This revised and expanded introductory text introduces students of the Bible to the layers of meaning that can be uncovered by serious study of the synoptic gospel texts. Included are two new chapters introducing ideological exegetical approaches to the gospels and a concluding chapter that helps the student synthesize the exegetical discoveries they have made using the methods taught in the book.

This revised and expanded introductory text introduces students of the Bible to the layers of meaning that can be uncovered by serious study of the synoptic gospel texts. Included are two new chapters introducing ideological exegetical approaches to the gospels and a concluding chapter that helps the student synthesize the exegetical discoveries they have made using the methods taught in the book.

Nickle provides an updated edition of a proven textbook that fills the gap between brief treatments of the Synoptics by New Testament introductions and exhaustive commentaries. In a clear and concise manner, "The Synoptic Gospels" explores the major issues of faith that influenced the writers of the Gospels while utilizing the full range of critical and literary methods.

In this book respected New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins delivers a clear, fresh, informed introduction to the earliest written accounts of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — situating those canonical Gospels within the wider world of oral storytelling and literary production of the first and second centuries. Cutting through the media confusion over new Gospel finds, Perkins s Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels presents a balanced, responsible look at how the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke came to be and what they mean.

Keith Nickle provides a revised and updated edition of a well-respected resource that fills the gap between cursory treatments of the Synoptic Gospels by New Testament introductions and exhaustive treatments in commentaries. In a clear and concise manner, Nickles explores the major issues of faith that influenced the writers of the Gospels. The Synoptic Gospels is helpful for classroom or personal use.

A History of the Synoptic Problem, by David Laird Dungan, is an accessible, academic study of a question that has needled readers of the New Testament since before the Bible was canonized: How does one reconcile the different accounts of Jesus's life given by the four gospels? Today the most highly publicized answer to this question is the one offered by John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, who seek to reconcile the differences among the gospels by designating some events and statements in the gospels historically true and others false. There are lots of other ways to explore the synoptic problem, however, and Dungan provides a clear and lively history of the strategies employed by Origen, Augustine, Erasmus, Spinoza, Locke, and others. Dungan's method is to break the synoptic problem down into its corollary questions: Which gospels should be considered in the debate? Which text of each gospel should be considered? And how should one read the Bible in general and the gospels in particular? Dungan's interest in these questions is not merely literary; he also delves into the political and economic agendas that have influenced biblical interpretation. In this regard, the most interesting and original connection he makes is to explain the relationship between the rise of the modern historical-critical method of reading scripture (asking who wrote the books of the Bible, when, how, and for whom) and the creation and maintenance of political democracy--and furthermore, the ways in which fundamentalist "literal" readings of Scripture serve the same goal. Dungan's own investment in debates on the synoptic problem is shot through with an appealing humility about the stakes of the debate. "At its deepest level, the Synoptic Problem is not a scientific 'problem'," he writes. "[T]he quest for the correct solution to the Synoptic Problem, like the Church's quest for the correct canon of the Gospels, and the correct text of the Gospels, and the correct way to interpret the Gospels, is a vital aspect of the Church's perennial quest for the Word of Life."

Many biblical scholars believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written after those of Mark and Luke. In this controversial book, an eminent politician who is also a distinguished classical scholar refutes this idea, using textual and literary criticism to assert that the Gospel of Matthew preceded the other gospels. Translating and analysing the original Greek source, Powell proceeds to concentrate upon the text of Matthew, as being the earliest form of the gospel that we possess, and to demonstrate how its peculiar characteristics can best be accounted for as being the result of insertions and manipulations, often theologically motivated. Powell argues that the Gospel of Matthew represents an attempted compromise between a pro-gentile book and a critical revision of that book produced for the judaising wing of the early Church, and that material intended to appeal to the followers of John the Baptist was also introduced. The Gospel of Matthew, though given the form of consecutive narrative, is, says Powell, essentially a theological debate carried on by means of allegory: was Jesus the Son of God or a Davidic king?