Of What Should a Gospel Consist?

Of what should a Gospel consist?

Of course, a Gospel dictated word-for-word by God would consist of whatever God chose, and far be it from us to question divine choices.  But if the inspiration was more indirect, or even if the Gospel was man-made, of what then should it consist?

Would we not expect that a proper Gospel—meaning an instructive Life of Jesus, sincerely intended—be similar to any other biography?  Would it not contain a selection of events, drawn from a nearly endless source of events too numerous or inconsequential to mention?

Would not this Gospel—that is, biography—reflect the expectations and biases of the author?  Would not the author be liable to misconstrue some events?

Would not the author need to put the narrative in an historical context?  Would not the author be subjected to the limitations or flights of his or her imagination?

And so we have such Gospels from which to read.  (Assuming, of course, that the non-existence of original autographs, the puzzles of tongues no one speaks anymore, and the differences of the Gospels one from another are taken, ultimately, to mean that the word-for-word possibility is discounted.)

And so, again, we have such Gospels from which to read.

As alluded to above, the Gospels relate certain events and leave out many others.  Might different decisions and actions by myriad people over many centuries have created civilizations more attuned than ours to the Gospels’ content, or less?

We have Gospels that, as mentioned above, reflect the expectations and biases of the authors—or perhaps rightly challenge our own expectations or biases.  And as far as misconstruing events—some mysteries we might never crack.

And lastly there are the considerations of historical context and of the context of the authors’ worldviews.  People of the ancient world believed in heavenly dominion over events and in dominions on earth populated by innumerable invisible or ghostly beings.  Do we not see in the Gospels’ introductions and epilogues relative parallels to modern biographers’ conjectures about persons’ origins and legacies?  Do not the ghosts of modern biographers’ worldviews dance about in fancied interplay with the authors’ subjects?

And most importantly, are we not occasionally treated to the spectacle of a modern biographer wrestling mightily with the treatment of his or her subject?  This blog will try to discover if Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (so-called) were engaged in a similar struggle.