The author of the Gospel of Luke writes his story of Jesus against the widest possible backdrop. It is the story of the salvation of Israel and the nations in fulfilment of the promises of God in the scriptures. The new kingdom community which Jesus inaugurates by word and deed is one which challenges his contemporaries by transforming values and offering forgiveness and welcome to people of every condition and status.

Provides an overview of current hypotheses about the sources used in the creation of the gospels and the implications source-critical theories have for gospels interpretation. After a discussion of the relation of the Gospel of John to the synoptics, attention is given to relations between the synoptics, and an account is given of the ongoing scholarly debate surrounding the ‘Q hypothesis’ and its rivals.

McCarthy builds on a trend in the theology of scripture according to which the truth of the text is discovered in the ‘performance’ of the text in the lives of individuals and communities. On this basis, he offers a series of cameos in which the ‘exegesis’ of a gospel text takes biographical form, and the lives of saints and martyrs become a kind of extension of the scriptural canon.

Frances Young explores the changing relationship in the history of the early church between the gospel texts and the determination of true doctrine. She shows that, even when the four gospels had been accepted as canonical, what shaped doctrine most was the overarching sense of what scripture as a whole was about, epitomized in the ’Rule of Faith’ and the creeds.

The Gospel of Mark unites ideas of christology and discipleship within a hermeneutical framework of Jewish apocalyptic. Mark’s story of Jesus, characterized by urgency, action and conflict, tells of the anointed warrior king who comes to establish his kingdom and liberate the oppressed from powers imperial and satanic. He does so, paradoxically, by submitting to death on a Roman cross, a death interpreted in the light of the scriptures as a ransom for many.

Simon Gathercole surveys the various non-canonical gospels and their respective christologies. He first orients the reader to the field of research, noting the competitive positioning of non-canonical gospels relative to the four canonical gospels. He then shows how more recent scholarship has sought either to blur the canonical boundary or to compare and contrast the canonical gospels with their non-canonical counterparts in respect of history, theology and ethics.

Reads the Gospel of Matthew for its main content and themes. Deines shows how the gospel reveals Jesus’ universal significance by means of his Jewish particularity, signalled by his reformulation of Davidic messiahship and Abrahamic heritage. In this light, Matthew is interpreted as a gospel for all Christians, a new scripture for a new time and a new people whose life is shaped by Jesus’ life and teaching.

Studies the ‘afterlife’ of the gospels into the public realm – the realm of morality and politics. According to Bader-Saye, the gospels are misunderstood if they are confined to the realm of the personal. Rather, the gospels are a summons to a moral life expressive of shared ‘deep themes’ of liberation, dispossession and love. He elaborates on this through a critical appreciation of the way these gospel themes have been taken up in modern discussions of ethics and politics from Immanuel Kant to Romand Coles.

Examines the reception of the canonical gospels and of their ‘effects’ in particular times and places. Here, the first part gives an account of reception history as a relatively new discipline in gospel studies, while the second part offers as a case study some of the ways in which the synoptic stories of the women who visit the tomb of Jesus have been represented in the visual arts.

Investigates the proliferating texts and traditions about Jesus in the early church and the decision in favour of the canonical four. By examining the competing options, the decision in favour of a fourfold gospel is seen as a decision for plurality within limits: the limits sustaining the coherence of the apostolic testimony to Jesus, and the plurality allowing the richness and complexity of the truth about Jesus to be displayed.

Identifies some of the defining characteristics of the gospel genre by comparing them with other genres such as folk tales, memoirs, biographies, scriptural narratives and martyrologies. The analysis leads to the significant conclusion that the gospels are in some sense sui generis – written versions of early Christian teaching and preaching about Jesus.

Places the four gospels in the scriptural environment of Israel’s story. Taking each gospel in turn, Hays and Blumhofer show that the scriptures constitute the gospels’ ‘generative milieu’. The stories about Jesus gain their full intelligibility within the context of the textual tradition and the larger scriptural story of God’s dealings with Israel.

Quash draws Christian doctrine, the hermeneutics of gospels interpretation and the Christian iconic tradition into lively conversation. His central claim is that the Spirit of God mediates the life of Christ risen and ascended to the church and the world, and that this happens through the reading and hearing of the gospels and their ongoing representation in such works as Graham Sutherland’s Christ in Glory.