Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the last year of Jesus's life (in the case of John, three years) and of his birth (in the case of Luke and Matthew), the Judas gospel takes the form of dialogues between Jesus and Judas, and Jesus and the twelve disciples, without being embedded in any narrative. Such "dialogue gospels" were popular during the early decades of Christianity and the New Testament apocrypha contains several examples, such as the Gospel of Mary.