Introducing the GOSPELS

(literally, “messages of good news”)

 Isaiah 52:7

• How beautiful on the mountains

• are the feet of the messengers
– who bring news:
– who announce peace,
– who bring good news,
– who announce salvation,
– who say to Zion,
• “Your God reigns!
• The meaning is mainly in Matthew’s
narrative
• But first we survey historical questions
 How important are historical questions?
Important for ministers:
• Since overseers are entrusted with God's work, they
must be blameless--…[and] must hold firmly to the
trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that they
can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute
those who oppose it (Tit 1:7, 9)
• ... the Lord's servant ... must be kind to everyone, able
to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose this servant
must be gently instructed, … (2 Tim 2:23-26)
• Basic apologetics: defending a position
 The “Jesus Seminar”
• Voted with marbles on which sayings of Jesus
were authentic.
• They didn’t think many were.
• TIME, NEWSWEEK, PBS, and other media
often consulted them (and rarely more
traditional, less newsworthy, scholars)
• Some of your congregation members may ask
your opinion on such media reports.
• What will you tell them?
 • Some years ago, PBS broadcast
“From Jesus to Christ”—featuring
only skeptical scholars.
• In 2000, ABC’s Peter Jennings
Reporting: The Search for Jesus,
had 16 million viewers
I saw it • The only biblically conservative
on T.V.
It MUST
scholar quoted at all was N. T.
be true Wright (a British Anglican); the
Jesus Seminar was interviewed
frequently
 When someone in your
congregation asks you about the
program..
• How will you respond? 1.

You shouldn’t
have a television!
Just believe whatever
you want. It’s
Option 2.
all the same in the end
anyway.
 Option 3.
Well, if the SCHOLARS
say it, then it must be
true.
After all, they went to
school for a LONG
time. (And I didn’t
pay attention when I
took this course ....)
 Option #4.
• I can’t HANDLE this!
I QUIT!

• Then go look for a

second or third career
in real estate.
 Option #5.
• OR: maybe come up
with some reasonable
answers.
 Attempts to offer these, e.g.:
– Craig Evans, Fabricating Jesus
– Ben Witherington’s Jesus Quest
– My The Historical Jesus of the Gospels
– Craig Blomberg, Darrell Bock, etc.
• From more centrist scholarship, e.g.:
– Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz
– E. P. Sanders
– John Meier
– James Charlesworth
 Some scholars are skeptics.

• In fact, since the Enlightenment, academia has

harbored a prejudice against miracles and the
Bible.
• Some of your parishioners will be university
graduates influenced by these people.
• Some commentaries you look at will be
influenced by them.
• Can you critically evaluate their arguments?
 Genre

• Doesn’t tell us everything

• But where to start
• Hammer
• G’s: unique?
– Jesus is unique
– but work about a real person was a biography
 What are the Gospels?

Biographies
(see esp. Aune, Burridge, Shuler,
Stanton, Talbert)
 Biographies : to be or not to be?

• Through most of history, people assumed these were

“lives,” or biographies of Jesus (or “memoirs,” a
lower-class biographical form)
• But in 1915, some scholars noticed that the Gospels
were not like modern biographies, and claimed they
were not biographies
• By now, however, scholars have mostly decided that
the Church was right all along after all (after
leading a few generations of seminarians astray)
 The Gospels are Ancient, not
Modern, Biographies
Modern biographies Ancient biographies
• Usually in • Usually topical (like Matt),
occasional chronological
chronological order (like Lk)
• Usually start with • Often start with adult
birth career (Mk, Jn)
• Selective; also, can expand
• Often cram in all or abridge accounts
they’ve got • Usually included both
positive and negative
• Often critical of their features of protagonists,
protagonist except when they’re God in
the flesh
 The Gospels fit the genre of
ancient biographies
• A biography was almost the only kind of work focused
on a single character
• Biographies fell within a very particular range of
length, precisely that of the Gospels
• Biographies often started with or focused on the hero’s
public career, and often spent much focus on their
death
• They could be positive or negative, but when positive
(e.g., on Tacitus’ father-in-law) it was normally
because the biographer genuinely respected the person
 Biographies were mainly a sort
of historical writing
• …contrary to what one of my professors
said…
• Genre does not settle all historical
questions, but it does shift the burden of
proof
• Novels were a very different genre, lacking
clear sources and certainly historical prologues
• Except for historical monographs (like Acts)
and biographies, historical works were usually
multivolume; but biographies were historical in
character
• Historians and biographers both sought to
teach moral lessons through their works--but
through facts, not fabrication
• Both sought to be entertaining, like novels, but
by their arrangement of facts, not by
fabrication
 But granted that good biographers were
substantially accurate, how accurate were they in
all details?

