The article to which this post links is one man's attempt to set forth a possible timeline which resolves the timeline of the narratives of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I am not tied to this timeline. It may be accurate or it may not.
A side note: Although the person to whom the writer of this article used to word Easter, the writer of this article does not believe in celebrating an annual holiday of Christ's resurrection.
That was interesting. Thanks for sharing! I think what's important to note is that the four gospels are all different accounts of Christ's life and that as a result, not everyone is going to remember things in the exact same way. The fact that there are the consistencies that there are I think gives them strength. Any differences that they have also speak to the authenticity that each gospel is a testimony of the author who wrote them.
There is also the subject of a writer's agenda.
Suppose there were a Kennedy in the 1950s or 1960s who was in a racing accident at a car race. Suppose also there were four newspaper reporters at the race. One of the reporters was a sports reporter, one a society reporter, one a political reporter, and one a general news reporter. One would expect that our four hypothetical reporters would turn in articles that were quite different even though they were all reporting on the same event.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had different agendas. Matthew who was also called Levi focused his book primarily on the conflict between rabbinical teachings and Jesus's analysis of the Law given through Moses. He also focuses a lot of attention on Jesus as the Messiah prophecied in the the Tanakh. Mark focused primarily on action, his favorite word is translated in many translations as "immediately." He also focuses on the attitude of Christ of being a servant. Luke focuses primarily on the doctrines which Jesus taught and on his humanity. John does not even attempt to give us a in depth reporting of the the 3 years in which Jesus preached. He focuses instead on the difference between the physical and the spiritual. The emphais in John is on the spiritual implications of Christ's teaching and on the need for complete commitment to Him.
These four agendas cause many of the events regarding which they report to be presented from different "angles". For example, John is the only one who discusses Christ's refusal to feed those who came looking for Him, the day after He had fed the 5000 because they were motivated by the physicl and not by the spiritual.
Precisely! Matthew focuses on emphasizing Christ's divinity to the Jews, Luke is to the Gentiles, Mark is emphasizing the miracles, and John is for the members of Christ's church. Those different lenses absolutely played a role in how they were written.
I'm not sure that I agree that Mark focuses more on the miracles than the other writers but he does write very short synopsis of events which the other writers use a lot more words to describe. The first chapter includes
1. John's preaching
2. John baptizes Jesus
3. The temptation of Jesus
4. Calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John
5. Casting out an unclean spirit on the Sabbath
6. Healing Peter's mother-in-law
7. Going to preach elsewhere the next morning
8. Healing a leper
He covers all of that in the first chapter. I call Mark the biography for those who have attention deficit disorder because Mark moves from event to event so quickly that most of the stories are quite brief.
