How to Read the Bible by Harvey Cox

Author:Harvey Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Study Tip

Obtain a copy of the Gospel of Thomas and compare it with any of the canonical Gospels, noting the unfamiliar elements, the overlaps, and the difference in style. Thomas is easily available, and indeed many people with a more mystical inclination have added it to their “personal canon” today. Or you could read the readily available Gospel of Mary in comparison to the Gospel of Matthew.

Even after we know something about the history of canonization, however, we are still left with an intriguing dilemma. At the end of this sifting and sorting, there remains the quandary we mentioned above: Why are there four and only four Gospels in today’s Bible? The answer to this question can seem peculiar today. While the second-century bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus (d. 202 CE), was pondering the vexed issue, still open and undecided at the time, of how many Gospels there should be, he happened to notice something in the prophet Ezekiel that seemed to answer his conundrum. It was the passage in which the prophet is describing a vision of the “four living creatures” that were drawing the chariot of God. Each creature appeared to be human, but had four faces and four wings. Ezekiel continues:

Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. They each had two wings spreading out upward, each wing touching that of the creature on either side; and each had two other wings covering its body. (1:10– 11, NIV)

For Irenaeus, this was enough. In accordance with his belief that the Old Testament foreshadowed the New, just as there were four creatures in the vision, there should obviously be four—and only four— Gospels. Eventually the “final four” count was accepted.

Further, the figures that symbolize each of these Gospels became their signature icons. Therefore eighteen hundred years later the symbol for Matthew is still an angel; for Mark, a winged lion; for Luke, a winged ox; for John, an eagle. They can be identified in paintings and sculptures all over the world. One exquisite example is the tympanum of Christ in majesty in the Church of St. Trophime in Arles, France. But we see them wherever we look. In a charming painting by Pier Francesco Sacchi (1485– 1528), the four Gospel writers all sit around one table, pens in hand. The ox, the lion, and the eagle crouch docilely at the feet of Mark, Luke, and John like household pets. An angel shows Matthew a page from a book. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovers over the whole group. The prophet Ezekiel would probably be surprised that so many centuries after his vision this menagerie-plus-angel was still in business. But what does this plurality of authorship suggest for studying the Bible today?

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