Accounting for these differences is not easy. But after the death of Jesus, stories about his life and death and resurrection, his sayings and teachings and parables, his travels and miracles, and his disputes with the religious authorities, would have circulated, but not in writing. Instead, in the oral tradition of the time, they would have been passed on through the spoken word, and with little loss of accuracy. After a period, much of this material was committed to writing, and then, from perhaps c AD50-60 and even earlier, made available to the Gospel writers in different parts of the Christian world.
The traditional view is that Matthew wrote his Gospel first, probably in the Aramaic language.
The modern view is that Mark's Gospel came first, and that both Matthew and Luke based theirs on Mark and other collections of material about Jesus.
John's Gospel appears to have been composed either independently, or at least in an independent way.
Equally, there are many problems trying to establish where and when the Gospels were written, and, in the case of Matthew and John according to modern scholars, who actually wrote them. None of these issues are important compared with the message of Jesus Christ. However, they are interesting questions and are covered in outline here:
