Gospels
Texts
Compare
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Verbal agreement
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Reading this pericope
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No parallel.

Synopsis of the Four Gospels

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Prepared by Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.

All 367 pericopes are arranged in the sectional order of Kurt Aland's Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, following the United Bible Societies' synopsis of the four gospels.

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Pericope divisions, parallel assignments and Restoration links are still being reviewed. Where the underlying synopsis is itself odd — a reference that looks like a typo, a section that duplicates another, a citation that reaches outside its gospel — the pericope carries a Note saying so rather than quietly correcting it. Where the gospels themselves order an event differently — the cleansing of the temple early in John and late in the synoptics, the dating of the anointing at Bethany, whether the last supper was the Passover, the hour of the crucifixion — a Chronology & context panel states the difference and the usual explanations instead of harmonizing it away.

On the comparison

Agreement is measured on phrases, not stray words: a word counts as shared only when it sits inside a two-word run the other account also contains. Percentages describe verbal overlap in a single English translation — they are a reading aid, not a text-critical judgment.

How to use it

The four gospels stand side by side in fixed columns, always in the same order, so your eye learns where to look. Everything else is a way of asking a question about that layout.

Finding a passage
The index down the left holds all 367 pericopes in 18 sections, in Aland's order. Click a section to open it.
Search matches pericope titles. Jump to reference takes a citation — Mark 9:2, Luke 15, John 11:35 — and opens the pericope that contains it.
Come, Follow Me narrows the whole index to one week's reading, and the pericope you land on shows its week.
← and → step through pericopes in order; Esc closes whatever panel is open.
Texts
Turn on as many translations as you want — KJV, NIV, WEB, NET, Greek. They sit as sub-columns inside each gospel, so you can read one gospel across four versions or four gospels in one version.
Gospels (Mt · Mk · Lk · Jn) drops a column out of the comparison. Turn two off to read Matthew against Mark alone, or to fit two columns on a tablet without sideways scrolling. Agreement, percentages and the summary are always measured across the columns you can see.
Restoration parallel adds a fifth column: 3 Nephi, JS—Matthew, and other Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price passages that carry the same words. The chip greys out where there is no parallel.
Interlinear Greek makes each Greek word clickable for its lexicon entry and Strong's number.
Author voice prints one line under each heading on that writer's characteristic emphasis — useful when a class is asking why the accounts differ at all.
Verse nos. hides the numbers when you would rather read continuous prose.
Comparing
Agreement tints every shared phrase by how many gospels have it — one, two, or all three others — and underlines in red what no other account reports.
Unique only strips the shared material away so a gospel's own contribution stands alone.
Base text measures every column against one gospel. Click a gospel's heading to make it the base; click it again to release.
Hover a verse and the closest parallel verse in the other columns lifts with it.
The bars above the columns give verbal overlap for each pair, highest first; Look for this offers observation questions — things to notice, not answers to find.
Off returns plain, unmarked text for straight reading.
Keeping your work

Bookmarks, notes, your open translations and your comparison mode are saved on this device, so the synopsis reopens where you left it. Nothing is sent anywhere. On a tablet or phone the columns stack and the index becomes a drawer behind ☰.

Sources
Sectional order and parallel assignments: Kurt Aland, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (United Bible Societies).
KJV, NIV, WEB and NET load from bolls.life.
Greek: Tischendorf's eighth critical edition, with Strong's numbering behind the interlinear.
Restoration text: a public-domain JSON edition of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.
Come, Follow Me weeks follow the New Testament year of the four-year rotation.
Joseph Smith Translation passages, and a few Doctrine and Covenants citations, are linked to the Church's site rather than reproduced here.

Agreement percentages describe verbal overlap in one English translation. They are a reading aid, not a text-critical judgment.

Taylor Halverson, Ph.D.

Author · Teacher · Tour leader · Scripture scholar

Taylor Halverson is a scholar of scripture and a teacher of learners — an entrepreneurship professor in the BYU Marriott School of Business who spends his working life helping people find and act on the best ideas and tools available to them.

He is the author and editor of more than fifty books and nearly a thousand articles and blog posts, and a builder of scripture study resources: the ScripturePlus app with Scripture Central, whose scripture YouTube channel he co-hosted to more than fifty million views, and BYU's Virtual Scripture Group, whose team spent more than five years reconstructing New Testament Jerusalem in three dimensions. This synopsis belongs to that same body of work — tools made so that ordinary readers can see what specialists see.

He leads tours to Israel and the Middle East, China, India, Central America, Europe, and the national parks of the American West, where he unfolds how geology, geography, civilization, and scriptural texts created our beautiful present day.

Academic training
Ph.D., Judaism & Christianity in Antiquity — Indiana University
Ph.D., Instructional Systems Technology — Indiana University
M.A., Biblical Studies — Yale University
B.A., Ancient Near Eastern Studies — Brigham Young University

Two doctorates in two separate fields — the ancient world, and the design of learning. Both of them are in this tool.
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