I’m reading the “official” bible for the first time and so far I’ve read Luke and John, both are completely different accounts of Jesus’ life. Now, I hear that Matthew is another account. How many are there?
The four gospels in the Bible are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, if that’s what you’re asking. But they’re all really more accounts of Jesus’ teachings than of his life. And they aren’t completely separate: Matthew and Luke are very similar, and Mark mostly similar to both of them. The conventional explanation among Biblical scholars is that Mark was the first gospel written, and that Matthew and Luke then used Mark as a source together with another source they call “Q”, which has since been lost to history. John may or may not have used the others as sources, but the message he was trying to convey is completely different from that of the other three (the so-called “synoptic” gospels)-- John is much more mystical and metaphysical. Then too, there are many other “gospels” that didn’t make it into the official Bible, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter, which may or may not contain meaningful information about Jesus, and may or may not have just been made up completely out of whole cloth by folks with agendas.
Ok, but then the next question would be: why are there 4 different accounts of Jesus’ life in the bible?
Generally it’s explained as having been written for different audiences. The Jewish way of handling this was to actually try to piece together what happened when without leaving anything out, even if it meant repeating yourself.
But then that means the bible was written by Jews?
This is a surprise to you? Jesus was Jewish, as were most of his disciples.
Chronos gave a great one-paragraph summary. For more detail, you may want to read the Straight Dope Staff Report on Who wrote the Bible?, though there’s way more that could be said on the matter. I linked to Part 4, on the New Testament, since that’s what you’re asking about, but there are five parts in all.
I don’t know if its related, but the story of Jesus is possibly a metaphor for solar phenomena, and the ‘story of Jesus’ appears in various other ancient religions. So you have to take that into account too (Jesus vs. Horus for example).
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5b.htm
As far as the bible, a book called the apocrypha has various books that were never put into the bible.
Ok, I read through the straight dope articles, and they confirmed what I heard before. The New Testament was written hundreds of years after the events of Jesus’ life by the Roman Catholics.
Written/compiled. Different books of the NT were written at different times. The four gospels were likely written within the 1st century, but were also likely the second generation of works created.
Jerusalem was destroyed around 70CE, which largely destroyed the Jewish sect of believers and possibly removed most of the extant writings (though possibly later works thought to be heretical were these, and were expunged.) The gentile sect, possibly as a reaction to this or just because the time had come began to compile the gospels around the same time.
Read the Straight Dope articles again.
How old are you? Jesus is considered by Christians to be the Jewish Messiah and therefore, the continuation/completion of Judaism.
The entire Old Testament does not contain Jesus, at least not as most people read it.Yes, yes, he might appear in the fiery furnace and make other appearances, but it doesn’t say “Jesus was eating dinner one day.” 
It’s the establishment and suffering of the Jewish people, along with examples of evil, good, faith, wisdom, and a lot of weird things, including genealogies(ugh) and people chopping one another up in bits and mailing them and so forth.
The New Testament, which sounds like what you are reading, was written by various people. Authorship is debated quite vigorously, but I can tell you what most Christians are taught as kids. The first four gospels were traditionally written by these folks, many(all?) of whom were Jews:
Matthew, who focuses a lot on what Jesus said. This one contains full sermons of Jesus, which is neat if you wanna hear what he had to say(as remembered later).
Mark, who focuses on what he did and said(mostly actions). It’s the oldest one, most people figure.
Luke(a doctor, by the way), which is more of a literary work of his ministry.
John, who wrote his last, containing many things not in the other books(and some that seem quite contradictory). His is the newest one.
Acts was written by Luke as a direct sequel to his book, following the early church.
Romans - Philemon are credited to Paul, a guy who converted to Christianity after persecuting them. He had a vision of Jesus and converted right away. These books are most of the new testament.
His books are letters to various people and churches and contain basics of faith how to adapt to this new “Christianity” thing and so forth. It’s complicated.
Hebrews is anonymous, but is credited to almost everyone back then. It’s about faith and other stuff.
James is about faith and genuine/worthwhile religion and was written by James.
1 and 2 Peter were written by the disciple Peter, though 2nd Peter is often noted for looking like it was written by someone more intelligent than a fisherman and has a style different than the first one. Anyway, they supposed author is Peter.
1-3 John are short letters from the same author as the gospel of John, traditionally anyway.
