Transcript Document

The Gospel
Writers
The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)
are the first four books of the New Testament.
All of them tell the story of Jesus’ life, even
though none of writers actually knew Jesus
when he was alive. These stories were written
many years after Jesus had died. Each Gospel
has a different way of telling what happened,
and what it all means.
Each Gospel tells the story of Jesus,
however they tell it in four different ways.
Each Gospel book has the name of a male
writer; so many people think that each
book’s author must have been a first
century man from Palestine who had that
name.
There are many different scholars who look
at who might have written the Gospels.
Some believe that men named Mark,
Matthew, Luke or John wrote the texts.
Others believe that each Gospel shows
writing from one main writer, and other
people added smaller parts to this.
The Gospel of
Matthew
The author of the Gospel of Matthew was
probably a Jewish person who followed
Jesus.
Scholars think that the author was Jewish
because in the stories and texts the writer
shows that they knew about Jewish law,
the Prophets and the Old Testament.
These were important to the author of Matthew
and must also have been important to the people
who he shared the message with. So the audience
was probably Jewish followers of Christ as well.
Today many people think that the Gospel of
Matthew was probably written between 85 and
90 C.E, which is years after the death of Jesus. But
we can never really be sure of the exact dates the
Gospels were written. Our task is to be ‘Scripture
Detectives’ and look for clues in the Gospels.
Matthew wanted to give the people of his time a
record of Jesus’ message and ministry.
He had a special
interest in showing
how the coming of
Jesus fulfilled the
expectations of the
Jewish people in the
Old Testament for a
Messiah
The Gospel of
Luke
Luke’s Gospel is book one in a two-book
set. The book of Acts is the other book in
the New Testament that is said to be
written by Luke.
The author of Luke’s Gospel wanted to
write an account of Jesus’ life for his
readers.
At the start of the Gospel, Luke says who he is
writing for – a man called Theophilus:
So I made a careful study of everything and then
decided to write and tell you exactly what took
place. Honorable Theophilus (Luke 1: 3-4)
Luke was a Gentile, which meant he was
not Jewish, and so his audience was
probably Gentile as well.
The author of Luke wanted to show that
Jesus had loved and cared for the poor and
the weak.
There are 3 main groups of people that
Luke had Jesus meet in the Gospel
• the poor
• the outcast
• and women
The poor
In Luke’s Gospel Jesus made people think
about how the world worked where the
rich were important and the poor didn’t
matter. In the stories of Jesus, the rich are
challenged to give up this way of life.
An example is the story of Zacchaeus, who
was a rich and corrupt tax collector. In the
story Jesus meets with Zacchaeus and then
he asks for forgiveness and gives half of
what he owns to the poor.
The outcasts
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus met with many
people who were pushed away from
society.
In the Gospel of Luke the writer shows
Jesus mixing with people who were not
liked in his time:
• tax collectors - who were disliked
because they worked for the Roman
occupiers
• the Samaritans - a neighbouring country
• and lepers - who unclean, so were often
feared and kept out of the community.
Women
In Jesus’ day, women were seen as not being as
important as men. They weren’t allowed to
testify in court, and they did not usually go to
school.
Luke’s Gospel shows how Jesus treated
women differently, by teaching them,
including them, and treating women in
need with care and love.
There are many stories of women in the Gospel
of Luke, and Luke even begins his Gospel with
the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
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