One of the most striking characteristics of the Christian faith is that it has produced a substantial body of writings since its beginnings. That this is the case is not at all a necessity: not all religious movements produce writings. Furthermore, it is remarkable that these writings are collected in a single book and thus become a sacred corpus, and that this sacred corpus continues to influence the lives of believers and determine the content and practices of the faith two thousand years later. The four Gospels are placed at the beginning of the New Testament, underlining its importance, forming a "seamless continuity between the history of Israel and the history of the Church". The four documents now known as the Gospels were not known by that name until the late second century. Until then there was only one Gospel, the announcement of Jesus and the kingdom of God, with four books that presented it, each in its own way. Modern readers are so accustomed to seeing the collection of these writings as the New Testament that they forget that each was originally intended to stand on its own. Consequently, to understand the Gospels and the type of literature they represent, it is crucial to view them in the first-century Palestinian environment in which they were written. At that time, the cultural landscape was dominated by three main elements: Roman rule, Hellenistic culture, and, above all, the religious symbols of Judaism. In that context, Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God could be perceived as a challenge to Roman rule, a rejection of Greek thought, and an attack on Judaism. The symbolic world of Jesus and his followers belonged to Israel, its history and its scriptures. . The evangelists and the first Christians... middle of the paper... theology, are either trust or distrust. It is a methodological error to attempt to evaluate the authenticity of every event and every saying. The correct procedure is to check whether the source as a whole is reliable. The evangelists wrote their Gospels from the perspective of faith, to convince readers 'to share their faith and serve the God of Jesus Christ.' They demand a response from their readers. This is why they chose to write their accounts in narrative form. Narratives encourage identification with their central character, engage readers in a rich web of human experiences, and draw audiences into their world. To understand these narratives and be transformed by them, the modern reader must read them as a biography of Jesus, which draws deeply from the Jewish world and represents the thoughtful testimony of reliable eyewitnesses..