What gospel has a sense of mystery?

Answer 1

Each New Testament gospel, in its own way, has a sense of mystery.

Mark

The very first gospel, that now known as Mark's Gospel, contains many identifiable flags that could arguably have been intended to hide the mysteries of the early Church. We know that Gnostic Christians joined their Church as novices and were gradually told mysteries as they progressed towards being full initiates, when all the mysteries would be known to them.

Although Mark's Gospel is not traditionally associated with Gnostic Christianity, there has been a persistent rumour since earliest times, that a Secret Gospel of Mark does exist - this could have been a Gospel for initiates only. As for the known Gospel of Mark, each time a flag is identified, the early student could have been told its meaning and why the associated text was not intended to be read literally. For example, we know that Arimathea, the home town of Joseph of Arimathea, has never been identified. But Arimathea could mean "best disciple town" in Greek. This would be a play on words, because all the disciples deserted Jesus and only Joseph is portrayed as caring for him at his crudifixion. On that view, the flag could uncover the mystery that Arimathea did not exist, therefore Jospeh did not exist, and therefore there was no tomb in which the body was placed.

Matthew

Matthew's Gospel contains many parallels and allusions to the Old Testament. For example, the nativity story creates parallels with Moses of the Old Testament. Matthew's genealogy of Jesus even has the father of Joseph called Jacob, just as in the Old Testament. Matthew contains the mystery of the magi and the star of Bethlehem. The genealogy of Jesus introduces the mysteries of numerology, in this case with the propitious number 14. The author demonstrated that there were 14 generations: from Abraham to David; from David to Josiah; from Josiah to Jesus. To do this, he had to ignore 3 kings in the Old Testament and have David in the preceding (as 14) and following (as 1) groups, but not so Josiah.

Luke

Luke's Gospel sometimes puzzles biblical scholars with its apparent historical errors. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says the best explanation is that, although Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, sometimes he does so inaccurately.

A well-known mystery in Luke's Gospel, although not a mystical one, is the story of the census that led to Joseph and Mary travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Scholars say that there was only one census that involved Quirinius, and that occurred in 6 CE, yet the Gospel says that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, who died in 4 BCE. The genealogy of Jesus introduces the mysteries of numerology, in this case with the propitious number 7. The author demonstrated that great men occurred in multiples of 7 generations starting from Adam, with: Enoch at 7; Abraham at 21; David at 35; Jesus at 77. He also had: Joseph at 42 and 70; Jesus (Jose) at 49. To do this, he had to insert his own fictitious people into the Old Testament list: Kainan at 13; Admin at 28.

John

John's Gospel is believed to have originally been written in a Gnostic milieu and subsequently amended to make the Gospel more acceptable to what was becoming the major branch of Christianity. It uses images and concepts that were totally foreign to the earlier gospels, including the concept of Jesus as the pre-existing Word. The concept of the divine Word, or Logos, was developed in the pagan milieu by Greek philosophers and entered Judaism and then Christianity, via Philo of Alexandria. Whereas the synoptic gospels had the crucifixion occur on the day after the Passover feast, for John it occurred on the actual day of the Passover, so that he could expand on the imagery of Jesus as the paschal lamb.