A Review of the book "The Life of Christ in Stereo"
Channel: Galen Currah
Date: 2018-02-24

A Review of the book "The Life of Christ in Stereo"
A Interwoven Edition of All Four Gospels
“No words supplied, and no words left out”

wordwatchers.currah.us

The New Testament section of the Holy Bible includes four ‘gospels,’ that is, accounts of the birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus, who was born around 2 BCE and departed as late as 33 CE. 

Whilst the four gospels (named for their presumed editors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) relate many same facts and accounts, each one differing from the others in details, arrangement, wording and unique facts.

Johnston Cheney, a veteran of World War 1, whilst convalescing from tuberculosis, undertook to compare the four gospels, in their early Greek versions. 

Through years of study, Cheney found that he could interweave details from the four gospels into a single account, supplying no other words, and omitting no words. 

However, where one gospel employs a precise expression (such as “six days,” Mark 9:2) whilst another gospel uses a general one (such as ‘”around eight days,” Luke 9:26), the more precise expression prevails.

Let us take for example, the laying of Jesus’ body in a tomb. Taking all the details from all four gospels, we get the following blended account.

First in Greek

4 ἦν δὲ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ὅπου ἐσταυρώθη κῆπος, καὶ ἐν τῷ κήπῳ μνημεῖον καινὸν 1 ὃ ἐλατόμησεν ὁ Ἰωσὴφ 2 ἐκ πέτρας 3 οὗ οὐκ ἦν οὐδεὶς οὔπω κείμενος 4 ὅτι 3 ἡμέρα ἦν παρασκευῆς καὶ σάββατον ἐπέφωσκεν, 3 καὶ 4 ὅτι ἐγγὺς ἦν τὸ μνημεῖον, ἔθηκαν τὸν Ἰησοῦν 1 καὶ προσκυλίσας λίθον μέγαν 2 ἐπὶ τὴν θύραν τοῦ μνημείου 1 ἀπῆλθεν.

1 Matthew 27 :59-61. 2 Mark 15 :46-47. 3 Luke 23 :53-56. 4 John 19 :41-42

Then in English

4 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, 1 which Joseph had hewn 2 out of the rock and 3 where no one had ever been laid. 4 So because 3 it was the Preparation day and the Sabbath was coming on, 4 they laid Jesus there, for the sepulcher was near at hand; 1 and they rolled a great stone 2 against the door of the sepulcher 1 and departed. LCIS (1969 ) Pericope 159, page 203. 

This method, by retaining all the details of the four gospel, resolves a number of issues, while raising a few others. For example:

● The differences that exist between the four gospels constitute neither contradictions nor disagreements.

● The events and discourses recounted in the four gospels, including their details, must derive from a common source of eye-witness testimonies.

● Peter may have denied Jesus six times, thrice before a cock crowed and thrice again after the cock crowed.

● Jesus public ministry may have lasted four years, including five Passover feasts.

● They apparently crucified Jesus on Thursday and entombed him before sundown. Thus, he lay dead three nights and three days, rising back to life Sunday morning “on the third day.”

Get the book under one of these titles:

The Life of Christ in Stereo, Western Seminary Press, 1969.
The Greatest Story, Multnomah Press, 1994
The Greatest Life Ever Lived, Paradise Publishing, 1999

Write to us to obtain a free .pdf file of the interwoven gospels, without notes and appendices. www.wordwatchers.link