The Gospels were written by believers to help other believers, and to convert more believers, and to make sure that we all believe the same thing. It is PRIMARILY a text of FAITH for FAITH. Along with the rest of the Bible, they are not meant to be read literally as scientific truths, nor to be analyzed for facts. Rather, we read the Bible in order to know the Truth about our Faith, and to allow God to reveal Himself to us.

YouCat #15:

The Bible is not meant to convey precise historical information or scientific findings to us. Moreover, the authors were children of their time. They shared the cultural ideas of a world around them and often were so dominated by its errors. Nevertheless, everything that man must know about God and the way of his salvation is found with infallible certainty in Sacred Scripture.

However, because the Gospels are written in a specific period in time and record the life and works of a specific person who existed, we can subject it to historical analysis to decide whether it is authentic and credible.

Are the Gospels fake? Were the people who wrote the Gospels lying? Are the Gospels we are reading today the same as what the authors had written 2000 years ago?

Internal evidence: Literary style of eyewitness historical accounts.

Luke 1:1-4 – “My dear Theophilus, Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us. They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message. And so, Your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.”

1John 1:1-3 – “We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning. We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes; yes, we have seen it. And our hands have touched it. When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us. What we have seen and heard we announce to you also, so that you will join with us in the fellowship that we have with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Source: Zuckeran, Patric. “Historical Reliability of the Gospels” EvidenceandAnswers.Org 16 November 2008 [retrieved from http://evidenceandanswers.org/article/historical-reliability-of-the-gospels/ on 07 July 2018]

So how do we know they weren’t lying? Could it be that the apostles and evangelists just invented stories about the resurrection, the miracles, and Jesus being the Son of God and all those “matters of faith” that we are supposed to believe?

1. There was no good reason for the Apostles to lie. Christianity was illegal until 313AD. To proclaim the Gospel and believe in Jesus used to be a death sentence.

2. If they were lying, no one would have believed them, especially not the Jews. For a person who was publicly tortured and killed to come back to life is too unbelievable. But a lot of people believed and still believe up to now.

3. Jesus is not the first person to claim to be the Son of God, nor was He the last. But He is the only one in all of history that has billions of people believing this to be true, even 2000 years after He died.

Belief in Jesus Christ and the Gospels is a matter of faith. A person who refuses to believe will never accept any “evidence” about the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ from our Scripture and Tradition. But we who receive and accept the gift of faith can trust in the Gospels, the Evangelists, and the Apostles, that they were telling and writing the truth in our Scriptures. This is not only supported by our faith tradition in the Church, but by critical analysis of documentary evidence as applied to any historical account.

An ancient and often unknown tradition underpins these traditional Christian motifs.

One of the most common motifs of Christian art is the almost omnipresent Tetramorph. From the Greek tetra (“four”) and morphé (“form,” or “shape”) the word applies, in general, to any representation of a set of four elements.

But in Christian art, the Tetramorph refers almost exclusively to the most common way to depict the four Evangelists, each one of them either accompanied or represented by a figure, three of them being animals and only one (the one that either accompanies or represents Matthew) human or, more often than not, a winged angelic figure.

Such images, unlike some other traditional zoomorphic motifs of Christian art, have biblical bases. They correspond to the vision of the so-called “four living beings” of Ezekiel: the prophet describes four beings: “As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle” (Ezekiel 1:10). This tetramorph bore the throne or chariot of the Lord. One can only wonder where Ezekiel got such complex images from.

We all know the combination of different beings and symbols was quite common in ancient Egypt, as well as in ancient Mesopotamia. Let us remember the Egyptian sphinxes, winged Babylonian bulls and Greek harpies. Interestingly Ezekiel himself was one of the Jewish prophets who lived during the exile in Babylon around the 6th century before Christ, so his vision could have been influenced (Bible scholars claim) by the ancient motifs of Assyrian art, in which these combinations were indeed quite common.

The Revelation of John (that is, the book of the Apocalypse) echoes the vision of Ezekiel in its fourth chapter: “And the first beast was as a lion, the second beast as a calf, the third beast had the face of a man, and the fourth beast was like an eagle.”

Now, why are these creatures assigned to a specific Evangelist? Why is the eagle paired with John, for instance? There are compelling and convincing reasons, associated with the particularities of the Gospels of each author, according to St. Jerome. Look for these four symbols in pictures of the Evangelists, or by themselves decorating the front of Gospel books and pulpits.

• Matthew is associated with the winged man, or the angel, because his Gospel focuses on the humanity of Christ, St. Jerome affirms. Matthew’s Gospel includes a narrative regarding the genealogy of Jesus.

• The lion is related to St. Mark because his Gospel emphasizes the majesty of Christ and his royal dignity, just as the lion has traditionally been regarded as the king of beasts. Mark’s Gospel begins with the prophetic voice of John the Baptist, crying out in the wilderness like a lion’s roar.

