Jesus and the wicked

‘The significance of the fact that Jesus was a friend of the wicked was this: he counted within his fellowship people who were generally regarded as living outside the Law in a blatant manner’. (Sanders, p. 227)

Why was Jesus criticised for being in the company of the wicked? According to Sanders (p. 230) the historical Jesus was not a preacher of repentance or a reformer. It was Jesus’s lack of concern with the wicked reforming their ways and repenting which drew the ire of his critics. Sanders’ evidence to support this position stems from the following facts:

• ‘Repent’ and ‘repentance’ are rare word in Mark and Matthew’s gospels.
  • Apart from Mark 1:15, Mark’s references to repentance is mainly associated with John the Baptist and Jesus’s disciples.
  • Matthew 4:17 is a summary of Jesus’s message, again repentance is associated with John the Baptist (though Matt 11  and 21 are counter-examples where Jesus talks about repentance)
• Only Luke has Jesus defending his association with the wicked  by not only saying that he is calling the wicked (Mark 2:14-17) but that they need to repent (Luke 5:32). In general Luke adds the theme of repentance to a number of parables that do not have this theme in Mark and Matthew.  It is Luke (who wrote Acts) and Revelations that emphasises repentance in the New Testament.

Sanders does not say that Jesus did not like repentance, but that Jesus’s message was a radical message – ‘God loves you as you are’. The ‘Good Shepherd’ parable can illustrate this,

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.” (Matt 18:12-14)

vs

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” (Luke 15:3-7)

Luke’s conclusion does not agree with the parable whereas Matthew’s does, God takes risks with the 99 and goes in search of the 1 sheep, the emphasis is not on God going after the repentant.

If the historical Jesus did not emphasis the traditional forms of repentance and reformation of the wicked, by the time of the church such a view (as recorded by Luke in Acts) disappeared.

‘We do not know what happened even to Levi … It is hard to find room for such people in the Jerusalem church headed by James the Just.’ (Sanders p. 234)

For Jesus the important thing was for the wicked to follow him even if technically they had not performed the required legal requirements of repentance. Sanders explanation for this lack of concern for repentance was Jesus believed that the Kingdom was nigh and that the wicked were invited too if they believed in him and followed him,

‘So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.’ (Matt 22:10)

References

The Standard Bible Society (2001), The English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL.

Sanders, E. P. (1993), The historical figure of Jesus, Penguin Press (London)

Who are the wicked (sinners)?

The ‘wicked’ in the Psalms are contrasted against the ‘poor’. The wicked pray upon the poor, and they say in their hearts

‘In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, ”There is no God.” ‘(Psalm 10:4)

and act as if there is no God to punish them,

‘He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.

The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.“‘ (Psalm 10:8-11)

The Hebrew word resha’im is translated as ‘wicked’ in the Old Testament, but in translating the term into Greek  the Jews used the term hamartoloi which is translated as ’sinners’.

According to Sanders (1993, p. 227) ’sinners’ in Jewish Greek refered,

‘to Gentiles (who by definision did not observe the Jewish Law) or to truely wicked Jews’.

Wicked Jews deliberated placed themselves outside of the covenant because they did not observer the Jewish Law.  The wicked did not occasionally transgress the Law, for which there were penalties that could be paid to restore the relationship with God, the wicked deliberately and persistently broke the Law,

‘Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account“?’ (Psalm 10:13)

The historical Jesus would have used the term ‘the wicked’ rather than ’sinners’ during his lifetime (Sanders, p. 227).

References

The Standard Bible Society (2001), The English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL.

Sanders, E. P. (1993), The historical figure of Jesus, Penguin Press (London)

He is mighty to save

Paul Washer on salvation

It will cost you everything

The cost of discipleship from a Baptist preacher.

A narrative criticial study of the gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark is believed to be the oldest of the gospels and is in many ways in tune with the modern era. The gospel is brief and to the point, ‘earthy’ and has an ‘authentic’ feel to it. It has more than one ending each of which has significance to the modern reader. The ending generally preferred at Mk 16:8 gives us an ambiguous ending, which to the modern mind may be viewed as exciting. The ending forces us to think about what ultimately happened. The alternative ending (Mk 16:9-20) is ‘strange’ to the modern rational mind with its emphasis on the centrality of ‘signs and wonders’ in mission not ‘preaching’ and rationality.

