Category Archives: Harmony of the gospels

Harmony of the gospels

Harmony

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Can the four gospels be harmonized? I’ve been working at it for some time, maybe four years or longer. I began and made it a good distance, then put it aside to pursue other writing ventures, then picked it up again and completed it in mid-2006. That was all in manuscript, in three steno notebooks. My method was to take the passage, write in the notebook a verse or two from each gospel that had it, and see how I could blend the language to make one account of the event. I started with the triumphal entry, since this was covered by all four gospels, then went to the end, back to the beginning, and eventually circled round to the triumphal entry.

As I worked on this, my method changed some. The longer I worked the better job I did explaining why I decided to write what I wrote. Some of my early work is now difficult to follow.

My goal is to have one gospel, as seamless as possible. In this my approach differs from most harmonies of the gospels that I see. All of those are merely listing of parallel passages next to each other, with no real attempt to harmonize the accounts. At most they try to figure out a timeline for the events. I have two printed harmonies of this nature, and have found several on-line.

Mine will not be for publication, since I’m using the New International Version as my base, and that is copyrighted. This is for my own study, edification, and enjoyment. It seems a worthwhile project, and I’ve learned much.

Can the gospels be harmonized? Should the gospels be harmonized? I have talked with some who think not. The gospels are not history, they say, but rather spiritual writings and so should be treated as such, and don’t need harmonizing. However, I plug on, now finally typing what I wrote previously. Last night I worked for more than an hour, adding headings and footnotes to the part corresponding to Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4-5. Then I went to the end of where I’d finished typing before Christmas and typed more, completing the Garden of Gethsemane event. I’ve probably got 10 hours of original typing left, then much time to add footnotes, proof-read, and write appendixes explaining a number of decisions I made along the way.

Can the four gospels be harmonized? What about a life pulled in four (or more) directions? Can it be harmonized? Or must the number of parts be reduced from quartet to trio? These pages must tell.

goals, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Macaulay, poetry, Writing

January Goals

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Again this month, my writing goals will be few, and not terribly difficult to achieve. I have much to do in other areas of life, and time for writing is unlikely to materialize this month. Here they are.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times.

2. Complete my review essay of T.B. Macaulay’s essay on the History of the Popes.

3. Return to typing the Harmony of the Gospels I wrote in manuscript over a several year period. If I finish the typing this month–and that is easily possible, I can start the editing process next month, including adding a bunch of notes.

4. Come close to finishing my current reading project, The Powers That Be, by David Halberstam. Only 453 pages to go as of last night.

5. Work on Life On A Yo Yo, which I begin teaching this coming Sunday, as a publishable Bible study.

6. Monitor five websites regularly. These are:
– Absolute Write, the Water Cooler
– Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent
– The Writing Life, by Terry Whalin, Literary Agent
– Advanced Fiction Writing, by Randy Ingermanson
– So You Want to Be Published, by Mary DeMuth

7. Critique 5-10 poems at various places, both public and private. This is probably an affectation, as poetry is a dead end for publishing and my limited writing time would be better used elsewhere, but it brings enjoyment to me and maybe help to others, so I’ll return to it in a small way.

Daddy Daughter Day, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Life On A YoYo, poetry, Writing

What to write?

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This question is not about this blog, but about writing in general. At present, I have only two writing projects in progress:

1. Type the harmony of the gospels I did off and on over a three year period ending in 2005, then go through it to look for gaps, redundancies, potential changes in order, etc. After the typing and editing is done, type explanatory notes for the harmony, only some of which are written in manuscript form. This is likely to take all year.

2. Work on my “Life On A Yo Yo” Bible study, of the life of Peter the apostle. This is planned, and I begin teaching it on Sunday Jan 4, 2009. This is more of a teaching project than a writing project, but I figure that every such project might become a writing project given the right amount of time and energy.

But what to do about a writing career? As I’ve reported before, it seems that life will never give me, short of my retirement planned for 8 years and 2 days from now, enough time to do all that writing demands: write, edit, improve my craft, research the market, research agents, pour time into submittals/proposals/query letters/etc., follow-up on those, and prepare for the marketing work I would have to do should I become published. All this makes a writing career a pipe dream for now.

So I have an unfinished second novel, In Front Of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, that must remain unfinished. I have a completed first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which, having earned about ten rejections, must remain in the reject pile for the moment. I have my completed poetry book, Father Daughter Day, which, defying all rules of genre and degree of religiosity, sits in exile upon a closet shelf. My non-fiction book Screwtape’s Good Advice, has only one rejection, but finding time to tailor the proposal to new editors or agents seems, in light of the current state of publishing, an effort in futility. My newspaper column, Documenting America, being a good but unique work The long list of other novels, other non-fiction books, magazine articles, etc. will just have to remain in the ideas notebook for now.

What will the next twelve months hold as far as writing goes? Stay tuned.

goals, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Life On A YoYo, Writing

November Report

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Time to report on how I did in November relative to the modest goals I set.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times. I managed 13 posts; so met and slightly exceeded goals.

2. Finish planning “Life On A Yo Yo”, and begin writing as needed, with a target to present to our life group beginning in January 2009. Completed as planned. For this lesson series, I’m not going to have weekly handouts as I did with the Elijah and Elisha study; at least not fancy ones.

3. Begin planning two other life group series. One will be “From Slavery To Nationhood”, which looks at the Israelites during the Exodus and the years of wandering. The other is the one I thought of last week, which needs some more work before I make it public. Completed this. Both of these two studies are planned. By this I mean: I know how long they will be (how many weeks); I have the full list of lessons identified; I have a short description of the goals for each lesson; I have the scripture identified for each lesson.

4. Evaluate the life group lesson series I thought of based on a story in the Apocrypha. I sort-of did this. I have thought through the short lesson series, decided it is viable, and have brainstormed how I would teach it. I have not yet put much down on paper.

5. Since I found more writing things that need to be filed, and since I ran out of file folders and couldn’t file all of those I found, finish filing writing stuff. I have not yet purchased the file folders I need, but I think I have gathered everything into one place (my filing pile), put them in order, and discarded duplicates. I should be able to finish this in December. Didn’t I say that in November?

6. Work some on one other writing project. Alas, I cannot think of anything I did this month that would qualify as meeting this goal.

7. Continue typing the harmony of the gospels that I wrote some years ago. I made excellent progress on this goal, typing for 30 to 45 minutes almost every evening. I began with the part I worked on last, and progressed backwards. The reason I did this was that I found some of my early work did not have enough explanatory notes, and sometimes it was a little difficult to be sure of what the actual harmony was. I’m not back to some of my earliest work on this.