EXPLANATORY NOTES ON POINTS OF SPECIAL DIFFICULTY IN THE HARMONY
1. About Harmonies of the Gospels
We do not know how soon an effort was made to combine in one book the several portrayals of the life of Jesus. Luke in his Gospel ([1:1-4]) makes a selection of the material and incorporates data from different sources, but with the stamp of his own arrangement and style. He followed, in the main, the order of Mark's Gospel, as is easily seen. But this method is not what is meant by a harmony of the Gospels, for the result is a selection from all sorts of material (oral and written), monographs and longer treatises.
The first known harmony is Tatian's Diatessaron (dia tessaron, by four) in the second century (about 160 A.D.) in the Syriac tongue. It was long lost, but an Arabic translation has been found and an English rendering appeared in 1894 by J. Hamlyn Hill. It is plain that Tatian has blended into one narrative our Four Gospels with a certain amount of freedom as is shown by Hobson's The Diatessaron of Tatian and the Synoptic Problem (1904). There have been modern attempts also to combine into one story the records of the Four Gospels. There is a superficial advantage in such an effort in the freedom from variations in the accounts, but the loss is too great for such an arbitrary gain. The word harmony calls for such an arrangement, but it is not the method of the best modern harmonies which preserve the differences in material and style just as they are in the Four Gospels.
In the third century Ammonius arranged the Gospels in four parallel columns (the Sections of Ammonius). This was an attempt to give a conspectus of the material in the Gospels side by side. In the fourth century Eusebius with his Canons and Sections enabled the reader to see at a glance the parallel passages in the Gospels. The ancients took a keen interest in this form of study of the Gospels, as Augustine shows.
Of modern harmonies that by Edward Robinson has had the most influence. The edition in English appeared in 1845, that in Greek in 1846. Riddle revised Robinson's Harmony in 1889. There were many others that employed the Authorized Version, like Clark's, and that divided the life of Christ according to the feasts.
Broadus (June, 1893) followed Waddy (1887) in the use of the Canterbury Revision, but was the first to break away from the division by feasts and to show the historical development in the life of Jesus. Stevens and Burton followed (December, 1893) Broadus within six months and, like him, used the Canterbury Revision and had an independent division of the life of Christ to show the historical unfolding of the events. These two harmonies have held the field for nearly thirty years for students of the English Gospels. In 1903 Kerr issued one in the American Standard Version and James one in the Canterbury Revision (1901).
Harmonies of the Gospels in the Greek continued to appear, like Tischendorf's (1851, new edition 1891), Wright's A Synopsis of the Gospels in Greek (1903), Huck's Synopse der drei ersten Evangelien (1892, English translation in 1907), Campbell's First Three Gospels in Greek (1899), A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels in Greek by Burton and Goodspeed (1920).
The progress in synoptic criticism emphasized the difference in subject matter and style between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel as appears in the works of Huck, Campbell, and Burton and Goodspeed that give only the Synoptic Gospels. Burton and Goodspeed have also an English work, A Harmony of the Synoptic Gospels for Historical and Critical Study (1917). In 1917 Sharman (Records of the Life of Jesus) gives first a harmony of the Synoptic Gospels with references to the Fourth Gospel and then an outline of the Fourth Gospel with references to the Synoptic Gospels.
Once more in 1919 Van Kirk produced The Source Book of the Life of Christ which is only a partial harmony, for the parables and speeches of Jesus are only referred to, not quoted. But he endeavored to show the results of Gospel criticism in the text of the book. There is much useful material here for a harmony, but it is not a real harmony that can be used for the full story of the life of Jesus. Van Kirk, however, is the first writer to place Mark in the first column instead of Matthew. I had already done it in my outline before I saw Van Kirk's book, but his was published first. It is an immense improvement to put Mark first. The student thus sees that the arrangement of the material is not arbitrary and whimsical, but orderly and natural. Both Matthew and Luke follow Mark's order except in the first part of Matthew where he is topical in the main. John supplements the Synoptic Gospels, particularly in the Judean (Jerusalem) Ministry.