1. Genre and Historical Considerations

THE GENRE OF A WORK is its literary «type» or category; the genrés frequent, hence anticipated, characteristics guide how informed readers will approach it. By conforming in some measure to generic patterns already present in the culture, a writer produces certain expectations in the readers of the work.¹⁹ Although genres as categories are necessarily fluid, identifying the genre can reveal important purposes the author or authors had in seeking to communicate to an intended audience. The idea that genre affects interpretation would have made sense to the first readers of the Gospels,²⁰ since Greek writers also distinguished various categories for literary forms.²¹ Of the diverse models for genre criticism in antiquity, Aristotlés prevailed longest.²² Although they articulated distinctions, however, in practice ancient writers regularly mixed genres.²³

Although many current theories of interpretation reject the priority of the author's intention, most recognize it as at least one level of meaning, especially for readers with historical interest.²⁴ Many critics regard the author's intention as unrecoverable; but all historical endeavor is necessarily conditioned by probability, and we may make probable inferences about the implied author from the text's literary strategies in their historical context. As Burridge notes, «the purpose of the author is essential to any concept of genre as a set of expectations or contract between the author and the reader or audience.»²⁵ Writers such as those who produced the Gospels sought «to communicate with intended readers,» a purpose that helped determine the text as we have it, whatever our subsequent purposes in utilizing the text.²⁶ The kind of «meaning» one pursues will depend to a great extent on onés goal in interpretation, but the historical goal of recovering how the implied readers of a document in its earliest historical context would have approached the document is inseparable from attempts to reconstruct the works genre and the strategies of the implied author in that historical context.²⁷

Readers from the mid-second century through most of the nineteenth century viewed the Gospels as biographies of some sort. This view prevailed until Votaw in 1915,²⁸ when the Gospels» differences from modern biography led most scholars to seek a new classification for them.²⁹ Thus Burton Mack claims that in the early twentieth century scholars realized «that the gospels were not biographies and that they sustained a very problematic relation to history.»³⁰

The twentieth century generated a variety of proposals,³¹ some of which have proved less helpful than others. If identifying a document's generic category guides the way the reader interprets it, the earlier standard classification of the NT gospels as «unique»³² is not very helpfu1. Most works, including other Greco-Roman documents, are «unique» in some sense.³³ Even though the four canonical gospels are closer to one another than they are to any other documents of antiquity,³⁴ each is also distinct from the others,³⁵ and all fit into a broader category of narrative.³⁶ While it is true that the Gospels tell a unique story, and borrow biblical narrative techniques from their Jewish tradition, Jewish Christian readers would have been most familiar with coherent literary works concerning primary characters in terms of Hellenistic «lives,» or ancient biographies.³⁷

No more helpful or accurate is the suggestion that the Gospels represent Kleinliteratur, that is, popular or «folk literature» of the lower classes in contrast to the stylish, sophisticated literature of the upper classes.³⁸ While the Gospels» oral sources were naturally transmitted in such a folk milieu, such forced categories prove unhelpful for genre criticism of the Gospels; they ignore the continuum between «folk literature» and the more stylish rhetoric and texts that strongly influenced them,³⁹ as well as differences among the Gospels themselves (Luke represents a much more rhetorically sophisticated author than Mark).⁴⁰ Specific genre categories like «biographies» actually appear throughout the continuum (e.g., contrast the popular Life of Aesop with the more literary Agricold).

