will be exploring the different events that drove the movement, along with several different opinions of when the Bible was Complete or Canonized. There were two particular movements during the second century that made the Church realize a need to have a compilation of books that were universally accepted. The first movement, although not as well know, was Marcionism. This heretical sect was started by Marcion who was born into Christianity but had a deep dislike for Judaism and the material world. He believed that the God and Father of Jesus are not the same as the creator Yahweh, and it was...
Words: 1777 - Pages: 8
...The Formation of the Canon, 5-6 page paper. Thus far we have come to a closing about the date and source of the individual books of the New Testament, but another questions remains unanswered. We can ask ourselves, how did the New Testament itself come into being? Who collected the writings and on what ideology? What conditions led to the creations of a canon, of trustworthy books? Throughout history Christian’s belief is that the Holy Spirit, who controlled the writing of the individual books, also controlled their selection and compilation, thus continuing to fulfill our Lord’s promise that He would guide his disciples into all reality. This however, is something that is to be discerned by spiritual insight, and not by historical research. The object is to find out what historical research reveals about the origin of the New Testament canon. We have people tell us that we receive the twenty seven books of the New Testament on the mandate of the Church; but even if we do, we have to look at how the Church came to recognize these twenty-seven books as worthy of being placed on a level of encouragement and authority with the Old Testament. It took over a century of the proliferation of numerous writings before anyone was even concerned. They started to pick and choose and it was largely a cumulative, individual and accidental event, guided by chance and prejudice more than objective and scholarly research, until priests and academics began declaring what was authoritative...
Words: 2267 - Pages: 10
