Gospel meaning (what is it, concept and definition)

What is the Gospel:

The gospel is a set of 4 books contained in the New Testament where it narrates the life, teaching and miracles of Jesus Christ. The word gospel is of Latin origin "evagelium " and, this in turn comes from the Greek " evanghélion ", it is made up of 2 words " ev " which means " good " and " angelos " which expresses " messenger ", so Therefore, it means " good news or happy message" .

The 4 books that make up the New Testament are from the evangelists Lucas, Mateos, Juan and Marcos, which are known as the canonical gospels and, in each ecclesiastical celebration, one or more chapters are shared with believers in order to reason life of Jesus Christ and the teachings he left. Also, there is no clear idea about the writing of the gospels, that is, if they were written in Aramaic or Greek, what you have is a great certainty is that the gospels were not composed by themselves since the evangelists corresponded in one humble class and, therefore, did not know how to read or write, especially if they were settled by some followers of Jesus, well educated and educated people.

As a consequence of the aforementioned, one can observe discordance in the Gospels with the written facts, for example: “in the book of John it indicates that Jesus had not yet ascended to heaven 2 days after his death, instead, in the book de Lucas expresses that Jesus would be on the same day of his death with the thief in paradise ”, also, there is a geographical confusion in the area of ​​Judea and Galilee, which is why it follows that the 4 books were not written directly by them or by direct disciples of Jesus.

On the other hand, for Catholics, the gospel not only means the 4 books that relate the life, teaching and sacrifice of Jesus to offer humanity salvation, it is also the good news of transforming the life of the individual who hears “the word of the Lord ”through the lesson that each one leaves and the commitment that the believer acquires to fulfill what is sent by the Lord.

However, each Gospel differently represents the life of Jesus, the gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as a king of the Jews; Mark's Gospel shows a Jesus as a servant to the Romans; likewise, in the gospel of Luke you can see a Jesus as a son of man to the Greeks and, finally, in the gospel of John it collects the teachings, actions of Jesus as well as his death and resurrection, observing a Jesus as the verb incarnate to all men.

Synoptic Gospels

The synoptic gospels are the 3 evangelists (Mark, Matthew and Luke) who present a similarity in the narration of the life of Jesus Christ and events, and can be read in parallel, as indicated by the word synoptics: "syn" means "together " and " Opsis" expresses "vision". Because of this, there is the synoptic problem which refers to the relationship between them and their disagreement since the books Matthew and Luke have great similarity compared to the Gospel of Matthew.

In order to solve the differences and similarities between the Gospels, several theories were developed, currently there is "the theory of the 2 sources" that has not yet been proven, indicating that the book Mark was the oldest gospel and served as a model for Mateos and Luke, from this derives the great similarity between the 3 books, but this postulate is not entirely correct since there exists between the Gospels of Mateos and Luke similar facts or situations that the book of Mark does not present. In relation to this problem, a “Q source” has been attributed that is considered a set of teachings or sayings of Jesus, without the presence of the narrative element and, from this it follows that it is the common material that the Gospels of Mateos and Luke and therefore cannot be found in the Gospel of Mark. In turn, the Gospel John was the last to be written in which a great difference is observed with the Gospels mentioned above.

For a better understanding, the “ Q source” comes from the German “ quelle ” which means “ source ”, it was formulated in the 1900s, it is derived from one of the current foundations of the modern school of the Gospel. Also, the “Q source ” may have been written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek, but as stated above, there is no clear idea of ​​the language in which the books were written.

Apocryphal Gospels and Canonical Gospels

The apocryphal gospels are written during the first centuries of Christianity, related to the life and teaching of Jesus, but they were not admitted to be part of the New Testament canon or books. Instead, the canonical gospels are the gospels of Mateos, Marcos, Juan and Lucas accepted by the Christian communities in order to be part of the canon or books of the New Testament.