Of these four, the first three are also grouped as "The Synoptic Gospels", because they tell essentially the same story, and were probably all derived from the same original - though which if any of the three was the original is much debated. It would actually have made much more sense to only keep these three; the fourth of the approved, John, tells a very different story, of a very different Jesus, and preaches a very different theology, as we shall see!
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"The Gospel according to Matthew"
Mattit-Yahu in Yehudit, which was also the name of the founding father of the Hasmonean dynasty, recently overthrown by the Romans and replaced by Edomite (Idumean) Herodians; and also also the name of the Thirteenth Apostle, the one chosen to fill the seat at the Last Supper table vacated by Judas Iscariot.
"As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. 'Follow me,' he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him" (Matthew 9:9)
which sounds thoroughly convincing, until you read Mark 2:14 or Luke 5:27, both of which name the man as Levi ben Alphaeus, though it is plausible that our Mattit-Yahu was of the tribe of Levi... no, it isn't plausible, is it, because the Levites were the Levites, the priestly tribe, not tax-collectors.
His Gospel, so it is understood, was written for the Jews, somewhere between 50 and 100 CE - the precise date matters, and not just because the later date would have made him a very old man, and synapses wobble with old age, but mostly because his world changed radically in 70 CE, when the Temple was burned down and Jewish hegemony in the land came to an end, so a book written after that date would be likely to be very different from a book written before it; and the same applies to Mark and Luke and John.
His Gospel, as I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, was written for the Yehudim, to tell them that their Messiah, a specifically Jewish Messiah, though not entirely clear whether he was a Moshi'a or a Mashiyach - the two are very different - had come; something that would have been unnecessary if it were true: the opening of all the graves of Nov and the Mount of Olives, and the resurrection of their dead, plus the sudden arrival of peace and harmony in a world ruled by Romans, would have signalled his arrival without requiring this book - and to demonstrate that all the Biblical prophecies had been fulfilled, which would actually have been very difficult, since there are scores of Biblical prophecies relating to the Messiah, and they are vastly contradictory, and anyway most of the prophecies attributed by Christianity to Jesus were nothing to do with him, or any other potential Moshi'a or Mashiyach, but related to historic events as many as six centuries earlier.
Otherwise, the version given in Matthew is virtually identical to Mark, except for 10 parables and some incidents mentioned nowhere else.
In all probability Matthew did not write it and, in even more probability than that, it was not chronologically the first Gospel. More likely it was written by someone else, someone non-Jewish, who did not witness any of the events personally, who had read Mark's gospel and decided to retell it, and who made the variations he thought helpful for the benefit of his audience.
One of the reasons we can say this is because this Gospel demonstrates a quite extraordinary ignorance about even the most basic aspects of Jewish life and belief and practice in Yehudah at that time, either in the Sadducaic or the Pharisaic worlds, is entirely ignorant of Yehudit as a language, and seems to have no idea at all that most of Jesus' recorded sayings were actually quotes from others, and widely known at that time, especially the numerous borrowings from Hillel - quotes as instantly recognisable as "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "the lady's not for turning", or "I did not have sex with that woman" would be in today's world.
Matthew concentrates on Jesus' preaching and teaching, and shows his powers of healing, particularly during his time in Galilee. His version depicts what is essentially a religious squabble of minor cosmic significance, between the Jewish establishment and a popular faith-healer-cum-Rabbi who challenges some, but only some, conventional beliefs and practices. In fact his ideas would have been bread-and-butter to the Jews of Hillel and Gamaliel's generation, as they would to those of the time when the book was written, who would have been aware of the work being undertaken by the Sanhdedrin under Hillel's pupil and disciple Yochanan ben Zakkai at exactly this time, beginning the construction of the Talmud Yeru-Shalmi.
Based on Matthew, there is very little in Jesus' preaching that would have upset any Pharisaic Jew of that period, including his attempts to "update" prayers - formal prayer, rather than spontaneous individual prayer, was a new phenomenon, already in progress decades before the destruction of the Temple, and a major part of the work of the second Gamliel, as well as Akiva and Yehoshu'a and others, over the next fifty years was precisely the updating of prayer to provide a liturgy for the replacement of sacrifice. "The Sermon on the Mount", for example, (Matthew 5 ff) echoes the newly-written Shacharit Blessings (Birkhot Hashachar), with variations that are mainstream Talmud - see my book "A Myrtle Among Reeds", p63 ff for a much fuller account of this.
