The Gospels
Form and Purpose of the Gospels
The first generations of Christians quickly produced a large body of oral traditions about Jesus.
It was not until almost forty years after his death, however, that some of these orally transmitted reminiscences of Jesus were first organized into a written biographical account.
The Gospel according to puppets…
Similarities and Differences in the Gospels
Each Gospel author begins his narrative of Jesus’ public ministry with a different episode, one that will express his distinctive themes.
In Mark, Jesus’ first acts are to drive out a demon and cure Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, miraculous works that illustrate his power over evil, breaking the devil’s hold on humanity and introducing God’s kingdom.
In Matthew, Jesus’ first public act is to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, demonstrating his authority as a teacher, upholding and reinterpreting the Mosaic Law.
In Luke, Jesus’ first action is to preach at the Nazareth synagogue, applying Isaiah’s prophecies to himself and outraging his hometown audience by emphasizing God’s healing work among non-Jews, thus foreshadowing the later Christian mission to the Gentiles that the same writer describes in the sequel to his Gospel, the Book of Acts.
In John, Jesus’ initial task is to transform water into wine at a Jewish wedding in Cana, a joyous event in which his mother takes an active role. For the author, the Cana celebration serves to foreshadow Jesus’ final action, when, on the cross, he drinks wine for the last time, the only other occasion in this Gospel at which his mother is also present. The beverage of Christian communion, wine also symbolizes the blood that gushes from Jesus’ side.
Similarly, each Gospel writer utilizes Jesus’ last words on the cross to emphasize his concept of Jesus’ significance. From Mark’s despairing wail of abandonment, to Luke’s accent on forgiveness, to John’s serene affirmation of a completed purpose, Jesus’ final utterances are made to summarize or illustrate the nature of his messianic role.
The Gospels and Modern Scholarship
A comparative study of the Gospels reveals inconsistencies and problems of historical plausibility that require careful attention.
In undertaking a systematic study of the Gospels, it is helpful to start by examining what the Gospel authors themselves say about how they approach the subject of Jesus’ life and their specific purposes in writing.
Luke is the only Gospel writer to offer an explicit statement about his authorial intentions and methodology. In a formal preface to his account, Luke makes clear that he did not personally know Jesus and that his work depends entirely on secondary sources, including oral traditions and previously existing Gospels.
Although they do not include comparable statements of methodology, the other Gospels also draw on previously existing oral traditions and a variety of written documents.
The Evangelists not only tapped a large reservoir of traditions about Jesus but also carefully selected among this diverse material to create distinctive literary portraits of Jesus that expressed their individual community’s understanding of Jesus’ theological importance.
The Gospel of John contains several statements about authorial purpose and selective use of the Jesus tradition that are probably representative of the other Evangelists’ accounts as well. Appended by a later editor, a note at the end of John’s Gospel states (with some rhetorical exaggeration) that the author chose to utilize only a relatively small portion of materials available to him.
As John’s author makes clear, his standard for deciding what materials to include does not primarily involve goals of historical accuracy or biographical completeness. The author’s purpose in writing is thus explicitly theological: to inspire life-giving faith in his readers.
All of the Gospel authors were convinced that Jesus was not an ordinary figure of history, but a person of supernatural abilities whose teachings and sacrificial death had the power to confer salvation and immortality on those who believed in him.
For the Evangelists, it would have been irrelevant to try to present Jesus as a modern, post-Enlightenment biographer would do today, using strict criteria of historical accuracy and rational skepticism. In the early Christian view, it was far more important to portray Jesus as their faith revealed him to be, God’s instrument of humanity’s redemption.
Assumptions and Approaches
In approaching the Gospels, it is helpful to clear away some common misconceptions about them.
One typical assumption is that, because the New Testament writings are sacred literature, revered by millions as containing divine revelation, they must be factually accurate in every respect. Insisting that Scripture must be inerrant – entirely free from all error – if it is to have any real value, this approach created a false dilemma, forcing people to choose unnecessarily between two extremes. This black-and-white fallacy, characteristic of some fundamentalist beliefs, is not supported by the Gospels, none of which claim to be error-free.
The Gospels are best served when examined in the context of the Greek-speaking Jewish community that produced them.
Historical criticism involves the analysis of documents that purport to record historical events, investigating the historical setting in which the texts originated.
