The Gospels

Far from being carbon copies of one another, the Gospels represent four individual approaches to God, to the world, to humankind, and above all to the one they call Jesus the Christ. The purpose of the book is to examine how each Gospel writer, heeding the patterns and rhythms of his own mind, portrays Jesus in the setting of his own world. The five chapters of the book are titled: "The New Approach"; "The Gospel of Mark: A Religious-Existential Approach"; "The Gospel of Matthew: An Ethical-Apocalyptic Approach"; "The Gospel of Luke: An Aesthetic-Historical Approach"; and "The Gospel of John: A Paradoxical-Mystical Approach." The diversity of the Gospels and their Christology is, Rollins believes, an asset to faith's understanding. The Christ event becomes available through four perspectives rather than one, each capturing an edge of the reality. Moreover, in their diversity the Gospel portraits exemplify the New Testament injunction that new wine must be put into new wineskins, and they provide models for the continuing attempts at christological portraiture undertaken by novelists, poets, playwrights, and theologians who find themselves moved by and drawn to the one the Gospels portray.