• That depended on the biographer

– Had considerable freedom on details
– Still, not allowed to invent events
– Tried to make good use of available sayings
• Ways to evaluate particular cases:
– Writing about recent or distant past?
– How closely did they stick to their sources?
 What kinds of sources did
biographers often use?
• When writing about the distant past
– they sometimes admitted that they used legends
– Yet often cited large numbers of varying sources by
name, when possible
– Many critically evaluated their sources
• When writing about the recent past (1-2
generations)
– They often depended on (or were) eyewitnesses or on
those who had interviewed them
 Composition methods for ancient
literary works
• A writer who was not an eyewitness usually
started with one main source
– Even an eyewitness could use others’ accounts as basic
sources (e.g., Xenophon)
• Then wove other sources around that one
• The work would then be read publicly in small
circles of friends or as entertainment at banquets
• Then revised based on feedback received (esp.
regarding rhetorical considerations)
 Publication methods: cost
• Size meant expense, so publishing long
documents required funding
– Few ancient letters as long as Romans (Randy
Richards: over $2000)
– Gospels are “foundation documents”—major literary
works, not written off the top of one’s head
– Each was a “book” (vs. multivolume works for
wealthy)
 Publication methods: means
• Means of publication
– Authors circulated their works at banquets and public
readings
– Interested hearers might request (and pay for) their own
copies
– Copies were made by hand (mass production meant a
room full of scribes taking dictation!)
– If a work received a good reputation it generated more
readings and more public demand
• For early believers, the “banquet” settings might be
meetings of house congregations
A range of historical reliability in
history and biography
• Plutarch and Livy felt • Tacitus (Agricola) and
free to spice things up Suetonius (The Twelve
some Caesars) stuck closely to
• They wrote about figures their facts (sometimes
who lived many too closely!)
centuries before them • They wrote about figures
• They admitted (as most of the most recent 150
writers did) that stories years
from the distant past • Historians today depend
(many centuries earlier) heavily on their accounts
were less dependable
 Josephus was somewhere in
between
• In his autobiography, he
makes himself look
suspiciously good
• he summarizes the
Judean-Roman war as if
it was an accident!
• Yet when he writes
details, archaeology often
confirms him--right down
to the color of paint on
Herod’s bedroom wall!
 Historical standards
• Ancients demanded that historians deal in facts
– Rhetorical history permitted (even Tacitus)
– But too much invited criticism (Polybius vs. Timaeus)
– Expected to teach moral (or nationalistic) lessons—from facts
– Perspectives expected, but inaccurate biases invited harsh critiques
(Plutarch vs. Herodotus)
• Biographies could be more encomiastic, but this did not
justify inventing “facts”
• Most biographies also included both positive and negative
qualities
• Areas of focus: political, military, philosophic, etc.
 Novels and history: distinct genres
in antiquity!
• Lucian
– Good biographers avoid flattery that falsifies events
(Hist. 12)
– Only bad historians invent data (24-25)
• Pliny the Younger
– What is distinctive about history is its concern for
accurate facts
• Polybius
– Unlike encomium, history must assign praise and blame
according to one’s actions
 Truth, not just
entertainment

• More on Pliny:
– History’s primary goal: truth and accuracy, not
rhetorical display (Ep. 7.17.3)
– Rhetoric was acceptable provided one’s basis was facts
(8.4.1)
• Aristotle:
– Difference between “poetry” and “history”
• Not their form (one could write history in verse)
• But their content: history must deal with what happened, not just with
what might happen
Biographies of recent characters

-Stayed close to their sources

-Objective not to invent
-Quite different from novels
 A concrete example: Suetonius
on Otho (with Tacitus, Plutarch)

• roughly 50 points of correspondence with

each
• –besides these, 28 further points of close
correspondence between Plutarch and
Tacitus
• Suet. Otho is roughly 28 paragraphs
• less than 2000 words (roughly 1/5 Mk)
 But granted that good
biographers were substantially
accurate, how accurate were
they in all details?

Glad you asked. That’s why scholars

traditionally came up with
“historical-critical” methodologies.
First we survey the methods used.

