A person who comes to the Christian faith first of all wonders if the gospel is what? Part of the Bible or a separate sacred text? In general, questions concerning the Gospel excited and excite the minds of not only ordinary Christians, but also priests. Let's try to figure out what the gospel is. This will help to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings of the scriptures in the future.
General information
In many sources, the Gospel is interpreted differently and different answers are given to the question of what the word Gospel means.
So, most often it is indicated that the Gospel is an early Christian scripture that tells about the life and work of Christ. Conventionally, the Gospel can be divided into canonical and apocryphal. When they talk about the canonical gospel, they mean that it is recognized by the church and included in the New Testament. His attribution is attributed to the apostles and is not in doubt. These scriptures are the basis of the Christian cult. In total, four canonical Gospels are distinguished - the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In general terms, the Gospels of Luke, Mark and Matthew coincide with each other and are called synoptic (from the word synopsis - joint processing). The fourth scripture, the gospel of John, is very different from the previous three. But everywhere it is indicated that the Gospel, in fact, is the first four books of the New Testament.
Bible and gospel are synonyms or not
Misinterpreting the Bible and the Gospel as synonyms.
The Gospels are parts of the New Testament, which most fully embraces the understanding of the world, virtues and postulates of Christianity. In turn, the Bible often means nothing more than the Old Testament. Although the New and Old Testaments are closely related to each other, the latter is Jewish scripture. Therefore, in the expression "the Bible and the Gospel" is meant the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Holy Gospel, therefore, can indeed be considered an early Christian scripture that combines narrative (narrative) and preaching elements.
History of creation
Initially, the different Gospels significantly contradicted each other, since everyone began to be created in the second half of the 1st century, that is, conditionally after the crucifixion of Jesus. There is nothing strange in this, since the authors of the Gospels who entered the New Testament belonged to different Christian communities. Gradually, four Gospels were singled out, which more or less coincided with each other and with Christian dogmas that were established by the 4th-5th centuries. Only the first three Scriptures that entered the canon coincide with each other in the matter of the preaching of Jesus and his life.
Coincidence in the Gospel Text and Scripture Analysis
Theologians and researchers estimate that the Gospel of Mark includes more than 90% of the material that is found in the other two Scriptures (for comparison, the percentage of coincidence in the Gospel of Matthew is almost 60%, in the Gospel of Luke - a little more than 40%).
From this we can conclude that it was written a little earlier, and the rest of the Gospels simply relied on it. Scientists also put forward the version that there was some kind of common source, for example, short records of Jesus' conversations. The Evangelist Mark came closest to them in writing. The Gospels have survived to the present in Greek, but it is obvious that Jesus did not use this language in sermons. The fact is that in Judea, the Greek was not in circulation among the broad masses of the people, as among the Egyptian Jews. For quite a long time, among scholars, the prevailing opinion was that the originals of the Gospels were written in Aramaic. During the First World War, biblical scholars did the so-called "reverse" translation of aphorisms from Scripture to Aramaic. According to the researchers, the result surprised everyone. What in Greek sounds like a text with an irregular rhythm, in Ramean sounds like poetic sayings with rhyme, alliterations, assonances and a clear, pleasant rhythm. In some cases, a pun was seen that Greek translators missed while working with the text. By examining the Gospel of Matthew, scholars have found direct confirmation that it was originally written in Hebrew.
This, in turn, indicates that the role of Hebrew in the life of the Jews of that time was significantly minimized. Christian literature, according to S.S. Averintseva, was born on the verge of completely different language systems - Greek and Aramaic-Jewish. These are different linguistic and stylistic worlds. The Gospel is a ritual text. It involves memorization and understanding of parts of the text, and not just reading.
Gospel world
The gospel is concentrated around the person of Jesus Christ, who embodies the fullness of the divine and human nature. The hypostases of Christ - the Son of Man and the Son of God - appear in the Gospels inseparably, but also not merging with each other. Evangelist John pays more attention to the Divine nature of Jesus, while the first three evangelists focus on his human nature, the talent of a brilliant preacher. Creating the image of Jesus, each of the evangelists sought to find their own relationship between the story of Jesus and His works and the news of Him. The oldest is considered the Gospel of Mark, which is placed in the New Testament second.