Yishai, then, or perhaps Yeshu'a or Yehoshu'a, is portrayed as a traditional though unorthodox Jew of humanist persuasion, well-versed in scripture, but outraged by both the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (the Rabbis and their supporters) and the misplaced nostalgia of the Sadducees (the Temple priests and their supporters). He calls on men and women to keep the commandments, but offers his own Mishnah on them, as every other Rabbi of the day was also doing. A "miracle-worker" on the side of the poor, the needy and the oppressed, but essentially non-political in the broader, Roman sense, he is shown as the heir of Mosheh and Eli-Yahu, but not an Essene, or any other sect of Gnosticism, and certainly not a Zealot.
It is hard to see why either the Jews or the Romans would have considered him a threat, let alone wanted the full-scale crucifixion that was reserved for hardened political criminals; but it is also difficult to see why any Jew or Roman would have wished to follow him.
Having said which, by the time that Matthew is being written, the Temple has been destroyed, the Sadducees are no more, the aristocratic and intellectual elite of Yehudah (Judaea) have been either exterminated or enslaved, more than a million Beney Yisra-Elim have been taken away as slaves, mostly to build the Coliseum in Rome, and all that is left of meaningful Judaism in Yehudah is Yavneh. One can easily understand why the few remaining Jews, feeling that YHVH has abandoned them, might well be interested in finding a new religion; but not that of Matthew's Jesus, which is little different from the one they might now be abandoning.
There are some elements of Zoroastrianism, and of eschatology in the life, and to some extent in the teachings, of Matthew's Jesus, which may well come through his links with John the Baptist and the Essenes, but essentially he is a rather soppy altruist and humanitarian, who would likely have joined the hippie movement if he had lived in California in the 1960s, or the Green Party today, in order to spend his time protecting whales by praying for them at inter-faith tea parties. If we wish to make a comparison between Jesus and other Prophets, Matthew's depiction parallels the early Muhammad, before the conquest of Mecca; but, despite his comment about bringing the sword rather than peace, he could never have been the warlord Muhammad, who undertook the conquest of Arabia after Mecca was regained. More Buddha than Mosheh too.
Throughout the text, faith is crucial. He seeks to elucidate core values and a proper way of living, and to describe Heaven. He is only concerned with Jews, but will recognise non-Jews who believe - it is not clear whether he expects them to convert to Judaism, but he certainly doesn't expect a new religion to come into existence in his own name. Everything in Matthew's view of his life leads towards the denouement in Jerusalem, and he makes sure the disciples know this. Matthew is clearly intent throughout to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the Biblical prophecies were now fulfilled, and as such we must read the text as evangelical – an attempt to proselytise. There are more Biblical quotations in Matthew than any other gospel, most of them verbal citations, most of them Prophetic.
The story is told as though he is simply challenging the spiritual leadership of Yehudah, but not the political leadership by Rome. All blame for his death is placed with the Pharisaic Elders and the Sadducaic Priests, both of whom are described as being happy to be rid of him in order to protect their own authority - very llttle of which they actually had by this time. Matthew fails to point out that crucifixion was an exclusively Roman punishment, not available to the Jews, even if they had wanted it. So with Matthew begins the process of exonerating Rome, which will become the history of Europe in relation to the Jews for the next 2000 years.
In Matthew there is no mention of Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Martha or the second Mary - and not surprisingly, for they all belong to the Tammuz and Adonis myths which are the real Jesus story, the one that does not become "resurrected" until after the fall of the Temple. Amongst the disciples Peter, James and John hold special places, but not Matthew himself.
♰
Yishai, then, or perhaps Yeshu'a or Yehoshu'a, is portrayed as a traditional though unorthodox Jew of humanist persuasion, well-versed in scripture, but outraged by both the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (the Rabbis and their supporters) and the misplaced nostalgia of the Sadducees (the Temple priests and their supporters). He calls on men and women to keep the commandments, but offers his own Mishnah on them, as every other Rabbi of the day was also doing. A "miracle-worker" on the side of the poor, the needy and the oppressed, but essentially non-political in the broader, Roman sense, he is shown as the heir of Mosheh and Eli-Yahu, but not an Essene, or any other sect of Gnosticism, and certainly not a Zealot.
