The four Gospels
A harmony of the Gospels
Four men wrote the life of Jesus. This table sets their accounts side by side, one episode per row, so you can see at a glance who tells what: and where a Gospel goes quiet.
A harmony is a table, not a fifth Gospel. Each row names one episode and shows where each of the four tells it. Where a Gospel is silent, the cell is empty, and that is the point: John tells seven chapters no one else records, and a third of Luke has no parallel anywhere.
The order of the rows is a proposal, not a calendar. This one follows A. T. Robertson’s harmony of 1922, the standard for a century. Where his arrangement makes a disputed call — and it does, about a dozen times — the row says so and gives the other readings their best case.
Every reference is a door. Click any of them to read the passage.
- 185episodes
- 16told by all four
- 84told by one only
- 11contested calls
Start anywhere
Six stretches of the story
Probably 7 BC to AD 25
The openings and the early yearsFour Gospels start four different ways, a historian's preface, a hymn about the Word, and two family trees, and then the births of John and Jesus.23 episodesProbably AD 26-27
The year of beginningsThe baptism, the temptation, the first disciples, the first sign at Cana, Nicodemus by night and the Samaritan woman at the well. Mostly John's material.13 episodesProbably AD 27-29
The Galilean ministryThe busiest stretch of the four Gospels: the calling of the Twelve, the Sermon on the Mount, the great parables, the miracles around the lake, and then the withdrawals north, away from the crowds, to train the Twelve.59 episodesTabernacles AD 29 to the last journey
The road to JerusalemTeaching in Judea and Perea on the way south, the Good Samaritan, the lost son, the raising of Lazarus. Long stretches here are John alone or Luke alone.32 episodesThe week before Passover
Passion WeekThe entry into Jerusalem, the last public debates in the temple, the upper room, Gethsemane, the trials, the cross and the tomb. All four Gospels run together here more closely than anywhere else.42 episodesThe forty days that followed
The resurrection and the ascensionThe empty tomb, the appearances, and the ascension. This is the hardest stretch to lay out in order, and the table says so.16 episodesThe same material, cut another way
Four catalogs over this table
What he did
The miraclesEvery recorded act, sorted by kind, with an honest account of why the total is disputed.What he taught
The parablesThe stories, grouped by what they teach, each with one plain line saying what it is about.The long teaching
The great discoursesThe blocks where the narrative stops and Jesus talks at length: and Matthew's fivefold pattern named.The last week
Passion Week, day by dayThe final week as a timetable rather than a table, with the calendar disputes stated in these same words.Before you use it
Where this table makes a judgment
Once or twice?
Did Jesus clear the temple twice, once at the start and once at the end, or once, placed differently by John?
- Twice. John reports one at an early Passover and the other three report one in the final week; read in sequence, the plain sense is two occasions, framing the ministry at both ends. This is the arrangement Robertson follows, and the harmony's row order reflects it.
- Once, moved by John. John arranges by theme as much as by clock, and he puts the temple scene at the front to announce his whole subject, Jesus replaces the temple ("he spake of the temple of his body," John 2:21).
- Once, moved by the other three. The minority position, held for the mirror-image reason.
What this table does: Both rows stand, each pointing at the other, labelled as Robertson's arrangement rather than as settled fact.
Two lists, one man
Why do Matthew and Luke give different ancestries for Jesus between David and Joseph?
- Matthew gives Joseph's line and Luke gives Mary's. Robertson's own heading says "apparently" — he offers it as a proposal, not a finding.
- Levirate marriage explains the difference: Joseph had a legal father and a natural father. This is the oldest surviving answer, from Julius Africanus (Epistle to Aristides, c. AD 225, preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I.7).
- Matthew traces the legal and royal succession, Luke the natural descent.
What this table does: The row names the question; the full study argues the options.
Which feast?
John 5:1 says only "a feast of the Jews." Which one?
- If it is a Passover, Jesus's ministry covers four Passovers rather than three, and runs longer. Robertson allows it: "possibly the Passover."
- If it is Tabernacles, Purim, or another feast, the three-Passover count and the roughly three-year ministry stand.
What this table does: The text does not say, so neither does this table. The length of the ministry rests partly on this unnamed day.
Mount or plain?
Are the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17–49) one sermon or two?
- One sermon, reported by two writers with different selections and arrangements. Robertson harmonizes them on a single row.
