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Book Critique: “Jesus and the Gospels” By Craig L. Blomberg

Matthew J. Stephenson

The King’s University

BIBL-5305-ONL1: Life of Jesus In Historical Context

James P. Girdlestone, D.Min.

March 1, 2020
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Abstract

In this paper, I will present a critique of the textbook “Jesus and the Gospels” written by author and

theologian, Craig L. Blomberg. I will attempt to discuss what I have viewed as the strengths and

weaknesses of the text, as well as, discuss the impact that it has had on my understanding of the topics

presented.
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Book Critique: “Jesus and the Gospels” By Craig L. Blomberg

Blomberg’s book, “Jesus and the Gospels”, presents a fascinating array of information to help

the reader grasp the complexity of scholarship and study into the person of Jesus Christ and the

documents that teach us about Him. In the opening chapters of the text, Blomberg presents an

understanding to the reader of the political, religious, and socioeconomic background of the times in

which Jesus lived. These areas are essential for the reader to understand in order for him/her to fully

grasping an thorough understanding of person of Jesus and the society and culture to which He lived in

and interacted with.

Through a detailed account of the Intertestamental period, Blomberg presents the history and

events that molded the society in which Jesus would ultimately come to minister within. With a detailed

account of the Jews returning to their homeland to rebuild the city and temple under the reign of Cyrus

to Alexander the Great’s conquering of the Persian empire, and on to the Egyptian rule of the Ptolemies,

Syrian rule under the Seleucids, and the Maccabean Revolt leading into the Hasmonean Dynasty,

Blomberg gives the reader a understanding of how the Romans came to power and the key players in

the Gospels such as Herod the Great came to rule. It was these political events that occurred which set

the stage so perfectly for the Messiah to be born and live in the times which He did.

Along with these political changes and transitions came many religious changes also. The Jewish

people were hindered from worshiping God as prescribed in the Temple due to being carried away to

other nations. Even upon their return to their own land, the temple had to be rebuilt and through a

series of invasions by foreign powers such as the Syrian invader, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, even once

rebuilt, it was desecrated and temple worship interfered with. Not only did the Jews have to did with

these political interferences with their worship, but there were many other religious influences invading

into the Jewish culture. Due to the intermixing of other cultures and societies with the Jews, the
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experienced Hellenistic influences, philosophies such as dualism as presented by Plato and Socrates,

Zeno’s Stoicism, and Anisthenes’ Cynicism.

In addition to these religious influences, the rise of other religious movements were also on the

rise including mysterious cults, the practice of magic, the rise of Gnosticism, and emperor worship which

had a direct impact on the ministry of Christ as the accusation was that Jesus was a King. Judaism was

constantly being influenced and was evolving into something very different from its original form. The

rise of the synagogue developed while Judaism began to be affected by various rabbinic movements.

There became an interest in angelology and demonology, a focus on prayer and good works, and the

development of various sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Scribes.

In Chapter 3, Blomberg discusses the socioeconomic background of the Gospels. Blomberg

provides a general overview of the geography of the land (also known as the fifth gospel), the

population sizes of the times such as Rome which reached well over 1 million people at the time of their

census. He also discusses the transportation and communication of the ancient world and how this

impacted the movement of the gospel. Blomberg points out that there were various municipal facilities

for the public such as the Roman baths, the town marketplace, and even libraries such as the library at

Alexandria which housed over 500,000 volumes.

During his discussion in Chapter 3, Blomberg further develops an understanding of the cultural

values of the ancient Mediterranean world to which one must grasp to be able to comprehend the

significance of Jesus’ ministry at several points in the Scripture. These cultural values include an

understanding of the people’s value of honor in their society and what brought shame both to the

individual and his/her family. Also an understanding of kinship loyalties which were more focused on

group and genealogies verses the individualism we seem to value in the Western World. Other values

also included the perception of limited good, the value of character and one’s performance, and

perceptions of purity and uncleanness (primarily due to ritual laws of the Old Testament).
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In Blomberg’s second section of the text, “Critical Methods for Studying the Gospels”, he

discusses the historical and literary criticisms of the Gospels. In this section, Blomberg discusses the

various “critical” (i.e., analytical) tools that scholars use to help them understand how the Gospels came

to be in the form that we know them now. There are two major divisions amongst these methods. The

“lower criticism” also known as the textual criticism which is the science of sorting and comparing the

existing manuscripts of an ancient document with a view to reconstructing the text of the original as

accurately as possible. The “Higher criticism” involves the various disciplines that seek to explain how

that original document was composed – what sources the author used, how he put them together,

under what circumstances he wrote, and so on.

