To whom was each gospel written?

Answer 1

With the probable exception of Mark's Gospel, each gospel was written to a particular Christian community.

Matthew's Gospel is often said to have been written to the Jews, because of its more frequent use of Old Testament citations, but modern-day Jews see problems with this hypothesis. It is perhaps more likely that the gospel story was being challenged and the author who wrote Matthew did so in order to demonstrate antiquity for the background of the Christian gospel.

Luke's Gospel is addressed to Theophilus, but the book must have been written for a wider audience, including converts and potential converts. As with the author of Matthew's Gospel, this author had a copy of Mark's Gospel, but seems to have had a compelling reason for writing an improved version. In this case, he seems to have chosen more to demonstrate a historical background for the gospel, rather than its antiquity. Scholars say that Luke knew nothing of Matthew's Gospel, so each of these gospels must have been written to and originally circulated within a geographically limited community.

John's Gospel is considered to have been written originally for a community with Gnostic Christians tendencies. It is thought to have been subsequently modified to better suit what was becoming the dominant branch of Christianity.

The earliest of the gospels, that now attributed to Mark, seems not to have been addressed to a single community. It may even have been intended to demonstrate to the Roman authorities that what the earliest Christians believed was no strange superstition but was grounded in Judaism.

Answer 2

1. Matthew: Written to a Jewish audience, highlighting Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
2. Mark: Written to a Roman audience, emphasizing Jesus' actions and miracles to show his power.
3. Luke: Written to a Gentile audience, focusing on Jesus' compassion for all people.
4. John: Written to a universal audience, emphasizing Jesus' divinity and spiritual nature.

Answer 3

A:

The four New Testament gospels, now known as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are narratives about the life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Along with other gospels that are not included in the New Testament, they form a specific literary type of their own - they are gospels. Scholars say they differ from biographies because if a biography is found to be substantially untrue, then it is no longer a biography. On the other hand, if a gospel is found to be substantially untrue, then it is still a gospel.

The New Testament gospels were originally anonymous but were attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John later in the second century, with two of these writers, Matthew and John, thought to be disciples of Jesus. New Testament scholars now say that none of the gospels could have been written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed. Thus it remains as in the first century and early second century - we do not know who wrote the gospels.

Answer 4

It has long been assumed that the companion of Paul and physician, Luke, wrote a gospel that now bears his name and that he also wrote Acts of the Apostles, long regarded as a history of the early church. These books were originally anonymous, but the second-century Church Fathers sought to establish who, in their opinions, probably wrote each of the gospels. They realised that one ofthe gospels was written by the same evangelist as Acts, and believed that frequent references in Actsto the Apostle Paul must mean that the author knew Paul well. They also believed that the author had to be a gentile, because of the focus on a gentile point of view, and that he was at least moderately well educated. This reasoning seemed to narrow the candidates down until it seemed that the most likely author was Luke.

Scholars now realise that Luke was unlikely to have written either of these books. Not only were they written far too late for the lifetime of Luke, but there are too many inconsistencies between Paul's own accounts in his epistles and the supposed history in Acts. Most scholars say that Acts is a work of theology, not of history.