Non-canonical gospels

A gospel is a written account of the career and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. The word originated as a contraction from old English "god spel" meaning "good news", "glad tidings (of the kingdom of God)" and is comparable to the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, evangelion) The word originally meant the Christian message itself, but in the 2nd century it came to be used for the books in which the message was set out.

The four gospels of the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — are almost our only source of information on Jesus, and thus occupy a uniquely important place in Christianity. For various reasons modern scholars are cautious of relying on them uncritically, nevertheless, they do provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later authors.

In the immediate aftermath of Jesus' death his followers expected him to return at any moment, and certainly within their own lifetimes. In consequence there was little motivation to write anything down for future generations, but as eyewitnesses began to die, and as the missionary needs of the church grew, there was an increasing demand and need for written versions of the founder's life and teachings. The stages of this process can be summarised as follows:

Given this history, it is almost certain that none of the four gospels were written by eyewitnesses. Evidence of this can be seen in the conflicts between them: to take a few examples, according to the synoptic gospels, Jesus' mission took one year, was spent primarily in Galilee, and climaxed with a single visit to Jerusalem at which he cleansed the Temple of the money-changers, while in John, Jerusalem was the focus of Jesus' mission, he visited it three times (making his mission last three years rather than one), and the cleansing of the Temple took place at the beginning rather than the end of the ministry.

The first three gospels are called the "synoptics", from a Greek phrase meaning "seen together", because they put the events of Jesus' life in the same order and have many of the same stories and sayings, often in the same or very similar words.

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