Who is Jesus Christ?
I have book on my shelf at home with a really good title: Four Gospels, One Jesus. As you might guess, it is a book about how to interpret the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the book’s author develops his title in two ways. On the one hand, he stresses that there are four different Gospels. Even the three “synoptic” Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who seem to see things through the same eyes (that’s what synoptic means)—put their material to use in their own unique ways. Each Gospel writer has his own style, his own aims, his own sources. And so each one is different. Of course, the difference is especially obvious when we set the Synoptics alongside John. To take but one example, while all four Gospels agree that the Last Supper happened on a Thursday night, Matthew Mark and Luke insist it was a Passover supper while John is just as clear that it happened the night before the Passover. In Joh...