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RBL 04/2017
Richard A. Burridge
Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading
3rd edition
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. Pp. xvii + 217. Paper.
$20.00. ISBN 9780802871015.
Matthew C. Baldwin
Mars Hill University
Mars Hill, North Carolina
Sitting in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, waiting for Francis to present him with the 2013
Ratzinger Prize in Catholic Theology, the Reverend Canon Professor Richard A. Burridge
of King’s College in London held in his hands a copy of the second edition of his popular
textbook, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (London: SPCK; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2005). It was intended as a gift for the pope. “I found myself wondering,” he
writes in the afterword to the third edition, “how I myself, the first non-Catholic to
receive this honor, and this little ‘baby’ of a book, had ended up here, in all this pomp and
circumstance” (183). Indeed, the award does seem like a small miracle of ecumenism.
What explains it?
Burridge, an Anglican priest, serves as Member, Chair of Biblical Interpretation, Director
of New Testament Studies, and Dean of King’s. As Dean he exercises both academic and
ecclesiastical functions for a school where the spiritual development of students is part of
the mission. Burridge’s works, spanning nearly a quarter century, mirror this conjunction
of institutional functions. His writings ply the boundary waters separating academy and
church. He has published two popular books and two scholarly monographs on Jesus and
the gospels, one popular commentary on John, and a number of liturgical and
theological-interpretive texts.