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

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.

• Four Portraits, One Jesus: A Survey of Jesus and the Gospels
• Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction
• Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy
• Pontius Pilate: A Novel
• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: A Novel
• Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP Bible Dictionary)
• Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness
• The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament
• Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction
• Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi