The second part of the Christian Bible tells us about the life and teachings of Christ and his earliest followers is known as
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Explanation:
The story of Jesus, as Christians know and tell it, comes from that part of the Bible called the “New Testament.” The first four books—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are known as the “gospels,” meaning “good news.” They were all written between approximately 70 and 100 CE, about two generations after the death of Jesus, and are based on stories of Jesus told and retold by his followers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the “synoptic” gospels, because they present a “common view” of Jesus through many common sayings, parables, and events. Both Matthew and Luke seem to have used Mark’s gospel in writing their own accounts. John’s gospel has a distinctive voice, focusing more on the divinity of Christ in the context of a cosmic worldview. The gospels come out of early communities still struggling with their identity in a Jewish context. The Gospel of Matthew, for instance, is most conscious of the debates within Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, while the Gospel of John shows signs of Christians being expelled from synagogues. Although the gospels differ in their accounts of Jesus' life and ministry, sometimes in significant ways, the early church did not blend them into one account but preserved these four distinct gospels with their differences. Together they provide four views of the life and teachings of Jesus.
According to the traditions of Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea in the lineage of King David. Theirs is a story in which the ordinary and the miraculous intertwine. The mother of Jesus is said to be Mary, who conceived Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit (an act of the divine) while she was still a young unmarried virgin; Joseph, her betrothed, was a carpenter from Nazareth. Luke’s story is familiar to Christians throughout the world: The couple traveled to Bethlehem to be counted in the census and, finding no room at the inn, they had to stay in a stable. Jesus was born that night, his first bed a manger filled with hay. Nearby shepherds with their flocks heard angels singing and hurried to see the newborn child. Matthew says nothing of the stable or the shepherds, but tells of wise men or astrologers, who saw the light of a star and came from the East bringing gifts to honor the child. Mark and John omit the birth story altogether, Mark beginning his account with the baptism of Jesus and John with the creation of the cosmos.
There is little recorded of the childhood of Jesus, except Luke’s story of how, at the age of twelve, Jesus' parents found him teaching the rabbis in the temple in Jerusalem. All four gospels, however, speak of the critical event of Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. The gospels do not mention his age, but historians say that Jesus was about thirty. John’s message was one of radical repentance and transformation. It was a time of political turmoil and religious expectation; there were many Jewish movements that looked forward to a new age, the coming of the Kingdom of God and the long-promised Messiah, the “anointed one.”
John the Baptist looked to the new age, announcing that the Kingdom of God was near and baptizing people by the thousands in the River Jordan as an initiation into the kingdom to come. One of those he baptized was Jesus of Nazareth. Mark’s gospel begins with this account of Jesus' baptism: When Jesus came up out of the water, the skies were torn open and the Spirit, like a dove from heaven, descended upon Jesus with the words, “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”
Explanation:
- In the new testament of the Bible tells about the life teachings of Jesus Christ.