Thomas, Gospel of, a collection of sayings, composed originally in Greek, attributed to the living (i.e., resurrected) Jesus. Some of the sayings were previously known from papyri discovered a...

Gospel music, American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South. Gospel music partly evolved from the son...

Synoptic Gospels [Gr. synopsis=view together], the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), considered as a unit. They bear greater similarity to each other than any of them does to John...

Social Gospel, liberal movement within American Protestantism that attempted to apply biblical teachings to problems associated with industrialization. It took form during the latter half of t...

Nicodemus, Gospel of, book composed of the Acts of Pilate and Christ's Descent into Hell, part of the loosely defined New Testament Apocrypha. The Acts of Pilate is an amplified account of the...

Matthew, Gospel according to, 1st book of the New Testament. Scholars conjecture that it was written for the church at Antioch toward the end of the 1st cent. Traditonally regarded as the earl...

Mark, Gospel according to, 2d book of the New Testament. The shortest of the four Gospels and probably the earliest, it is usually thought to have been composed shortly before the destruction ...

Star of Bethlehem, name given to the luminous celestial object rising in the sky that, as related in the Gospel of Matthew, led the Wise Men of the East to the manger in Bethlehem where Jesus ...

Luke, Gospel according to Saint, third book of the New Testament. It was composed in the second half of the 1st cent. Since the 2d cent. it and the Acts of the Apostles have been ascribed to S...

John, Gospel according to Saint, fourth book of the New Testament. This account of Jesus' life is clearly set off from the other three Gospels (see Synoptic Gospels), although it is probable t...