The text has a number of actors who are given a voice by the author who also vocalises their thoughts, concerns and feelings. The main actors in the text are the narrator;  John the Baptist; God; Jesus, his family;  his followers and the Disciples, with key individuals and sub-groups given prominence in the story; Demons ; sundry people with whom Jesus interacts with; religious powers (e.g. Pharisees, priests, scribes and Sadducees) and  earthly powers (e.g. Herod and Pilate).

Jesus challenges a response from these actors, and us the reader, with the phrase

“But who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29)

Like the actors, how we respond to this question will determine whether we are in the Kingdom of God or in the Kingdom of Satan/The World, whether we are followers of Jesus who will be persecuted with him or whether we will be on the side of the enemies of Jesus.

It is difficult to imagine that anyone would come to know Jesus first through reading a gospel or hearing a gospel. Both the modern day reader and the ancient reader/hearer probably knew the broad outline of the story of Jesus before being formally introduced to Mark’s story. As such we have a ‘God-like’ viewpoint and role in observing the story, we know the essential elements before the characters do and we know the ending. We know people are making wrong choices as the story progresses in a linear fashion. However, I believe the disciples stand in for us in the story. They clearly struggle with the significance of what Jesus is doing, who he is and where he is going. They are weak, they lack faith, are hard-hearted and ultimately are cowards when the crunch comes. Although it is not directly stated we could read into the text that if these people failed then our weakness is even more understandable and we like them can ultimately be forgiven. Though not stated Grace rather than Works wins the day in Mark’s gospel.

There are two key themes in the gospel. The centrality of the Cross and Jesus’ true nature being revealed by his ‘Signs and Wonders’ ministry. The ‘Signs and Wonders’ of Jesus defines Jesus’ supernatural nature, they thus challenge the reader. Rejecting the ‘signs and wonders’ is tantamount to a reject of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, i.e. Mk 3:29-30. Accepting Jesus as just a ‘Good Teacher’ is not enough if we follow the logic of the text. It is interesting to note that the longer ending of Mark also emphasises the validity of ‘Signs and Wonders’ in the Church’s mission and from a modern perspective could be taken to validate the experience of the Pentacostal/Charismatic movement.

Having discussed the gospel at a macro-level it is worth looking at the story at the micro-level. In order to do this I will focus on the Jesus actor in the story as the whole story ‘hangs’ around this thread.

The writer of Mark is not interested in the background of Jesus. He has a family (a Mother and brothers are mentioned Mk 3:31) who think he is mad (Mk 3:21) but his true nature is revealed to him by God (Mk 1:11). Only God, Jesus, Satan and the demons know who he truly is. However, his’ Signs and Wonders’ and his transfiguration ultimately reveal who he is, though only to a select group of initiates who still fail to grasp what Jesus is doing. Although the gospel could be interpreted as suggesting that Jesus was ‘adopted’ by God or ‘possessed’ by the Holy Spirit, the author of the text refers to Jesus as an individual rather than him being the conduit of ‘Godness’. Jesus is presented as both divine and at the same time ‘earthy’ – the author says he was ‘angry’ (Mk 3:5), ‘distressed’ and ‘troubled’ ( Mk 14:33). The author clearly paints Jesus as both human and divine.

Jesus is introduced at Mk 1:1 as ‘Son of God’, though what this means comes from our knowledge of the term outside of the gospel. Immediately a quote from Isaiah is used and the term ‘Lord’ is also added to Jesus (Mk 1:3). Jesus is the central character throughout the gospel and is always in charge of his destiny, apart from two events – being driven by the Spirit (Mk 1:12) into the wilderness and at Nazareth where he calls himself ‘Prophet’ and he is unable to do ‘no mighty work there’ (Mk 6:5). Mark is clearly wanting to show that Jesus is not a ‘failure’, the crucifixion was not a mistake or a miscalculation, even the failure at Nazareth is moderated by saying that he healed a few sick people there (Mk 6:5). Jesus repeatedly mentions his rejection by the elders of Israel, his death and resurrection. Mark clearly wants the reader to know that the shocking end of Jesus was no mere mistake – it ‘must’ happen and was part of God’s plan all along. One could imagine that the gospel writer is heading off our negative preconceptions of Jesus’ end. Again accepting Jesus as a ‘wise person’ whose teaching is worth following despite his inglorious end is not an option that the writer wants to portray.

