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Gospels: Mark Luke
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The four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were of vital importance in telling the story of the life of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and savior of mankind. They were often gathered together in a separate volume and were among the most richly decorated and luxurious of all manuscripts produced during the Middle Ages. At the time, few people could read, so most churchgoers relied on public readings in church to hear the message of the Gospels (which literally means "good news").
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The second word common to the titles of the canonical Gospels is the preposition kata, "according to", the exact import of which has long been a matter of discussion among Biblical scholars. Apart from various secondary meanings connected with that Greek particle, two principal significations have been ascribed to it. Many authors have taken it to mean not "written by", but "drawn up according to the conception of", Matthew, Mark, etc. In their eyes, the titles of our Gospels were not intended to indicate authorship, but to state the authority guaranteeing what is related, in about the same way as "the Gospel according to the Hebrews", or "the Gospel according to the Egyptians", does not mean the Gospel written by the Hebrews or the Egyptians, but that peculiar form of Gospel which either the Hebrews or the Egyptians had accepted. Most scholars... have preferred to regard the preposition kata as denoting authorship, pretty much in the same way as, in Diodorus Siculus, the History of Herodotus is called He kath Herodoton historia. At the present day it is generally admitted that, had the titles to the canonical Gospels been intended to set forth the ultimate authority or guarantor, and not to indicate the writer, the Second Gospel would, in accordance with the belief of primitive times, have been called "the Gospel according to Peter", and the third, "the Gospel according to Paul". At the same time it is rightly felt that these titles denote authorship, with a peculiar shade of meaning which is not conveyed by the titles prefixed to the Epistles of St. Paul, the Apocalypse of St. John, etc; The use of the genitive case in the latter titles Paulou Epistolai, Apokalypsis Ioannou, etc.) has no other object than that of ascribing the contents of such works to the writer whose name they actually bear. The use of the preposition kata (according to), on the contrary, while referring the composition of the contents of the First Gospel to St. Matthew, of those of the second to St. Mark, etc., implies that practically the same contents, the same glad tidings or Gospel, have been set forth by more than one narrator.
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Mark, according to Renan, is the oldest of the Gospels; but Mark, according to Strauss, was written after the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written. He says: "It is evidently a compilation, whether made from memory or otherwise, from the first and third Gospels" (Leben Jesu, p. 5I). Judge Waite, in his History of Christianity, says that all but twenty-four verses of this Gospel have their parallels in Matthew and Luke. Davidson declares it to be an anonymous work "The author," he says, "is unknown."
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The general consensus among biblical scholars is that all four canonical Gospels were originally written in Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Orient. On the strength of an early commentator it has been suggested that Matthew may have originally been written in Aramaic, or the Hebrew, or that it was translated from Aramaic/Hebrew to Greek with corrections based on Mark. Regardless, no Aramaic original texts of the Gospel accounts have ever been found, only later translations from the Greek (see Peshitta and Aramaic primacy for a fuller discussion).
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LOS ANGELES—In the Bible, the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) offer a powerful account of the life of Jesus Christ and provide the foundation for Christianity. Representing the core teachings of Christian beliefs, they were considered of paramount importance. The Gospels in Medieval Manuscript Illumination, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, October 31, 2006-January 7, 2007, explores the forms of decoration associated with these books in the Middle Ages: portraits of the four Evangelists, illustrations of the life of Christ, and the ornamentation of canon tables (indexes that often appeared at the beginning of Gospel books).
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A look at the individual pericopes within the Gospels further confirms this intention of the writings as a whole. For the Gospels comprise individual passages which proclaim the kerygma in nuce. These numerous, discrete “vignettes” present the Jesus of history as one whose word and action confront the reader. Thus, the story of the Stilling of the Storm (Mark 4:35-41 and parallels) is intended to reveal something of Jesus’ person and purpose. He subdues the powers of chaos, as in the primeval accounts of creation, and ... participates in the Divine work. He is portrayed as the Shalom-bringer, in both an inward and an outward sense, as he calms both the lake and the disciples.
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Mark Luke