Slight Differences Between Gospel Truths Quiz

Answer: Matthew

Matthew 5:17 - "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Part of Matthew's recounting of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, this moment really only appears in this form in the Gospel of Matthew. In the story here, Jesus ascends a mountain to tell his followers of the ethics of Christianity at the top, listing them in what is regarded as the Beatitudes. After this, Jesus descends the mountain and Matthew recounts his miracles.

A similar story appears in the Gospel of Luke, but in his recounting, Jesus sermonizes when he descends the mountain-- it's referred to as the Sermon on the Plain.

Answer: Matthew

Ultimately, the Gospel of Matthew, placed first in the order, appears to bridge the gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament, being the most highly referential to the original text. By comparison, the Gospel of Matthew contains nearly as many direct quotes from the Old Testament as the other three Gospels combined.

The contents of the Gospel of Matthew certainly lean to that text as many believe he was trying to draw parallels between Jesus and his story's rooting in the Jewish faith. While many of Matthew's motives behind this are interpreted differently by Biblical scholars, it's likely that the Old Testament and this history of the Jewish people were an effective route by which Jesus' life, teachings, and miracles could be reconciled for a then-new approach to their chosen faith.

While the other Gospels draw from the same source, their efforts at recontextualization seem to intentionally pull further from that original test.

Answer: Matthew

There are two instances within the Gospels in which Jesus' lineage is tracked back, and while both have striking similarities, Matthew's recounting of lineage only stretches back to Abraham while Luke's tracks Jesus' ancestry back to Adam, the first man.

In the Gospel of Matthew, this lineage already somewhat extensive as his recounting meticulously tracks back through numerous figures in the Bible-- everyone from Abraham to Isaac to King David, through the Kings of Judah until their exile from Babylon, all the way down to Mary and Joseph. The Gospel of Luke goes all the way back to the insistence that Jesus is the Son of God, passing his lineage through Adam, Seth, and other Biblical figures like Methuselah and Noah (of the Ark).

There are certainly divergences between the two accounts-- Matthew preferred to focus on Jesus as descending through a royal lineage while Luke preferred to depict him as a sacred man of the people.

Answer: Mark

While this is a long-debated fact about the gospels, synoptic scholars often point to the Gospel of Mark as being the progenitor of the gospels as a whole, even though they were all written over a forty year period in the first century AD. Referred to as Marcan priority, this understanding of the gospels suggests that the core story of Mark is the most common basis from which the others built their recounts; 97% of the content of Mark's gospel appears in Matthew and Luke's with very little not being reused.

But there are some that believe Mark being first out the gate isn't...erm... gospel. Matthaean priority puts the earliest work on the one that's most allusive to the Old Testament while Lukan priority leaves it in Luke's hands.

Answer: Mark

This is where it gets complicated. The Gospel of Mark is said to come from Mark, but Mark was, in fact, John Mark, one of the followers of Paul the Apostle, who appears in Acts of the Apostles later in the New Testament. But the catch is, Mark never wrote the Gospel-- the actual writer is believed to be an anonymous figure who recorded Mark's recounting, and Mark's recounting is actually derived from the sermons of Saint Peter, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles, who's a common figure across all four of the Canonical Gospels.

And Peter got his flowers, too. Jesus gave Peter a prominent position as a follower, allowing him the status that allowed him to found what would become the Church of Rome and root Christianity deeper into European life. Saint Peter would eventually be regarded as the first Pope, dying in Vatican City mid-century, around the time when the Gospel of Mark was believed to be completed.

Answer: Mark

Presented as Mark 16:15, the phrase here is perhaps one of the best-known of the gospel, explaining the events that occurred upon the revelation that Jesus was resurrected, cementing his role as the Messiah to his followers and casting all doubt aside. Mark 16 commences with the discovery that the stone has been moved from its spot blocking the entrance to Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem (at what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) and proceeds to his appearances before Mary Magdalene and disciples on his route down the road.

Following 16:15, Jesus' former Apostles (minus Judas) head out into the world to share the good news and the word of Christ while Jesus ascends to Heaven.

