Gospel harmony

The Four Evangelists by Jacob Jordaens, 1625–1630, Louvre

A gospel harmony is an attempt to compile the canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament into a single account.[1] This may take the form either of a single, merged narrative, or a tabular format with one column for each gospel, technically known as a synopsis, although the word harmony is often used for both.[1]

Harmonies are constructed for a variety of purposes: to create a readable and accessible piece of literature for the general public,[2] to establish a scholarly chronology of events in the life of Jesus as depicted in the canonical gospels, or to better understand how the accounts relate to each other.[3]

Among academics, the construction of harmonies has been favoured by conservative scholars, though one scholar, B. S. Childs, opposes this.[4] Students of higher criticism see the divergences between the gospel accounts as reflecting the construction of traditions by the early Christian communities.[5] Among modern academics, attempts to construct a single story have largely been abandoned in favour of laying out the accounts in parallel columns for comparison, to allow critical study of the differences between them.[6]

The earliest known harmony is the Diatessaron by Tatian in the 2nd century and variations based on the Diatessaron continued to appear in the Middle Ages.[7][8] The 16th century witnessed a major increase in the introduction of gospel harmonies and the parallel column structure became widespread.[9] At this time visual representations also started appearing, depicting the life of Christ in terms of a "pictorial gospel harmony", and the trend continued into the 19th–20th centuries.[10][11]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Cox3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Averitt, Neil (2015). The Single Gospel. Wipf and Stock. pp. xix–xx. ISBN 978-1498221580.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cox18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ France, R.T. "Chronological Aspects of 'Gospel Harmony'," Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 33–60.
  5. ^ Cox & Easley 2007, pp. 1–2.
  6. ^ The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 4, Eerdmans, 2005, p. 39.
  7. ^ Aune, David Edward (2003), The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, Westminster John Knox Press, p. 190, ISBN 0664219179.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference RobS28 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cox6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference corby was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Tissot, James (2009), Dolkart, Judith F; Jacques, James (eds.), The Life of Christ : the complete set of 350 watercolors, Merrell Publishers, pp. 70–71, ISBN 978-0872731646

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