The History of the "Harmony of the Gospels" A German Bible scholar of the Protestant Reformation, Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), was the first person to use the phrase "harmony of the gospels" for a parallel organization of gospel texts which he designed. By choosing a musical term as a metaphor for his columnar arrangement, Osiander likened the total picture of Jesus supplied by all four gospels to the sound of several musical notes being played together in one chord.  A harmony of the gospels may also be called a synopsis or parallel of the gospels.     The History Bible scholars began efforts to compare and harmonize the four accounts of Jesus as early as the second century, even though the term "harmony of the gospels what not used until the sixteenth century. In the second century, a Christian form Syria by the name of Titian, compiled the four gospels into a single paraphrased narrative called the Diatessaron.  Unfortunately this document(s) have been lost, with only references to this work by other writers. The Diatessaron represents one approach to harmonizing the gospels: the weaving together of material from the gospels to present one, continuous narrative of Jesus' life.  Several biblical scholars in the past two hundred years have attempted similar works. In the third century Amonnius of Alexandria took the text of Matthew and wrote beside the text in parallel columns any passages from the other three gospels which correspond to them.  This approach only showed the relationship between Matthew and the other three gospels.  Parallels which existed independently among the others were ignored. In the fourth century Eusebius, a church historian, developed a cross-reference system which provided a way to locate and study a passage which had parallels in any of the other gospels. J. J. Griesbach, another German, made one of the most significant contributions to this field when he produced his Synopse, a parallel arrangement of the texts of the first three gospels, in 1776.  Griesbach derived his title from the Greek word which means "to view at the same time," and, consequently gave Matthew, Mark, and Luke the designation "synoptic gospels" because of their similar perspective (in contrast to John) on the life of Jesus.  Greisbach's work still serves as the basic model for scholars who make comparisons between the gospels in order to aid their interpretation of a given text. this article is from the  Holman Bible Dictionary titled Harmony of the Gospels - by P. Joel Snider   > double-click white part of page to return to top <