Answer: Luke

Acts of the Apostles is believed to be a direct continuation of the Gospel of Luke, even being written by the same person, as indicated by a line indicating "The former treatise have I made". While the Gospel of Luke, like Matthew and Mark before it, recounts Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection, Acts picks up where the Gospel leaves off, following the proliferation of Christianity into the subsequent years.

The fact that these two books-- Luke and Acts-- act as companion pieces helps explain the intent behind Luke's writings. Like the other gospels, Luke uses Jesus' story to explain his importance and significance as the Messiah, but he proceeds to pull away from the Old Testament's roots a lot more than Matthew, using the opportunity not to remove Jesus from the Jewish faith, but to explain that Judaism as a whole rejected Jesus, considering him to be a false prophet.

Answer: Luke

Not only is the Gospel of Luke the longest of the four Canonical Gospels, it's the longest book in the entire New Testament, and when bundled together with Acts, it makes up more than a quarter of the New Testament. And this is keeping in mind, of course, that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all retreading the same basic story beats of Jesus' life and death; Luke just happens to be expanding more upon the original telling (believed to be Mark's, by most).

The length of the work is somewhat intentional; the Gospel of Luke was written to establish itself with a stable sense of veracity, being pulled from multiple eyewitness accounts. Luke, particularly, contains more unique content than the preceding two gospels because of these accounts.

Answer: Luke

"Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.' And they divided up his clothes by casting lots."

Luke 23:34 brings us this well-known line, given when Jesus is crucified. A particularly elaborative account of Jesus' trial and death, Luke 23 spans his time and judgment before Pilate and Herod, his procession to Golgotha whereupon he was placed on the cross, his death there, and his subsequent burial.

Luke 23:34 is unique to this gospel, even though the others lead to the same moment, and it's indicative of Luke's predilection towards showcasing Jesus' mercy and tenderness as the Messiah. Those who crucified Jesus were ignorant of both his true nature and the importance of the Christian faith, and not because of a lack of willingness to understand, but because they had never been given the truth.

Answer: John

Biblical scholars are in pretty much universal agreement on this timeline if only because the Gospel of John is reliant on the reader's understanding of the events of the previous three gospels. Instead of focusing on Jesus' birth, upbringing, and development into the Messiah, John does away with a historical take, focusing almost entirely on the theological teachings to be derived from Jesus' miracles, words, and actions.

In a contemporary setting, John's gospel is also regarded as potentially the least reliable, partly because, due to the timeline in which it was written, it would've been impossible for John -- John the Evangelist, himself -- to have been a direct eyewitness to Jesus' life and the events the other gospels attest to. It should come as no surprise that the contents of his texts elaborate on the meanings of recounted events and the lessons to be derived instead, and were likely supported, compiled, and presented by devout followers in John's orbit.

Answer: John

John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Yes, "In the beginning..." is not an unknown starting phrase in the Bible, and it's possible that the Book of John started this way to have an obvious parallel to the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. Since the Gospels start the New Testament, it's an apropos throwback, even if John is the fourth in the set.

John 1:1, despite being quite the well-known standalone line, has been heavily analyzed over the centuries if not because of its implications, then because of its grammar. Interpreting 'the Word' as Jesus is one route; interpreting 'the Word' as *A* God is another. This said, it remains one of the most powerful statements in the gospels and one of its most recognizable no matter which version of the Bible is taken as...well...gospel.

Answer: John

There are many miracles that Jesus performs across the gospels, but the story of Lazarus of Bethany is one of the key tales in the Gospel of John, and it's a handy one to tell as a matter of foreshadowing before Jesus' own resurrection.

A particularly important miracle to note, John's recounting (in John 11) indicates Jesus' ability to overcome death altogether, bringing the recently-deceased Lazarus back from four days in the tomb. It also happens to be the last of Jesus' miracles in this gospel, immediately preceding Jesus' own death and self-resurrection in Jerusalem.

So famous is the story of Lazarus that his name is used in art, media, and science to describe being restored from the dead.