Bible readers and scholars down through the centuries who have written on the life of Christ and who have produced their own parallel Gospels or Gospel harmonies.

There are five main differences that set this work apart from others that have preceded it.  (1) It uses the text of the World English Bible.  (2) It is in the public domain, not copyrighted.  (3) To preserve the flow of the Gospel message, it does not break up the material into pericopes or numbered selections.  (4) It includes a Study Guide to facilitate personal study and group discussion.  (5) It places in parallel, not only the events and sermons that Gospel harmonies usually group together, but also, in a few places, the sermons and events that bear a very close resemblance to each other although they appear to be different events.  I have placed these inside brackets [like this].

For example, Luke tells of a meal at the home of a Pharisee, during which Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” and Matthew records the same words in a sermon Jesus gave to a large audience in Jerusalem.  (Luke 11:44 and Matt. 23:27)  I have placed these accounts on pages 140 and 196 in what appears to be their proper places chronologically, but have also placed the similar words in parallel columns, with the out-of-sequence passage inside brackets.

During the course of his earthly ministry, Jesus visited many towns and cities in Galilee, Judea, Samaria and the surrounding area, so it is reasonable to assume he repeated the same thoughts and even the same sermons to different audiences.  What, then, about the Sermon on the Mount?  Matthew presents it as a single unified discourse (Matt. 5:1-7:29), whereas Luke records many of the same words as sayings of Jesus scattered throughout chapters 6, 11, 12, 14 and 16.  For example, Matthew and Luke both present the Lord’s Prayer  (Matt. 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4), Matthew as part of the Sermon on the Mount, and Luke “when he finished praying in a certain place” and the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.  (Luke 11:1)  Does Luke actually quote from the Sermon on the Mount here and in his other examples of Jesus’ sayings?  Or, does his Gospel refer to other occasions when Jesus spoke the same words to different audiences?  We can’t really know for sure.  Unless the context dictates otherwise, I have placed these passages in parallel to aid comparison.  And when the context does point to clearly different occasions when Jesus used the same words, I have again kept them in their context, but also repeated them in brackets [like this] next to the parallel passage.

Where selected notes from the World English Bible are included, they are at the bottom of the column of text they pertain to.  My own comments appear as headings at the top of each page and as explanatory notes at the bottom of certain pages, beneath the table of parallel columns.  However, notes and comments are kept to a minimum, to avoid distracting from the Gospel message itself.

Rather than copyright this book, I have chosen to follow the example of the creators of the World English Bible by placing Parallel Gospels in Harmony: with Study Guide in the public domain, so that anyone who wishes may freely copy it, reproduce it, reprint it or translate it, without any obligation to pay royalties or even to ask permission.                                                   – David A. Reed, April 2009

About the World English Bible

The side-by-side Gospel passages in this book are from the World English Bible.

According to its creators’ website at http://www.eBible.org, “The World English Bible (WEB) is a Public Domain (no copyright) Modern English translation of the Holy Bible. That means that you may freely copy it in any form, including electronic and print formats. The World English Bible is based on the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible first published in 1901, the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensa Old Testament, and the Greek Majority Text New Testament.”

This book uses the HTML version of the WEB at eBible.org dated August 28, 2007.

About the Editor

David A. Reed served for a decade as a contributing editor of Dr. Walter Martin’s Christian Research Journal.  He has authored more than a dozen books on Bible topics, including the popular Jehovah’s Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse and Mormons Answered Verse by Verse (Baker Book House).