Jude was written about avoiding false prophets/relgion and so forth. Jude was the author, most likely. Under-appreciated little book, by the way.
The book of Revelation was also traditionally written by John, years later when he was exiled. Despite it’s fame as being an apocalyptic vision(which it kind of is), it begins with letters to various churches of the time, most of whom had problems just like any church today. This one is hard to read and I like to focus on the letters at the beginning and, rather predictably, the ending where the author writes about the new earth and so forth. It’s really a weird one.
Roman Catholics? I don’t know about that part, but if you mean who compiled the Bible and so forth, it is kind of complicated.
The old testament is impossible to determine when it was compiled and finished, but it was more or less settled hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Then again, it’s hard to tell.
The New Testament? Difficult to say. Paul was already quoting the gospels and his letters are in the Bible, so some of those were established/catching on early on. It was later settled on a few different times, as early as 350 AD and as late as the 1500’s. Hebrews is often the “controversial” one, by the way. We don’t know who wrote it and it has some weird ideas. The others were supposed to be written by apostles, people who saw/knew Jesus when he was alive. Paul gets in because he saw Jesus on the road, a point he often brings up and defends.
Anyway, it is rather unknown for sure how it all happened, but I wouldn’t read the Straight Dope and then go out and say, “Cecil and the Dopers said the Catholic church wrote and put the whole thing(gospels and so forth) together hundreds of years later.”
I don’t think we’ve said that, or at least not everyone. The truth is more difficult to ascertain.
May I ask why it is confusing that at least four different people would write an account of Jesus’ teachings? Read how many people have written about Abraham Lincoln or heck, even check out contemporary writings on Samuel Johnson!
I assume he’s referring to this series:
I don’t see, though perhaps I’m missing, where it says in any of those articles that the Roman Catholic church “did it” years later. It pretty much says what I said, but better written and with way more explanation.
An even briefer version of an answer would be, “We aren’t sure, and probably never will be.”
You’re not missing anything- a good summary of the NT article is “They were written by various Christian leaders and communities from as early as 60 AD to perhaps as late as the 130s AD”. There’s nothing in the article that is even close to “The New Testament was written hundreds of years after the events of Jesus’ life by the Roman Catholics.”
Superhal, you seem to be saying, “I want absolute truth, and I want it now. I don’t want to have to read a lot of books to determine it. You should just give me the answer.” Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Pretty much everyone agrees that the Bible contains various accounts of Jesus’s life. Reconciling all these accounts into a single one is a hard problem. A vast number of books have been written about this subject. We can recommend the Straight Dope summary of this subject in the link given in a couple of posts. We can recommend some books to read about the subject. We can speculate about the subject ourselves. We can’t give you a definitive answer to the question you ask though, because there is no definitive answer.
Am I the only one who suspects that a woosh has been perpetrated here?
Shame on you Superhal .
By the way I think that Jesus wasn’t actually a historic figure but was the object of a cult that used hallucegionec,hallusss,Hall,what the hell Mind altering mushrooms
John Allegro loves you.
It is a bit odd to accidentally stumble on Luke first, then John when reading the Bible for the first time.
Priest: If men don’t trust each other, this earth might as well be hell.
Commoner: Right. The world’s a kind of hell.
Priest: No! I don’t want to believe that!
Commoner: No one will hear you, no matter how loud you shout. Just think. Which one of these stories do you believe?
Woodcutter: None makes any sense.
Commoner: Don’t worry about it. It isn’t as if men were reasonable.
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent]– Rashomon[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]
Stranger
Quick answer which is as decent a summary as I’ve heard-
Matthew- heavy of Jesus’ teaching and Jewish content, presents Jesus as the New Moses come to give God’s New Law to humanity
Mark- very matter-of-fact, active, pragmatic, appeals to the Roman mind, presents Jesus as the New David come as the Kingly Son of God
Luke- thorough, almost biographical in style, balances teachings and activities, appeals to the Greek perception of The Ideal Man
John- Jesus’s more mystical or intimate teachings, emphasis on Jesus as God’s Word made Flesh, also the Gospel that uses the term “born again”
Meh, I actually asked how old he was and I wasn’t being sarcastic. I suspect someone too young for the board has just reached the age where they begin to wonder about these things, has briefly read some stuff about the topic, and is trying to get us to fill in the gaps.
My guess? He’s 15. It reads like that age.