What the Gospels Meant - by Garry Wills (Paperback)

About the Book

"New York Times"-bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Wills interprets the four Gospels, brilliantly examining the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and discussing how these shaped their messages.

Book Synopsis

"A remarkable achievement--a learned yet eminently readable and provocative exploration of the four small books that reveal most of what's known about the life and death of Jesus." (Los Angeles Times)

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017.

In his New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant and What Paul Meant, Garry Wills offers tour-de-force interpretations of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Here Wills turns his remarkable gift for biblical analysis to the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Wills examines the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and how these shaped the gospels' messages. Hailed as "one of the most intellectually interesting and doctrinally heterodox Christians writing today" (The New York Times Book Review), Wills guides readers through the maze of meanings within these foundational texts, revealing their essential Christian truths.

Review Quotes

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Praise for What the Gospels Meant

"Full of riches . . . Wills brings to bear the skills that have justly brought him renown as America's greatest public intellectual: encyclopedic erudition, concise prose and a polyglot's gift for ancient languages. . . . This introduces . . . biblical scholarship as a whole to a wide audience of readers hungry for a sophisticated account of those eternally curious texts."
--Chicago Tribune

"What readers will find here is an engaging look at the Gospels, informed by the best biblical scholarship, as well as by Wills's own faith. . . . This eminently readable volume . . . underscores the attributes of each narrative to highlight truths more crucial than whether there were four discrete Evangelists."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Wills's scholarship . . . is impeccable, placing the gospels within their original cultural and religious context . . . A book that offers profound spiritual and historical insight in an accessible and intriguing format."
--BookPage

"Poetic, penetrating, and moving. General readers and scholars alike will profit from Mr. Wills's basic contention, that reason and faith are not antinomies."
--The New York Sun

"An engrossingly concise sequel to his Paul book. Wills . . . shows that [the Gospels are] theological statements, applying Jesus to the different situations confronting each writer's community."
--The Boston Globe

"Readers willing to have their impressions about these texts challenged by an erudite scholar will find this to be fascinating and worthwhile reading."
--Publishers Weekly

"A remarkable achievement--a learned yet eminently readable and provocative exploration of the four small books that reveal most of what's known about the life and death of Jesus."
--Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Garry Wills is a historian and the author of the New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant, Papal Sin, Why I Am a Catholic, and Why Priests?, among others. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and other publications, Wills is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor emeritus at Northwestern University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.