Gospel

Gospel, any of four biblical narratives covering the life and death of Jesus Christ. Written, according to tradition, respectively by St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John (the four evangelists), they are placed at the beginning of the New Testament and make up about half the total text. The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon term god-spell, meaning “good story,” a rendering of the Latin evangelium and the Greek euangelion, meaning “good news” or “good telling.” Since the late 18th century the first three have been called the Synoptic Gospels, because the texts, set side by side, show a similar treatment of the life and death of Jesus Christ. See also Gospel According to Matthew; Gospel According to Mark; Gospel According to Luke; Gospel According to John; and the apocryphal (noncanonical) Gospel of Thomas.

The traditions of Jesus’ earthly ministry and Passion were remembered and then written in the Gospel accounts. They were written from the post-Resurrection perspective and contain an extensive and common Passion narrative as they deal with the earthly ministry of Jesus from hindsight. It is also to be noted that, in the evangelists’ accounts, their theological presuppositions and the situations of their addressees molded the formation of the four canonical Gospels, which were written after the letters of St. Paul. The primary affirmations of Christianity—of Jesus as the Christ, his message of the kingdom, and his Resurrection—preceded the evangelists’ accounts, and some of these affirmations were extrapolated backward (much as the Exodus event central in the Old Testament was extrapolated backward and was the theological presupposition for the patriarchal narratives in Genesis). These stories were shaped by the purpose for their telling: to inspire belief. Their creedal beginning was expanded with material about the life and teachings of Jesus, which a reverence for and a preoccupation with the holy figure of Jesus demanded out of loving curiosity about his earthly ministry and life.