The Life of Jesus Christ
Chronological Synoptic Gospels
The ambition
With this concept we want to combine two different approaches to arranging the four Gospels: chronological and synoptical. By providing a parallel synoptic setting of the gospel texts arranged chronologically, the reader is able to delve into the narrative as told by one, two, three, or four evangelists. This approach combines a focus on the sequence of events with a focus on the distinct perspective that the different evangelists bring. The reader of this edition will be able to easily follow the flow of the narrative and at the same time have the full comprehensive account of the events conveniently at hand.
The texts of the four biblical books are organised in a synoptical multi-column and -colour text setting based on chronology. The number of columns reflects the number of evangelists recounting the given story. The different books are made distinguishable with the use of different colours.
The distribution of the text is focused on presenting the sequential chronology of the events and on the readability of parallel setting of the texts in dynamic multicolumn spreads. This means that detailed similarities between single verses or smaller parts scattered throughout the gospel texts are deliberately ignored. This decision serves to maintain a clear narrative and visually calm page, while still showing the entire text corpus in a synoptical setting.
This concept has been published in five different languages so far
In English published 2017 by Holman Bibles (Christian Standard Bible)
In Spanish published 2018 by Verbo Divino (La Biblia Hispanoamericana)
In Dutch published 2018 by Nederlands Bijbelgenootshap (Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling)
In Danish published 2019 by Forlaget Scandinavia (Bibelen på Hverdagsdansk)
In German published 2020 by Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft (Gute Nachricht)
Read an interview with three of the above-mentioned publishers here.