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Gospel directly translates to “good news”. There are four known accounts of the Gospel within the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four are considered to be the four earliest written Gospels, all of which focus on the life of Jesus. The general consensus of Biblical scholars is that the Gospel of Mark was written first and Matthew and Luke used Mark to craft their own gospels.

One major question addressed by Biblical scholars is: are the gospels biographies? The quick answer is yes. While they do not match biographies written in our time, the gospels seem to follow the general outline of biographies from the time period. Biographies from the current times tend to focus a lot on a person’s youth. Whereas, the Biblical biographies do not focus on Jesus’ youth. Richard Burrage is a Biblical scholar who supports the fact that the gospels are biographies of the life of Jesus.

The Psalms are texts that were originally designed for singing. They also include information that indicates that they were set to melodies and were well known. The idea that many people sang Psalms together is not surprising, as this reflects many traditions of language and music in the Middle East. Many temples at the time had professional singers. It makes more sense that the Psalms are songs rather than poems because the change in pitch allowed for more interpretation than literary text. Psalms could be written about the coronation of kings, conflict, repentance, wisdom, or anything that Israel was dealing with as a community. Psalms help remind people that there is a variety of different stylistic literature within the Bible. The Psalms are also interesting because they are the only work within the Bible that are separated as they were meant to be read and not randomly separated hundreds of years after their writing.

For example, Psalm 22 is one that people often recognize because it contains the phrase “my God, my God why have you forsaken me?” This phrase was uttered by Jesus on the cross and it is likely that he was reciting from this psalm. Psalm 22 is one of the rare psalms that begins as lamentation and ends with confidence and trust in God.

Our study of suffering and meaning in the Bible focused heavily on the life of Job. God allowed Job to be tested by Satan because he was blameless and upright. Job’s oxen were stolen, his servants were murdered, his kids died, and illness was bestowed upon him. Job took all of this hardship with dignity and grace at first and continued to praise the Lord. He did however begin to curse the day of his birth and his friends joined in to console him in anger and defeat. God answered Job in anger. He asked questions of Job that only God would know how to answer and basically showed his power and knowledge over Job. Job’s fortunes were then restored two-fold.

In class today we talked about proverbs, wise sayings that you can apply to life. Some known proverbs in our lives are: don’t count your eggs before they hatch and God loves those who help themselves. We then talked about the book of Job and how it is essentially a philosophical thought experiment. Once Job’s friends arrive he tries to use language to undo his creation and God gets very angry with them. This does not seem like a historical story in the Bible, but rather it is a story to explain something that was happening at the time. It could have explained why tragedies occur in good people’s lives.

Monotheism is defined as “the doctrine or belief that there is only one God”. I always assumed that the Bible was a monotheistic work, as Christianity only worships one God, however after class today I am not sure. According to our first reading, monolatry is defined as “the belief that there are more deities but only one is to be worshipped”. I did not think this was a good word to describe the Bible, but as I did more research I learned that the Bible may be more of a monolatrous work than a monotheistic one. The Bible insists that only Yahweh is to be worshipped, no other god. Simply saying this phrase assumes the existence of other gods, it just claims the superiority of God as the one who deserves worship.

In class, we talked a lot about prophets. First, we tried to think of any people in today’s world that are similar to the prophets of Biblical times. Some people compared prophets to scientists, who foretell the future through research, or social justice figures, who are listened to by some and hated by others. After that discussion, we began to think about monotheism in the Bible. Prophets played a major role in the development of monotheism. The people of the Bible were not monotheistic, they worshipped many deities and were under the impression that gods were meant to specialize. It took prophets coming to earth and teaching these people to change their minds about monotheism and even the prophets were ineffective in convincing the people to change their ways and become monotheistic.

I was never familiar with the infancy stories before. In sunday school not much was taught about baby Jesus. All that I knew was that Jesus was born by the virgin Mary on December 25. I knew that he was a carpenter, and that Jesus was actually Jewish. When it came to the stories of Jesus it was primarily focused on his journey of young adulthood. It is interesting to think of the Bible as a biography of Jesus. Primarily in the first few sections of Matthew. I was surprised to see that Herod would try to kill Jesus as an infant. I never knew this didn’t realize that even earlier on Herod saw Jesus as a threat. I never knew that the three wise men that visited Jesus when he was born were visited by an angel and were told to not report back to Herod. I always had the belief that that were sent by god to witness his birth. But from their his story jumps in my mind to his early adulthood. When I think of Jesus, I think of him as 20+ year old with a beard and long hair. Not as 6lb 8oz baby Jesus but this is also because his early adulthood is really when his journey of faith begins.

