Where did the gospel story come from?

It would be easy to say that the gospel story came from Jesus, communicated to us by the disciples, particularly Matthew and John as authors of two of the four New Testament gospels. However, the facts uncovered by biblical scholars are more complex than that.

All the New Testament gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century. Scholars say that none of the gospels could really have been written by an eyewitness to the events they portray. The first gospel was the one now known as Mark's Gospel.

Scholars can demonstrate that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were largely based on Mark's Gospel, even having exactly the same Words in the Greek language. Matthew and Luke also shared a sayings source, now known as the hypothetical 'Q' document. Scholars also say that John's Gospel is loosely based on Luke's Gospel, with some material taken direct from Mark. So the synoptic gospel that was the starting point for the other gospels is Mark's Gospel.

It is uncertain where the author of Mark's Gospel obtained his source material. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) simply says that Mark seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek. John Dominic Crossan (The Birth of Christianity) also believes there was a Common Sayings Tradition from which the authors of Q and Mark drew some of their material. It has also been pointed out that there are parallels between Mark's Gospel and the epistles of Paul, written around two decades earlier, leading to speculation that the author of Mark was influenced by Paul's epistles. Dennis R. MacDonald (The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark) has studied Mark's Gospel and found surprising parallels between this account and the Homeric epics of The Iliad and The Odyssey, which he documents and analyses in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. He believes that much of the gospel material is based on the ancient Greek epics.

Matthew and Luke do contain nativity accounts that can not be explained by Mark or Q. Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) says that the nativity accounts are, with respect to time, place, and circumstances, a collection of legends. Similarly, the disparate stories of the appearances of the risen Jesus are simply literary creations from the different evangelists.

AnswerThe writers of the first four books of the New Testament wrote these because they intended to spead the news of Jesus Christ to the world. These men, if I am correct, did not know Jesus, but were faithful disciples and relayed the events into writing years after his death. If any of the authors knew Jesus I would say it was Matthew, which I believe was Levi the tax collector (also called Matthew.)