History of the Gospel

Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not taking notes as Jesus preached and performed his ministry. As a matter of fact, only Matthew and John even met Jesus. In short, don't think of the Gospel as a biography reporting on Jesus's life. Before the Gospels were written, the words and deeds of Jesus were passed down orally. In other words, the Gospel was preached before it was written. The spoken word (tradition) again preceded the written word. Even after it was recorded, the papyrus scrolls were so fragile and rare that most people didn't read the Word, but learned it through Mass. The Church divides the Word into three layers: the actual sayings and teachings of Christ, the oral tradition the apostles preached, and the written Scripture that ensured the message would be consistent.

The New Testament was written between the years 35-100 A.D. The actual Tetramorph (the four Gospels put together) can be dated to at least 188 (when St. Irenaeus mentions it), but it wasn't until the Council of Carthage (397 A.D.) that the Church explicitly stated the 27 books of the New Testament, including the four Gospels. St. Jerome was the first to combine the New and Old Testament into one volume and to translate the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into one single language-Latin. It took him an incredible 23 years to complete this task, but the final product was the first Christian Bible in 405.