The Text used in this book is taken from the American Standard Edition PREFACE. This new Harmony of the Gospels is the outcome of teaching the life of Christ for a number of years in the San Francisco Theological Seminary. The word Harmony is really an infelicitous term, but usage has employed it in a technical sense so long that it is unavoidable here. Those who examine this work will soon see that no attempt has been made in these pages to harmonize the Gospel records. The utmost that has been attempted has been to arrange the material chronologically and in such a way that all the parallel passages are placed so as readily to show their agreements and differences. In teaching the life of Christ I found that for me at least, it was practically impossible satisfactorily to teach that life except by means of an orderly arrangement of the material which is given in the four Gospels. None of the existing Harmonies seemed to meet the necessities that confronted me, and as a consequence there was nothing left for me to do but construct one for my classes. The use of the following arrangement proved to be so helpful to them, that at length after many and repeated tests, I now put it forth in print, hoping that it may be found to be of service to a still wider circle of students of that matchless life which grows increasingly interesting as the years which mark the progress of the kingdom of our Lord pass by. It will be noticed that the present work cuts loose entirely from the old plan of regarding the passovers as the important marks of time in the life of Christ. A tentative chronology is given herein. The time may possibly come when sufficient data shall have been obtained by means of which absolutely to decide when Christ was born, but that time has not yet come. I have here assumed that the birth of Christ took place four months or more preceding the death of Herod the Great. Though the chronology here given is based on the assumption that the feast of John 5: 1 was a passover, yet I am free to confess that no one can absolutely prove this assumption. But though it is incapable of mathematical demonstration, I am none the less convinced that the public ministry of the Saviour embraced four passovers. The principal reason for this opinion is that the movements of the history seem to me to demand a period for the Galilean ministry much longer than the theory that there were only three passovers in Christ's public ministry permits. The Gospel History, or the Life of Christ, is here divided into three periods, namely, those of Preparation, Labor and Triumph. The first of these includes all events of the history down to the baptism of Jesus. |