The Narrative Harmony Of The Four Gospels

With the growing recognition of the Bible as a literary classic, scholars have gained more knowledge of the literariness of the Four Gospels juxtaposed at the beginning of the New Testament. Composed by different authors for different readers in different periods according to different sources, the Four Gospels have some dissimilarities in the narration of some details. However, they maintain harmony on many narrative elements. By employing Shimon Bar-Efrat’s achievements on his biblical studies, this thesis concentrates on studying the Four Gospels as a narrative whole from the perspective of the narrator, the characterization and the plot, aiming at demonstrating the narrative harmony among the Four Gospels.Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis falls into three chapters. The first chapter is centered on the harmony among the Four Gospels reflected on the narrators. The author of this thesis thinks that the narrators’harmony is mainly embodied in their harmonious viewpoints and manifestation modes. The investigation in this chapter shows that all the narrators of the Four Gospels get involved in their narrations with similar viewpoints and manifestation modes. The focus of the second chapter is put on the harmonious characterizations in the Four Gospels. When characterizing figures, the narrators of the Four Gospels utilize both the direct characterization and the indirect one, and obtain high harmony on the images of the main character Jesus Christ and all the other minor characters. The third chapter aims at discussing the harmony among the Four Gospels reflected on their plots. The author of this thesis holds the view that the plots of the Four Gospels all consist of similar core events and maintain harmony on the plot stages concerning the beginning, the developing, the climax and the end.To some extent, the study of the thesis may help eliminate the long-standing misunderstanding among some scholars that the Four Gospels contradict with each other, and contribute to helping the academia in China conduct further studies on the biblical narratives, especially the narratives of the Four Gospels.