- Two occasions. The settings differ in the texts themselves, a mountain in Matthew 5:1, "a level place" in Luke 6:17, and an itinerant teacher repeats himself.
- One body of teaching, preserved in two arrangements, without a claim about occasions at all.
What this table does: Robertson's single row is kept, with the disagreement named on it.
One anointing or two?
Is the woman who anoints Jesus's feet in Galilee (Luke 7) the same event as Mary of Bethany's anointing before the passion?
- Two events. Different place, different time, different host's circumstances, and different point. Robertson keeps them on separate rows.
- One event, remembered in two settings, the details that overlap (the ointment, the feet, the objection, the defense) are held to be too close for coincidence.
What this table does: The rows stay separate, and each names the other.
Said once or twice?
Matthew and Mark report the charge that Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebub; Luke reports it later in a different setting. One occasion or two?
- Two occasions. A charge that damaging would be made more than once. Robertson gives it two rows.
- One occasion, placed differently, Luke's ordering is topical here rather than chronological.
What this table does: Both rows stand, cross-referenced.
A textual question
Was the account of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) part of John's Gospel as first written?
- It is absent from the earliest and best Greek manuscripts, and the manuscripts that do carry it place it in several different spots, after John 7:36, at the end of John, even in Luke. That movement is itself evidence it was not original to this place.
- Many hold the account to be a genuine memory of Jesus that circulated on its own before being written into the text here.
What this table does: The row is kept in Robertson's position and flagged; the manuscript evidence is one click away.
The Passover question
Was the last supper the Passover meal? The first three Gospels say it was; John seems to put the crucifixion before the meal.
- The Synoptics are plain: this is the Passover (Mark 14:12). John's remarks are read as referring to the week's other festival meals, the accusers avoid defilement so they can "eat the passover" of the days that follow (John 18:28).
- John is plain too, and means the seder: the trial falls on "the Preparation of the passover" (John 19:14), which has Jesus dying as the lambs are killed, the identification John makes from the start ("the Lamb of God," John 1:29).
- Both are literally right because more than one calendar was in use at once, so different groups kept Passover on different days.
What this table does: The order of events on these rows is not in dispute; the calendar behind them is, and the table does not settle it.
Which day?
On what day of the week was Jesus crucified?
- Friday, the traditional and majority reading. The Gospels call it the day of Preparation (Mark 15:42) and the women rest on the Sabbath that follows (Luke 23:56). Robertson works in this frame.
- Wednesday, argued from "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40), which needs a festival "high" Sabbath (John 19:31) distinct from the weekly one.
- Thursday, a middle position answering the same difficulty with one fewer day.
What this table does: The sequence of events holds under any of the three. The table gives the sequence and leaves the weekday named as a question. Robertson prints the year itself as "A.D. 30 or 29."
How Mark ends
Did Mark's Gospel originally end at 16:8?
- The two oldest complete Greek manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, end at 16:8, and several early witnesses show scribes aware of a problem here. On this reading verses 9–20 are a later ending.
- The longer ending is quoted early and is present in the great majority of manuscripts, and a Gospel ending mid-sentence at "for they were afraid" strikes many as no ending at all.
What this table does: Robertson draws on Mark 16:9–20 for several resurrection rows. Those rows are flagged, and the other Gospels' witness to the same appearances stands beside them.
Two accounts
Matthew and Acts describe Judas's death and the field bought with the money differently.
- The accounts describe different aspects of one outcome, a hanging and a subsequent fall, and "bought" in Acts means the money bought it, not that Judas handled the purchase.
- The two accounts preserve genuinely different traditions, and forcing them together does justice to neither.
What this table does: The row carries both references and names the difficulty rather than resolving it in a table cell.
The whole table
Every episode, in order
The complete skeleton. Open a period above to read the parallel passages side by side without leaving the table.
The openings and the early years
Open with the text →The sources behind the Gospels
The Word before the world
The two family lines
The births of John and Jesus
John the Baptist begins
The year of beginnings
Open with the text →Jesus begins in public
The Galilean ministry
Open with the text →The great Galilean ministry
Training the Twelve away from the crowds
The road to Jerusalem
Open with the text →The later Judean ministry
The later Perean ministry
Passion Week
Open with the text →The last public days in Jerusalem
In the shadow: the upper room and Gethsemane
Outside the four: 1 Corinthians 11:23–26
Arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial
The resurrection and the ascension
Open with the text →Risen: the appearances and the ascension
Outside the four: 1 Corinthians 15:7