Religion 101
Paper 2
April, 23, 2015
Symbolic Gospels
The purpose of this essay will be to focus on what Matthews Gospel is about and then evaluating the biblical and theological significance of the birth narrative of Matthews Gospel and what it says about the agenda of that particular Gospel.
The infancy narrative of Matthew begins with a long genealogy of Jesus, which basically shows how Jesus is son of Abraham who is the father of the nation of Israel, and David the King of the Jews. This may not seem important but this genealogy shows how Jesus is connected to the David line. Then we have Mary, who just found out she was pregnant and Joseph decides it is best to divorce her because he wanted to break his union with someone who is pregnant, by someone else. But behold the angel comes down and reassures Joseph that Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that he should take her back into his house. The angel also said to name the child Emmanuel. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and King Herod heard of this new newborn king of the Jews and he ordered that all boys under the age of 2 be killed. The magi gave Jesus the gifts and left. In a dream, the angel of the lord told Joseph to take the child and go to Egypt and hide, Herod then died, and Jesus was safe.
Whereas the infancy narrative of Mark is of the gospel genre. Encouragement was the key theme in the book of Mark. It basically talks about the miracles of Jesus. It also describes how Jesus lived and the ministries he has chosen. A major event in the book of Mark was Jesus being baptized by John. He was sent down to the desert for 40 days and nights to fast before his ministry. The details of the last supper is also described by Mark within this book. Jesus and the disciples were the major personalities in this book. The birth narrative of Luke begins with the announcement of the birth of John, whose mother was Elizabeth. An angel came to Zechariah, Elizabeth's husband and the angel said that his...