Customer Reviews

Four Gospels, One Jesus?: A Symbolic Reading

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This is one of the most concise yet comprehensive books I've read on the subject, a book that effectively combines scholarship and faith. As Michael Green writes," Few academics emerge from the ivory tower to write in an attractive way for the general reader. Few theologians combine academic rigour with spiritual sensitivity. Richard Burridge does both these things,..." My students agree. They use and treasure their copy.

This book changed the way I view the Four Gospels...and has deepened my faith in the one Jesus to whom they witness. The book is academic in its approach, addressing the most important areas of textual and theological criticism, and yet it reads like a devotional. Good stuff for scholars and laypeople alike!

This book has been one of my re-reads, and I don't have time for many. I recommend this as a balanced, intelligent reading of the varried stories of Jesus, without "liberal" or "conservative" bias.

In "Four Gospels, One Jesus?," Richard Burridge attempts to reconcile the four accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament, in light of their distinctive styles and content. Using the analogy of four different pictures of Winston Churchill each portraying different and very real aspects of Churchill's character and personality without contradiction, Burridge suggests that each of the four gospel accounts offers us an important aspect of the nature of who Jesus was.

Though the premise and introduction of the book were compelling, I found the main substance of the book, one chapter on each of the four gospels, to be rather tedious. He walks through each gospel, picking out literary patterns and identifying key themes. Though he offered some interesting insights, these chapters were too dry and inaccessible to be very helpful.

Thankfully, this book ended well. Burridge's final chapter helps to make sense of the diverse observations that he made in the preceding chapters. He offers a very compelling case that smashing the gospel accounts together into one uber-narrative, as many readers of the New Testament are inclined to do for the sake of simplicity and 21st-century literary sensibilities, is entirely inappropriate and contrary to the intentions and motivations of the biblical authors. He also suggests that the existence of the four gospels is not some sort of mistake that we ought to try to correct by picking a favorite. Instead, he encourages believers in Jesus to read and study each account, which together offer an amazing and fascinating picture of who Jesus was. The challenge to encounter the gospels with intellectual honesty and faithful humility is a tricky one, and the beginning and end of Burridge's book have helped to clear my head and soften my heart as I continue to read them. Though I wish that the substantive core of the book had been more engaging, my understanding and appreciation for the biblical accounts of the life of Jesus Christ are richer for having waded through it.

Great book! This book really helped my biblical studies course, its really accessible but doesnt dumb down. So many of the academic theological books are really hard to read but this says everything in a real concise style and good for people like me who have a short attention span.

I wrote to Dr. Burridge recently that I wish I found the volume when I was a seminarian studying the Gospels. I am ministering youth and teens at a local Mennonite church in Indonesia. The volume is extremely enlightening. I prefer to reading Anglo-Saxon scholars to North American who are so often too simplistic and pragmatic (pardon me). Yet many times I find Anglo-Saxon writers are deep in exploring something but dry in nurturing soul. This book is an exception. It helps much in my ministry.

Here is Dr. Burridge's reply: "I'm glad to hear that you feel that the scholarship helps with your ministry - this is indeed the driving force behind most of my writing."

I humbly invite those who are keen on correct doctrinal teachings and preachings to submit once again to the study of the Gospels and grasp the book. He himself was to come back to the Gospels having written a massive monograph: WHAT ARE THE GOSPELS? to help his personal struggle in spiritual life.

The monograph is a groundbreaking study in the study of the Gospels. He is a classicist turned New Testament scholar. His graduate study in classic was done in Oxford, and the doctorate in Nottingham. He aptly demonstrates that the Gospels are a kind of ancient "Bioi." Find what the ancient "Bioi" with contemporary biographies. The technical work has been strongly condensed in FOUR JESUS, ONE GOSPELS?: A SYMBOLIC READING.

I am really happy to find the popular volume, since the explanation are employing the most popular literary and visual art works--as C. S. Lewis' NARNIA and Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS. Recently I wrote a paper for an academic journal on how to read the Bible with imagination, and I was helped by Tolkien's LOTR. And Dr. Burridge aptly provides me with samples.

Come to hear again the roar of the Lion in Mark, to sit under the wise teaching of the Israel Teacher in Matthew, to contemplate on the burden-bearer ox in Luke , and to soar high with the flying eagle in John. You and I will find that our lives are worth living!!!

Thanks so much, Dr. Burridge.

Mr. Burridge sees each of the gospels through the lens of an ancient symbol - the human face for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the ox for Luke, and the eagle for John. The choice of these symbols is arbitrary which forces him to hammer his insights into pattern that does not do justice to either the gospels or his thoughts. Burridge offers some keen insights such as "In this subtle way, Matthew uses mountains to point to Jesus' identity: he is another Moses who teaches and miraculously feeds multitudes on mountains; he is the Son of David, prophesying the eschatological consummation from Zion; he is the Son of God, worshipped by all the nations on the mountain." Or "Luke is comparatively less interested in the disciples as a distinct group (the term occurs only thirty-seven times, half as often as in Matthew or John) - but is more interested in people's reactions to Jesus." But in the end he is forced to fit everything into the arbitrary symbols he has chosen to represent each of the gospels. The book suffers for this structure.
Burridge wraps up with this idea "My symbolic reading of the four portraits suggests that the plurality may allow for different temperaments: Matthew's human Teacher will attract those interested in law and teaching, and in getting things clarified and tied down; Mark's enigmatic lion may help those in the darker experiences of suffering; Luke's hard-working ox will appeal to people labouring for liberation among the oppressed; while the flights of John's eagle will enchant the mystics." And finally "This study has suggested that, despite their plurality of portraits, the four gospels confront us with one Jesus - with the understanding that what Jesus is, God is." Overall, the I felt the book was forced to fit the symbols and would have been better without them. In his bibliography Burridge mentions another book that looks more interesting - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford University Press, second edition, 2002).

The book was requied for a Synoptic Gospel course I was enrolled in.
I found it to a great study tool. It points out similarities and differences in the writing styles and approach of the authors. Very helpful as a student.