The Term “Gospel”

✦ The term gospel is an old-English form of “good news,” which stems from the Greek word evangelion.

✦ Prior to Christianity, the term evangelion had as much or more meaning and emotion in Roman culture as gospel has in Christianity today.

✦ The Romans proclaimed evangelion to announce victory in battle, a new Caesar, or a birth of a divine heir to the throne.[1]

✦ The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) in their original translations used the term in nearly identical fashion to the Roman use:

Mark 1:1 states, “The beginning of the evangel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
In Luke 1:19 an angel proclaims evangel announcing the birth of John the Baptist.
In Luke 2:10 an angel proclaims evangel announcing the birth of Jesus to shepherds.
The Synoptic Gospels document Jesus speaking this term directly (Matthew 11:5 24:14 26:13, Mark 1:15 8:35 10:29 13:10 14:9 16:15, Luke 4:18 7:22).
People will often use foreign terms, such as 'say la vie' or 'au revoir' (French) or 'per se' (Latin) without knowing the language. People in the first century were no different, highlighting a potential Greco-Roman influence in Jesus’ teachings.

✦ Evangelion appears almost 80 times in New Testament writings, but never in the prior Jewish religious writings of the Hebrew Bible.

[1] Chaim Potak, Wanderings, Chaim Potaks’s History of the Jews, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1978, pg 280.