Why are there four versions of the Jesus story in the Christian Bible?

Answer 1

because Matthew Mark Luke and john all gave an account for what they saw, if u and three other ppl saw the same fight all of your stories would not be the same but it will have the same goal or the same topic or meaning behind it

AnswerThey wrote from different viewpoints and with different agendas.

Mark : Most scholars regard Mark as the first gospel to be written. He writes in a hurried style of Greek and gives a potted biography of Jesus' life and miracles, concentrating on his healing - especially those 'possessed by evil'.

Matthew and Luke use a great deal of Mark's narrative in their own gospels, as a starting point. They also use a (now lost) document collecting Jesus' sayings together that is called 'Q' (from the German Quelle meaning 'source'). In addition to this they added material of their own that they had gleaned from other sources, probably Peter, Mary and the other witnesses.

Luke didn't meet Jesus, but was commissioned by a patron called Theophilus to research and write a systematic and thorough account of the events surrounding Jesus. Luke, being a doctor, concentrates on the healing ministry of Jesus and on his teaching of forgiveness and reconciliation. He also writes for a Gentile audience and so details of Jewish customs, dates, places etc are included to clarify the story for those unfamiliar with the Jewish world.

Matthew writes for the Jewish community, and includes a large number of references to the prophets, for one aim in mind; to persuade the Jewish reader that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God.

John, however is unique. Most oof John (80% or more) is not included in the other gospels. John writes, not as a biography of Jesus' life, but gives episodes of his ministry that show Christ's divinity. He punctuates accounts of miracles (which he calls 'signs' pointing to his divinity) with Jesus' 'I am' statements, which ratchet up the evidence pointing to the divinity of Christ. The miracles culminate iin the climax after the resurrection of Thomas claiming 'You ARE my Lord and My God!'. John, therefore makes it very clear why he wrote this gospel, for he says so himsellf : 'so that you too may believe that Christ is the Son of God' and in that 'sonship' is God in human form.

Therefore all four gospel writers write from different perspectives, to give a much more comprehensive and fuller description o whom they saw as the divine Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Answer 2

There were many more than four gospels written, always either anonymously or pseudepigraphically. The four that we see in the New Testament were sufficiently similar to each other and to the teachings of the dominant Catholic-Orthodox branch of Christianity that it became natural that they would be included in their scripture.

Three of the four were based, directly (Matthew, Luke) or indirectly (John) on Mark's Gospel, but each changed some details from Mark or added elaborations and additional narratives their authors felt would help secure the success of Christianity.