John and others

Usage examples of gospels.

What the Gospels make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here converted into something moral: (”resist not evil !

What we can know today of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is included in the four slim Gospels found in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

For those readers who know the Gospels (bear with me), you know that Matthew and Luke are the only two to mention Christ’s birth, while Mark and John cover only the ministry part of Jesus’ life.

While I used the Gospels heavily for reference, and there are a couple of references to the Acts of the Apostles (specifically the giving of the gift of tongues, without which Biff could not have told the story in modern American idiom), I tried not to draw on the rest of the New Testament, specifically the letters of Paul, Peter, James, and John, as well as Revelations, all written years after the Crucifixion (as were the Gospels).

The other Gnostic Gospels were either too fragmentary, or frankly, just plain creepy (the Infancy Gospel of Thomas describes Jesus, at age six, using his supernatural powers to murder a group of children because they tease him.

Although I’ve glossed over many events that are chronicled in the Gospels, there are numerous elements which many people think are there, which simply are not.

She is mentioned by name eleven times in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Luke, Mark).

There are “Marys” without surnames all over the Gospels, and some of them, I suspect, may refer to the Magdalene, specifically the Mary who, soon before his death, anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment and wipes them with her hair, certainly one of the most tender moments in the Gospels and the primary basis for my rendering of Maggie’s character.

The Gospels do not agree on the order of the events that happen during the ministry, from Jesus’ baptism by John to the Crucifixion, so I arranged events from all the Gospels in what seemed a logical, chronological order, while adding those elements that allow Biff’s participation in the story.

There are, of course, elements of the Gospels which I left out in the interest of brevity, but you can always find them in the Gospels if you want.

For those readers who know the Gospels (bear with me), you know that Matthew and Luke are the only two to mention Christ's birth, while Mark and John cover only the ministry part of Jesus' life.

Although I've glossed over many events that are chronicled in the Gospels, there are numerous elements which many people think are there, which simply are not.

The Gospels do not agree on the order of the events that happen during the ministry, from Jesus' baptism by John to the Crucifixion, so I arranged events from all the Gospels in what seemed a logical, chronological order, while adding those elements that allow Biff's participation in the story.

Luke has related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, he could have the Gospels at hand?

That perhaps after he left on his own missionary journey, Father Methodius spent the rest of his life wondering what in the world ever happened to that book of the Gospels that Constantine and he had copied out.