Common Words of the Gospels

When reading the gospels we notice that the same passages appear in multiple places. Passages in the gospels are repeated, sometimes with the same words. What if we focus only on passages and words that appear three or more times? What would the text look like with only the repeated words? The idea is to focus on the passages that are similar, and more specifically, concentrate on the words or their synonyms that appear three or more times across the gospel texts. Concentrating on the common words and common passages helps us focus on the central message of Jesus’ life. This approach is called here the Common Word approach.

Repetition as a Measure of Importance

The common word approach focuses on the words that are found in three or more texts. Let’s assume that these common words constitute the core of Jesus’s message.

Two thousand years ago, texts were written by hand and recorded on expensive parchment. We can assume that the authors chose carefully what to include in their text. If three or more authors agreed separately on the same text, let us consider that text to be important.

Method

Words are common under the following conditions:

• The Greek words are the same.
• The Greek words have similar roots, regardless of being nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
• The words or groups of words have the same meaning. In this case, the “⸂” and “⸃” characters surround the groups, with a “¦” character separating each group. This part is admittedly subjective. The reader may decide differently.
• When the Greek words are different but have the same overall meaning, only the English translation shows for short or transition sentences, such as, “he said.”

The common word method disregards grammar and sentence structure when comparing words.

The common word method excludes the Old Testament, the Acts, and the Epistles. The point here is to offer a tool for focusing on the core of God’s message as transmitted by the four gospels.

The method of concentrating on the words that are common across the gospel texts does not exclude the rest of the texts we have received. This is a tool to focus. If three authors of the gospels thought that certain passages are important to keep in their texts, then those passages deserve more focus.

The research for the common words relied heavily on two synopses:

• Albert Huck, Heinrich Greeven, Synopsis of the First Three Gospels, 13th edition, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1981.
• Burton H. Throckmorton, Jr, Gospel Parallels, A Synopsis of the First Three Gospels, 4th edition, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1979.

Structure of the Pages

The text of the gospels are grouped by passages that are common across the four authors.

Each passage has its own page with the Greek text, the English translation, and a constructed text in English.

• The Greek text shows the common words in bold. The text is from the Open Greek New Testament project. The text is equivalent to Nestle-Aland. It is free to use.
• The English transltion shows the common words in bold.  The commonality is determined by the original Greek word for which the English word is the translation.  The English translation is the Berean Literal Bible. Because it is a literal translation, it easier to align the English with the original Greek. 
• A constructed translation pulls together the common words and attempts to build a text from only the common words.  This reconstructed text is from the author of this website, who is not a biblical scholar.  Please do not take this constructed text literally. The text is an experiment to see what a text built entirely from common words would look like.

Use the menu in the upper left to navigate between passages. Or use this list of passages.

The Berean bible is free of copyright. It is “a word for word translation that takes the reader to the core of the Greek and Hebrew meanings.” It was downloaded from https://literalbible.com/blb.txt. See https://literalbible.com/ for more information.

Core Elements

Going beyond the text of common words, what meaning to we see in it?

When reading the common words, a few noteworthy themes come to mind. Below is a summary of some of the core themes. This summary is subjective, and the texts are complex, and I therefore invite readers to form their own opinion by reading the pages with the text of common words.

The texts identify Jesus as the Son of God at Jesus’s baptism and at the Transfiguration.

After his baptism, Jesus went to Galilee and began teaching in synagogues.

Instead of shunning sinners, Jesus joined them, and invited them to follow him. While he welcomed many, he had harsh words for religious authorities.

Jesus did not preach much about sin, except to say to people that their sins were forgiven.

Jesus taught us radical humility:

• “Last will be first, and the first, last“
• “Whoever desires to become great among you will be your servant“
• “Whoever shall humble himself will be exalted“

The texts mention the Ten Commandments, but list only five out of the ten commandments, those that concern our relationship with our fellow humans.

Jesus summarized all the laws and commandments of the Old Testament into two: loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus backed up his teachings with miracles, although the word “miracle” does not appear in the texts. The power of Jesus showed in the healing people’s physical ailments and mental diseases (see the purification of a leper, the healing of women with blood flows, the healing of a withered hand, and many more).

The texts describe a growing opposition from the religious authorities who insisted on a literal interpretation of the law. Jesus warned us against their teaching. The Pharisees and the scribes accused Jesus of blasphemy and started to plot against him.

In Jerusalem, the temple authorities conspired against Jesus, arrested him, tried him, and pressured Pilate to have Jesus killed. Jesus died and was buried.

The story of Jesus did not end with his death. He rose and appeared to his followers.

This is a short summary. The texts contain man complex themes. I invite you to continue reading the these pages of this webite to learn more.

Pentecost 2025

• Bibliography
  In addition to various translations of the Bible, the following tools were heavily used:
• Triple Tradition
  The method of common words is similar to the Triple Tradition with two differences.
• The Synoptic “Problem”
  Instead of seeing the synoptic gospels as a “problem,” the common word approach uses the differences in the parallel texts to extract what makes them the same, similar to the idea of the Triple Tradition. The four gospels are differing accounts of the same events decades after the events occurred. The multiple viewpounts offer different… Read more: The Synoptic “Problem”
• Tradition
  The common word approach focuses on the words found in at least three passages of the gospels. It puts aside tradition formed by the decisions that we believe that the Church has made over the centuries under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Two millennia of tradition have added depth to our beliefs. The common… Read more: Tradition
• Similar Approaches
  As early as the third century, Eusebius and Ammonius classified the gospel passages according based on similarities. Much later, biblical scholars wrote gospel harmonies.