"Gospelof John", how is it different from Mathew, Mark and Luke

According to Matthew, Mary was betrothed (engaged to be married) to Joseph. When Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, an angel appeared to him in a dream. The angel told him that the child was of the Holy Spirit. After Jesus was born, wise men travelled from the East to see the newborn Messiah. They first asked for Him at Herod's court in Jerusalem. Then they followed the light of a star to Bethlehem. They found Jesus and gave Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Herod had told them to return after they knew where the infant was. But they had been warned not to go to Herod, and so they took a different route home. Herod became angry. He feared this new "King of the Jews." He ordered the deaths of all boys in Bethlehem 2 years old and younger. An angel had appeared to Joseph in another dream and warned him about this decree. Joseph fled with Mary and Jesus to Egypt. After Herod died, they returned and settled in the town of Nazareth in Galilee(Watson, pp27).

According to Luke, Mary and Joseph originally lived in Nazareth. The angel Gabriel visited Mary and announced that her child would be the Son of God and the Messiah that was promised in the Hebrew Bible. This visit is known as the annunciation. Sometime before Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to record their names in a census (count of the people). They found shelter in a stable. Jesus was born there and Mary made a cradle for Him in a manger. Shepherds near Bethlehem saw angels in the sky. The angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14). Some translations of the Bible say "to men of good will." After Mary and Joseph had done everything commanded by Jewish law, they returned with Jesus to Nazareth(Stanton, Pp65).

The similarities are extremely close between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke not just in the order of the material that is presented but also in the exact wording of the texts that it seems rather insufficient to explain these similarities on the basis of common the oral tradition alone. Instead, some type of literary dependence must be assumed i.e. the theory of someone coping from someone else as some of the evangelists appeared to make use of one or more of the previous Gospels as sources for their own personal compositions. The situation is quite complicated because some common material is in all three of the 'Synoptic' Gospels but other material is in only two out of three. Moreover, the common material is not always presented in the same order in the various Gospels. So the question remains, who copied from whom?

Well this question is commonly referred to as the 'synoptic problem' which as O'Donnell points out is an 'investigation into the existence and nature of the literary ...