Life of Christ in Gospels Course Notes by Stephen Hague (original) (raw)

Course notes for students of the New Testament: Gospels: Life of Christ. This is a harmonized survey of the backgrounds and life of Christ from all four Gospels using a chronological approach. The two primary questions of the Bible: OT: who is the Son promised to Adam and Eve? NT: who is this Man, Jesus? The overarching developmental themes in fulfilling the proto-Euangelion of Gen 3: • Stages of the defeat and vanquishing of Satan. • Stages and foretastes of the reversal of the curse. • Stages of the grafting onto the OT church in building of the NT church. • Stages of the escalated unveiling of the Kingdom of God. • Stages of the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, Prophet, Priest, King. Credible harmonization of the Gospel narratives is possible, even if not perfect in every single incidence, since each author had particular purposes and audiences that influenced their organization of the material. Because we cannot always be perfectly satisfied that the accounts are completely harmonized, it does not mean we cannot get a sufficient grasp of their harmony and consistency.156 This question especially corresponds to the issues of the chronology and historicity of the Gospels themselves, but it can be affirmed that the similarities and the overall harmony of the Gospels indicate fully authentic historical accounts for them all. In seeking to harmonize the life of Jesus, it is done for purposes of understanding the unified witness of all four inspired authors to the whole story, yet we must be careful not to diminish the unique integrity of each individual witness, assuming that each is inspired for particular purposes. While acknowledging the individual Gospels as each inspired witnesses with important perspectives and emphases, we also affirm the validity of seeing each of these together in the context of the whole presentation of the life of Jesus. Indeed, we read harmonistically so as to more adequately compare the accounts in terms of their similarities and differences. Differences between the accounts can usually be understood as complementary perspectives/emphases, and not in any case are they contradictions. Comparatively, the Gospel of John is the most difficult to harmonize chronologically with the Synoptic Gospels. John’s purpose may have been largely to supplement the Synoptic Gospels, otherwise he may have written independently of them. Silence about an incident by one author that is mentioned in another(s) does not impugn in any way the historical credibility of the author who is silent on the incidence; it only shows that one author gave more information, or unique information, that simply complements the entirely of the four Gospel accounts of Christ’s life. Inspiration and infallibility do not demand that any particular author know all incidences nor record all that was known (see Jn 21:25)