Jesus is often contrasted against other actors in the gospel. The first person he is compared to is John the Baptist. John the Baptist does not conduct exorcisms, healings or other miraculous acts in the story. Both Jesus and John called for repentance. John disappears from the story during Chapter 1 with his arrest being noted and is introduced again during Chapter 6 when the manner of his death is announced. One could be forgiven for reading into the text that a similar fate should be expected for Jesus, earthly powers are fundamentally against the Kingdom of God.

The majority of the gospel seems to be a collection of vignettes about Jesus and his activity. There is only a vague sense of how these events are connected. Events are connected by linking words like ‘and immediately …’, ‘And he …’, ‘And as he…’ ‘Again…’ etc. This gives an impression of time though it could be argues that the events could be connected up in different ways. The lack of a scale for the amount of time passing can be illustrated at the transition at Mk 1:15 which is the first speech of Jesus in the gospel and the calling of the disciples at Mk 1:16. Why would people immediately follow him unless his ministry had been active for some time? The majority of the gospel is a collection of incidents where Jesus either shows great wisdom or great power.

The gospel writer uses Jesus to illustrate the correct attitude the Christian community should exhibit when persecuted. The reaction of the disciples to persecution, and Peter in particular, falls short of Jesus’ example. At Mk 14:50 the disciples run away at the first sign of danger, they fail the test of Mk 13:13 ‘And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ The author is clearly concerned about persecution (e.g. Mk 10:39) Jesus’ response to the authority of the world is to remain silent (Mk 14:61, Mk 15:5) and only when directly challenged as to his status does he give a reply (Mk 14:62, Mk 15:4). The final words of Jesus in Mark is the first line of Psalm 22, the astute reader on reading the Psalm will see that for Mark scripture was being fulfilled on the cross.

The disciples in Mark’s gospel are far from being saints in training. They are witnesses to important events, signs and teachings yet they constantly seem to misunderstand Jesus. Interestingly when rebuked by Jesus (Mk 16:14) one manuscript has the following quote from the disciples:

And they excused themselves, saying, “This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under Satan, who does not permit God’s truth and power to conquer the evil [unclean] spirits. Therefore, reveal your justice now.” (Mark 16:14 study note from NLT study bible)

Thus it is possible that we should understand the disciples misunderstanding to be ultimately a consequence of them being under the power of Satan, Peter is particularly singled out for being under the control of Satan at Mk 8:23. Mark’s gospel is saturated with the theme of demonic activity in the world and demonic possession of people. Jesus’ passing of Satan’s temptation at Mk 1:13 allowed Jesus to bind the ‘strong man’ at Mk 3:27 allowing Jesus to plunder Satan’s House (This World) of people to inhabit the Kingdom of God. It could be argued that the word ‘plunder’ means that there is not a free choice in entering the kingdom.

The disciples in Mark start out well, they leave everything behind to go and follow Jesus. They have an intimate relationship with Jesus and are given privileged information and instruction (Mk 4:11). However, they always seem to have doubts and are afraid (Mk 4:40), in a sense they know Jesus but fail his test of faith in him based on his ‘signs and wonders’. Despite this Jesus trusts them to go out on mission (Mk 6:713) and they cast out many demons, which indicates they are successful on one level. However, a little later on at Mk 6:52 it is said that

‘they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.’

Later at the high point of confessing Jesus as the Messiah it again goes ‘wrong’ for the disciples when Peter is rebuked for rebuking Jesus, they fail to understand Jesus time and time again about his death and resurrection (Mk 9:32). The disciples have a number of bad points with regard to ‘power’. The disciples argue with scribes when they failed to heal a demon possessed boy (Mk 9:14-18), they argue about who is the greatest amongst themselves (Mk 9:33-37), they try and prevent other people using Jesus’ name to cast out demons (Mk 9:38-40), two of the disciples try and get privileged positions in the kingdom (Mk 10:35-45) and the disciples are indigent when Jesus is anointed (Mk 14:4). It could be argued that from the moment they heard that Jesus was the Messiah things went downhill leading  to betrayal either directly as Judas and Peter do of Jesus (Mk 14:10 and  Mk 14:71) or abandonment (Mk 14:50).

