Many gospels, one Jesus?

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the history of the early church is the decision to include four gospels in the canon of Christian Scripture. The aim of this chapter is to explore the significance of the fourfold gospel for our knowledge of Jesus. The main argument will be that the four gospel texts bear witness in distinctive ways to the one gospel message at the heart of which is the one person, Jesus of Nazareth. That there are four gospels standing side by side in the canon, none of which has been subordinated to another, is an invitation to recognise that the truth about Jesus to which the gospels bear witness is irreducibly plural without being either incoherent or completely elastic. The fourfold gospel points to the profundity of Jesus' impact on his followers, the inexhaustibility of the truth about him, and the way in which knowledge of Jesus is necessarily self-involving.