What is included in the four gospels of the Bible?

Answer 1

This is an interesting question. Each gospel tells the "same" story, in the sense that they agree:

Jesus was born as a child, He became a rabbi and began a ministry, He chose disciples, He performed miracles, He preached with incredible authority, He gained popularity but that was not His overall goal, He predicted several times He would be killed by Israel's highest authority, the authorities in Israel were divided over Him with many coming to despise and fear Him, eventually there was a conspiracy leading to His arrest, trial and illegitimate execution by Roman crucifixion, the disciples fell into despair at His death, later the women who spent years with Jesus found His tomb empty, He appeared to the disciples and they began to realize that He had come to be a sacrifice to save them from sin forever and that He gave the disciples the command to share His story and baptize them as believers before He left the earth to "be with the Father."

Now, the gospels, though at least 3 of them appear to borrow material from each other, do share uniquely different viewpoints of the same story. Roughly speaking,

Matthew's gospel is a good resource for the Jews (or Hebrews) to understand Jesus. He quotes from the Old Testament (which the Jews were intimately familiar with) more than any other gospel writer. He demonstrates how Jesus was indeed the fulfillment of the ancient promises that a Messiah would come. An example is that He puts a genealogy of Jesus right in the beginning of His gospel which shows the very properly Jewish, patriarchal line of Jesus' birth.

Mark's gospel is "simpler," containing key essences of Jesus' ministry including that He was a miracle worker and the Son of God come as a sacrifice. It appears to be directed more toward a non-Jewish audience as it does not use strictly Jewish terms that might confuse non-Jews. Mark also uses some Latin phrases which make it seem as though His gospel was made to help the Romans understand Jesus.

Luke wrote his gospel in Greek and was himself an educated Gentile (non-Jew). His gospel has a genealogy of Jesus, however it does not bother to trace Jesus' lineage through famous Jewish men and it is not placed "front and center" in the beginning of the gospel. On the other hand, it is incredibly detailed and includes many intricate descriptions of events. This makes scholars think it was probably for Greeks, indeed the beginning of the book says that Luke had decided to write an "orderly account" of what went on with Jesus and Luke addresses the letter to a person "Theophilus." This word means "lover of knowledge" and so it may be a pseudonym for some important or wealthy Greek or Roman of status, or possibly to any person who was interested in "knowledge" of something great which had taken place. This is very Greek: they would not be familiar with ancient Jewish scripture, so Luke goes light on this, nor would they know as much about the Messiah. What wold they want? Facts, details, descriptions and "knowledge" of the events which Luke gives in abundance.

john's gospel is quite an amazing work. In a sense, it is the most artistic and interpretive gospel, which is not to say that it takes improper liberties with Jesus' story, but it really illuminates the glory of who Jesus really is. John opens up not with a genealogy nor cold, hard facts, but a list of theological associations between Jesus and His true purpose. John uses metaphors like light, for example, to show Jesus as a special person sent from God to illuminate truth to a darkened world.

In these ways, the gospels all share the same story but each author's unique viewpoint helps to describe in full the many dimensions of Jesus' complex legacy.