The Gospels present almost insurmountable challenges for historical critics. Because the Gospel authors believed in Jesus’ divinity – that he was qualitatively different from every other character in history – their presentation is colored by their faith.
In the Gospels, Jesus wins every argument, triumphs over his opponents in every debate, possesses unimpeachable authority, and even defies the laws of nature by calming a storm and feeding thousands with a few fish.
Scholarly recognition that the Evangelists embraced a worldview significantly different from our own and that their concerns were more theological than biographical means that historians must approach the Gospels carefully, judiciously distinguishing between recoverable historical fact and religious claims that lie beyond the reach of historical investigation.
Because the historian’s sphere is necessarily limited to the material realm, which operates according to widely agreed-upon laws of probability, he or she cannot evaluate non-material phenomena, reported events that are not repeatable in the laboratory or otherwise open to scientific scrutiny.
The Synoptic Problem
In contrast to John, the three Synoptic Gospels are so similar in content and narrative order that they appear to have a close literary relationship.
One of the Synoptic writers must have used at least one of the other Gospel as a source.
In analyzing the Synoptic accounts, scholars discovered a number of facts that point to Markan priority.
All three Synoptics generally follow the same sequence of events, narrating Jesus’ life in suggestively similar fashion.
This shared narrative (and some teaching) material is known as the triple tradition.
In addition, Matthew and Luke include a large quantity of teaching material that does not appear in Mark but that is remarkably comparable in form.
This mysterious double tradition includes some of Jesus’ best-known sayings, such as the Lord’s Prayer, the golden rule, and the Beatitudes (blessing that Jesus pronounces on the poor, the meek, and the helpless).
In many cases there is almost verbatim agreement on the passages, absent from Mark, that Matthew and Luke share.
Scholars also noticed that either Matthew or Luke may sometimes deviate from Mark’s order, but almost never do they differ from Mark in the same place and in the same way. When Matthew departs from the Markan order, Luke does not; when Luke disagrees with Mark, Matthew does not.
This pattern strongly suggests that Mark is the determining factor in the Synoptics’ version of the principal events in Jesus’ story, that his Gospel is the basis for the other two.
Another factor indicating that Mark is the source for the other two Synoptic Gospels, rather than an abbreviation of them, is the relative amount of space each Evangelist devotes to narrating episodes that the three have in common.
If Mark wished to produce a more concise account of Jesus’ life by abridging Matthew and Luke, his version of events that all three share should be the shortest, a distillation of the other two. However, the opposite is true.
In almost every case, Mark’s version of a specific incident is longer than the parallel version in Matthew or Luke.
After recognizing that Mark was the source for the chronological framework in Matthew and Luke, source critics also identified a second major document to account for the extensive teaching material that does not appear in Mark but that Matthew and Luke have in common.
According to the two-document theory, Matthew and Luke not only used Mark but also drew on a written collection of Jesus’ sayings, including many of his parables.
This hypothetical collection is known as the Q document (from Quelle, the German term for “source”).
At an unknown date, Christians began to make brief compilations of Jesus’ sayings, such as the cluster of kingdom parables underlying Mark 4 and Matthew 13.
A much more comprehensive written collection of Jesus’ teachings, the Q document, is thought to have been assembled between about 50 and 70 CE.
An increasing number of scholars ascribe enormous importance to Q, for this Sayings Gospel, at least in its first edition, may preserve one of the earliest forms of Christianity.
Before being assimilated into Matthew and Luke, Q was apparently a Gospel in its own right, providing the first written witness to Jesus’ primary teachings.
Some scholars also posit the existence of a pre-Gospel narrative source, a primitive account of Jesus’ miraculous deeds or “signs,” that was later incorporated into the Gospel of John.
A few also believe that at least parts of the Gospel of Thomas, the only noncanonical Gospel to survive intact, predated the composition of the canonical Gospels.
Like the hypothetical Q, Thomas consists entirely of sayings, evidence that early Christians did create Gospels without either a Passion story or other narrative component.
Composition of the Canonical Gospels
Mark’s Gospel
Other than an opening declaration to present Jesus’ story as a Gospel – “good news” – Mark’s author says nothing explicit about his purpose in writing.
