Truth and Freedom in the Gospels. The Book of Luke (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Theology - Biblical Theology, grade: B+, , language: English, abstract: If two people who have been living in Nassarawa Gwom, a community in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau state, Nigeria who have been eye witnesses to any of the Jos crisis are asked to give a report or the story of what they saw and experienced, their story will mostly be similar but with more emphasis and details to events that interest them the most or affects them the most either negative or positive. This was somewhat the scenario of the writers of the synoptic gospels in some sense. Mark and Matthew were Jews, so their gospels, which were written for a Jewish audience reflects the Jewish worldview, Jewish perspectives, style of writing, and a more detail explanation of beliefs, practices and values of the Jews, etc.

Luke was a gentile; his style of writing too reflected the gentile worldview, beliefs, practices and values targeted at the gentile audience. For example, to the Jew, a person's family line or genealogy determines his/her identity (genuity, respect and dignity). The Jews also trace their genealogy to Abraham, who was the founder of the Jewish nation. This justifies why Matthew began his writing with the genealogy of Jesus, tracing Jesus' line to David (to show a fulfillment of the OT prophecies that the messiah will descent from the line of David) and to Abraham (who is the father of the Jews, to show that Jesus was related to al the Jews). The gentiles on the other hand believed that Adam is the father of all human beings. This is evident in Luke's gospel; he was a gentile, writing from a gentile perspective, he traced the genealogy of Jesus to Adam. This was to show that "Jesus is related to all human beings. This is consistent with Luke's picture of Jesus as the savior of the whole world."

The similarities of the gospel accounts are without differences, there are events that are captured in one account that is not captured in the other. There are instances where Matthew agrees with Luke against Mark. The differences are considered as the synoptic problem but this paper will not delve into the debates concerning that.