GLIMPSES OF THE GOSPEL: THEOLOGICAL SPIRITUAL AND PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS

You may think you know the Gospels. You may think they fit together, like the pieces of a jigsaw, completing one picture. But how well do you know the picture? Who was the man who ran naked from the garden of Gethsemane? Why, so long before the crucifixion itself, did Jesus ask his followers to `take up their cross', and how could they have understood what he meant? What did Peter and Jesus talk about, when Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection? If you find yourself lost tracing the story of Jesus through the gospel readings of the year, you are in good company. For Jack Mahoney the Gospels are not a jigsaw, but a patchwork quilt presenting the `nuclear truth' of Jesus' resurrection. Around that truth the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John bound and collide like the uncertain particles of Heisenberg. In Glimpses of the Gospels Jack Mahoney makes accessible to the ordinary reader, perhaps for the first time, the patchwork unity of the Gospel story; tracing major themes, parables and moments across the Gospels, analysing what changes gospel to gospel, and showing how the differences between gospel accounts can shed valuable light on the enduring questions of Christians.