Where did the gospel writers that were not not disciples get their gospel?

Answer 1

A:The four New Testament gospels are traditionally attributed to the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Of these, Matthew and John were recorded as disciples of Jesus, but Mark and Luke were not. In fact, the gospels were originally written anonymously and were only attributed to the persons whose names they now bear later in the second century. Scholars say that none of the gospels could have been written by an eyewitness to the events they portray, and we do not really know who wrote any of the gospels.

As the gospels began to be studied by the Church Fathers, they recognised a literary dependency among the synoptic gospels, such that two of them must have been copied from the third. Whenever the three gospels contain the same passage, they do so in the same sequence and often in exactly the same words in the Greek language, something that could not happen even if they were relying on a common oral source or a written source in Aramaic or Hebrew. The Church Fathers decided that Matthew was written first, Mark was a summary copy and that Luke was a fuller copy of Matthew.

The Church Fathers came close in their assumption, but biblical scholars now know that Mark's Gospel was the first New Testament gospel to be written, approximately 70 CE. Matthew and Luke were subsequent copies from Mark. The gospel now known as John's Gospel was also inspired by Luke's Gospel, with some material taken direct from Mark.

There is additional sayings material in both Matthew and Luke that is not found in Mark's Gospel. Scholars attribute this to the hypothetical 'Q' document, which both authors used as a further source. We do not know what sources, if any, that the authors of Matthew and Luke used for material unique to each of these gospels. In the view of Bishop Spong (Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Birth of Jesus), neither birth story contains any historical truth.

This leaves us with Mark's Gospel as the sole independent gospel about Jesus. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek. Parallels have been detected between Mark and Paul's letter to the Romans and 1 Corinthians. It could be that Mark's author wove his gospel around various key people (principally James, Peter and John) and key events that he found in Paul's epistles. Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) also sees close parallels between the Gospel and Homers epics, which he believes Mark's author used as sources for many gospel passages.