• You will run across these in many older

commentaries.
• You don’t need to remember all these details
–I am simply introducing them to you.
• Source-history
• Form-history
• Redaction-history
 SOURCE HISTORY

Historians in the nineteenth century

began examining the Gospels for
their sources
 Does the Bible, God’s Word, ever use sources?
It tells us that it does:
• That is why the Book of the Wars of the LORD says: ". . . Waheb in Suphah
and the ravines, the Arnon...” (Num 21:14)
• So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on
its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:13)
• and ordered that the men of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is
written in the Book of Jashar) (2 Sam 1:18)
• The other events of Jeroboam's reign, his wars and how he ruled, are written
in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel (1 K 14:19)
• As for the events of King David's reign, from beginning to end, they are
written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet
and the records of Gad the seer (1 Chr 29:29)
• The other events in Jotham's reign, including all his wars and the other
things he did, are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah (2 Chr
27:7)
• 1-2 Chronicles cites “Kings” 10x (9x from 2 Chr 16 on); 1-2 K cites
“Chronicles” over 30x (all 1 K 14 on)
 Do the Gospels use
sources?

• Luke tells us many sources were known to him:

– Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the
things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they
were handed down to us by those who from the first
were eyewitnesses and servants of the word (Lk 1:1-2).
• This is good news for us: it means that the Gospel
writers cannot have been simply making things up:
• Of course, they didn’t “copy” the
ways we do today.
• But almost everyone acknowledges
that Matthew, Mark and Luke are
closely related.
– Overlap considerably (“Synoptic”)
– John says the world couldn’t contain all
the books!
Most common view of relations
among Synoptics
Matthew & Luke probably draw on the second
and third levels of sources below. If Matthew
and/or John were eyewitnesses, they also
draw on the first level.

Jesus

Oral tradition, notes

Mark "Q" sources now lost

 (for the sake of using
commentaries…)

• It IS important to at least remember:

• Most scholars think
– Matthew and Luke both used Mark and “Q”
– This is the vast majority of scholars (both
liberal and conservative)
– However, there are many very good scholars
who still think Matthew wrote first (the view of
Papias in the early church fathers)
 Why do I believe that Matthew used
Mark, rather than the reverse?

• Matthew exhibits consistent patterns in the ways he

abbreviates Mk
• Matthew mixes use of Greek & Hebrew versions in his OT
quotations--except where he agrees with MK (suggesting
he follows Mk)
• One would not expect Mk to cut so much of the sayings
material
• Main objection based on Papias: but Papias refers to a
Semitic (maybe sayings) “Matthew”--perhaps our “Q”
 Matthew and Luke also share
much other material
• Probably Matt did not copy Lk or Lk copy Matt
– Compare the infancy narratives, Judas’s death
– often their common material diverges as if two ways of
translating the same Aramaic expression
• This suggests a common source or sources
– could be oral or written, one or many--BUT: quite often they follow
it in the same sequence, just as Lk follows Mk in the same sequence
• This suggests especially one continuous written source for
much of this material
• Lacking another name for it, we call this source “Q”--from
German “Quelle,” “source”
 These sources predate our
finished Gospels--but...
Attempts at further reconstruction are speculative.
• Q probably edited in the 40s--I.e., not long after the events
• but reconstructing Q (e.g., “theologies” of Q, redactional
analyses of “layers” in Q) is pure speculation
• Other sources like proto-Matthew, proto-Mark, etc., are
speculative
• Oral traditions and non-extant written sources may account
for the rest of the overlap
• Scholars have increasingly recognized the weaknesses of
the traditional source-critical excesses
 Proto-Matthew

I’m NOT
speculative!
 Other nineteenth to early-
twentieth scholars focused on

FORM HISTORY
(Formgeschichte, form criticism)
There are various distinguishable literary
forms in the Bible, e.g., in the Gospels:
• Mashal: parable, proverb,
similitude
• Chreia: short accounts
(miracle stories,
pronouncement stories,
controversy stories)
• Oracles (woe…)
• Midrash (Bible
interpretation)
Do I understand correctly that
• Long discourses (Jn; cf. you are criticizing my FORM?
speeches in Acts)
 Some “form-critical” criteria sometimes used to defend
the historical authenticity of parts of the Gospels:

In their “positive” form:

• Multiple attestation (what appears in many diverse
strands of the tradition--e.g., Mk, Q, Jn, Paul)
• Criterion of embarrassment: whatever the early
Church wouldn’t have made up must go back to Jesus
• Criterion of Palestinian environment: what fits
Jesus’ context (vs. that of the later church) is authentic
 Weaknesses of the traditional
form-critical approaches
The Negative use of the criteria was usually
misplaced
• we can argue that ideas in the Gospels not shared
by the later Church must go back to Jesus
• But is the reverse really logical? (e.g., for criterion
of dissimilarity)
– Would Jesus share no views in common with John the
Baptist or Judaism?
– Would Jesus’ disciples ignore all the teachings of the
One they called “Lord,” only to substitute their own
ideas?
– This would make them unlike most ancient disciples!
• Distinct forms in the Gospels
– Often we can distinguish forms
– but does that mean we can reconstruct how early
Christians transmitted each form
– and thereby evaluate their reliability?
– Most scholars today reject such speculations
• Most criteria for expansion (Bultmann, etc.) were shown to
be flawed
– E. P. Sanders, 1969
– use of ancient rhetorical handbooks today
• Presuppositions ruled form-critics’ conclusions
– Bultmann was skeptical, hence arrived at skeptical
conclusions
– Dibelius, Jeremias, Taylor and Dodd came to more
conservative conclusions
In the 1970s Gospels scholars
moved into

REDACTION CRITICISM
(Redaktiongeschichte; editorial
history)
 Scholars had worked with sources (source
history) and oral traditions (form history)
• And got stuck with a Big “SO WHAT?”
• Source and form criticism ask historical questions, but
redaction criticism brings us closer to the meaning
question
• If Matthew changes some wording in Mark, scholars
often ask: WHY does he change it?
• If Matthew consistently makes a particular change, this
probably teaches us about Matthew’s emphasis--his
theology
• I.e., we learn what Matthew wants to preach about--
which gives us guidance how we should preach from
Matthew
 The Gospels clearly and
undeniably have differences.
Mk 11:11-24 Matt 21:12-22
• Jesus cursed a fig tree • Jesus cursed a fig tree
• Jesus cleansed the • The tree withered at
Temple once
• Jesus’ disciples find • Jesus gives a lesson on
the fig tree withered faith
• Jesus gives a lesson on • Jesus cleansed the
faith Temple
(Judgment on Temple)
 Exercise:

• Compare parallel passages

– E.g., parallel beatitudes in Matthew 5 and Luke
6 (a parallel context)
– Kingdom of God vs. Kingdom of heaven
• ALMOST always “heaven” in Matthew; always
“God” in Mark and Luke
• Differences in wording clear
 Editorial history merely asks,
WHY?
• Why does Matthew edit Mk and Q the way he does?
What is his POINT?
– I.e., not simply careless mistakes, but deliberate
emphases
• Once we know what a writer meant to emphasize, we can
figure out how to reapply that emphasis in relevant ways
today.
• But scholars soon learned the method’s limitations
 Weaknesses of Redaction
Criticism:
Early critics were sometimes excessive
• tried to explain everything on the basis of Mk and Q
– hence assumed anything else in Matt and Lk were invented
• assumed anything that fit the writer’s style must have
been invented
– but ancient writers often explicitly tell us that they reworded
things!
• Most scholars today recognize the earlier era’s excesses
Beware: the early redactional commentaries still litter the
shelves
 Other weaknesses
• Differences need not mean unreliability
– Modern historians regularly mine ancient historians
despite differences among them
– Luther considered wasting time on minor divergences
among the Gospels a “pedantic” exercise
• Not all changes are theologically motivated
– Some adaptation was to make the language more precise
• thus Lk cleans up Mk’s grammar
• Matt changes Antipas from “king” to “tetrarch”
• Matt “reJudaizes” Mk (K. of heaven)
• Matt often abbreviates Mk for space constraints (e.g.,
the paralytic through the roof)
 Paraphrase

• Paraphrase was a standard rhetorical

exercise in antiquity
• skeptics and misinformed defenders make
the same mistake:
– both assume that differences in wording or
sequence means that the substance is inaccurate
– doesn’t fit the genre of ancient biography or
historiography
 The biggest problem with
redaction criticism:

• Writers affirm what they include as well as

what they add
• older methods are thus useful for historians
• but for understanding and preaching,
literary critics today focus especially on
studying the narrative as a whole.
 Having surveyed methods many
commentators used...
• We are now turning to material that is more
important for you to know.
• How reliable ARE the Gospels?
• Are you able to defend their reliability?
So let us return for the moment to
the historical question.
• What scholarly discoveries have endured
the test of time?
• GENRE: The Gospels are biographies,
hence have historical intention
• The Gospels use written sources composed
soon after the events they describe
• The Gospels also have sound oral tradition
stemming from eyewitnesses.
 Luke 1:1-4 tells us much about
sources available to Luke.

