The gospels took their written form after Paul’s letters, and they bear the mark of the letters that came first. Luke composed his gospel from a written source known as “Old Mark” or Ur-Markus, and from what scholars call “Source Q.”1 The author of the Gospel of Mark itself cannot be identified by historians. Matthew wrote his gospel on the basis of Ur-Markus (the theory of Marcan priority) and also drew on Source Q.
“Old Mark” is a hypothetical early version of the Gospel of Mark believed to have been used by Matthew and Luke. Source Q is a hypothetical written collection of the sayings of Jesus used by both Matthew and Luke alongside Mark.
It is thought to have consisted mainly of sayings or teachings of Jesus, a written collection of his sayings circulating in the early Christian community. Its existence is inferred from the marked similarity of content and wording between passages in Matthew and Luke that are absent from Mark, the “double tradition.”
That is why the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke share so many identical sentences and words, along with their contradictions. The three are known as the Synoptic Gospels.
A Hebrew Matthew #
Although the canonical gospels show mutual influence and overlapping sources, a text survives outside the Graeco-Roman mainstream that reflects continuity with the original Semitic teaching. A Hebrew version preserved in medieval Jewish manuscripts shows traces of an early Semitic tradition independent of the Greek text. It uses the name form Yeshu (ישו) and lacks the theological exaltations of the Greek version.2
The high Christological phrases common in the canonical gospels are absent or dropped in this version, as if reflecting a view closer to the linguistic and doctrinal context of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him.3 Though written in Hebrew, and in none of the Aramaic he spoke, its content and manner plainly reflect continuity with an early Semitic tradition free of Hellenistic theology.
The Gospel of John #
What of the Gospel of John? Consider the following:4
1. The Gospel of John stands outside the Synoptic collection because its content and history differ so greatly. In Christian belief it was written by John, the beloved disciple of Jesus Christ,5 identified as John the son of Zebedee, brother of James the son of Zebedee and one of the twelve.
2. Herod Agrippa I executed James the son of Zebedee in 44 CE, and an early tradition has his brother John killed by the Jews as well, whereas the Gospel of John was written only around 100 CE. The gospel was therefore very probably written by John the Presbyter, a church elder in Anatolia who lived in the first century, and who wrote it to oppose the teaching of Cerinthus.
The Gospel of Matthew #
Return to the question of the authorship of Matthew. He is said to have written his gospel around 60 CE, some 30 years after the departure of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. Thirty years is a long time to recall events, let alone to write down someone’s exact words.
How did he know the story of the wise men who came from the east to Islamicjerusalem and were said to have seen a star in the sky marking the birth of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?6 Was Matthew present?
How did he know the dialogue between Joseph, the husband of Maryam, and the angel?7 Did it not come, in the first place, by word of mouth?
That is why world history records that there were once nearly 70 kinds of gospel besides the four accepted by most Christians today (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, together with Paul’s letters). Because of the church council held in Rome in the fourth century, in 382 CE,8 every gospel that opposed the gospels agreeing with Paul was banned, and the remainder were labeled “secret readings,” the apocryphal literature. The canon was assembled a priori: the gospels that agreed with Paul were kept and the rest banned, and his influence, so entrenched in the text, became the basis of a new theology that began to dominate Christian teaching.
The new covenant #
Paul introduced the concept of a “new covenant,” rooted in Jewish covenant ideas but reshaped to stress redemption through Jesus. He writes:
6ὃς καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος ἀλλὰ πνεύματος, τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτέννει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ.
6Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.9
Paul stresses a transition from the old covenant based on written law (the Torah) to a new covenant based on the Spirit, a fundamental change in religious practice toward inner spirituality and away from outward legalism. In the Jewish context the old covenant meant strict obedience to the law revealed through Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-salām). Paul introduced the idea that religious life should center on the life-giving Holy Spirit.
Paul held that the written law can lead to death, because it can become a rigid system hard to obey and ending in condemnation, whereas the Spirit gives life by letting the believer internalize God’s will and live by it through a personal relationship with God. He presents himself and the other apostles as ministers of the new covenant, whose mission is to spread a message of Jesus Christ centered on grace and faith in place of strict observance of the law. The shift also widened Christian acceptance to Gentiles and made the faith less tied to Jewish custom and law.
- “Q” stands for the German Quelle, “source.” See Raymond E. Brown, op. cit. ↩
- See George Howard, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1987), pp. vii, xviii–xix, xxiii. ↩
- ibid. ↩
- H. Djarnawi Hadikusuma, Sekitar Perjanjian Lama dan Perjanjian Baru (Yogyakarta: Pimpinan Pusat Muhammadiyah, 1986), pp. 69ff. ↩
- John 13:23, 21:20. ↩
- Matthew 2:1–2. ↩
- Matthew 1:20–21. ↩
- The Gelasian Decree (Decretum Gelasianum), promulgated by Pope Gelasius I (492–496), lists the books the Catholic Church regarded as canonical and apocryphal. ↩
- 2 Corinthians 3:6 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
