Why Are the Gospels Called "Gospels"? | The Jimmy Akin Podcast

The Jimmy Akin Podcast | Episode 028 (April 7, 2025)

Everyone knows that there are four Gospels in the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

These are the biographies of Christ that the New Testament contains.

But very few people ask, “If these are biographies, why do we call them Gospels?”

Well, there’s an interesting and a surprising answer to that, and in this episode, Jimmy Akin reveals it!

Timecodes
00:00 – Coming Up
00:21 – Intro
00:54 – The Gospel vs. the Gospels
01:37 – “By Their Lives of Jesus Ye Shall Know Them”
04:09 – The Names of Ancient Biographies
05:04 – Who Gave Books Their Titles?
06:11 – What We Don’t Find
07:15 – The Hebrew Scriptures
08:02 – “Gospel” in the New Testament
08:55 – Renormalizing the Numbers
10:50 – Initial Mentions
12:19 – The Key to the Name “Gospel”
14:29 – Where Mark Got the Term
16:07 – The Titles of the Gospels
18:09 – Closing/Outro
19:05 – End