1. Written sources (1:1)

2. Oral sources (from eyewitnesses) (1:2)
3. Luke confirmed this with his own
investigations (1:3)
4. Luke couldn’t “fudge,” since the material
was already widely known in the early
church (1:4)
 Luke wrote between 62 and 90
(median: c. 75)
• By the time he writes, many
people have already written about
Jesus (1:1):
– Many have undertaken to draw
up an account of the things that
have been fulfilled among us
• This means that many had written
about Jesus’ life and teachings
within 4½ decades of the events
• Are the events of 4½ decades
before us shrouded in amnesia?
• (late 1960s, early 1970s)
 ORAL sources (1:2)
• just as they were
handed down to us by
those who from the
first were eyewitnesses
and servants of the
word
• “handing down” is the
technical language of
oral traditioning
• How accurate could this be?
Anna Gulick
 How accurate was oral
transmission?

• We must consider memorization in

antiquity
• Notes; sayings collections
• in the Gospels: evidence for Aramaic
rhythm
• Prominence of eyewitnesses in the
Church
 Exclusively oral period: can’t be
more than one generation
• Dating Mark
(usually 34-45
years)
• Oral material could
also be added in a
later period
– Pausanias felt free to add
information from
centuries-old oral traditions
that did not appear in their
written sources
– Gospel writers assume
audience knowledge of
traditions about Jesus not
recorded in their Gospels
(e.g., Acts 20:35; Jn 20:30)
 Memorization
• Storytellers (hours!)
• Orators (memoria)
• Elementary education
• Disciples of teachers
– primary responsibility
– Pythagorean example
– Would learn deeds as New method
well of studying
• Gathered into “lives” for Prof.
and sayings collections Keener’s
midterm
 Illiterate bards: Homeric epics

▪ Centuries before Gospels, best

professional reciters could recite all
of Homer by heart
▪ Intellectuals looked down on them!
 Carefully trained memories:
examples
– Seneca the Elder:
• could recount long
sections of over a
hundred declamations
from his youth
• in his younger days
he could repeat back
2000 names in
exactly the sequence
in which he had just
heard them
• recite up to 200
verses given to him,
in reverse
 Exceptional,
but others
• Listened to auction all
day
• Plagiarizing a poem to
show off
– an emphasis on
memory that far
exceeds standard
expectations today
– One of 5 basic tasks:
memoria, “learning Orators
the speech by heart in
preparation for
delivery”
– memorize their
speeches, often even
several hours in length
– Training: students
practiced speeches
“from memory”
– Rhetorically trained
hearers: recall
elements of speeches,
could supplement
written sources
 Ancient Disciples’ Memory and
note-taking
– Memory most effective
in:
• 1st 2 generations
– eyewitnesses and
those who’d heard
them consulted
• school settings:
– students rehearsed
and passed on their
teachers’ message
 Both factors relevant to the Gospels
• Churches not a school
setting per se, but
• most of its most
prominent leaders (cf. 1
Cor 15:5-7; esp. Gal
1:18-19; 2:8-9) were
– not only eyewitnesses
– but a teacher’s disciples
– who learned his
teachings in a pedagogic
setting
 Memorization
• the most widespread
feature of ancient
education
• See e.g., Quintilian
Inst. 1.3.1; Plutarch
Educ. 13, Mor. 9E;
Musonius Rufus frg.
51, p. 144.3-7;
Diogenes Laertius
6.2.31; Eunapius Lives
481
 Basic level: memorizing sayings
of famous teachers

• Musonius Rufus
frg. 51, p. 144.3-7
• Students at various
levels also
memorized
examples
• Theon Progymn.
2.5-8
 Different levels
• The youngest:
– rote memorization at
the elementary level
• higher education (after
about age 16):
– memorizing many
speeches and passages
useful for speeches
– advanced rhetorical
education: especially
“memorized model
speeches and
passages” for their
own use
 Philosophic
Schools
• Sayings attributed to founders
of Greek schools were
transmitted by members of each
school from one generation to
the next
• founder’s teachings often
canonical for their communities
• Often left publication to
disciples

Pythagoras
 Repetition
• Lucian: philosophic
student rehearsing
each of the points
of the previous
day’s lectures in his
mind
• Special emphasis
among
Pythagoreans
 Deeds as well as sayings
• Memorizing
teachings, but also:
studied and
emulated teachers’
behavior
– Transmitted it
– Could use it as legal
precedent!
 Communal
Memory
• Teacher’s former
disciples might also
collectively remember
bits and pieces of
speeches, sewing them
together (Philostratus
Vit. soph. 1.22.524)
• a group of hearers could
remind one another of
various points
• those whose memory
was strongest could take NET transmission vs.
the lead CHAIN transmission
 Note-taking