Everything in this class is new to me as I really don’t know anything about the Bible, but I was very interested in the fact that parts of the gospels are drastically different. I thought it was interesting that they differ in the stories that they both have, but also the fact that they have different stories in them. Based on the other reading it’s clear that they come together to tell a specific story about the life of Jesus. I would be kind of curious to hear more about what scholars and historians have to say, and also how it differs from what preachers and religious people have to say about them.

While reading the first few sections of Matthew, I found it surprising that Herod would try to kill Jesus as an infant. Herod saw Jesus as a threat to his rule over Jerusalem, and thus ordered every child in Bethlehem born of the last two years to be killed. The three wise men that visited Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem were visited by an angel and were told to not report back to Herod and to return to their homes. Joseph was visited by an angel and was told to flee to Egypt until Herod passed. Reading through Matthew 3 and 4, it seems that Matthew is focused on the deeds and portraying Jesus as a role-model . Matthew writes in a way that highlights Jesus’s conviction and devotion to God is second to none.

As with many subjects in this course, the Gospels have much more to them than what churches tend to emphasize. I never knew that “gospel” means “good news,” and that fact adds much more meaning to the stories within them. Every Christian knows the story of Christmas and how Jesus’ family had to flee–but not the fine details. One interesting thought I also learned from class was who figured out what the “good news” was going to be. Kings and royalty from Jesus’ area had access to scriptures and books and census information, but it was the “lowly” shepherds who witnessed this momentous occasion. Even from a secular, academic approach, this is an important theme in the stories of the Bible.

Even though different translations tell unique stories, the Gospels give readers another chance to interpret what they want from the text. Certain aspects of the retellings (Joseph’s visions, Mary’s Song, etc) are slightly different or nonexistent across the other books. One of the defining features of the Bible is its translations, and everyone finds meaning in the passages that speak to them.

It is interesting to see how the gospels are different from one another including what information that is in each one. There are times that we get in a habit of letting our preconceived notions and beliefs shade the reading of the texts. The most significant time being when reading through the story of Jesus’ youth. From the manger scene, which was part of the house, to the number of magi, when they came and what their profession was. Our version of the Christmas story as shown in pageants most of the time is not representative of the real story as accounted for in the Bible. Moreover, this preconception makes it harder for us to accept some of the aspects of the Bible. Some of this might even feed into the understanding of each of the gospels. For Matthew, there is a focus on the inclusion of all people. This permeates into the message that God was trying to send to people on Earth through Jesus. The genealogy of Jesus includes women, the angel spoke to Mary instead of Joseph, and the crowds that Jesus spoke to were all diverse. When viewed in pieces the stories line up to have the aspects of Jesus including all people, but once we get out of viewing the stories from a shaded aspect, we can see that there is more to the scriptures than what meets the eye.

Since Christ was not just fully divine, He was also fully man that is, to take on a true flesh and soul. Christ’s mother Mary bore Him in the presence of Joseph and the Shepards and animals thereof. In the Icons, the nativity is often depicted in a cave with the three Magi, Joseph, and the Mother of God herself, often resting gracefully after the birth itself. As far as the monastic charter is concerned, many Orthodox fast (you’re essentially vegan) for forty days prior to Christmas in spiritual preparation for the feast day.

If you don’t know, historically accurate St. Nicholas is better than whatever consumerist abomination “Santa Claus” is. St. Nicholas was born in Myra, Greece and was ordained as a priest by his uncle who at that time was the residing bishop. Upon his ordination, he frequently distributed wealth to the poor, his legendary philanthropy is what attributed him to great generosity. The story he is most well known for is the time he was able to pay off the dowries of three women so that they could marry, not marrying would’ve most likely meant a reliance on prostitution. He then (but many scholars continue to debate this) attended the council of Nicaea in 325 where he slapped Arius out of his great love for the truth. Arius was proposing the Aryanism heresy which proposed Christ as a subordinate to God The Father. In short, tell you’re family about real St. Nicholas slapping heretics as you sit around the fireplace, happy holidays!