It is hard to see why either the Jews or the Romans would have considered him a threat, let alone wanted the full-scale crucifixion that was reserved for hardened political criminals; but it is also difficult to see why any Jew or Roman would have wished to follow him.
Having said which, by the time that Matthew is being written, the Temple has been destroyed, the Sadducees are no more, the aristocratic and intellectual elite of Yehudah (Judaea) have been either exterminated or enslaved, more than a million Beney Yisra-Elim have been taken away as slaves, mostly to build the Coliseum in Rome, and all that is left of meaningful Judaism in Yehudah is Yavneh. One can easily understand why the few remaining Jews, feeling that YHVH has abandoned them, might well be interested in finding a new religion; but not that of Matthew's Jesus, which is little different from the one they might now be abandoning.
There are some elements of Zoroastrianism, and of eschatology in the life, and to some extent in the teachings, of Matthew's Jesus, which may well come through his links with John the Baptist and the Essenes, but essentially he is a rather soppy altruist and humanitarian, who would likely have joined the hippie movement if he had lived in California in the 1960s, or the Green Party today, in order to spend his time protecting whales by praying for them at inter-faith tea parties. If we wish to make a comparison between Jesus and other Prophets, Matthew's depiction parallels the early Muhammad, before the conquest of Mecca; but, despite his comment about bringing the sword rather than peace, he could never have been the warlord Muhammad, who undertook the conquest of Arabia after Mecca was regained. More Buddha than Mosheh too.
Throughout the text, faith is crucial. He seeks to elucidate core values and a proper way of living, and to describe Heaven. He is only concerned with Jews, but will recognise non-Jews who believe - it is not clear whether he expects them to convert to Judaism, but he certainly doesn't expect a new religion to come into existence in his own name. Everything in Matthew's view of his life leads towards the denouement in Jerusalem, and he makes sure the disciples know this. Matthew is clearly intent throughout to demonstrate that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the Biblical prophecies were now fulfilled, and as such we must read the text as evangelical – an attempt to proselytise. There are more Biblical quotations in Matthew than any other gospel, most of them verbal citations, most of them Prophetic.
The story is told as though he is simply challenging the spiritual leadership of Yehudah, but not the political leadership by Rome. All blame for his death is placed with the Pharisaic Elders and the Sadducaic Priests, both of whom are described as being happy to be rid of him in order to protect their own authority - very llttle of which they actually had by this time. Matthew fails to point out that crucifixion was an exclusively Roman punishment, not available to the Jews, even if they had wanted it. So with Matthew begins the process of exonerating Rome, which will become the history of Europe in relation to the Jews for the next 2000 years.
In Matthew there is no mention of Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Martha or the second Mary - and not surprisingly, for they all belong to the Tammuz and Adonis myths which are the real Jesus story, the one that does not become "resurrected" until after the fall of the Temple. Amongst the disciples Peter, James and John hold special places, but not Matthew himself.
♰
The Gospel according to Mark
Technically the 2nd Gospel, though it was probably the first of the three Synoptics to be written, and the likely source for the expansion attributed to Matthew. The authorship is unknown, but attributed to Mark, which appears to be the Latin/Greek name of a man whose name was originally abbreviated to John - which will have been either Yonatan (Jonathan) or Yochanan (Jon), there is no name precisely equivalent to John in Yehudit or in Aramaic. And no, not the same non-John who wrote the fourth of the Canonical Gospels, the one that disagrees so much with the three Canonicals.
Technically the 2nd Gospel, though it was probably the first of the three Synoptics to be written, and the likely source for the expansion attributed to Matthew. The authorship is unknown, but attributed to Mark, which appears to be the Latin/Greek name of a man whose name was originally abbreviated to John - which will have been either Yonatan (Jonathan) or Yochanan (Jon), there is no name precisely equivalent to John in Yehudit or in Aramaic. And no, not the same non-John who wrote the fourth of the Canonical Gospels, the one that disagrees so much with the three Canonicals.
This John lived in Yeru-Shala'im. His mother, who would not have been named Mary because that is simply an Anglicisation of the Latin Maria (which is itself rooted in the name of one of the hills on which Yeru-Shala'im was built, namely Mor-Yah - "the bitter tears of the mother goddess", but millennia before Jesus) allowed the first Christians to meet in her house - her Yehudit name would likely have been Miryam.
