The gospel or good news is a

theological Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of an ...

concept in several religions. In the historical

Roman imperial cult The Roman imperial cult () identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority ('' auctoritas'') of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the ...

and today in

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, the gospel is a message about

salvation Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

by a

divine Divinity (from Latin ) refers to the quality, presence, or nature of that which is divine—a term that, before the rise of monotheism, evoked a broad and dynamic field of sacred power. In the ancient world, divinity was not limited to a singl ...

figure, a savior, who has brought peace or other benefits to humankind. In

Ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and Greek mythology, mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and Cult (religious practice), cult practices. The application of the modern concept ...

, the word designated a type of sacrifice or ritual dedication intended to thank the gods upon receiving good news. The religious concept is found at least as far back as Greece's

Classical era Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilization ...

and Roman authors are known to have adopted it toward the end of the 1st century BCE. It is a central message of Christianity today, in which written accounts of the life and teaching of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

are known as

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

Etymology

''Gospel'' () is the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

translation of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, meaning "good news". This may be seen from analysis of ( + +

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

suffix). The Greek term was Latinized as in the

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

, and translated into

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

as . In Old English, it was translated as (, "good" + , "news"). The Old English term was retained as in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in

Modern English Modern English, sometimes called New English (NE) or present-day English (PDE) as opposed to Middle and Old English, is the form of the English language that has been spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England England is a Count ...

. In Greek the term originally designated a reward or tip customarily paid to a

messenger Messenger, Messengers, The Messenger or The Messengers may refer to: People * Courier, a person or company that delivers messages, packages, or mail * Messenger (surname) * Bicycle messenger, a bicyclist who transports packages through cities * M ...

who has delivered good news. The term then came to designate the good news itself, and also a religious offering of thanks for good fortune.

In Greek and Roman religion

Ancient Greece

the word εὐαγγέλια means a sacrifice offered for good tidings or good news. Like other Greek religious thanks-offerings, offerings took the form of

animal sacrifice Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Chris ...

, offerings of food and drink, and ritual dedications. News of military victory was frequently celebrated with an offering. In the play ''

The Knights ''The Knights'' ( ''Hippeîs''; Attic: ) was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, who is considered the master of Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and in thi ...

'' by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

of 424 BCE, the comic character Paphlagon proposes an excessive sacrifice of a hundred heifers to

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...

to celebrate good news. This word in Greek has a double meaning: the singular form means a reward paid to a human messenger who brings good news, and the plural form means a thanks-offering to the gods for good news.

Rome

The

Roman Imperial cult The Roman imperial cult () identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority ('' auctoritas'') of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the ...

celebrated the gospel of the August One or Divus Augustus, a mythologized version of the first Roman emperor Octavian, also known as Augustus Caesar. Augustus was both a man and a god, "a

savior Savior or saviour may refer to: *A person who helps people achieve salvation, or saves them from something Religion * Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule for seven, nine or nineteen years * Maitreya * Messiah, a saviour or li ...

who has made war to cease and who shall put everything in peaceful order." This period of peace is called the ''

Pax Romana The (Latin for ) is a roughly 200-year-long period of Roman history that is identified as a golden age of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, hegemonic power, and regional expansion, a ...

''. To celebrate the good tidings of peace with an unusually grand gospel offering, governor Paullus Fabius Maximus suggested the ritual dedication of the calendar to Augustus, starting the new year on Augustus's birthday. This dedication to the August One served to synchronize diverse local calendars across the Empire, and is the origin of the name of the month

August August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Southern Hemisphere, August is the seasonal equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, August ...

. The idea of dedication to a divine king's birthday later formed the basis of the Julian and

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...

s. One implementation of this gospel calendar dedication is recorded in the Calendar Inscription of Priene. In it, the

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

word for "good news" appears in celebrating the birth of the god and savior Augustus, sent by Providence to bring peace. It announces the intention of the city of

Priene Priene (; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city of Ionia (and member of the Ionian League) located at the base of an escarpment of Mycale, about north of what was then the course of the Maeander River (now called the Büyük Menderes Rive ...

to change their calendar so that it begins on the birthday of Augustus, the first day of the good news. The Priene inscription is the most famous pre-Christian use of the concept of the gospel. Dated to 9 BCE, a few years before the birth of Jesus, the inscription demonstrates that the gospel was used as a political term before it was applied to Christianity.

In the Bible and Christianity

Hebrew scripture

The ancient Hebrew noun (''besorah'') appears to carry the same double meaning as the equivalent Greek word for gospel, used for both a messenger delivering good news and a thanks-offering to a god upon receiving good news. The noun and verb forms are used several times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Christian interpretation

Christian theology Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christianity, Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Ch ...

describes the good news of

in Jesus Christ not as a new concept, but one that has been foretold throughout the Hebrew scripture (known as the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

in Christian Bibles) and was prophetically preached even at the time of the

fall of man The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God in Christianity, God to a state of guilty disobedience. * * * * ...

as contained in Genesis 3:14–15, which has been called the " Proto-Evangelion" or "Proto-Gospel".

