The Fourfold Gospel: A Theological Reading of the New Testament Portraits of Jesus

by Francis Watson

Overview

This groundbreaking approach to the study of the fourfold gospel offers a challenging alternative to prevailing assumptions about the creation of the gospels and their portraits of Jesus. How and why does it matter that we have these four gospels? Why were they placed alongside one another as four parallel yet diverse retellings of the same story?

Francis Watson, widely regarded as one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our time, explains that the four gospels were chosen to give a portrait of Jesus. He explores the significance of the fourfold gospel's plural form for those who constructed it and for later Christian communities, showing that in its plurality it bears definitive witness to what God has done in Jesus Christ. Watson focuses on reading the gospels as a group rather than in isolation and explains that the fourfold gospel is greater than, and other than, the sum of its individual parts. Interweaving historical, exegetical, and theological perspectives, this book is accessibly written for students and pastors but is also of interest to professors and scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801098895
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/19/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	915,380
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Francis Watson (PhD, University of Oxford) is Research Chair in Biblical Interpretation at Durham University in Durham, England. He previously taught at the University of Aberdeen and at King's College London. Among his numerous works are the critically acclaimed Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith; Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective; and Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective.

Table of Contents

Contents

Prolegomena: The Making of a Fourfold Gospel
More Than Four?
Fewer Than Four?
Why "Gospel"?
Why the Evangelists' Names?
Why These Four?
Part 1: Perspectives
1. The First Gospel: Jesus the Jew
The Messiah's Double Origin
Genealogy as Narrative
The Sacred Story and Its Shadow
The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah
2. The Second Gospel: Preparing the Way
The Four Faces of the Gospel
The Voice in the Desert
The Inclusive Gospel
An End and a Beginning
3. The Third Gospel: Magnificat
How Luke Became Luke
Reassuring Theophilus
Reading in Parallel
4. The Fourth Gospel: Seeing God
Three plus One
The Johannine Eagle
In the Beginning
Part 2: Convergences
5. Four Gospels, One Book
The Evangelist: Portrait and Artist
Prefatory to a Gospel
Order out of Chaos
Parallels and Numbers
6. The City and the Garden
Acclamation
Reading the Event
A Man of Sorrows
7. Christus Victor
The Death of the Messiah
Atonement
Pattern
Life
Aftermath
8. The Truth of the Gospel
The Eucharistic Milieu
Evangelical Apologetics
Form and Content
The One Word
Indexes