A:Mark's Gospel was the first New Testament Gospel to be written and is now known to have been the major source used, directly or indirectly by the other three gospels in the New Testament. By discussing this Gospel first, it may be possible to gain a better understanding of the other gospels.
Mark's Gospel
The characteristic of Mark's Gospel comes from the literary genius of its author. Although superficially written in a rough, ungrammatical style, its author has been described as one of the greatest writers of his time. The Gospel consists of an overall chiastic structure, with a shorter chiastic structure for the last twenty four hours in the life of Jesus. The author developed an almost unique method of emphasis now known as Markan intercalation and used mimesis flags, an ancient Greek device often used to identify a source.
The last week in the life of Jesus begins at chapter 11 and forms a substantial part of the entire Gospel, with the inevitable crucifixion as its dominant theme. The Gospel's chiastic structure structure leads us inevitably to the crucifixion of Jesus.
Matthew's Gospel
The dominant theme specific to Matthew's Gospel is that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. More than any other gospel, it uses references to the Old Testament to show that the life of Jesus was foreshadowed or even prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures.
Luke's Gospel
A theme of Luke's Gospel is that the events surrounding the life of Jesus really happened, and that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. A further theme specific to Luke is that Christianity is for the poor. This Gospel characteristically seeks to place events in a historical context. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that while Luke likes to set his Christian drama in the context of well-known events from antiquity, he sometimes does so inaccurately.
John's Gospel
John's Gospel is the most theological of the New Testament gospels. An important theme characteristic of this Gospel alone, is that Jesus was divine and pre-existing. Thus, the Gospel even opens by saying that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Two other important themes were 'doubting Thomas' and the primacy of the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' over Peter. Based on this, athough it is no longer readily apparent to a casual reader, John's Gospel was what we could now call a political document.
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