It is interesting to note that the disciples ‘fail’ Jesus at the end and the women ‘fail’ Jesus in that they do not tell anyone of the message of the young man at the tomb. In the longer ending of Mark, Mary tells the disciples and they fail to believe her (Mk 16:10-11). Eventually Jesus rebukes the disciples for their ‘hardness of heart’ and unbelief before he gives them the Great commission. We can only assume that Jesus forgave his disciples weakness which is an example of grace. Thus we can draw from Mark’s gospel that the Christian community is expected to be brave in adversity, though those that are weak may still be redeemable like the disciples.

In summary, Mark’s gospel is a sophisticated story that has had considerable thought put into its construction. Mark’s gospel paints a picture of The Kingdom of God entering the demonic realm and redeeming a portion of Mankind that follow him. Like Jesus, the redeemed should expect persecution and death whilst on Earth.

Bibliography

The Standard Bible Society (2001), The English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL.

Tyndale House (2008), The New Living Translation Study Bible, Carol Stream, IL.

Understanding Mark’s Gospel part 1

Mark according to Stanton (2002, p. 57)

’sets out in dramatic form the story of Jesus so that it will be meaningful for faltering and hard-pressed Christians in his own day.’

Most scholars accept that Mark is the oldest gospel and as such it has pride of place in the quest for the Historical Jesus. Based on clues in Mark and tradition, Mark’s gospel is dated to about 70 AD. It must be remember that the gospels are theological works with a purpose not simple biographies. Eusebius quotes Papias (ca 123 AD) on the origin of Mark,

‘Mark, who became Peter’s interpreter, wrote accurately, but not in order, as many of the things said and done by the Lord as he had noted. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterwards, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs (of his hearers) but not a complete work of the Lord’s sayings. So Mark made no mistake in writing some things just as he had noted them. For he was careful of one thing, to leave nothing he had heard out and to say nothing nothing falsely.’ (Eusebius cited by Stanton, p. 55, emphasis mine)

Mark’s gospel was comparatively neglected in antiquity, it was rarely copied, preached from, used in church and seldom commented upon. The reason it was not favoured was Matthew contained most of the material of Mark and had a stronger story of the resurrection and a birth narrative. Mark might have been lost if its authorship had not been attributed to a disciple of St. Peter.

It is very difficult, unlike the gospels of Matthew and Luke, to distinguish between tradition and redaction in Mark. We can detect the author’s hand when he directly addresses the reader (Mk 13:14, Mk 7:3-4). Mark is believed by most form critics to have strung many independent paragraphs (pericopae) into a story. Mark makes use of links words translated as ’soon’, ‘then’ and ‘immediately’ to link these independent traditions into a narrative.

Mark uses ‘to teach’ and ‘teaching’ more frequently than in the other gospels but does not major on the teachings. It is possible Mark’s author was more interested in saying that in Jesus’ teaching God was breaking into the world and was less interested in the actual message. In Mark’s gospel the title ‘Son of God’ is a more important title for Jesus than ‘Messiah/Christ’; it is to be noted that ‘Son of God’ was recognises as one of the characteristics of the Messiah.

Scholars have made use of ‘composition criticism’ to look at the structure of the gospel, the order of the traditions in the gospel, the way the gospel starts and finishes. Narrative criticism insists that the gospel should be treated as a whole writing. From this viewpoint Mark is considered a drama in five acts.

The disciples are shown as ‘weak’ in understanding and faith in Mark.This is probably deliberate as by setting out the disciples weakness Mark’s readership could identified with the characters and understand that broken relationships could be restored by Jesus and forgiven.

Reference

Stanton G., 2002, The gospels and Jesus, 2^nd Ed, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Marcan Priority and the Q Hypothesis

Mark’s gospel has been described as the Cinderella of the gospels (Stanton, p. 19). Since 1835 and the work of Karl Lachmann it has been considered to be the first gospel to be written. Historically, the gospel of Matthew has been the most popular gospel (with some arguing that Mark being just a paraphrase). The gospel of Mark today has overtaken the gospels of Matthew and Luke in scholarly esteem.

