Gospels Take the Central Part

Gospels take the central part of New Testament and take the central part of Christian moral and religious teaching.

As the clergymen say the purpose of Gospel is to perform the revival of the whole human and to make a renewal of human: "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3) The main theme of Gospel is "good news" about love of God to people such that if people start to believe in this love, they'll get the hope to be saved and live for the glory of God.

For Harold Kepming the main idea of Gospel lies in the following lines: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Being the central part of New Testament, gospel still represents quite free interpretation of Jesus Christ's life and his deeds, often interpreting events and facts that have historical, religious and dogmatic meaning from different perspectives, from different positions of ethical and philosophical teaching.

For many historians this is the evidence of just the beginning of Christian communities reorganization, which were spread all over the Mediterranean colonies of Roman Empire, into a hierarchal organization with firm and definite ideology, moral postulates and dogmas. Recent studies of Bible done in different times by scholars all over the world show that often gospels give contradictory interpretation of historical events, contradictory moral evaluation of different events, which leads to dogmatic cases and wrong interpretation of locations where the events took place.

Such minor issues, led to serious discussions and arguments already on the sunrise of Christian era. The purpose of gospel from Mark was to write the "history of Christ" as of the descendent of David and Abraham, who made true ancient prophecies given to Hebrews. The main purpose Mark had, was to give a brief and simple history of Christ's life and it was considered to be the most appropriate for people who stayed on the first step of Christian development.

The best evidence of it is that Mark's gospel pays more attention to those facts of Christ's being that witness his Devine all-mighty, his Holly power. Mark's gospel in details tells us about the miracles made by Christ, but it doesn't tell a lot about Christ's teaching.

The study of Randel Helms shows that the author of gospel of Mark was probably a Roman, who didn't have a good knowledge of Middle East geography, and especially of Palestine: Anyone approaching Jerusalem from Jericho would come first to Bethany and then Bethphage, not the reverse. This is one of several passages showing that Mark knew little about Palestine; we must assume, Dennis Nineham argues, that 'Mark did not know the relative positions of these two villages on the Jericho road' (1963, 294-295).

Indeed, Mark knew so little about the area that he described Jesus going from Tyrian territory 'by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the territory of the Ten Towns' (Mark 7:31); this is similar to saying that one goes from London to Paris by way of Edinburgh and Rome. The simplist solution, says Nineham, is that 'the evangelist was not directly acquainted with Palestine' (40)."(Helms, R.

Who wrote the gospels? p.6) Another important historical and ethical aspect that concerns the gospel of Mark, is biased description of Jews and justification of Romans (in particular case of Pilate), which seems to be quite strange and contradictive. Actually it seems that on the base of these observations of Mark's gospel the axiom of Christianity "Jews crucified Christ" was built.

This point had a very strong meaning in the ideology of Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages, and in many ways it explained anti-Semitic policy of catholic ideology and inquisition. In comparison to gospel of Mark, the gospel of John has deeper philosophical and ethical ideas, which differentiate it from other gospels. Gospel of John was written already after the disciple's death in the first century CE.

It was time when there was coming a vivid schism in Christianity teaching, as Christian philosophy was influencing changes caused by the impact of Gnosticism of Greeks, and it was time when some Christian religious leaders rejected the Devine mission of Christ. In gospel, John comes to the original language used by Jesus Christ, He used when speaking to disciples, language close to original one of Palestine and to the events of that epoch.

John tried to deliver the message to reader that was preached by Jesus Christ to his disciples explaining main moral and ethical aspects of Christianity, the core teaching one has to follow in order to receive salvation. The gospel of John is something more than a simple story about Christ's miracles, and simple faith in his all-mighty Devine nature, it's moral, its ethics and it's philosophy of the right way of life in Christ. These features make gospel of John to stand apart from other gospels.

The words of Jesus about himself are different from those we find in other gospels, as they show the essence of Jesus. To prove it George Ladd uses the following quotes: "Jesus said unto them.

I am the bread of life (6:35) I am the door of the sheep (10:7) I am the good shepherd (10:11) I am the light of the world (8:12) I am the resurrection, and the life (11:25)" and what is most important: "Before Abraham was born, I am (8:58)," which is the central point of Christian theology that Jesus Christ is not a prophet like Moses was, but is God. Besides, the vocabulary of John is different from that used in other gospels.

On the hand with such words as "eternal life," "light and darkens" he uses those which are not typical for texts of other disciples' gospels: "love" "to love," "truth," "witness" and especially "to believe in." Besides John doesn't use the following words that we observe in texts of other gospels: "power," "miracle," "pray," "parable." (according to Ladd's Theology of New Testament) As we can see the specific vocabulary witnesses the spiritual meaning of John's gospel and its orientation on the salvation of the human soul, not a simple believe as Luke says: "Blessed is the one who believes..."(Luke 1:41-45) It would be really difficult to disagree that.