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.

About the Author :
Wayne G. Rollins received his B. A. from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, and the B.D., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale. He has taught at Princeton University, Wellesley College, and Hartford Seminary Foundation, and served as Director of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies and Ecumenical Institute at Assumption College, Worcester, MA. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. His publications include The Gospels: Portraits of Christ (1963), Soul and Psyche, the Bible in Psychological Perspective (1999). He co-edited four volumes with J. Harold Ellens on Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures (2004) and Psychological Insight Into The Bible: Texts And Readings (2007) with D. Andrew Kille. In 2012, at the University of Amsterdam, colleagues presented Rollins with a Festschrift volume of essays, entitled Psychological Hermeneutics for Biblical Themes and Texts, edited by J. Harold Ellens. It honored Rollins' 1991 founding of the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, an international organization of biblical scholars. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Assumption College and serves as Adjunct Professor of Scripture at Hartford Seminary.

Review :
""A good example of modern New Testament scholarship brought down out of the stratosphere and geared to the everyday, interested reader."" --The Episcopalian ""While the book is obviously mined from an active quarry of scholarship, . . . his writing is neither tedious nor tiring, dogmatic nor didactic. Professor Rollins communicates exceedingly well and he has produced a strikingly significant, even enjoyable book. --G. Curtis Jones, The Christian A scholarly--even brilliant--job, revealing familiarity with the christological points of view of both fundamentalism and liberalism. A succinct and extraordinarily clear presentation of the results . . . of biblical research during the past century. Unusual clarity, original and apt analogy and intriguing style."" --Choice ""If you would like to read an interpretation of our Lord which has scholarly substance as well as a devotional spirit, you would have to look far to find a better choice than The Gospels: Portraits of Christ. --Samuel McCrea Cavert, The Minister's Bookshelf