Publisher's Synopsis
The Life of Jesus Christ:: An Epic Poem by Dr John WorldPeace JD. ONE: The Four Gospels of the New Testament have a lot of repetition one gospel to the other. This always made the gospels hard for me to read. So my intention was to combine the gospels and when more than one version of what Jesus said and did was recorded, I simply chose one of the versions but listed the other version under Notes at the end of this book. At the end of this book you will see that each of the 363 sections lists the source of the content. So you can easily see how much repetition there is between gospels. And you can also see which verses have only one witness and which have four. By doing this consolidation, I feel the book is much easier to read. I regrouped the sections to put the Miracles and Parables and Healings, etc together. This further reduces the zig-zagging jumping around, jumping back, that you have to deal with in the standard organization of the gospels. There is no real authority that the standard gospels have the verses in verified chronological order. The current Bible was not put together until the end of the 300's so there is no way to truly know the order of these events. Also, I am a professional poet with over 8,000 poems and 135 books of poetry published on Amazon. My style of poetry breaks up sentences and paragraphs in such a way that you cannot speed read the thoughts and maybe misread what I have intended to say. My poetry is front to back speed bumps if you will. Incidentally, I have done this to the other sacred texts of the major religions that lend themselves to this. The Bhagavad Gita, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, Tao te Ching. The Old Testament, the Koran, the Book of the Mormon and others were not possible for me to rewrite. But I am working on rewriting the Psalms of David in the old Testament. TWO: The Life of Jesus Christ:: An Epic Poem is a consolidation of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with the addition of a few verses from the unofficial Gospel of Phillip and the Gospel of Thomas with regards to Mary Magdalene. For your information: Matthew and Luke both incorporate the Gospel of Mark. I have eliminated the repetitions and when the same verses appear in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, I have chosen one. If you prefer a different version of a verse write it in over mine chosen version. Matthew and Luke also both copied verses from the Gospel of "Q" (a gospel constructed based on the repetitions in Luke and Matthew) and I have eliminated the repetition with these verses as well. 50%+ of the unofficial Gospel of Thomas is repeated in the official gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I have kept the chronological order from the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist to the Sermon on the Mount and from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the Resurrection. I have grouped the miracles, healings, raising from the death, exorcisms, parables, teachings, and conflicts with the Pharisees together in categories and have not tried to keep them in chronological order. The purpose of this gospel is simple; to make the story of Jesus more readable, more user friendly MORE INSPIRING. In this Epic Poem, you can read the story of Jesus from beginning to end without starting and stopping that exists with the traditional gospel formats. I feel the awesome power of the miracles, healings and teachings, etc. are more inspiring when read grouped together. If I have chosen Luke's rendition of certain verses over Matthew and you prefer Matthew's rendition, then substitute in Matthew. My goal is to increase the reading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the greatest story every told. I also think that my organization and removal of repetition makes this story of Jesus much more accessible at a much younger age. Dr John WorldPeace JD
