FOREWORD to The SYNOPTIC GOSPEL

It is important that every person hear about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Few disagree that this story is found within the four Gospel accounts that open the New Testament of the Christian Bible, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Within these four Gospel narratives there are many places where two, three, and even all four of them, mention the same saying, or describe the same event. In these many sets of parallel and overlapping verses there are almost always also differences within the specific details that each account records.

Over the centuries, many types of harmonies (which align the verses of the Gospels in parallel columns) and mergers (which combine or unify the individual words of the Gospels) have been created in an attempt to reconcile the differing chronologies of the four Gospel accounts, and to include or unify all of their words. In order to harmonize all of the details from the sections of parallel verses and produce one single and complete Gospel story of the teaching life and healing ministry of Jesus Christ, a four Gospel harmony and word-for-word merger called FIVE COLUMN: The Synoptic Gospel was created. This book reprints the unified text of the fifth column of that harmony as The Synoptic Gospel: The Story of The Life of Jesus.

FOREWORD to FIVE COLUMN

It is important that every person hear about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  Few disagree that this story is found within the four Gospel accounts that open the New Testament of the Christian Bible, namely Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Within these four Gospel narratives there are many places where two, three, and even all four of them, mention the same saying, or describe the same event.  In these many sets of parallel verses there are almost always also many differences within the details that each account records.

Over the centuries, many types of harmonies (which align the verses of the Gospels in parallel columns) and mergers (which combine or unify the individual words of the Gospels) have been created in an attempt to reconcile the differing chronologies of the four accounts, and to include or unify all of their words.  This book goes beyond all previous works by harmonizing the details of the parallel verses of the four Gospels on a word-for-word basis, to produce one single and complete Gospel story of the teaching life and healing ministry of Jesus Christ.

As for the name, FIVE COLUMN is the title of this book which contains the database of the four Gospel harmony.  The subtitle of this work is The Synoptic Gospel, which contains the database of the four Gospel harmony and the word-for-word merger which produces the fifth column text, The Synoptic Gospel, which is the subtitle of this book, and also the title of a separate work that reproduces just the unified fifth column text.  Use this book to see how the words of the four Gospels were aligned and harmonized to produce the fifth column text, and read The Synoptic Gospel: The Story of The Life of Jesus if you just want to know that full Gospel story.