Bible Question:
The 4 gospels in cronological order - what do others think? Is it is instructively or not? http://www.gospeljesus.net/ |
Bible Answer: Hi, torgeirsin... Welcome to the forum! There have been many efforts to produce harmonizations of the gospels, since the early days of the church, through the Middle Ages, from the Reformation, and in modern times. There is much concensus in these efforts, but also distincives based on various presuppositions. I have never found a harmonization to be of particular value. Interesting -- and no doubt a beneficial effort to one doing the harmonization -- but of little instructive value. Every book, passage, pericope, and sentence of Scripture is in a specific context. Those things are necessary and divinely inspired. The order of the canon, though not necessarily infallible in the same sense, are highly pedagogical. What I am saying is that the Bible does a wonderful job of teaching itself. Accepting it in the specific order in which it has been received by us is, in itself, extremely valuable. Putting things in chronological order -- while appealing to a Western aesthetic sense of sequence -- may lead the student astray. Each of the gospels was written specifically in the way they were written in order to instruct the audience for which they were written. Who would want to presume, for instance, on Matthew's topical sequence, etc.? In Him, Doc |