Which is the earliest written Gospel?

Answer 1

It depend on whether you mean time on earth, or time in heaven.

Matthew begins by stating the geneology of Jesus, then it skips to his birth.

Mark begins around the time Jesus' ministry began (when He was around 30).

Luke begins about a year and a half before the birth of Jesus.

John begins by stating Jesus was present at creation; then it skips to the ministry of John the Baptist (just before Jesus began his ministry).

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Answer 2

It is generally agreed among modern scholars and liberal theologians that Mark was the earliest gospel written. Evidence of this is that both Matthew and Luke are clearly sourced from Mark. Whenever they agree with Mark, they do so in the same sequence and often in almost the same language in the original Greek. Other evidence, such as Luke's "Missing Block" guarantees a literary connection. The scholars say that a study of the three synoptic gospels shows that Mark's Gospel could not have been sourced from either Matthew's Gospel or Luke's Gospel, and that Matthew and Lukeare too contradictory on non-Markan details for either to be copied from the other, so the only explanation for the literary connection among the synoptic gospels is that Mark was first.

Answer 3

Mark's Gospel was the first of the New Testament gospels to be written.

That it was the first gospel can be established by several lines of evidence, but the most compelling is that the other three gospels relied on Mark, directly or indirectly, for everything told about the mission of Jesus.

Scholars say that Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark's Gospel. For example, Matthew contains 600 of the 666 verses in Mark, following the same order and with almost exactly the same wording in the Greek language. So, it is natural that most of what is in Mark is also in Matthew. Luke's Gospel contains a "Missing Block" that seems to have comprised about thirteen pages of Greek text, resulting in an incongruous passage in Luke, where it joins the verse preceding the Missing Block to the verse that followed it. Otherwise, Luke also follows Mark quite closely. Furthermore, it can be demonstrated conclusively that Markwas the gospel being copied, rather than the reverse.

There is some material that Matthew and Luke do have in common but which does not come from Mark. These are sayings attributed to Jesus, which are believed to have come from the hypothetical sayings document called 'Q'. As Q did not provide any context for the sayings, each author had to create his own context of time and place, for Jesus to tell us those sayings.

John's Gospel was inspired by Luke, but also has a few passages taken directly from Mark. The author followed his sources less closely, but was usually careful not to directly contradict Luke.

Mark's gospel was written when the destruction of the Temple had already taken place, or just before the event, when it was clear that the Romans intended to destroy the Temple. For scholars, this is evidenced by an apparent prophecy of the destruction of the Temple in Mark 13:2, 'And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou those great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.' Jesus went on later to tell the disciples that they would personally experience social turmoil and persecution, there would be earthquakes and 'But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken and then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.' He concluded by saying, 'Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.' An oblique reference to the Book of Daniel implies that the predicted end of times would occur within about four years of the destruction of the Temple.

So, we have two related 'prophecies' in one short passage. Either Jesus prophesied both events, or he prophesied neither. But, we now know that the end of the world, with the Son of man returning in the clouds with great power and glory, did not occur within the lifetimes of his listeners. To attribute this prophecy to Jesus is to attribute to him the inability to make accurate predictions. The alternative is that the author of Mark's Gospel put these words in the mouth of Jesus, because he knew at the time of writing that the Temple and the great buildings really had been destroyed. That provides the most direct evidence for the date of authorship of Mark's Gospel - within two or three years of the end of the Roman-Jewish War in 70 CE. The other gospels were written between 80 CE and the early years of the second century. All were anonymous, but were attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century, when the Church Fathers sought to establish who probably wrote each of the gospels.

Answer 4

There is still a debate on this issue. The early Church held that Matthew was responsible for the first Gospel. However there are many who consider Mark to be the first writer.

Answer 5

luke is the longest of the four gospels