Nor does he identify himself, his intended readers, his place of composition, or the date on which he writes.
Mark’s anonymity characterizes all four of the canonical Gospels, none of which gives the name of its author.
The traditional Gospel titles – “The Gospel According to Mark, “or “Matthew,” or “Luke,” or “John” – appear nowhere in the main texts and seem to be headings added late in the second century CE, long after the Gospels themselves were written.
Careful study of the Gospel texts does not confirm either the traditional authorship or the belief that the writers were eyewitnesses to the events they described.
Matthew’s Gospel
Incorporating 80-90 percent of Mark into his narrative, the author of Matthew produced a new, enlarged edition of Mark that also included extensive teaching material drawn from Q.
The unknown author also used a source unique to his Gospel, which scholars designate as M (special Matthean material).
Writing about 80-85 CE to answer Jewish criticism of Christian claims about Jesus and to emphasize Jesus’ adherence to the Mosaic Torah, Matthew portrays Jesus as a greater Moses who demands a “higher righteousness” than that practiced by the Pharisees.
Into Mark’s narrative outline, he inserts five clusters of sayings and parables – mostly borrowed from Q and M – arranging them as five separate speeches corresponding to the five books of Torah.
Matthew frames Mark’s narrative with accounts of Jesus’ infancy and postresurrection appearances.
Most distinctively, he represents Jesus’ birth and ministry as fulfilling prophecies from the Hebrew Bible, which Matthew cites in Greek translation.
He cites about 130 scriptural passages to refute Jewish arguments that Jesus has not lived up to prophetic expectations of the Messiah.
So successful was Matthew’s integration of Jesus’ teachings, biblical proof texts, and Mark’s older narrative that Matthew’s Gospel – with its directives for regulating Christian community – soon became the most popular, ranking first among the four.
Luke’s Gospel
Between about 85 and 90 CE, perhaps only five or ten years after the appearance of Matthew, Luke’s Gospel, the most literate and formally correct of the synoptic accounts, was written.
Luke’s narrative reproduces about half of Mark, along with generous portions of Q and the author’s own special source, known as L, which forms about a third of his Gospel.
The only Evangelist to provide a sequel to his version of Jesus’ life, Luke also wrote the Book of Acts, which continues the story of Christian origins, tracing the expansion of the new religion from Jerusalem, to Greece, to Rome.
In Luke’s two-volume set, Jesus’ career is presented as the turning point in Israel’s history, the beginning of an innovative religious movement that brings salvation to Greeks as well as Jews.
In Luke-Acts, Jesus is the model of service to others whose example of is followed by many generations of disciples, including not only the apostles who founded the first church at Jerusalem but also an unlimited number of Gentiles who form a multiethnic, international community throughout the Roman Empire.
According to Luke, the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, which inspired Jesus’ ministry, ensures that the church functions as a successor to and extension of Jesus himself, perpetuating his activity in the world.
The Gospel of John
Shortly before the end of the first century CE, the Fourth Gospel, ascribed to John, was composed, apparently both the last canonical Gospel written and the last to attain canonical status.
This document differs so extremely from the three Synoptic accounts that scholars regard it as a special case.
John’s narrative presents a radically different picture of Jesus’ character and teaching.
Instead of speaking in earthy images and parables drawn form the experience of his peasant listeners, John’s Jesus delivers long, philosophical monologues about his closeness to the Father and his imminent ascension to heaven.
Rather than focusing on the in-breaking kingdom of God and a reinterpretation of the Jewish Torah, the Johannine Jesus dwells primarily on his divinity and his significance to the believer as the “way,” “truth,” and “life.”
Whereas Mark, Matthew, and Luke show Jesus promulgating a modified form of traditional Judaism, John is less interested in promoting a religion about Jesus, an approach in which the teacher, rather than his historical message, becomes the object of veneration.
John’s insistence on Jesus as a divinity walking the earth in human form – and the almost total absence of topics that characterized Jesus’ synoptic teachings – makes scholars doubt the Fourth Gospel’s historical value.
Because both the Synoptics and John cannot be right about the form and content of Jesus’ message, scholars generally focus on the Synoptic accounts in their search for the historical Jesus, regarding John as essentially a theological meditation on Jesus’ life.