Later he went with Paul (Yehudit Sha'ul) and Barnabas (his real name was Yoseph), his cousin, to Cyprus on the first missionary journey, but left them half-way; it isn't recorded why. Paul refused to take him on his second journey, so Mark returned to Cyprus with Barnabas. Later he went to Rome with Paul, and Paul called him a loyal friend and helper. Peter calls him "my son Mark" and traditionally it is Peter's version of the Jesus story that Mark tells.
Mark focuses on what Jesus did more than on what he taught - a sharp contrast with Matthew, which does the obverse. Probably written between 65 and 70 CE, it is the shortest of the gospels, and may have been a first draft for what became Matthew. The many explanations of Jewish terms suggest it was written for non-Jews, where Matthew was written for the Jews of Antioch.
Mark throughout seems to be offering a gloss or résumé of Matthew (for those who think Matthew came first), even using direct quotation. He elaborates on some small details but does not always seem to get the whole point of the story. There are no references to the Scriptures except in the opening fragment.
For further references to him, elaborating the account above, look at Acts 12:12 and 25, 13:13, 15:33ff, Colossians 4:10, 2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 24:1, Peter 5:13 et al.
For further references to him, elaborating the account above, look at Acts 12:12 and 25, 13:13, 15:33ff, Colossians 4:10, 2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 24:1, Peter 5:13 et al.
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The Gospel according to Luke
The 3rd Gospel. Luke was a Greek-speaking doctor; he also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. A friend of Paul, he travelled with him on several journeys, including sailing with him to Rome. Luke's is the most detailed account; it was written at the specific request of a Roman official known by the nickname Theophilus.
Further references to Luke cane be found at Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11, Philemon 24.
Luke is generally thought to mean "light", from the Latin lux; but in fact this is incorrect. As I have also pointed out in my notes to "The Gospel of Lucius", it is the name Lucius that comes from the Latin "lux" meaning "light"; Luke comes from the Greek "loukas" and means "a man from the region of Lucania in Italy", roughly the equivalent of today's Basilicata, south of Naples.
He was probably a "Gentile", who became a Christian (don't you just love the way Christians distinguish "Gentiles" from "pagans" in this manner!). Theophilus means "lover of God"; but which God? Being a Roman he would most likely have been a pagan, sorry I meant a Gentile, and therefore "lover of the gods", unless he followed Mithras, as most of the Roman soldiers who had come out east with Pompey did.
Interestingly, the oldest existing manuscript version yet found, and known as P4, does not attribute the book to Luke at all, as P75 does; both were written around 200 CE. The original is believed to have been written between 80 and 90 CE. Contemporary scholars also believe there was another source material, known as the Q document, which Luke used in addition to Mark (or Matthew); see my page on "The Gospel of Q", which is a modern re-invention.
For the first eight chapters Luke seems to be glossing the story with very little detail; afterwards he follows Matthew very closely, as if his copy of Matthew had the first chapters missing. Or possibly he was using Mark, as Matthew did.
Luke concentrates on Jesus' message, teachings and parables. His acts of healing are almost incidental, and the attacks from the Pharisees are brushed aside. He sometimes seems confused about precisely what happened when and where, and yet is absolutely certain of what Jesus said. The disciples and others play very minor parts. Less than Matthew, and Matthew is very limited in this, but about the same level as Mark, is Luke's understanding of Jewish politics, history or religion; for example he seems unaware that much of what Jesus says is quotation either from scripture or from contemporary Rabbis such as Hillel. There is no sense at all of the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in Jesus.
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4. The Gospel according to John
The 4th Gospel, and the only one of the "approved" that is not counted as "Synoptic".
The John to whom it is attributed (and see my note on the non-name "John", above), was the son of Zebedee and the brother of James - which would probably have been Yochanan ben Zevad-Yah in the Yehudit, with brother James most likely Cha'im.
John was himself one of the Twelve Disciples (or Apostles if you prefer; Christian scholars seem unable to make up their minds on this), and regarded as one of the three favourites, Peter and brother Cha'im being the other two (cf Galatians 2:9). The fact that he was one of the disciples, and therefore witnessed most every detail of Jesus' life and death, should make him a valuable witness; but Matthew was also one of the disciples, through the same period, starting in the same place, and the differences between their versions are so significant, a court of law would be forced to acquit the man in the dock if there was no one else to provide clarifying testimony.
