The apostle Paul wrote that "all Scripture is inspired of God, and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness".(2 Tim 3:16) The apostle Peter wrote that "men spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit".(2 Pet 1:21) Thus, what has been preserved in the four gospels, with the word gospel meaning "good news", is inspired or "God-breathed"(Gr., The·o´pneu·stos; Lat., Di·vi´ni·tus in·spi·ra´ta; Heb. beru´ach Elo·him´, "by Gods spirit."). Hence, those that wrote down the Bible, including the four gospels, did not put "their own spin" on what they wrote, but rather are God's thoughts.
There are available for comparative study more than 13,000 papyrus and vellum manuscripts containing the whole or a part of the Christian Greek Scriptures, dating from the 2nd to the 16th century. Of these, some 5,000 are in Greek, and the remainder in various other languages. More than 2,000 of the ancient copies contain the Gospels, and more than 700, the letters of Paul. While the original writings themselves are not currently extant, copies date back to the second century, which is very close to the time the originals were written. This vast number of manuscripts has enabled Greek scholars in the course of years to produce a highly refined Greek text of the Scriptures, including the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and confirms in many respects the dependability and integrity of our present-day translations of the Christian Greek Scripture.
The four gospels give us a fourfold historical account of the life and activity of Jesus, each account being an independent report. The first three of these are sometimes called synoptic (meaning "like view") because they have a relatively similar approach to Jesus ministry in comparison with Johns Gospel, yet each reflects individualism on the part of the writer. Johns Gospel fills in certain details omitted by the other three. These are especially valuable, for they reveal the personality of God as reflected in the life and ministry of Jesus, his Christ or "anointed one".
The writers of the gospels were literate, though viewed by the religious leaders as "unlettered and ordinary," indicating that their education was elementary and not from a school of rabbinic training.(Acts 4:13) Otherwise, how could they have provided such a precise record of Jesus life while on the earth ? For example, the apostle Peter, though a fisherman by trade, showed his capability in quoting from the book of Joel and the Psalms.(Acts 2:16-21,26,27) Luke was a doctor or physician. That Luke was well educated is apparent from his writings. Also, his background as a doctor is noticeable in his use of medical terms.(Lu 4:38; Ac 28:8) John, having been instructed by Jesus, was literate, for he was inspired to write 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and especially the book of Revelation, with all it's multitude of symbolisms.(Rev 1:1) Mark, or John Mark, was a cousin of Barnabas.(Col 4:10) It appears that Mark served as attendant to both and Barnabas, perhaps caring for their physical needs while they traveled. (Ac 12:25; 13:5) He, thus would need to be literate in order to properly fulfill their needs and requests.
The language that Matthew (which was written first in Hebrew), Mark, Luke, and John wrote in, was Koine Greek, as did all those who wrote the Christian Greek Scriptures, commonly called the "New Testament". The Greek vocabulary is quite abundant and exact. The Greek writer has at his disposal sufficient words to enable him to make fine differentiation and to convey just the shade of meaning that he desires. To illustrate, the Greek makes a distinction between ordinary knowledge, gno´sis (1Ti 6:20), and accurate knowledge, e·pi´gno·sis (1Ti 2:4), and between al´los (Joh 14:16), meaning "another" of the same kind, and he´te·ros, meaning "another" of a different kind. (Ga 1:6) Many expressions in other languages have incorporated Greek words as well as basic roots that comprise Greek words, resulting in language that is more precise and specific in expression.
Generally Koine is shown to have had five cases. (Some scholars enlarge this to eight.) In English there is usually no change in form for nouns except in the possessive case and in number. (Pronouns, however, are subject to more changes.) But in Koine each case usually requires a different form or ending, making the language much more complicated than English in this respect. In English there are both a definite article ("the") and indefinite articles ("a," "an"). Koine has but a single article ο (ho), which is in some respects the equivalent of the definite article "the" in English. Whereas the English definite article "the" is never inflected, the Greek article is inflected as to case, gender, and number, just as the nouns are.
The Greek article is used not only to set off substantives, as with English, but also with infinitives, adjectives, adverbs, phrases, clauses, and even whole sentences. The use of the article with an adjective is found in the Greek at John 10:11, where the literal rendering would be: "I am the shepherd the fine [one]." This is stronger than merely "I am the fine shepherd." It is like putting "fine" in italics.
The King James Bible, though used by millions, has numerous drawbacks. For example, we might say to someone: "Where did you come from ?", But the King James Bible says "Whence comest thou ?" at Judges 17:9. We do not speak in archaic language, as it does, but in modern English. Thus, any Bible, for it to be truly understood, must be translated accurately from either Hebrew or Koine Greek into the language that people use today.
