the four gospels: their essence and spiritual background

Could a deeper cause of today’s myriad human troubles be related to a dwindling or even nonexistent familiarity with the four New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? This is the view of Christoph Rau, for whom today’s prevailing approach to theological research--which treats the ancient religious texts more as literary products than authentic records of spiritual experience--is, if anything, a contributing factor in our modern alienation from the spirit.

In this book, Rau presents the results of five decades of research, demonstrating the independent structure of each of the four canonical Gospels. Through clear analyses, he illumines the distinctive stylistic features of each composition, revealing the design principles through which the meaning and goal of each Gospel can be understood.

Beyond the intrinsic value of each Gospel, the author draws on their special features to explain how the spiritual richness of the four written works is fully revealed only by considering the pre-Christian religions, because each of the evangelists describes the incarnation of the Son of God from the perspective of his own mystery religion. Furthermore, the author succeeds in showing that the Gospels, despite their seeming contradictions, are elements of a common organism.

This book is a translation from German of Die Vier um den Einen: Wesensart und spiritueller Hintergrund der Evangelien (Verlag Dr. Dieter Winkler, 2008).