rough a long compilatory
process; so does each gospel, despite its seeming unity, give evidence
of being a composite literary product. Scholars have agreed that Mark
first set forth the doings of Jesus and "it was out of Mark that both
Matthew and Luke took the framework of their own writings, cleverly
fitting into its arrangement their own distinctive material and coloring
the whole by their own individual treatment." (_Trattner, "Unravelling
the Book of Books."_) It is estimated that Mark was written shortly
before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. "This means that a
chasm of 30 or 40 years separates Mark's written document from the
ministry of Jesus--a long enough time to create a plastic body of oral
teachings and a highly colored tradition embellished with fanciful
stories."

Luke was a Greek physician living somewhere on the shores of the AEgean
Sea. He had been a friend of Paul, just as Mark had been with Peter.
Luke had no personal acquaintance with Jesus and had to get his
information from what others said, or from what the friends of
"eye-witnesses" had seen.

The Gospel of "Matthew" is an anonymous composition which, on analysis,
has been found to incorporate nearly fifty per cent of what is found in
Mark. It is now believed by many scholars to have been written between
the years 75 and 80 A.D. at Antioch not, of course, by the Apostle
Matthew, but by some unknown editor.

The Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, is vastly different in style,
arrangement, and in the description of the words, actions, and general
spiritual character of Jesus. Many scholars believe that it was written
in the city of Ephesus, somewhere around the year 100 A.D. "Church
tradition ascribed it to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, one of
the fishermen whom Jesus called to be a disciple. Years ago this view
was easily entertained, but there now exists too much refractory
evidence against assigning this Greek Gospel to an Aramaic-speaking
Galilean. That an untutored fisherman could have written so elaborate
and so highly philosophical an account of Jesus has always presented a
thorny problem. And so to most scholars John's authorship of the Fourth
Gospel is unthinkable."

Not one of the Gospels is the work of an eyewitness, and the four
Gospels do not complete each other; they contradict each other; and when
they do not contradict, they repeat each other. The Christ of John is a
totally different person from the Christ o