Unit Overview

In this unit students explore the significance of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and how the writers portray Jesus. Students will come to recognise the Gospels are a record of Christ’s life and teaching. Students will analyse passages that are common across the synoptic Gospels. They will come to recognise and understand that the synoptic Gospels, as sacred texts, help us encounter the person of Jesus Christ and deepen our relationship with God. Students will become confident users of the Bible as they explore a range of passages in the synoptic Gospels. 

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Enduring Understanding

Through the synoptic Gospels, we encounter the person of Jesus Christ and deepen our relationship with God.

Objectives

A student will

  • value and appreciate the breadth and wisdom of the Scriptures, their significance for life, and the impact Jesus and his teachings can have in shaping attitudes and values
  • develop an understanding of the nature of Scripture and its portrayal of the story of the people of God with particular emphasis on the significance of the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ 
  • use and interpret the Scriptures; think critically and reflectively on the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection

Outcomes

A student

  • appreciates the story of Jesus Christ as described in the synoptic Gospels. (RECVA6)
  • describes how the synoptic Gospels help the Christian community nurture and deepen their relationship with God. (RECKA6)
  • explains the significance of the synoptic Gospels and how the writers portray Jesus. (RECSA6)

Essential Questions

  1. How do the synoptic Gospels deepen understanding of Jesus and his mission?
  2. How do the synoptic Gospels portray Jesus?
  3. How do the Synoptic Gospels help us encounter Jesus Christ in our lives?

Learning Focus & Statements of Learning

  1. Through the synoptic Gospels we deepen our understanding of Jesus’ life and mission by
    • examining how the Gospels record Christ’s life and teaching.
    • Define ‘Gospel’.
    • Explore how the Gospels recall the life and times of Jesus.
    • developing knowledge of the communities for which they were written.
    • Define ‘synoptic’ and why it is used in relation to the Gospels.
    • Identify why John is not considered to be a synoptic Gospel writer.
    • Investigate the writers of the synoptic Gospels and the communities in which they were evangelising including:
      ○ Author
      ○ Date written
      ○ Audience
      ○ Image of Jesus
    • Locate the synoptic Gospels in the Bible and identify similar Scriptures found in each.
    • Locate on a map the significant places that are identified in the ministry of Jesus.
  1. Students deepen their understanding of the synoptic Gospels by
    • analysing a synoptic Gospel passage in depth.
    • Explore Matthew 28:1-8, Mark 16:1-8 and Luke 24:1-12, The Resurrection of Jesus and investigate the similarities and key differences described in the event.
    • examining how Jesus is portrayed.
    • Explore significant events in the synoptic Gospels, including The baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 3:21-22), The feeding of the five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17) and Jesus blesses the children (Matthew 19:13-15, Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17) and analyse how the writers have portrayed Jesus.
    • Investigate other synoptic Gospel passages and make comparisons about how Jesus is portrayed.
  1. Students recognise that the Gospels are an encounter with Jesus Christ by
    • developing an understanding of the inspiration and truth of Sacred Scripture.
    • Identify that God is the author of Sacred Scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
    • Read KWL Book 6 Chapter 10 The Word of God p90-93 and recognise the inter-relationship between the Bible and the handing on of the faith of the Church.
    • Recognise that to interpret Scripture, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal.
    • examining how Christians use the Gospel readings within their communities.
    • Read KWL Book 6 Chapter 10 In Tradition p95 and investigate the Liturgy of the Word during Sunday and weekday Mass and how we encounter God in the Word.
    • Identify how the Gospels are used in the cycle of readings in the Liturgical Year for Mass.
    • Explore how the Church venerates the Sacred Scriptures.
    • Identify other occasions of prayer and celebration where the Gospels are used to encounter God, including Lectio Divina and Divine Office.
    • reflecting on how we can be more like Jesus Christ in our lives.
    • Appreciate how Gospel passages can offer differing interpretations and meanings for Christians.
    • Explore different synoptic Gospel passages and reflect on how these can be used for Christian living.

Unit Content 1:
Various synoptic Gospel passages

Unit Content 2
The Resurrection of Jesus
Matthew 28:1-8
Mark 16:1-8
Luke 24:1-12

The baptism of Jesus
Matthew 3:13-17
Mark 1:9-11
Luke 3:21-22

The feeding of the five thousand
Matthew 14:13-21
Mark 6:31-44
Luke 9:10-17

Jesus blesses the children
Matthew 19:13-15
Mark 10:13-16
Luke 18:15-17

Various other synoptic Gospel passages

Catechism of the Catholic Church

102 – Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely.
You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.
104 – In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, “but as what it really is, the word of God.” “In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them.”
106 – God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. “To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more.”
109 – In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.
110 – In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. “For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.”
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognising their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.
2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.
3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

125 – The Gospels are the heart of all the Scriptures “because they are our principal source for the life and teaching of the Incarnate Word, our Savior”.
126 – We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:

1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, “whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up.”
2. The oral tradition. “For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed.”
3. The written Gospels. “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus.

127 – The fourfold Gospel holds a unique place in the Church, as is evident both in the veneration which the liturgy accords it and in the surpassing attraction it has exercised on the saints at all times: There is no doctrine which could be better, more precious and more splendid than the text of the Gospel. Behold and retain what our Lord and Master, Christ, has taught by his words and accomplished by his deeds. But above all it’s the Gospels that occupy my mind when I’m at prayer; my poor soul has so many needs, and yet this is the one thing needful. I’m always finding fresh lights there; hidden meanings which had meant nothing to me hitherto.
129 – Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.
131 – “And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life.”109 Hence “access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.”110
132
– “Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the Word, too – pastoral preaching, catechetics and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily should hold pride of place – is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the Word of Scripture.”111
133 – The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. . . to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.1
141 – “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures as she venerated the Body of the Lord” (DV 21): both nourish and govern the whole Christian life. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 119:105; cf Is 50:4).
2653 – The Church “forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For ‘we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles’.”

Unit content 3

  • KWL Book 6 Chapter 10 The Word of God p90-93

  • KWL Book 6 Chapter 10 In Tradition p95

Eucharist and Liturgical Rites
Responses during Liturgy of Word
Divine Office

Praying with Scripture
Lectio Divina

Australian Curriculum

Cross Curriculum Priorities

The General Capabilities

 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-ahc.gif

Critical and creative thinking   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-cct-1.gif

 

Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia  

Ethical understanding   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-eu.gif

 

Sustainability  http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-se.gif

Information and communication technology capability   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-ict.gif

Other important learning identified by the NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA):

Intercultural understanding   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-iu.gif

Civics and citizenship http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-cc.gif

Literacy   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-l.gif

Difference and diversity http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-dd.gif

Numeracy   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-n.gif

Work and enterprise http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-we.gif

Personal and social capability   http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/images/content/icon-k10-psc.gif