Yochanan (or it might have been Yonatan, or even Yeho-Natan) was originally a fisherman. Scholars have suggested that "he probably followed John the Baptist before becoming a disciple of Jesus", though none can substantiate this hypothesis. However, all these fish references - walking on water, the disciples as fishermen, the feeding of the five thousand, etc - need to be seen in an entirely different context: the Samaritans who were the principal inhabitants of the Galilee, had brought their cult of Oannes (the probable source of those John names) with them when they were exiled here by Nebuchadnezzar, replacing the Yehudim who had been exiled to Babylon, around 586 BCE. Oannes (the source also of Jonah) was a water-god, and the year of Jesus' supposed birth also coincides with the transition from the astrological age of Aries (the paschal lamb) to that of Pisces (the fish that would become the principal symbol of early Christianity). Click here for more on this.
He was also known to be quick-tempered, at least among those translators, theologians and scholars who haven't bothered to read the Tanach or learn either Yehudit or Aramaic. The word used is the mis-spelled and mis-pronounced Beney Regesh, given as Boanerges by Luke, who clearly knew no Yehudit or Aramaic either; it is commonly translated as "sons of thunder". But Ragash does not mean "thunder" in Yehudit; it means "gather", in the sense of a protest-meeting or an army being mustered (cf Psalm 2:1). Nor does Regash mean "thunder" in Aramaic; it means "rushing in" (cf Daniel 6:7, 6:12, 6:16). So the idea of something or someone headstrong and hyper-active may be implicit, but when the Yehudim of Jesus' day used the expression "son of thunder" to describe someone they were thinking of Exodus 9:23, and they meant someone who was passionately devoted to his religious faith, and firing words of scripture at you incessantly, pouring them out like a volcano erupting lava, desperately trying to make you more observant - precisely the sorts of behaviours that would make John and James favourites of Yeshu'a.
Jesus does indeed use the sobriquet for both James and John, so there might be a case for it having been a family name, like Smith or Jones, except that the Yehudim in those days didn't use family names: your name, plus "ben", signifying "son of", plus your father's name, and then, if necessary to distinguish you from another with a similar name, "ha" meaning "the", and then your tribe, as in "ha Levi", which is the likely explanation for Matthew being called Levi in Mark and Luke. But this is marginal stuff; what matters is the meaning of Boanerges, and "sons of thunder" does not mean "short-tempered". A much more thorough explanation of this subject can be found by clicking here.
John was with Jesus when he raised Jairus' daughter, at least according to Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43 and Luke 8:43-48; John himself does not mention it. He was also present at the transfiguration in Gethsemane before Jesus' arrest; again, according to Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, but not in John's account.
Although the Gospel does not claim this, he was probably "the disciple whom Jesus loved", i.e. the one who was closest to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one who Jesus spoke to from the Cross.
After Jesus' death John, with Peter, led the church in Yeru-Shala'im, and was still there fourteen years after Paul's conversion. Traditionally he lived in Ephesus until his old age. He may be the same John who wrote "The Book of Revelation", though this is usually attributed to a different John, from Patmos.
John's Gospel was the last to be written, around 90 CE, which would have made John a very old man. It focuses more on the meaning of the events than on telling the story, which by then was well-known. It is generally claimed by Christian scholars that it was "probably" written for Greek-speaking Jews, to convince them to shed their doubts; but this is frankly implausible: its knowledge of Judaism is poor, and the Jews would have rejected it on that ground alone; but even more significantly, its tone and attitude is thoroughly pro-Roman and anti-Jewish, not a sensible position to preach to Jews from, in 90 CE, of all moments in history!
See also "The Epistles of John", thoroughly Gnostical works that preach a very different theology from either "The Gospel of John" or even "The Book of Revelation", though the latter's eschatology is comparable. The likelihood that these epistles, which date from the 2nd century CE, were written by the John of the Gospel should be rated somewhere between nought and zero.
And finally "The Acts of Barnabus", a pseudepigraphical work under the theoretical authorship of "the Apostle John Mark", purporting to tell the last years of Paul's travelling-companion Barnabus. It is now reckoned to have penned in the 5th century CE.
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