The Gospels» sources may well include collections of «memoirs»⁴¹ (perhaps «Q» may be understood in such terms),⁴² the sort that could constitute «folk» biographies. Some second-century Christian writers⁴³ viewed the Gospels–alongside other apostolic works– as «memoirs,» probably recalling Xenophon's Memorabilia, a «life» of Socrates. Their use of this term provides attestation that, from an early period, some saw the Gospels as a form of biography.⁴⁴ A common general pattern does exist, but the canonical gospels may represent a different kind of biography from most collections of memoirs; they are complete literary narratives and not simply «folk» biographies, as most such collections would be.⁴⁵

In their present form the Gospels are relatively polished and intricate works, as literary critics have skillfully demonstrated. Such literary preparation is to be expected for writers in a Greco-Roman context. Ancient speechwriters, for instance, were expected to premeditate their works carefully, arranging the material in advance and fixing it in their memories, so that they needed add only finishing touches once they set out to write their speeches.⁴⁶ Similarly, writers of Greek and Latin narratives typically began with a rough draft before producing their final work;⁴⁷ Jewish writers in Greek could do the same.⁴⁸ The Gospels are thus undoubtedly polished products of much effort, carefully arranged to communicate their points most adequately.⁴⁹

The writers of the Synoptics, like writers of most ancient historical works, probably began with a basic draft of the material in chronological order, to which a topical outline, speeches, and other rhetorical adjustments would be added later.⁵⁰ It was not, however, usually appropriate to «publish» the work in an unfinished form; one would complete the book, check copyists» manuscripts when possible, and then give the first copy to the dedicatee when appropriate (Cicero Att. 13.21a, 23,48).⁵¹ Aristotle recommended sketching the plot in outline, then expanding by inserting episodes, and illustrates this with the Odyssey.⁵² Like other Greek writers, Luke follows one source at a time, incorporating a large block of Q material into Mark;⁵³ both Luke and Matthew make Mark the backbone, and supplement Mark from other sources.⁵⁴ John s adjustments toward rhetorical sophistication may in some respects be less elaborate than even those of Mark. Depending on the circumstances, some ancient observers could view incorporating preexisting lines as plagiarism, others (if the incorporation was obvious) as flattering the source (Seneca Suasoriae 3.7). The Gospels (especially if they were circulating anonymously, though this remains uncertain), however, functioned as common property of the apostolic church.

Whatever their sources, writers would likely normally pay careful attention to how they arranged their material, especially given the importance of arrangement even in oral discourse.⁵⁵ Some ancient writers recommended connecting episodes to provide continuity,⁵⁶ a practice followed by Mark (cf. 1:14–39). Others like Polybius, however, allowed disjunctions in their narratives, although recognizing that some disagreed with their practice.⁵⁷ This may explain the breaks in John's narrative, which is structured more chronologically (following Jerusalem festivals) than the Synoptics.⁵⁸ The basic plot of this Gospel includes increasing conflict, and its overarching structure moves from signs that reveal Jesus» identity (chs. 2–12) to instructions for his followers (chs. 13–17), the Passion Narrative (chs. 18–19), and resurrection appearances (chs. 20–21). Instead of strictly linear plot development, however, Johns plot often advances through the agency of repetition.⁵⁹

Once a writer had completed such a public work, he (in most cases the writer was «he») would «publish» it, that is, make it available to its intended readership.⁶⁰ Typically this process would begin through public readings. The well-to-do would have readings as entertainment following dinner at banquets, but the Gospels would be read in gatherings of believers in homes.⁶¹ Readers of means who liked a work would then have copies made for themselves, preserving and further circulating the work.⁶² Ancient as well as modern readers recognized the value of rereading a document or speech as often as necessary to catch the main themes and subtleties (Quintilian 10.1.20–21), but given the limited copies of the Gospel available and the general level of public literacy,⁶³ much of John's audience may have depended on public readings.

The Gospels seem to conform to the standards of length appropriate to the scrolls on which they were written, which supports the likelihood that their authors intended them to be published. By some estimates, Luke and Acts are roughly the same length; Matthew is within 1 percent of the length of either; John is within 1 percent of three-quarters this length and Mark is close to half.⁶⁴ As Metzger notes, a normal Greek literary roll rarely exceeds thirty-five feet, but «the two longest books in the NT–the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts–would each have filled an ordinary papyrus roll of 31 or 32 feet in length. Doubtless this is one of the reasons why Luke-Acts was issued in two volumes instead of one.»⁶⁵ Scrolls were not always completely filled, sometimes having a blank space at the end,⁶⁶ but the Gospels seem to have used all their space as wisely as possible; Matthew may condense and Luke expand at the end. (Likewise, Josephus seems to have been forced to end suddenly his first scroll of what is now called Against Apion, having run out of space; Ag. Ap. 1.320.)⁶⁷

The lengths of the canonical gospels suggest not only intention to publish but also the nature of their genre.⁶⁸ All four gospels fit the medium-range length (10,000–25,000 words) found in ancient biographies as distinct from many other kinds of works.⁶⁹ A «book» was approximately what one could listen to in a setting.

