Canonical Gospels in the context of Calque

The canon of the New Testament is the set of books many modern Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most churches, the canon is an agreed-upon list of 27 books that includes the canonical Gospels, Acts, letters attributed to various apostles, and Revelation.

Initially the canon was a list of the books suited to be read out in church liturgies and used to justify doctrine. The lists initially differed among the geographically-separated churches in antiquity, according to ancient church historian Eusebius. There is a consensus that the 27 books constituting the canon today are the same 27 books generally recognized in the first centuries.

The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the burial of his body, and the discovery of his empty tomb. It portrays Jesus as a teacher, an exorcist, a healer, and a miracle worker. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man and is called the Son of God, though he keeps his messianic nature secret; even his disciples fail to understand him. This is in keeping with the Christian interpretation of prophecy, which is believed to foretell the fate of the messiah as a suffering servant.

Traditionally attributed to Mark the Evangelist, the companion of the Apostle Peter, the gospel is anonymous, and scholarship is inconclusive on its authorship. It is dated to around 70 AD and was likely written in Rome for a gentile audience. Mark is classified as an ancient biography and was meant to strengthen the faith of its readers. Most scholars hold that Mark is the earliest gospel and was used by both Matthew and Luke. Mark has therefore often been seen as the most reliable gospel, though this has recently been challenged.

The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts, accounting for 27.5% of the New Testament.

The text is anonymous, not naming its author. Perhaps most scholars think that he was a companion of Paul, but others cite differences between him and the Pauline epistles. In the popular Two-source hypothesis, Luke used the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical collection called Q, with unique material often called L, though alternative hypotheses that posit the direct use of Matthew by Luke or vice versa without Q are increasing in popularity within scholarship. Luke follows Mark closely compared to other ancient historians’ usage of sources, though the parallels and variations of the Synoptic gospels are typical of ancient historical biographies. Luke tends to follow his sources closely when checked. The most common dating for its composition is around AD 80–90. The earliest witnesses for the Gospel of Luke are the Alexandrian and the revised western text-type.

The Gospel of John is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the resurrection of Jesus) and seven "I am" discourses culminating in Thomas's proclamation of the risen Jesus as "my Lord and my God". The penultimate chapter's concluding verse set out its purpose, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."

John was written between AD 90–100. The gospel is anonymous, although it identifies a "disciple whom Jesus loved" as the source of its traditions and perhaps author. Twentieth-century scholarship interpreted the gospel within the paradigm of a "Johannine community", but this has been increasingly challenged in the 21st century, and there is currently considerable debate over the gospel's historical context. As it is closely related in style and content to the Johannine epistles, most scholars treat the four books, along with the Book of Revelation, as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not by the same author.

In Christianity, a disciple is a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in the New Testament only in the Gospels and Acts. Originating in the ancient Near East, the concept of a disciple is an adherent of a teacher. Discipleship is not the same as being a student in the modern sense; a disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.

The New Testament records many followers of Jesus during his ministry. Some disciples were given a mission, such as the Little Commission, the commission of the seventy in Luke's Gospel, the Great Commission after the resurrection of Jesus, or the conversion of Paul, making them apostles, charged with proclaiming the gospel (the Good News) to the world. Jesus emphasised that being his disciples would be costly.

The Sermon on the Mount (translated from Vulgate Latin section title Sermo in monte) is a collection of sayings spoken by Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7) that summarizes his moral teachings. It is the first of five discourses in the Gospel and has been one of the most widely quoted sections of the Gospels.

Palm Sunday is the Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Its name originates from the palm branches waved by the crowd to greet and honor Jesus Christ as he entered the city. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week; in Western Christianity, this is the beginning of the last week of the solemn season of Lent, preceding Eastertide, while in Eastern Christianity, Holy Week commences after the conclusion of Great Lent.

In most Christian rites, Palm Sunday is celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other native trees), representing the palm branches that the crowd scattered before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem. These palms are sometimes woven into crosses. The difficulty of procuring palms in unfavorable climates led to the substitution of branches of native trees, including box, olive, willow, and yew.

The Denial of Peter (or Peter's Denial) refers to three acts of denial of Jesus by the Apostle Peter as described in all four Gospels of the New Testament.

All four Canonical Gospels state that during Jesus's Last Supper with his disciples, he predicted that Peter would deny knowledge of him, stating that Peter would disown him before the rooster crowed the next morning. Following the arrest of Jesus, Peter denied knowing him three times, but after the third denial, he heard the rooster crow and recalled the prediction as Jesus turned to look at him. Peter then began to cry bitterly. This final incident is known as the Repentance of Peter.

The Christ Child—also known as Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, Child Jesus, Divine Child, Divine Infant and the Holy Child—refers to Jesus Christ during his early years. The term refers to a period of Jesus' life, described in the canonical Gospels, encompassing his nativity in Bethlehem, the visit of the Magi, and his presentation at the Temple in Jerusalem. It also includes his childhood, culminating in the event where his parents find him in the Temple at age 12, after which the Gospels remain silent about his life until the start of his ministry.

The Paschal Triduum or Easter Triduum (Latin: Triduum Paschale), Holy Triduum (Latin: Triduum Sacrum), or the Three Days, is the Christian period of three days that begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with evening prayer on Easter Sunday. It is a moveable observance recalling the Passion, Crucifixion, Death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, as portrayed in the canonical Gospels.

In the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian and Reformed traditions, the Paschal Triduum straddles the two liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter in the Church calendar (Holy Saturday is the last day of Lent, with the Easter Vigil being the first liturgy of Eastertide). In the Roman Catholic tradition since the 1955 reform by Pope Pius XII, the Easter Triduum has been more clearly distinguished as a separate liturgical period.

The Marriage of the Virgin is the subject in Christian art depicting the marriage of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The wedding ceremony is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels but is covered in several apocryphal sources and in later redactions, notably the 14th-century compilation the Golden Legend. Unlike many other scenes in Life of the Virgin cycles (like the Nativity of Mary and Presentation of Mary), it is not a feast in the church calendar, though it sometimes has been in the past.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, essentially the same scene, with very similar iconography, is considered to represent the earlier scene of the "Entrusting of Mary to Joseph", with Joseph being made Mary's guardian by the temple authorities.

Papias (Greek: Παπίας) was a Greek Apostolic Father, Bishop of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey), and author who lived c. 60 – c. 130 AD. He wrote the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (Greek: Λογίων Κυριακῶν Ἐξήγησις) in five books. This work, which is lost apart from brief excerpts in the works of Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180) and Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 320), is an important early source on Christian oral tradition and especially on the origins of the canonical Gospels.

Zebedee (/ˈzɛbɪdiː/ ZEB-id-ee; Ancient Greek: Ζεβεδαῖος, romanized: Zebedaîos; Hebrew: זְבַדְיָה, romanized: Zəḇaḏyâ), according to all four Canonical Gospels, was the father of James and John, two apostles of Jesus. The gospels also suggest that he was the husband of Salome; whereas Mark 15:40 names the women present at the crucifixion as "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and of Joses, and Salome," the parallel passage in Matthew 27:56 has "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children." The Catholic Encyclopedia concludes that the Salome of Mark 15:40 is probably identical with the mother of the sons of Zebedee in Matthew.

Zebedee was presumably a fisherman, "probably of some means." Although named several times in the gospels, the only times he actually appears are in Matthew 4:21-22 and Mark 1:19–20, where he is left in the boat after Jesus called James and John. Mark's note that Zebedee was left with the "hired men" implies the family had some wealth. Zebedee lived at or near Bethsaida.