Back in July, I reviewed Vern Sherdian Poythress' Inerrancy and Worldview, which looked at the challenges of the issue of inerrancy on how it is looked upon from different points of view. Poythress has written a follow-up to Inerrancy and Worldview called Inerrancy and the Gospel. This book deals with the issue of the Gospels as part of the inerrant word of God.
Poythress addresses the issues regarding the harmonization of the Gospels, which can be a difficult task to do because three of the four are about the same (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and the fourth gospel (John) is clearly different. Poythress uses examples of similar events in the gospels that are told not in the same way, such as Jesus healing the centurion's servant in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. Poythress address the principles of harmonizing along with dealing the order of events in the Gospels especially in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). In one chapter dealing with the synoptic gospels, Poythess talks about the sources that each synoptic gospel comes from. How the sources are used and also weighing the options on how each source is used.
There is a section of the book where Poythress looks at more cases of the differences of explaining events in the four gospels. For example, Jesus being rejected at Nazareth is addressed differently in the synoptic gospels. Another example is Matthew records Jesus cursing the fig tree almost as similar as the gospel of Mark.
This book is great tool to have for pastors, lay people, and seminary professors who defend the Bible need to have in their library. Poythress once again has chapters that are short, sweet, and to the point, which makes it an easy read and easy to look up references.
Thanks Crossway for letting me review this book.
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