• Not certain for Jesus’s

disciples, but possible
• Greek disciples very
often took notes
Disciples PUBLISHED teachers’
teachings

• Many teachers left the

matter of publication to
their followers (so
Kennedy)
• Student note-takers
sometimes published
them (as early as fifth-
century BCE)
 Both philosophy
A photo of me and rhetoric
when I had
hair
• Arrian, a disciple of
Epictetus
– Epictetus’ Koine differs
from Arrian’s own
Atticizing diction
• Quintilian’ boy
students published in
his name their notes on
his lectures
– fairly accurate, though
he wished he could
have polished them for
publication
Jewish Disciples
• maybe fewer notes,
emphasizing orality
• but some notes, as
mnemonic devices to
recall larger blocs of
material (Gerhardsson,
Safrai)
• Debate about how
many Palestinian Jews
could write, but …
 Among Jesus’s
disciples
• A tax-collector (Mk 2:14)
would have had the skills
to take such notes
• later Christian tradition
suggested that the other
disciples later made use of
his notes
– Confronted with a
classicist’s evidence of
note-taking in antiquity,
one traditional form critic
(R. H. Fuller) conceded
that such evidence would
require revision in the
skepticism of some of his
more radical peers
Jesus’s Jewish Disciples
• Jewish education:
memorization of Torah
(Josephus, etc.)
• Not limited to the circle of
later rabbis
• Rabbis lectured to their
pupils and expected them to
memorize their teachings by
laborious repetition (Sipre
Deut. 48.1.1-4; Martin
Goodman, State and Society
in Roman Galilee)
 Rabbis

• Rabbi praises a
student as like a
good cistern
• Esp. intense for
advanced students
studying to be Torah
teachers
Evidence too late?
• Evidence later than 1st
century—but fits all the
other evidence
– Just a coincidence?
• Normally “net” (group)
transmission, not just
“chain” transmission
• Some Jewish teachers
spoke in easily
memorizable forms
• Such forms pervade
Jesus’ teaching style
What should we expect of Jesus’s
disciples?
• Why should we expect
Jesus’ disciples to prove
less reliable than other
disciples of teachers?
• Virtually all scholars
agree that Jesus was a
teacher with disciples
• Thus likely they would
have preserved the
substance of his teaching
• Q probably circulating
while some eyewitnesses
still in leadership
 W. D. Davies
• probably only a single lifespan
• “separates Jesus from the last New Testament
document. And the tradition in the Gospels is
not strictly a folk tradition, derived from long
stretches of time, but a tradition preserved by
believing communities who were guided by
responsible leaders, many of whom were
eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus.”
– W. D. Davies, Invitation to the New Testament: A
Guide to Its Main Witnesses (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday & Company, 1966), 115-16
Some distinctively early traits
remain in the Gospels

• Extant Gospels in
Greek; biography is
Diaspora genre
• Yet distinctly
Palestinian Jewish
traditions and
Aramaic figures of
speech
Transition to Greek probably in
earliest Jerusalem church
• The one common
language everyone
could understand
(including hellenists)
• Rural Galilean and
Aramaic features
predate that early stage
• Thus go back to the
earliest and most
reliable memories of
Jesus’ followers
 Aramaic rhythm
Ancient
rhythm
• Jesus probably often spoke Aramaic
• The bilingual Jerusalem church probably fairly quickly
moved to Greek (Acts 6)
• But sayings were often translated so carefully they retain
Aramaic figures of speech
• When translated back into Aramaic, about 80% have
discernible rhythm--as if given in an easily memorized form
• One warning: back-translation remains difficult
– e.g., one attempt to translate Sirach back into Hebrew was later
refuted by a discovery of a Hebrew manuscript of Sirach
– the translator was wrong in every verse!
 Examples of Palestinian Jewish figures of
speech, maxims or ideas

• Phrases similar to, “You have heard it said”

