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As we read the New Testament accounts of the advent, life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, we are treated with four different views of these amazing events, some of which repeat between them, though sometimes in varying detail. To be a thorough student of the narratives, one must go back and forth between them, comparing passage to passage and verse to verse, to arrive at a fuller, more complete picture.
Some have published harmonies of the Gospels, wherein either the chapter and verse references of synoptic passages, or the whole passages themselves, are listed together in one place, often side-by-side in column format. And while this can certainly improve upon the back-and-forth looking up of passages for comparison, it occurred to me that there was one more step which could be taken to assist the student of the Scriptures in getting the whole picture: harmonize similar passages, bringing all details into one account and eliminating any repeating elements.
What you have before you is my contribution to the effort of understanding the Gospel accounts of the New Testament. The verses of the four New Testament gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) have been not only brought together into one place in their chronological order, but the texts have their redundancies removed such that their combined reading renders every detail from each one giving information on any event. Numerous events are recorded in some detail in the three “Synoptic Gospels” (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), whereas others are recorded by two, or just by one. The Gospel of John is the most unique of the four because it contains much information not found in the other three.
To help the reader appreciate what I have (and have not) done in this work, here are some important characteristics of this effort.
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- The intent of this work is not to replace the four gospel accounts with one book. It is to make an additional way to read the gospels as a single unit with all the details of each account merged into one account.
- The sole textual basis for this work is the English King James Version of the Bible. It is the only English translation that I recognize as authoritative for the believer. It is because of my years of study in the subject of the origins of the English Bible that I have come to this conclusion, and I make no apology for it.
- Very limited original language material (Greek) was used in the development of the harmonized text. As much as possible, the text of the English KJV has been preserved. The existing renderings in the KJV text are in most cases sufficient to determine how the final text should read. Thus, this is not a translation work. The Greek has been consulted on very few occasions.
- No attempt was made to render the thoughts of the text as opposed to the text itself. Whereas modern English translation work utilizes dynamic equivalence to render the thoughts of a passage, this project (as was the case with the KJV translation) recognizes that the very words of God are inspired. Thus, this work does not alter the words of the KJV translators, but merely brings them together into one reading.
- A basic set of rules governing combining the verses of the various accounts was employed as follows:
- Organize the text chronologically. For this, the harmonies of the gospels by Robertson and Davies have been helpful.
- Divide the text into appropriate chapters. Chapter divisions are determined either by a change of subject or a need to keep the length reasonable. Chapter and verse divisions were not part of the original text of the Scriptures, but came into the Bible text in the 1500s, much later than the text itself, and are therefore not part of the Word of God. They are subject to the discretion of the translator or compiler of the work. In this work, verse numbering has been provided based on the existing verse divisions in the gospel texts. As with the KJV, the beginning word of each verse is capitalized.
- Provide section headings to introduce events and give references for lookup. Again, Davies' harmony has been helpful in this regard.
- Where an account appears once among the four gospels, use its complete text, as given in the KJV.
- Where an account appears multiple times in the gospels, begin with the passage offering the greatest amount of detail and information, then bring in the additional details from the other parallel accounts.
- Where the same object or action is described using different words between accounts, keep the word offering either the most commonly understood meaning, or the strongest rendering for its descriptive value. As a case in point, when the disciples were called by Jesus to become fishers of men, Matthew says they left their nets while Mark says they forsook their nets. Forsook was used for the harmonized passage, since forsook includes leaving but also conveys the depth of their decision to follow Jesus to the exclusion of all else.
- Show the words of Jesus in red type as is done in many print Bibles.
- No copyright is claimed upon this work. The KJV text of the gospel accounts is already in the public domain. The harmonizing and arrangement of the text is therefore subject to use and reproduction without prior permission.
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My purpose, therefore, is to make the four gospel accounts readable as a single book, like any book of the Bible. It may be read devotionally or studied in detail. It is my hope and prayer that this work may be edifying to readers of the gospel accounts.
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