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Overview
Where did the accounts about Jesus in the New Testament of the bible “The Gospels” come from?
The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life death and resurrection are the eyewitness accounts of the people who knew, saw, heard, and encountered Him.
After the first disciple, James the brother of John, was executed, those disciples closest to Jesus began to record their eyewitness accounts independently. They realized that they too would most likely be executed . It turns out that they were correct in their predictions of their deaths because all of the disciples who preached the story of Jesus were brutally executed, with the exception of John.
Matthew and John wrote their own eyewitness accounts of their experiences with Jesus. Mark, whom Peter thought of as a son, traveled with him as a translator and recorded Peter’s eyewitness account. The accounts of these three disciples became the books of Mark, Matthew, and John that are now found in the New Testament of the Bible.
People throughout Judea, Egypt, Rome, and many parts of Asia carefully translated, memorized, and circulated these accounts as independent documents. They were not collected and bound as the New Testament until 100 years later. By studying the ancient papyri of these documents, historians have determined that the translated and copied accounts were nearly identical to the original versions written by the gospel writers in the first few years following the death of Jesus.
Luke was not one of the disciples of Jesus. He was a Greek doctor who traveled with Paul as his friend and physician. Luke’s gospel account was based on his own extensive investigation of thousands of eyewitness accounts from people who knew Jesus, observed what He said and did, and saw what had happened to Him. Luke’s account was titled The Gospel According to Luke in the New Testament.