(cf. 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43)
• Lust hyperbolically constituting adultery (Matt
5:28)
• It would be “measured” to one as one
measured to others (Matt 7:2; Lk 6:38)
• removing the beam from one’s eye before
trying to remove the chip from another’s (Matt
7:3-5//Lk 6:41-42)
 More examples
• the phrase, “to what shall I/we compare?” (Matt
11:16//Lk 7:31) (common, esp. for parables)
• “So-and-so is like” (Matt 11:16; 13:24; 25:1; Mk
4:26, 31; 13:34; Lk 6:48-49)
• Early Jewish parables usually have interpretations
(pace many NT scholars!)
• The first half of the “Lord’s Prayer” closely echoes
the Kaddish (Jewish prayer)
• The Pharisees’ divorce question reflects a debate
among Pharisaic schools from Jesus’ day
 Further:
• “Son of Man” is a specifically Semitic
construction
• “Moving mountains”: apparently a Jewish
metaphor for accomplishing what was
virtually impossible
• Jewish teachers debated among themselves
which commandment was the “greatest”
(Mk 12:28)
• Jesus links the two “greatest”
commandments on the basis of the common
opening word we’ahavta (“You shall
love”), a common Jewish interpretive
technique
• Babylonian Jewish teachers: “an elephant
passing through a needle’s eye”
• Current Pharisaic debates about purity with
respect to the inside or outside of cups
 Eyewitnesses remained
prominent in the early Church
• Leaders of church
(Gal 2; 1 Cor 15)
• Would eyewitnesses
die for a claim they
knew to be false?
 The Gospels cite women’s
testimony to the resurrection

• despite the
prejudice against
women’s
testimony in
antiquity
 Luke also carefully
“investigated” (1:3)
• Therefore, since I myself have
carefully investigated everything
from the beginning… (1:3)
• The Hellenistic ideal (Polybius,
Thucydides; vs. some armchair
Romans…)
• When could Lk have checked out
these sources?
• “We” in Acts 16:10-ch. 28
– some claim “fictional” device
– some claim left over from travel
journal
– but “we” normally means “we”
• Includes 2 years spent with Paul
in Judea
 Luke appeals to what was already
common knowledge in the Church

• so that you may know the

certainty of the things you
have been taught (1:4)
• You don’t make up things
that contradict what your
hearers already know!
• Similarly, Paul cites his
audience’s knowledge of his
miracles
• Paul claims witnesses for the
resurrection that anyone
could check out (1 Cor 15:6)
 Other evidence:
Really…feel FREE to keep
kosher as long as you’d like
• Later debates central to
the church are missing
in the Gospels
– food laws (except Mk 7)
– Gentiles (except Mk 7, Matt
8)
– circumcision (anywhere)
• If the Church were
making things up about
Jesus, wouldn’t they
have been a little more
relevant to their time?
• Paul, the earliest NT
writer, sometimes attests
what we have in the
Synoptics
– the resurrection tradition &
witnesses (1 Cor 15)
– the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11)-
-“passed on”
– the divorce saying (1 Cor 7)
– Jesus’ end-time teachings (1
Th 4-5; 2 Th 2)
– Possibly some of Jesus’ ethics
(Rom 12; 1 Th 4)
 Paul distinguishes between what Jesus said
and his own extension (1 Cor 7)

• Perfect opportunity to
make up a saying for
Jesus, but refuses to do so
 If writers were freely inventing
stories

– we wouldn’t have “Synoptic”

Gospels
– or various parallels in John
(which is mostly independent)
– noted, e.g., by E. P. Sanders
Testing differences among the
Gospels
 The man with the withered hand
Matt 12:9-14
Preceding context: sabbath
controversy in field
And he went on from there, and
Entered their synagogue
And behold, there was a man with
a withered hand
And they asked him, “Is it lawful
to heal on the sabbath?”
So that they might accuse him
Mk 3:1-6
Preceding context: sabbath
controversy in field
Again he
Entered the synagogue
And a man was there who had a
withered hand
And they watched him, to see
whether he would heal him on the
sabbath
So that they might accuse him
And he said to the man who had
the withered hand
“Come here.”
Lk 6:6-11
On another sabbath [preceding
context: sabbath controversy in
field—only Luke specifies another
sabbath]
When he
Entered the synagogue and taught
A man was there whose right
hand was withered
And the scribes and the Pharisees
watched him, to see whether he
would heal on the sabbath
So that they might accuse him
But he knew their thoughts
And he said to the man who had
the withered hand
“Come and stand here.” And he
rose and stood there
He said to them,
“What man of you, if he has one sheep and
it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not
lay hold on it and lift it out? How much
more valuable is a person than a sheep?
And he said to them, And Jesus said to them,
(cf. Lk 13:15:
But the Lord answered him and said, “You
hypocrites, does not each of you on the
Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from
the stall, and lead him away to water him?
Lk 14:5: And He said to them, “Which one
of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a
well, and will not immediately pull him
out on a Sabbath day?”)

“Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or “I ask you, is it lawful on the sabbath to do
to do harm, to save life or to kill?” good or to do harm, to save life or to
destroy it?”
But they were silent.

And he looked around at them with anger, And he looked around on them all
grieved at their hardness of heart

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out And said to the man, “Stretch out And said to him, “Stretch out your
your hand.” your hand.” hand.”
And the man stretched it out He stretched it out And he did so

And it was restored, whole like the And his hand was restored And his hand was restored
other
But the Pharisees went out The Pharisees went out

And took counsel And immediately held counsel with the But they were filled with fury, and
Herodians discussed with one another
Against him, how to destroy him Against him, how to destroy him what they might do to Jesus
 The Beatitudes
Matt 5:3-12 Lk 6:20b-23

Blessed are the poor in spirit Blessed are you poor

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven For yours is the kingdom of God

Blessed are those who mourn,

For they shall be comforted
Blessed are the gentle,
for they shall inherit the earth
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are you who hunger now,
for they shall be satisfied For you will be satisfied
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh
Blessed are the merciful, (Cf. Lk 6: Be merciful, as God is…)
For they will receive mercy
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called ‘God’s children.’
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of
righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and cast
you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of insults at you, and spurn your name as evil, for the sake of the
Me Son of Man
Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so Be glad in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is
they persecuted the prophets who were before you great in heaven; for in the same way their fathers used to treat
the prophets
 Woes
Matt 23:13-29 Lk 6:24-26; 11:42-52

But woe to you who are rich,

for you are receiving your comfort in full
Woe to you who are well-fed now,
for you shall be hungry
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you shall mourn and weep
Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for in the same way their fathers used to treat the false prophets

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of
shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were
in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in entering in you hindered (11:52)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you

travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he
becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as
yourselves
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the
temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the
temple, he is obligated
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and
mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love
provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but of God; but these are the things you should have done without
these are the things you should have done without neglecting the neglecting the others
others
(Matt 23:6: And they love the place of honor at banquets, Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the front seats in the
and the chief seats in the synagogues) synagogues, and the respectful greetings in the market places

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the
outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of
robbery and self-indulgence

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people
whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but who walk over them are unaware of it
inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness

(Matt 23:4: And they tie up heavy loads, and lay them on men’s But He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men
shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not
so much as a finger) even touch the burdens with one of your fingers

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was
tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous your fathers who killed them
 Objections sometimes raised:

• 1. Moral
• 2. “Lost Gospels”
• 3. Philosophic—especially miracles
 “Lost Gospels”

A lost gospel
 Four Gospels unanimously
accepted in earliest lists

• Except Marcion (considered eccentric)

• From France (Irenaeus) to Syria (Tatian)
• Canonical disputes not about the Gospels
• Only 1 of some 40 ancient lists of
candidates for canonicity included any other
“Gospel” (Thomas)
 “Lost Gospels?”

– Apocryphal Gospels
• novels
– Gnostic Gospels
• different genre: mainly sayings
• Gnostic elements: second-century or later
• E.g., Thomas:
– usually mid-2nd century
– Maybe 170 (Nicolas Perrin: Diatessaron)
– Almost a century after when most scholars date
Luke!
 Later Gospels...
• Are pseudepigraphs,
forgeries, and so on.
• Some scholars dispute
this, but even Thomas,
which includes the most
likely traces of Jesus’
sayings, is Gnosticizing
• Gnosticism doesn’t
predate the second
century.
 More “Lost Gospels”
• “Q” (B. Mack)
– His version of Q (includes only wisdom sayings →
Jesus = sage → only wisdom sayings—circular
reasoning!)
• “Cross Gospel” (Crossan)
– G. Peter—as late as 9th century

• Critical scholars who denigrate use of

Synoptics!
 “Secret Gospel of Mark”
• Novel:
– Lord Moreton discovers subversive MS at certain
monastery
– Next year, Morton Smith goes to that very monastery,
“discovers” MS
• Some: traces of forger’s tremor, Smith’s Greek style
• Portrays Jesus as gay magician (using 20th century
understanding of homosexuality)
• Includes some 20th-century dirty jokes
• Used by some as pre-Gospels—but now believed by
many to be a 20th century forgery!
– In any case, certainly NOT from the first century
• You can be glad the
canon’s not longer than
it is. Keener
• Otherwise NT profs
would have to move
even faster to cover it in
one semester!
All for now on Thomas…Now on to the
Gospel of Judas…and before finishing today,
we must touch on Barnabas and Nicodemus...