According to Stanton (2002, p.23) the hypothesis of Marcan priority is more plausible as it is easier to explain Luke and Matthew in the light of Marcan priority than any other theory of gospel priority. Marcan priority is assumed for the following reasons:

• It is the shortest gospel which Luke and Matthew have added considerably to.  Why would Mark want to delete so much of the material of Luke and Matthew and add material of little importance? As such its simplicity argues for its age, if Luke and Matthew were the material used to produce Mark, what was the point of producing an ‘inferior’ gospel?
• Luke follows the order of materiel in Mark fairly closely and Matthew less so. It is easy to explain why Luke and Matthew deviate from Mark but not the other way around.
• Matthew and Luke improve upon the style of Mark and modify or remove material from Mark.
• A number of Marcan passages that paint Jesus in a bad light have been modified by Matthew and Luke, e.g. Mark 3:21, Mark 6:35 and Mark 4:38.

Luke and Matthew share 230 verses not found in Mark. This material is known as Q. Stanton gives the following reasons to support the idea that there is a Q source for Mathew and Luke:

• There is close verbal agreement between Luke and Matthew in many verses in the non-Marcan sections.
• There is similar order in the non-Markan material in Luke and Matthew.
• The Q material has a consistent theological viewpoint.
• The rival theory that Luke used Matthew and Mark would require Luke to have dismantled Matthew and used Matthew’s material in a very free manner, to the extent of often preferring Mark to Matthew. Why did Luke find Matthew so unattractive when the rest of early Christianity found Matthew compelling such that it became the favourite gospel of early Christianity?

Scholars believe that Luke has retained the order of Q material more faithfully than Matthew has, and Q reconstructions are therefore based on Luke more than on Matthew.

Reference

Stanton G., 2002, The gospels and Jesus, 2^nd Ed, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

The Importance of Writen Material for Early Christians

Religion in the ancient world was generally belief without a sacred text. Perkins (2007, p. 32) states that the literacy rate in the ancient world may have been as low as 10%. In general, people required others to read written records. It is to be noted that written records. at the time, did not have spaces between words and little or no punctuation, reading was difficult even for those who could read. As a result the help of someone with prior understanding of the text or subject matter was required for comprehension (a biblical example of this is in Acts when St. Philip meets the Eunuch).

‘Study of ancient educational practice has shown that texts have no life independent of their oral performance and interpretation. Most audiences could not decipher them even if written texts had been more commonly available.’ (Perkins, 2007, p. 46)

Based on the various canonical texts of Judaism circulating in the first century AD, Perkins (2007, p. 33) states that we do not know how significant such differences were to first century readers. Outside of the bible, Perkins (2007, p. 33) gives an example of Josephus who did not attempt to reconcile divergent accounts found in his sources when writing War and Antiquities. However, by the mid-second century Justin Martyr had to defend the Greek text used by Christians against the Jewish texts that were seen as being revised to exclude a Christian interpretation.

It is worth bearing in mind that many believers read from a more extensive collection of sacred writing than the orthodox canon in the early centuries. Not all of these variants were ‘gnostic’. The persecution of the Christians, especially by Diocletian (ca 303 AD) resulted in the destruction of many texts. It is not difficult to realise that local variants of the gospels or other local non-canonical texts were at greater risk of not surviving these events than the more mainstream and widely circulated books.

References

Perkins, P. (2007) Introduction to the synoptic gospels, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Is Jesus a Fictional Character?

Often in the comment section on Christian material on the web you will see someone states that Jesus did not exist. Such comments are clever as they are attempts to make people provide evidence which they know is going to be impossible to modern critical standards. (The fact that early Christians faced persecution and probably were unable to ‘maintain’ an historical record acceptable for modern sceptical people seems to be forgotten.) It is noteworthy that creation, the age of the universe, Noah’s ark etc. are also tactics used to demonstrate the absurdity of Christian belief. The point of these lines of attack are to move the topic away from soteriology, the primary message of the bible, to a secondary topic about history and science and the demand for proof. At this point one is wasting one’s time as neither Jesus or the Apostles offered ‘proof’, only their testimony and ’signs and wonders’, so why are we expecting we can do better than them? One is not persuaded into the kingdom, one has to experience God or become convinced by someone else’s testimony in order to believe in God and His acts.
Having stated that we are meant to be preaching the gospel and not engaging in philosophical arguments with non-believers, can we as Christians have any confidence that Jesus was real?