Higher criticism can be subdivided into two largely discrete disciplines: historical criticism and

literary criticism. It is to these two areas of study that Blomberg turns his attention. Historical criticism

studies the prehistory of a text – all of the influences leading up to and including the final assembling of

a finished product by the author or editor. Literary criticism analyzes the features of the text in the final

form in which an author publishes it.

In Blomberg’s treatment of historical criticism, he provides a general survey of views on how to

understand the Gospels throughout history. Beginning with the early church fathers, Blomberg

discusses that the common means to understand the gospels were through the development of a

harmony of them all, the first being known as the Diatessaron. This view carried on for over a

millennium which the details varied. Starting in the 1700’s, the Principles of the Enlightenment let to a

different approach of interpretation such as the rationalist or naturalistic interpretations of the miracle

narratives. By the 1830, D.F. Strauss ushered in a new era in dealing with the Gospels which rejected

both the traditional and rationalist methods of interpretation and instead attributed all of Jesus’

miraculous deeds as myths. Blomberg further discusses the historical criticism through presenting

G.W.F. Hegel’s “thesis-antithesis-synthesis”, and the various “lives of Jesus”.

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By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, scholars became increasingly fascinated with the

“Synoptic problem”. The twentieth-century Gospels scholarship was characterized by successive

interest into the different critical tools, each building on its predecessor. For the first quarter of the

century, source criticism predominated as further defense and elaboration of the Markan priority

flourished. Moving into the 1970’s and 1980’s, there came a revival of the Griesbach hypothesis.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, Blomberg continues his examination in general terms of

additional criticisms and further explores the Synoptic problem, Markan priority, as well as, the potential

for additional source materials possibly used in the development of the four gospels such as the Q-

Hypothesis, M, L, and Proto-Luke. Blomberg also furthers the discussion into redaction criticism, canon

criticism, and the formation of the canon.

Blomberg moves on in the next chapter to discuss literary criticism of the Gospels. In general

terms, this is simply an analysis of a work of literature specifically that of the Gospels. Blomberg

discusses the Bible as literature / narrative criticism development of the history of formalism or new

criticism being used to understand the Bible. Scholars began to view the Bible in terms of how secular

literature was reviewed such as identifying the plot of the Gospels and moving the story to the climax of

the story. These scholars also looked at the characterization of flat and round characters, the use of

symbolism and double-entendre, the point of view of the narrator, and narrative time.

In this section, Blomberg further discusses literary criticism’s poststructuralist methods such as

deconstruction and reader-response criticism. He explains that deconstructionists revel in deriving

conflicting meanings from a given text and playing them off against each other. Interest in

deconstruction has waned and evolved into more of a general postmodern criticism, which is a broader

hermeneutical movement. The reader-response, also known as reader-centered, audience-centered,

and reader-oriented, describes a loose collection of approaches that are united by the common feature

of focusing on the act of reading (or listening) in interpretation.

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Finally, Blomberg explores the concept of assessing the genre or literary form on an entire

gospel. Various opinions were presented concerning how this should be accomplished such as viewing

the Gospels as “aretalogies” – Greco-Roman accounts of the life of a “divine man”, or viewing the

Gospels as “epic narratives” such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. It has also been suggested that the

Gospels are better viewed as theological biographies. As Blomberg states, “in any event, what is

important to conclude at the end of this two-chapter survey of modern methods of Gospel study is that

there is a legitimate place for historical, theological, and literary study of the Gospels.

In the third section of the text, Blomberg presents a general introduction to each of the four

gospels. Each chapter presents a different Gospel broken down into the structure of the particular

Gospel (a general outline of the entire book), the theology of the Gospel, distinctive themes within the

Gospel, authorship, and various circumstances surrounding the writing of the Gospel.

The Gospel of Mark is the first one presented. Blomberg presents the views of Jesus within the

Gospel as the Gospel potentially attempting to present both Jesus’ successes and failures. This is

because half of the Gospel focuses on Jesus’ mighty deeds and the other half of the Gospel focuses on

His suffering and death. A more balanced approach to this idea is that the Gospel writer is attempting

to present a balance between two essential truths, namely that of Jesus’ glory and the centrality of the

cross. Further, Blomberg discusses the distinctive themes of the Gospel namely that of disciples and

discipleship, the message about Jesus as Good News, Imminent Eschatology, and Isaiah’s New Exodus. It

is also suggested in this chapter that the writing of the Gospel was for the encouragement and comfort

of Roman Christians suffering under persecution.

