Book Review: Four Gospels, One Jesus?

It feels slightly odd to be reviewing a book that has boldly on its cover 'classics' - as it makes me feel guilty I haven't read it before! Fortunately, SPCK has seen fit to re-release, in its 'SPCK Classics' imprint, Richard Burridge's "Four Gospels, One Jesus?". This helpful book seeks to calmly, critically and carefully walk the reader - and it is pitched well at any interested parties who can read - through the complexities of having four Gospels and one Jesus.

Burridge works methodically through the four Gospels, having given a thorough, concise and very helpful introduction to the basic components of Gospel scholarship. This opening section is one of the strengths of this book - you can read and understand it without having to be of a particularly 'theological' mind, and the author is an able guide. This sets the tone for the rest of the book, as Burridge walks through the Four Gospels, in a symbolic reading, using the tools he has shown the reader in the first section. This is a helpful, methodical and logical work of introductory theology.

This useful book has a clear subtitle, which provides structure once we move beyond the introduction. Burridge is seeking to give us 'A symbolic reading' of the Four Gospels. Burridge builds on several traditional images for the Gospels. First up, following the canonical order, is "The Roar of the Lion - Mark's Jesus", which is powerfully explored as a metaphor and hermeneutical principle. We then move on to "The Teacher of Israel - Matthew's Jesus", where we see especially the tensions between teacher and teaching, old and new played out. I particularly enjoyed, out of Burridge's treatments of the Gospels, Luke most of all. Here in "The Bearer of Burdens - Luke's Jesus", the author works carefully through this Gospel. Finally is "The High-Flying Eagle - John's Jesus", where the unique concerns of John's Gospel are carefully examined.

The final section seeks to bring together the various different strands of the journey Burridge leads the reader on. "... One Jesus?" seeks to harmonise the four different Gospel portraits, and their differing emphases, into one Jesus. This is an interesting attempt to do so, and in my mind does what I believe the author intends; to lead the reader into hungering after a full expression of Jesus. 

I found this book to be very helpful. On the graduated side of my BA in Theology, a lot of this was relatively straightforward, but throughout I found myself wishing I could have come across this book before starting! It is a very helpful guide to NT Jesus scholarship, that holds the readers hand as appropriate, whilst at the same time making a contribution to the literature in a helpful way. I'd highly recommend it to people looking for a book that harmonises the occasionally dissonant pictures of Jesus we see in Scripture, and also serves as an introduction to how scholars approach the Bible.