The average length of a book of Herodotus or Thucydides is about 20,000 words, which would take around two hours to read. After the Alexandrian library reforms, an average 30–35 feet scroll would contain 10,000 to 25,000 words–exactly the range into which both the Gospels and many ancient bioi fal1.⁷⁰

Also seeking popular analogies, Moses Hadas and Morton Smith compared the Gospels with aretalogies.⁷¹ Aretalogies do have some features in common with some Gospel narratives, but they are normally brief narrations or lists of divine acts, hence do not provide the best analogies for the Gospels as whole works.⁷² These narratives may support the hypothesis of early circulated miracle-collections (such as Johns proposed signs source), and indicate the degree to which narratives could be employed in the service of religious propaganda. They do not, however, explain our current gospels and their length; aretalogy was not even a clearly defined genre.⁷³

Not all literary works concerning specific characters were biographies. Yet all four canonical gospels are a far cry from the fanciful metamorphosis stories, divine rapes, and so forth in a compilation like Ovid's Metamorphoses. The Gospels plainly have more historical intention and fewer literary pretensions than such works. The primary literary alternative to viewing the Gospels as biography, however, is not entertaining mythological anthologies but to view them as intentional fiction,⁷⁴ a suggestion that has little to commend it. First-century readers recognized the genre of novel (the Hellenistic «romance»),⁷⁵ including novels about historical characters,⁷⁶ but ancient writers normally distinguished between fictitious and historical narratives.⁷⁷ As some literary critics have noted, even when historical works have incorrect facts they do not become fiction, and a novel that depends on historical information does not become history.⁷⁸ Talbert argues that not all biographies were basically reliable like Suetonius and Plutarch; but his examples of unreliable biographies, Pseudo Callisthenes» Alexander Romance and Lucian's Passing of Peregrinus, do not make his case.⁷⁹ The former is more like a historical novel, and the latter resembles satire. This is not to deny some degree of overlap among categories in historical content, but to affirm that what distinguishes the two genres is the nature of their truth claims.⁸⁰

Whereas the apocryphal gospels and apocryphal acts betray novelistic characteristics,⁸¹ the four canonical gospels much more closely resemble ancient biography.⁸² With a few notable exceptions (like Pseudo-Callisthenes), ancient novelists did not seek to write historical novels.⁸³ Further, novels typically reflected the milieu of their readership more than that of their characters,⁸⁴ a situation quite different from histories and biographies, which were readily adapted for readers but focused on historical content. Finally, novels were written primarily to entertain rather to inform.⁸⁵ Some, like Apuleius's Metamorphoses, functioned as religious propaganda as well as entertainment, but entertainment remained a key element, and religious propaganda certainly was not restricted to the genre of novels.⁸⁶ Nor are entertaining works necessarily novels; historical works intended primarily to inform were nevertheless typically written in an entertaining manner, though that was not their chief goa1.⁸⁷ Works with a historical prologue like Lukés (Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:1–2) were historical works;⁸⁸ novels lacked such fixtures, although occasionally they could include a proem telling why the author made up the story (Longus proem 1–2).