We need to understand that to non-Christians in the early centuries, Jesus would not have been that important, and as a result we cannot expect, Jesus to be on the equivalent of the ‘best sellers’ list of 1st Century AD biography. There is a reference to Jesus by Josephus in his book the “Antiquities of the Jews”. However, it is claimed that Christian copyists might have inserted this reference into the book. There is also indirect references by Roman historians (e.g. Suetonius and Tacitus) to Christians. Now if  we take into account the limited survival of texts outside of the bible from antiquity, and the fact that the ones that did probably were preserved by Christian copyists, one is unlikely to convince a sceptic of  Jesus’ existence, as they will claim any references outside of the bible are fraudulent.

So what are we left with? Well, the existence of the Church today is probably our best line of evidence. If Jesus did not exist and was not resurrected then it is extremely hard to believe that Monotheistic Jews would suddenly start a cult around a mythical deified hero, and be willing to preach such a cult to others and die for it. We are also left with St. Paul’s confession that he persecuted the Christians until his life changing experience of God. We are also left with the fact that Jesus’ death was counter to everything Jews believed would happen to the messiah, and a resurrection prior to the last days was totally unexpected. These ‘facts’ were difficult to accept then as now and were an unlikely starting point for a made-up cult to start from.

In the ancient world, people did not put so much faith in the written word and it was the personal one-to-one/many testament of reliable people that mattered. At the time St. Paul was writing people could verify the Christian message by seeking out those that had seen and experienced Jesus’ ministry and resurrection.

This is the gospel message of the earliest Christians (Acts 10:34-43). Note the reference to the Apostolic witness.

‘Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism.

In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.

This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel

—that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.

You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism.

And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

“And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross,

but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead.

He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”‘

So, then as now, it is ultimately the testimony of witnesses (like the Apostles) to God’s activity, or our own experience (like St. Paul’s) that convinces us, or not, of Jesus’ existence, not cold, hard historical facts.

What is a Gospel?

A ‘gospel’, euangelion, was a proclamation of an event of major importance, the equivalent of breaking news today. As such an euangelion could have been the news of a Roman emperor or some other major proclamation. The word evoked excitment – good news.

The gospels we have are post-ressurection accounts of Jesus’ life and minsitry where the author has taken considerable freedom in presenting the story of Jesus. This should not necessarily bother us as ancient writers and readers had different expectations of written accounts than we do. An ancient audience would expect an account of a great teacher, or hero, to present an account of great deeds and an idealised portrayal of the person. An ancient reader would not expect evaluative judgements about the person who was being written about and his teachings. The ancients assumed that people had fixed character; good and bad people had a consistent nature during their life and when they died – being very simplistic good people died nobly and bad people died poorly. Suetonius descriptions of the deaths of Augustus, Nero and Vespasian are examples of how an ancient biographer had an opinion about the character of his subjects, good or bad, and wrote a biography that was consistent to this fixed value judgement.

The fact that the gospels are not disinterested accounts of fact but theological constructs of the writer causes the historian difficulty,

‘Modern investigative history would tag details in the Gospels that seem to be fitted to passages from the prophets or Psalms as fabrications or at least uncertain. Since we lack records or first-hand testimonies … historians must piece together bits of information from similar situations and look for the narrative and theological interests of each Evangelist.’ (Perkins, 2007, p. 6-7)

The evangelists used their knowledge of scripture to suppliment traditions about Jesus’ life and death. This was not abnormal as other ancient biographers ‘filled out’ the life and death of their subjects, Perkins (2007, p. 8). An example to illustrate this is death of Nero given by Suetonius,

‘Suetonius has decked out the dry facts of Nero’s end with a drama of panic, flight and ignoble death.’ (Perkins, 2007, p. 6-7)

So are the gospels biographical? Perkins (2007, p. 11) suggests that the gospels are best seen as being written by a Christian writer for the benefit of a Christian audience. As such they employ Jesus’ teaching and deeds using a narrative of the the writer’s choosing to explain the Christian faith in the context of the readerships problems and experiences.

References

Perkins, P. (2007) Introduction to the synoptic gospels, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.