Did the Gospels give to us the exact words of Jesus, or are they a "paraphrased" recording of them?

JesusFan said:

Were the Gospel recording for us exact verbatim, or were they more summarizing His main points to us?

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David Lamb said:

Well, as I understand it, the New Testament was written mainly in Greek, with a few words of Aramaic. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, so most of his words at least were in translation, not the exact words he said.

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JesusFan said:

So we are getting the gist, the summary, of what he spoke then, correct?

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JesusFan said:

So we are getting the gist, the summary, of what he spoke then, correct?

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David Lamb said:

Not necessarily a summary, but a translation. However, if what John wrote about what Jesus did is true, I am sure the same applies to what He said:

“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.” (Joh 21:25 NKJV)

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JesusFan said:

So while not the exact wording of Jesus, would be enough to know what he was attempting to teach to us then?

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