• Luke gets the ox, because his Gospel focuses on the sacrificial character of Christ’s death, and the ox has always been a sacrificial animal par excellence, both for Judaism and Roman paganism.

• John, finally, is associated with the eagle for two reasons: first, because his Gospel describes the Incarnation of the divine Logos, and the eagle is a symbol of that which comes from above. The second, because like the eagle, John, in his Revelation, saw beyond what is immediately present. They don’t call St. John the Evangelist “the Eagle of Patmos” for nothing!

Esparza, Daniel. "Ox, eagle, lion, man: Why and how are the Evangelists associated with these creatures?" Aleteia, 20 Aug 2019, https://aleteia.org/2019/08/20/ox-eagle-lion-man-why-and-how-are-the-evangelists-associated-with-these-creatures/

1) Material found only in the Fourth Gospel (John), not in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke)

Prologue (1:1-18)

"Signs," beginning with the Wedding at Cana (2:1-12)

Jesus Dialogues with Nicodemus (2:23–3:21)

Jesus and/or his Disciples Baptize People (3:22-26; 4:1-2)

Jesus Encounters the Samaritan Woman at the Well (4:1-42)

Jesus Heals a Sick Man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-18)

New Details at the Feeding of the 5000 (6:1b, 3-6, 8-9, 12b, 14-15)

Bread of Life Discourse (6:22-65)

[Woman caught in Adultery (7:53–8:11) - added later]

Jesus Gives Sight to a Man Born Blind (9:1-41)

Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead (11:1-44)

Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet (13:1-20)

"Disciple Whom Jesus Loved" (13:23-25; 19:26-27; 20:2-10; 21:7, 20-24; cf. 18:15-16?)

Last Supper Discourses, incl. "Paraclete" & "Vine and Branches" (13:31–16:33)

Great Prayer of Jesus (17:1-26)

New Details at the Trial before Pilate (18:28–19:16)

New Details at the Crucifixion (19:20-24, 26-28, 30-37, 39)

First Resurrection Appearance to Mary Magdalene alone (20:11-18; cf. Matt 28:9)

Risen Jesus Appears to Thomas (20:24-29)

Risen Jesus Appears again at the Sea of Tiberias/Galilee; Dialogue between Jesus & Peter (21:1-25; cf. Luke 5:1-11)

First and Second Endings to John's Gospel (20:30-31; 21:24-25)

2) Material familiar from the Synoptics, but not found in John

• No Infancy Narrative (but see John 1:14 - "the Word became flesh")

• No Childhood Episodes (but see 1:12; 13:33; 21:5 - believers are called "children")

• No Baptism of Jesus (but see 1:19-34 - John testifies about Jesus)

• No Temptation in the Desert (but see 8:44; 13:2, 27 - the role of Satan & the Devil)

• No Calls to Repentance (but see 1:29; 5:14; 9:41; 15:22; 20:23 - on sin and forgiveness)

• No Sermon on the Mount; no Beatitudes (but see 13:17; 20:29 - Jesus calls believers "blessed")

• No Lord's Prayer (but see 17:1-26 - the Great Prayer of Jesus)

• No List of "Twelve Apostles" (but see 13:16 - messengers; 1:35-51; 6:67-71; 20:24; 21:2 - disciples; "the Twelve")

• No Mission of the Disciples during Jesus' Lifetime (but see 13:20; 14:12; 20:21 - the risen Jesus sends them out)

• No Parables (but see 10:6; 15:1-8; 16:25, 29 - a few "paroimia" or "figures of speech")

• Few "Kingdom of God" Teachings (only 3:3-5; cf. 1:49; 6:15; 12:13-15; 18:33-39 - Jesus' role as "King of Israel")

• Few "Ethical" Teachings (only 13:34-35; 15:12, 17; cf. 14:21-24 - "Love One Another" and "Love Jesus/God")

• Few Predictions of Jesus' Return (only 14:3; 21:22-23 - Jesus will "come again" or "come" to believers )

• No Exorcisms (but see 7:20; 8:48-52; 10:19-21 - Jesus is accused of having a "demon")

• No Transfiguration Story (but see 1:45; 3:14; 5:45-47; 9:28-29 - Jesus is associated with Moses)

• No Passion Predictions (but see 5:18; 11:50-53 & 18:14; 12:24-25, 32-33; 18:31-32 - talk of Jesus' death)

• No Institution of Eucharist at the Last Supper (but see 6:22-59; 13:1-20 - Bread of Life discourse; Washing of Feet)

• No Ascension Narrative (but see 3:13; 6:62; 20:17 - Jesus talks about descending and ascending)

"So What?" - Questions for Reflection and Discussion:

1. Why does the Fourth Gospel omit so many stories found in the Synoptic Gospels?

2. Does the Fourth Evangelist presume that the reader knows the material contained in the Synoptics?

3. What is the significance of all the new material found only in the Fourth Gospel?

4. What is the significance of the changes or additions made in the stories found both in John and the Synoptics?

See full content: https://catholic-resources.org/John/Synoptic-Differences.htm