Jesus, Prophet of Islam - The Islamic Bulletin

132 Jesus, Prophet of Islam

He had been an interpreter of Peter and wrote down

accurately, though not in order, everything that he re­

membered that had been said or done by the lord. For

he neither heard the lord, nor foIlowed him, but after­

wards, as 1said, attended Peter who adapted his instruc­

tions to the needs of the hearers, but had no design of

giving a connected account of the lord's oracles. 8

Luke, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, never met Jesus. He
was Paul's personal physician. Matthew, who also never encoun­
tered Jesus, was a tax coIlector.
It has been argued that Mark's Gospel might be the 'Q' Gospel
and that Matthew and Luke used his Gospel when writing theirs.
However, they record details which Mark does not, which implies
that Mark's Gospel could not have been their only source. Sorne
have said that this is not important, sinee it is known that Mark's
Gospel was written in Hebrew, then translated into Greek, and the
Greek translation then translated onee again into Latin. AIl the
Hebrew and early Greek versions of Mark's Gospel have been de­
stroyed, and people can only speculate as to how much of the Gos­
pel was changed or altered during these transitions from one lan­
guage to another, although it has now been generally accepted that
the final section (Mark 16: 9-20) was tacked on to the end of the
basic work at a later stage in order to round it off, which is why it
is not to be found in the two oldest complete manuscripts of the
Gospels, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus which are said
to date from the late 4th or 5th century AD.
It is interesting to note in passing that there have even been
attempts to return to the source by synthesising the Gospels, sinee
the contradictions that arise between them have, at times, proved
a little awkward for the established Church. Titian attempted to
synthesise the four accepted Gospels, which had already been ear­
marked by the Pauline Church as their official Scriptures during
the second century AD. In this Gospel, Titian used 96% of John's
Gospel, 75% of Matthew's Gospel, 66% of Luke's Gospel, and 50%
ofMark's Gospel. The restherejected.Itis significantthatheplaced
little trust in the earliest Gospel and relied most heavily on the last
Gospel to be written. His synthesised Gospel was not a success.
Thus it is debatable whether Mark's Gospel can be regarded as
the common source of the three Synoptic Gospels, whereas most

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