The Gospel of Matthew is presented next in this section of the text. In similar manner to that of

Mark, a general structure or outline is present for the Gospel. Blomberg states, “ that Matthew intends

on five major sermons of Jesus to be viewed as unified discourses punctuating his historical narrative.”

Blomberg then goes on to discuss the views of Jesus in Matthew, namely those of teacher, Son of David,
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King, and Royal Messiah, A Heightened Son of God, Wisdom Incarnate, and Lord. After a short

discussion on each of these views, Blomberg discusses various distinctive themes in the Gospel of

Matthew such as Particularism and Universalism in the Gospel offer according to the Scriptures,

discipleship and the church, and conflict with Jewish Authorities.

In consideration of the circumstances and audience to which Matthew was potentially written

too, Blomberg states: “most interpreters recognize Matthew’s audience as a Jewish-Christian

congregation(s) either on the verge of or just recovering from a substantial break from Judaism as a

whole…Ulrich Luz explains succinctly: “The Gospel of Matthew is a response to the no of Israel’s majority

to Jesus. It is the attempt to come to terms with this no by defining the community’s position and to

contribute to forming and preserving its identity in a situation of crisis and transition.”

Thirdly, the Gospel of Luke is presented in this section. Blomberg begins his discussion of the

Gospel by presenting a general outline of the book. A general treatment of its correlation with the Book

of Acts is also presented in this section. Blomberg then moves on to the Gospel’s various views of Jesus.

These include Jesus’ humanity and compassion for the outcasts of society (Samaritans, Gentiles, Tax

Collectors, sinners, women, and the poor), Savior, Prophet, Teacher of Parables, and the Resurrected

and Exalted One, Benefactor.

Luke presents several distinctive themes including those of stewardship of material possessions,

the Jewish People and obedience to the Law, Writing Christian history, the Holy Spirit, prayer, joy, and

repentance / conversion. The Gospel of Luke presents a unique treatment of these topics in a way

which other Gospels fails to do. For example, the Holy Spirit appears more in the Gospel of Luke far

more than in any other Gospel. In both of Luke’s books (The Gospel of Luke and The Book of Acts), the

expression “filled with the Spirit” is repeatedly used and tends towards a bold proclamation of the

Gospel message. In addition to these themes, Blomberg discusses the circumstances surrounding the
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writing of the Gospel and the authorship of it which the early church fathers unanimously agree that it

was Luke, the Gentile companion of Paul.

Finally, Blomberg discusses the Gospel of John in this section. Unlike his treatment of the prior

three Gospels, Blomberg explores the historicity of the Gospel of John. This is due to the clear

independence that the Gospel of John presents from that of the Synoptic Gospels. Scholars have

questioned whether John can be taken seriously as a historically trustworthy account of the life of Jesus

in light of the combination of similarities and differences from the Synoptics. In this section, Blomberg

discusses thirteen of the most famous “discrepancies” within specific passages.

Next Blomberg presents a structure (general outline) of the Gospel and the various theological

views of Jesus contained within the Gospel. Some of these views include that of Jesus as the Logos,

Lamb of God, Wisdom and Agent, and God. Blomberg then moves to presenting various distinctive

themes contained in the Gospel including: realized eschatology, miracles as signs and their relation to

faith, incipient trinitarianism and the unity of Jesus’ followers in love, the election and security of the

believer, the death of Christ as Exaltation / Glorification, the Holy Spirit as Paraclete, Anti-

Sacramentalism, Anti-Baptist Cult (potentially), relationship to Judaism, and Dualisms.

Following this discussion, Blomberg furthers the chapter in referring to the circumstances

surrounding the writing of the Gospel and the authorship connected to it. Blomberg suggests that “it

may well be that John originally wrote as he did to contextualized the Good News about Jesus for a

community beginning to be interested in or influenced by incipient Gnosticism, only to find that the

false teachers were picking up on those themes that orthodoxy and Gnosticism had in common and

emphasizing them at the expense of balancing themes.

Blomberg then moves into the fourth section of the text which focuses on a survey of the life of

Christ. In the opening chapter of this section, Blomberg discusses a review of the quests for the

historical Jesus and the potential chronology of the Gospels. Each of these quests presented various
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portraits of Jesus as seen through the scholars’ conclusions involved in them. These included Romantics

such as the French Catholic Ernest Renan who portraited Jesus as the consummately gentle teacher of

love, beauty, and joy who offered compelling moral precepts for his people. Also discussed is the

various camps of the third quest in the 1960’s and 70’s, one which focused on the deeds of Jesus while a

second which focused on the sayings of Jesus.