In contrast to novels, the Gospels do not present themselves as texts composed primarily for entertainment, but as true accounts of Jesus» ministry. The excesses of some forms of earlier source and redaction criticism notwithstanding, one would also be hard pressed to find a novel so clearly tied to its sources as Matthew or Luke is!⁸⁹ Even John, whose sources are difficult to discern, overlaps enough with the Synoptics in some accounts and clearly in purpose to defy the category of nove1. Despite some differences in purpose among themselves, all four gospels fit the general genre of ancient biography: the «life» (sometimes the public life) of a prominent person, normally written to praise the person and to communicate some point or points to the writer's generation. That they also seek to propagate particular moral and religious perspectives does not challenge this distinction; biographies were also often propagandistic in a more general sense, intended to provide role models for moral instruction.⁹⁰

Some have proposed that the Fourth Evangelist modeled his Gospel on Greek drama, especially tragedy.⁹¹ (This proposal has, however, been more frequently applied to Mark.⁹²) The Gospels are, however, too long for dramas, which maintained a particular length in Mediterranean antiquity.⁹³ They also include far too much prose narrative for ancient drama. Despite its inadequacy as a full-fledged generic category, however, the proposal has some merit in that it at least invites us to investigate elements of Mediterranean storytelling from this period that were borrowed from Greek drama. The forms of Greek drama pervaded Greco-Roman literature,⁹⁴ tragic touches coloring even Tacitus's writing. Thus, for example, some point out that John generally has only two or at most three active (speaking) characters at a time, which fits rules for staging in Greek drama, and he divides scenes in a manner similar to such works.⁹⁵ Paul Duke regards his «dramatic style» as so similar to classical Greek drama (in contrast with the Synoptics) that he believes the author shows some acquaintance with Greek drama. Clearly the Fourth Gospel is not a play, but it «reflects a cultural milieu in which the ironic style of Homer and the Greek tragedians had made its imprint; and in the late first century few locations would have precluded such an influence.»⁹⁶ Jewish works for Greek-speaking audiences sometimes adapted such features.⁹⁷

Thus some have argued that the Fourth Gospel is a biography using the mode of tragedy;⁹⁸ Witherington lists nine parallels between John and Greek tragedy, though most of the elements he lists also appear outside theater.⁹⁹ But, as most who recognize dramatic features in this Gospel concur, there is a difference between a biography with dramatic coloring and a drama; and some of the constituent parts that Aristotle insisted belong in tragedy are simply not present. For example, Jesus» interlocutors or disciples hardly function, even when acting in concert, as a typical χορικός, choral song.¹⁰⁰ Of the necessary six parts Aristotle identifies in tragedy, John lacks song, though he includes elements such as plot and character (Aristotle Poet. 6.9,1450a); yet nearly all poets include all these characteristics (Poet. 6.11). Not only novelists but historians strove to develop internally consistent narrative worlds,¹⁰¹ and among historical writers, those from whom one would expect such attempts at consistency of plot and character, most are biographers.

Some have argued that the Gospels fit the genre of history and not biography.¹⁰² Dihle argues that though the Gospels are «lives,» they differ from Greek lives because they cannot trace moral development in one they regard as God incarnate.¹⁰³ He argues that Roman biographies fall closer to history, starting with Suetonius.¹⁰⁴ This argument, however, appears problematic: did Tacitus (in his Agricola) suddenly develop a new genre in the same era as Suetonius without prior models? Plutarch's biographies also include considerable historical content. Moreover, historical works focused on a particular individual were «lives» (bioi), the most natural category in which ancient readers would place the Gospels. (Only Luke might appear more questionable, because it is paired with Acts, which is increasingly recognized as a historical monograph.) Thus we turn directly to the biographical genre.

In more recent years scholars have been returning to the consensus that the Gospels represent biographies in the ancient sense of the term.¹⁰⁵ We might compare them especially with philosophers» bioi, which honored founders of philosophic schools and continued their teachings.¹⁰⁶ Like epistle, biography (the bios, or «life») was one of the most common literary genres in antiquity; thus it is not surprising that much of the NT consists of these two genres.¹⁰⁷ Graham Stanton regards as «surprisingly inaccurate» the older views of Bultmann and others that the Gospels were not biographies.¹⁰⁸

Richard Burridge, after carefully defining the criteria for identifying genre and establishing the characteristic features of Greco-Roman bioi, or lives,¹⁰⁹ shows how both the Synoptics and John fit this genre.¹¹⁰ So forceful is his work on Gospel genre as biography that one knowledgeable reviewer concludes, «This volume ought to end any legitimate denials of the canonical Gospels» biographical character.»¹¹¹ Arguments concerning the biographical character of the Gospels have thus come full circle: the Gospels, long viewed as biographies until the early twentieth century, now again are widely viewed as biographies.

