It is no accident that the Holy Bible has four Gospel accounts. It certainly isn’t unnecessary. The Biblical law states: “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.” (Deut 19v15).
As the Lord Himself expressed this, “In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.” (Jn 8v17).
This is paramount importance. It is also the nature of God.
God Himself exists in three Persons, means that His testimony is automatically based on three witnesses (Jn 8v18, 15v26, 16v13-15, Acts 5v32). He expects human beings act accordingly.
To be fair and to try to get to the truth of whether an event happened or not, it is better to have the evidence of more than one person. Good scientists do the same. They repeat their experiments to prove they have got the right results. Of-course, the implication is that each person like each experiment speaks independently of the others.
In Islam and in many Christian related cults, it is one person who gets everyone else to obey them. Whenever evidence is demanded that they prove their points, if these religious founders can ever be challenged, they can’t prove they speak from God, and it is quickly shown that they have no supporting witness, only followers
That is why John the Baptist is so significant. His role was prophesied by Malachi (3v1) and Isaiah (40v3) and declared by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to have been the greatest human being ever lived born of woman (Mt 11v11). He was filled with Holy Spirit even from birth (Lk 1v15). John declared before the Lord Jesus’ mission began, that there was One to follow after him who would be greater than he was. All four Gospel accounts start their reports about Jesus speaking about John. Without John, the Gospel would have been much weaker in terms of testimony power.
There are four Gospel accounts, but only three is required. We have in effect abundance of witnesses so to speak. Mark translated from Matthew, repeating mainly the actions of Christ. Therefore the two read so similarly. But they are not identical. Mark added some incidents to his narrative. Luke used Mark’s account, especially the latter part to speak of the Passion of Christ. Therefore there is overlap between the three. These overlaps help to cement the testimony of what
the Lord Jesus Christ did in His earthly bodily ministry. John’s Gospel account is much more of an independent voice. As an eye witness, it should. Hence where the four accounts agree, it is tremendously significant. And they do agree.
All four speak of John the Baptist’s preparation ministry, the miracle of feeding of the 5000 from a few loaves and fishes, the last supper, the trials, suffering and crucifixion and burial of Christ Jesus, and the missing body of the Lord from the time when the women went to visit the body on the Sunday following the execution. The resurrection detail from Mark has been lost, otherwise I would have
included the supernatural raising of Christ from the dead. Nevertheless, others in the New Testament testify to it like Paul who referred to it more than once (1Cor 15v3-8, Rom 10v8). For Christ’s resurrection we have most assuredly enough witnesses to cover the legal requirement.
There is no need to include the Nag Hammadi writings as these were Gnostic writings and not Christian. These second and third century works have an immense use to show the knowledge of the Christian faith had spread abroad from ancient Israel, but have little in use for helping to act as authoritative sources for testimony purposes, as the writers do not have access to any first hand material. They are like the Christian writers of the late first and second century like Ignatius, Clement of Rome, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, who wrote what they did based on the testimonies and letters of the New Testament.
The New Testament contains eye witness accounts and reports from those who spoke to the eye witnesses, like Luke who must have spoken to someone who knew Mary to have had the detailed miraculous accounts of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus' birth accounts.