Literary Analysis of the Gospels
Possessing the complete written texts of five Gospels (including the apocryphal Thomas), scholars can compare these documents using the tools of literary criticism.
Rather than analyzing a text to determine its historical background and oral or written sources, literary critics study the finished product.
Like all literary narratives, the Gospel stories have the basic elements of setting, character, dialogue, plot, style, and rhetorical techniques, such as the use of irony.
Readers automatically assimilate clues – characteristic words, images, and repeated phrases – that indicate how the author intends them to react toward a character’s particular statements or behavior.
Redaction Criticism
A form of literary analysis, redaction criticism emphasizes the redactor’s (author-editor’s) importance in assembling, rearranging, and reinterpreting his sources.
Matthew and Luke do not slavishly follow their primary sources – Mark and Q – but freely adapt them to express their individual theological viewpoints.
The recognition that the Gospel writers were not mere compilers of older material but active interpreters of it, creatively modifying traditions to make a theological point, deepens our understanding of differences in the three Synoptic accounts.
As readers become familiar with and Evangelist’s distinctive views, they will eventually be able to explain why Matthew’s rendition of the wedding feast parable, for example, differs from that of Luke or Thomas.
In each case, the author edits the parable to fit his religious perspective.
At crucial moments in his narrative, such as Jesus’ crucifixion, each Evangelist emphasizes his particular understanding of the event by ascribing different last words to Jesus.
Whereas Mark and Matthew agree that the dying Jesus utters a single despairing cry, the other two Gospel authors present final statements that reflect a totally different mood and meaning, with Luke and John highlighting their hero’s serene confidence and control of the situation.
In their distinctive death scenes, the four authors ascribe to Jesus a climactic utterance consistent with the distinctive theological picture of Jesus depicted throughout their respective Gospels.
Narrative Criticism
Narrative criticism emphasizes such factors as the manner in which a story is constructed, the point of view from which it is told, the author’s implied attitude toward his subject or characters, and even the use of geographical settings to convey authorial intent.
The Gospel authors do not tell their stories in the first person, nor do they present themselves as eyewitnesses to the incidents they describe.
Instead of introducing themselves to readers and citing their personal credentials as historians of Christian origins, the Gospel writers all assume the role of an anonymous but omniscient narrator – fully but inexplicably aware of everything that occurs.
They presume to know Jesus’ private thoughts, his opponents’ secret motives, and even words spoken when there are no witnesses present to overhear, as when Jesus prays alone in Gethsemane while all his disciples sleep.
The Gospel authors almost never intrude directly into their stories – the chief exception being the narrator of John’s Gospel in his description of the Crucifixion and his statement of authorial purpose.
The effect of the omniscient storyteller, who reports the speeches of heavenly voices, exorcized demons, and angelic visitors in exactly the same way that he records ordinary human conversations, is to impress on readers the narrator’s comprehensive authority.
Gospel authors also use geographical locations to express value judgments.
In Mark’s Gospel, the author presents Jesus’ career in terms of two opposing territories.
In the first half of Mark’s story, Jesus recruits disciples and enjoys considerable success in his native Galilee, the largely rural area of peasant farmers north of Samaria and Judea.
Mark sets the final part of his Gospel in Jerusalem, where his hero performs no miracles and is betrayed, tried for treason, and crucified.
When a tiny group of women find Jesus’ tomb empty on the first Easter morning, Mark has an angel tell them not to look for their risen Lord there – in Jerusalem – but to look back “in Galilee.”
Mark’s negative attitude toward Jerusalem contrasts with Luke’s positive view of the Jewish capital.
In Luke’s account, all of Jesus’ postresurrection appearances take place in or around Jerusalem.
Luke reports that Jesus explicitly commands his followers to remain in Jerusalem and wait for an outpouring of the Spirit.
He also devotes the first part of Acts to describing the flowering of the Jerusalem community.
In his presentation of Jesus’ opponents – scribes and Pharisees – Luke guides readers to a relatively sympathetic attitude toward Jews rejecting the Christian message.
The Lukan author describes those who played a part in instigating Jesus’ execution as more to be pitied than condemned, picturing them as acting in ignorance.
In contrast, Matthew portrays Jesus’ religious opponents as vicious hypocrites, threatening them with the fires of Gehenna, a symbol of posthumous torment.
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