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Gospel harmony

This article is about attempts to merge, or harmonize, the Christian canonical gospels. For harmony in Christian Gospel music, see Gospel music.
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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