After developing this general overview of the quests for the historical Jesus, Blomberg moves on

to discuss the chronology of the Gospels. This is especially difficult due to the fact that there are

variations in calendars and dates which makes it extremely difficult to ensure accuracy. Therefore,

many of these chronologies require a coordination of events to develop a timeline of the life of Jesus. In

discussing the formulation of a detailed, comprehensive chronology of the life of Jesus, Blomberg makes

the fascinating points, “…it is difficult to construct an exact account of when and where every detail in

Christ’s life belongs. In making this observation we must avoid two commonly held but extreme views

that prove unwarranted. One is the claim that the reconstruction of a complete harmony of Christ’s life,

fitting every episode of the four Gospels into a single, connected, coherent narrative, is impossible. It

has often been done, and the sequence of events from one scholar’s harmony to the next is in many

respects strikingly similar. Irreconcilable contradictions in sequence occur only when one reads in

chronological order where it is not explicitly affirmed or assumes that all passages remotely similar to

each other represent true parallels.”

Blomberg further clarifies his stance on an exact and perfect chronological order of the Gospels

in stating, “On the other hand, it is precisely the frequent topical grouping and thematic rearrangement

of details from one Gospel to the next that makes the opposite conclusion – that there is one and only

one way to fit all of the data together – equally unwarranted.” With these presumptions in mind,

Blomberg proceeds throughout the various chapters in this section to present his chronology of the

Gospels and the various points of interest related to them.

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Finally, Blomberg comes to the last section of the text, “Historical and Theological Syntheses”.

In this section, Blomberg discusses both the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels, as well as, the

theology of Jesus. In returning back to some of the criticisms of the earlier chapters, Blomberg further

examines the authenticity of the Gospels through the lens of archaeology, various ancient sources such

as non-Christian writers including Julius Africanus and Pliny, Jewish sources such as the Palestinian

Talmud and other Jewish rabbinic traditions, also post-new testament writers such as apocrypha

writings including the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth. Other potential

ancient documents that can provide a glimpse into the accuracy of the Gospels are documents such as

the Egyptian Gospel of the Hebrews and the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Probably the most valuable

testimony we have in verifying the authenticity of the Gospels is that of the early church fathers, those

who walked with and were disciples of the original 12 apostles. These accounts provide a plethora of

support and collaboration into the validity of the Gospels.

In the last and final chapter of the text, Blomberg explores the theology of Jesus. The author’s

goal in this chapter is to determine the overall agenda and intentions of Jesus. To accomplish this,

Blomberg reviews the various themes of Christ’s message and His personhood. These include the

presentation and explanation of the Kingdom, the ethics presents in the teachings of Christ, His

relationship and treatment of Judaism and the Law as a whole, and the ideas of redemption and

vindication. Probably one of the most interesting sections of this chapter to me lays with the discussion

of Christ’s on self-understanding. Blomberg explores this theme through a look at both indirect

evidence such as:

 Jesus’ relationships

 His willingness to accept worship, prayer, and faith,

 God’s Final Eschatological Agent - the fact that one’s response to Him determines a person’s

ultimate destiny,
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 His authority to forgive sins,

 Metaphors applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament which He applied to Himself

 Miracles and the Kingdom

 Abba – Jesus’ sense of filial consciousness,

 Amen – unlike the Old Testament prophets, Jesus doesn’t declare what the Lord God says, but

what He Himself says with equally authoritative claims,

 The Messianic Demonstrations of the Final Week,

 The “Something Greater” is here – Jesus presenting Himself as the coming one and wisdom,

 Shaliach – Jesus’ expression He frequently used stating that He had come to….; this presented

Him as an apostle from God; and finally,

 Jesus’ Seemingly supernatural insight.

In general, I feel that Blomberg presents a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the Gospels and

the history of scholarship that has been put into them. I enjoyed the book as a whole and though that it

was a great textbook for this course, I did not enjoy the second section of the book regarding the critical

methods for studying the Gospels. While I am glad that I have been exposed to this material and now at

least have a cursory understanding of the material, I feel that these approaches, for the most part, were

skewed and prejudicial due to the scholars faith or lack thereof. In much of the conclusions discussed, I

felt that it was clear that the scholar held a predisposition which he/she sought to validate through their

research versus allowing their research to lead them where it may. Beyond this small section of the

text, I deeply enjoyed the rest of the book and will undoubtedly reread it in the near future.
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Bibliography

Blomberg, C. (2009). Jesus and the Gospels: an introduction and survey. Nashville, TN: B&H

Publishing Group.