New Testament

The Gospels

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

of ancient biographies of Jesus took on the name

because they tell good news of Jesus as the Christian savior, bringing peace and acting as a sacrifice who has redeemed mankind from

sin In religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of the deities. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered ...

. The first four books of the Christian

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

are the

canonical gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

: Matthew,

Mark Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...

, Luke, and

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

. In addition, a number of non-canonical gospels exist or existed but are not officially included in the

Christian Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

In the Pauline epistles

Paul the Apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Apostles in the New Testament, Christian apostle ( AD) who spread the Ministry of Jesus, teachings of Jesus in the Christianity in the 1st century, first ...

gave the following summary, one of the earliest Christian Creeds, (translated into English) of this good news (gospel) in the

First Epistle to the Corinthians The First Epistle to the Corinthians () is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-author, Sosthenes, and is addressed to the Christian church i ...

: Paul describes the gospel as being powerful and

salvific Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Romans 1:16

In Acts

The good news can be summarized in many ways, reflecting various emphases. C. H. Dodd has summarized the Christian good news as taught by the apostle

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

in the

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make u ...

: * The age of fulfilment has dawned; * This has taken place through the ministry,

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

, and

resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

of Jesus; * By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God as messianic head of the new Israel; * The

Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Ghost, is a concept within the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is understood as the divine quality or force of God manifesting in the world, particularly in acts of prophecy, creati ...

in the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

is the sign of Christ's present power and glory; * The

Messianic Age In Abrahamic religions, the Messianic Age () is the future eternal period of time on Earth in which the messiah will reign and bring universal peace and brotherhood, without any evil (through mankind's own terms). Many believe that there will be s ...

will shortly reach its consummation in the return of Christ.

In various Christian movements

The good news is described in many different ways in the Bible. Each one reflects different emphases, and describes part or all of the biblical narrative. Christian teaching of the good news—including the preaching of the Apostles in the Book of Acts—generally focuses upon the

resurrection of Jesus The resurrection of Jesus () is Christianity, Christian belief that God in Christianity, God Resurrection, raised Jesus in Christianity, Jesus from the dead on the third day after Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion, starting—or Preexis ...

and its implications. Sometimes in the Bible, the good news is described in other terms, but it still describes God's saving acts. For example, the Apostle Paul taught that the good news was announced to the patriarch Abraham in the words, "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:6–9; c.f. Genesis 12:1–3).

Liberation theology

Liberation theology, articulated in the teachings of Latin American Catholic theologians Leonardo Boff and

Gustavo Gutiérrez Gustavo Gutiérrez-Merino Díaz (8 June 1928 – 22 October 2024) was a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest who was one of the founders of liberation theology in Latin America. His 1971 book '' A Theology of Lib ...

, emphasizes that Jesus came not only to save humanity, but also to liberate the poor and oppressed. A similar movement among the Latin American evangelical movement is the integral mission, in which the Church is seen as an agent for positively transforming the wider world, in response to the good news.

Christian mission

The Christian missions movement believes the Christian good news to be a message for all peoples, of all nations, tribes, cultures and languages. This movement teaches that it is through the good news of Jesus that the nations of humanity are restored to relationship with God and that the destiny of the nations is related to this process.

Missiology Missiology is the academic study of the Christian mission history and methodology. It began to be developed as an academic discipline in the 19th century. Definition Broadly speaking, missiology is "an interdisciplinary field of inquiry into Ch ...

professor Howard A. Snyder writes, "God has chosen to place the Church with Christ at the very center of His plan to reconcile the world to himself". Another perspective described in the

Pauline epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...

is that it is through the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection, and the resulting worship of people from all nations, that evil is defeated on a cosmic scale. Reflecting on the third chapter of Ephesians 3, theologian Howard A. Snyder writes:

Notes

Footnotes

Sources

References

Dodd, C. H. 1964 ''The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments '' Harper and Row.
*Goldsworthy, G, 1991, ''According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible'' Sydney: Lancer Press. *Johnstone, P, 2001, '' Operation World'', Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Lifestyle. *Köstenberger, A and P. O'Brien, 2001, ''Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission''

New Studies in Biblical Theology New Studies in Biblical Theology is a series of volumes of biblical theology. It is published by Apollos Publishing in the United Kingdom and formerly by InterVarsity Press Founded in 1947, InterVarsity Press (IVP) is a Christian publisher loc ...

11, Leicester: Apollos. *Padilla, R, 2004, 'An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission,' in The Local Church, Agent of Transformation: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission, T. Yamamori and C. R. Padilla, eds, Buenos Aires: Kairos Ediciones. *Snyder, H. A., 1999, 'The Church in God's Plan,' in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, 3rd edn, Pasadena, California: William Carey Library. *Jepsen, Bent Kim, 2009 ''The Origin of Good News

External links

- Concerning the cultural implications of the Good News

Lordship salvation
Reformed Christian Gospel presentation emphasizing Lordship Salvation {{DEFAULTSORT:Gospel, the Christian terminology Christian missions Christology Heresy in Judaism Life of Jesus in the New Testament Missional Christianity New Testament words and phrases Salvation