What is the gospel? The word "gospel" is a tracing-paper (direct translation) of the Greek word "evangelion", which literally means "good news." The gospel is a text describing the life of Jesus Christ. The most famous of them are the four canonical Scriptures - the Gospel of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. However, this definition may describe apocryphal or non-canonical texts, Gnostic and Judeo-Christian gospels. In Islam, there is the concept of "Injil," used to refer to a book about Christ, which is sometimes translated as the "gospel." This is one of the four holy books of Islam, which is considered a divine revelation according to the Qur'an. Muslims are of the opinion that over time, Injil was reworked and distorted, as a result of which God sent the Prophet Muhammad to the earth to reveal to people the last book - the Qur'an.
Traditionally, Christianity highly values the four canonical Gospels, which are considered revelation of God and are the basis of the religious belief system. Christians claim that such a gospel provides an accurate and reliable picture of the life of Jesus Christ, but many scholars agree that not all scripture passages are historically accurate.
What is the gospel: Christian canonical writings
In antiquity, many texts were created that claimed a reliable description of the life of Christ, but only four of them were recognized as canonical, that is, they became part of the New Testament. The insistent demand that these books be included in the canon, and not some others, was put forward in 185 by one of the Church Fathers, Irenaeus of Lyons. In his main work, Against Heresies, Irenaeus condemns various early Christian groups that recognized only one of the Gospels. Thus, Marcionites relied solely on the Gospel of Luke in the version of Marcion, and the Evionites, as far as is known, followed the Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew. There were also groups that adhered to scriptures of a later origin.
Irenaeus proclaimed that the four tests he put forward were the "pillar and affirmation of the Church." “It is impossible for there to be more or less than four,” he claimed, referring to the analogy with the four cardinal points and the four winds. His metaphor of the divine throne, which is supported by four beings with four faces (a lion, a bull, an eagle, and a man), was borrowed from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel and referred to the “quadrangular” Gospel. Ultimately, Irenaeus succeeded in making the Gospel of the Four Scriptures the only true one. He also supported the study of each scripture in the light of the rest.
At the beginning of the 5th century, the Catholic Church in the person of Innocent I recognized the biblical canon, which included the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which was already approved at some regional synods: the Roman Church Council (382), the Ippon Cathedral (393) and two Councils in Carthage (397 and 419). Thus, canon translated by St. Jerome in 382 on behalf of Pope Damas I became generally accepted.