THE GOSPELS
Now that we’ve looked at some of the preliminary background issues to understanding the NT, let’s begin to narrow the field by looking at the texts of the NT, starting with where the NT starts: the Gospels. But, before we start to examine what the Gospels say, we need to look at some background specific to the Gospels as a form of ancient literature.
First, let’s look at the question of authorship. NT Gospels are named after the people the early Christians believed originally wrote them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, this is conjecture. Unlike, say, Paul’s letters, all 4 of these Gospels are unsigned and written anonymously. I think it’s safe to say that the original audience knew who wrote the Gospel to them, but since that time, we do not know. So in theory, Mark could have written Matthew, Matthew Mark, John Luke, Luke John, or numerous other permutations are possible! Attributed authorship comes by way of early church tradition. For example, we have a text from Ignatius (a prominent second-century bishop) dating to about the first quarter of the 2nd century, where he quotes material from our Matthew and he assigns this material to “Matthew.” So we have a fairly early (within one generation) attribution of Matthew writing Matthew (and so forth for the other Gospels).
Next, let’s look at the Gospels as a literary genre/style. If you’ve read the NT (never mind the OT) you know that there are different kinds of writings, chiefly, Gospels, Letters, and Revelation. Each of these represent different literary genres that were “in play” at that time; i.e., they weren’t distinctively Christian genre/styles of writing, and that they are in fact many examples of non-Christian Gospels, Letters, and Revelation-like books which predate the NT.
Gospels represent ancient biography; 2 examples of first-century non-Christian biographies—“Gospels”—would be Life of Moses by the Jewish bible commentator/philosopher Philo, and the numerous biographies of kings and Greek philosophers by the Graeco-Roman philosopher Plutarch. The standard content of ancient biographies consisted of a description of the hero’s supernatural origin and death, and how the hero’s life serves as an emulative example for the reader/audience of the biography. Further, the account of the person’s life featured in the biography is always selective and never exhaustive.
In terms of the standard form of an ancient biography, the hero’s life is presented in a chronological framework, i.e., from birth to death, but within this structure there are episodic narrative and topical expositions (speeches/dialogue). The function of ancient biography is to persuade the reader about some past history or future action, and to serve as propaganda for the hero. Thus, ancient biographies are written on 2 levels: some aspects of the hero’s story represent what happened to the hero, but some aspects of the story represent the present, i.e., present from the perspective of the author of the biography; in other words, an author, at times, will retroject present situations onto the past. This is a key issue for scholars when discussing the NT Gospels: the transparency of the Gospels.
Re. the transparency of the Gospels, here’s the thing: the events of Jesus’ life took place between approx. 4 BC–AD 30; the Gospels (as we will see later on) were written 40-60 years later to audiences who lived in a much different social-historical setting than the people who would have followed Jesus around in the 20s: hence, the original Gospel audiences faced much different social challenges than the earliest followers of Jesus (back in the 20s). The Gospel-writers as leaders/pastors sought (like any good pastor/teacher) to help their audience face their current life challenges. So consequently, the question is this: do the Gospel accounts of Jesus reflect the time of Jesus (20s) or the time of the authors (70s-90s)? In other words, how transparent are the Gospels?
I think the best answer to this question is a “both—and”: on the one hand, some parts of a Gospel reflect the time of Jesus: e.g., Jesus’ instructions about offering altar sacrifices in Matt 5:23-24—Matthew wrote his Gospel well after the destruction of the Temple, and so this saying would not have held a literal relevance to Matthew’s audience. On the other hand, some parts of a Gospel reflect the time of the author and not Jesus: e.g., excommunication in John 9:22 was a much hotter issue in John’s time (90s) than in Jesus’ time (20s).
Now, let’s turn to the stages in the formation of the Gospels. The formation of our written Gospels was a process. The Greek word underlying “gospel” means “good news.” Originally, when people thought “gospel” they didn’t think of a written text but of an oral proclamation. This oral proclamation only became a written witness over time and in different stages.
The first stage concerned the activity of Jesus: what he did, what he preached, what he taught; this period/stage dates from the late 20s to the about 30. The second stage concerned the apostolic preaching about Jesus: i.e., the preaching of those who knew and followed Jesus while he was on earth; this period dates from the early 30s to the early 60s. The third stage is the written Gospels: the transcribing of what was originally oral material—preaching and teaching about Jesus by the apostles—into the canonical form of the Gospels; this period dates to the last third of the first century.
So then, are we justified in believing that our Gospels faithfully represent the actually words/teachings of Jesus, given that they were written a generation after him? Stay tuned . . .