Classifying the Gospels as ancient biography is helpful only if we define some of the characteristics of ancient biography, particularly with respect to its historiographie character. As noted above, although biographies could serve a wide range of literary functions,¹¹² ancient biographers intended their works to be more historical than novelistic.¹¹³ First-century historiography often focused on notable individuals.¹¹⁴ The central difference between biography and history was that the former focused on a single character whereas the latter included a broader range of events.¹¹⁵ History thus contained many biographical elements but normally lacked the focus on a single person and the emphasis on characterization.¹¹⁶ Biographies were less exhaustive, focusing more on the models of character they provided (Plutarch Alex. 1.1–3).

Ancient biography differed from modern biography in some historiographie respects. For instance, ancient biographies sometimes differed from their modern namesakes by beginning in the protagonists adulthood, as in many political biographies (e.g., Plutarch Caesar 1.1–4), the first-century Life of Aesop,¹¹⁷ and in Mark. In contrast to modern historical biography, ancient biographers also did not need to follow a chronological sequence; most felt free to rearrange their material topically.¹¹⁸ Some scholars maintain that Peripatetic biographies were literary biographies ordered chronologically, insofar as was possible;¹¹⁹ Alexandrian biographies were arranged more systematically or topically.¹²⁰ Although these types were never followed exactly, and chronological biographies appear to have been rare,¹²¹ Luke seems to fall into the former category (following the order of Mark almost exactly except for several very significant exceptions), whereas Matthew (who is influenced more by Jewish encomium conventions) follows the more common topical format (compare his five topical discourse sections). Many Jewish interpreters doubted that the biblical accounts of Moses at Sinai were arranged chronologically (cf. 4Q158).¹²² Nor did early Christians expect the Gospels to reflect chronological sequence; Augustine suggested the evangelists wrote their Gospels as God recalled the accounts to their memory (Cons. 21.51; for Mark, see Papias in Eusebius Hist. ecc1. 3.39).¹²³

Some also argue that ancient biography, in contrast to modern biography or novels, plays down characterization, but this is not accurate. Characterization was often accomplished by how a story was told rather than by specific comments,¹²⁴ but such comments do appear often enough in biographies,¹²⁵ and rhetoricians often described a person's character directly to make a case (Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.50.63). Theophrastus even provides, in graphic and often humorous ways, thirty basic character types (such as a flatterer or one overly talkative) that offer various kinds of examples (Char, passim). At other times the storytelling was certainly sufficient. Even in Greecés ancient epic poetry, the stark characters of wrathful Achilles, proud Agamemnon, and clever Odysseus are impossible to miss. Ancient literature abounds with developed examples of dysfunctional relationships; for example, Dido in Virgils Aeneid appeared exceptionally susceptible to Aeneas because she had never recovered from her first lovers death. In contrast to some later psychologizing approaches, some ancient biographers also proved reluctant to speculate concerning their characters» inner thoughts, though this again is not a rule (see Arrian Alex. 7.1.4).

History, too, was written differently then than in modern times. Biographies were essentially historical works; thus the Gospels would have an essentially historical as well as a propagandistic function. As Aune writes,

… while biography tended to emphasize encomium, or the one-sided praise of the subject, it was still firmly rooted in historical fact rather than literary fiction. Thus while the Evangelists clearly had an important theological agenda, the very fact that they chose to adapt Greco-Roman biographical conventions to tell the story of Jesus indicates that they were centrally concerned to communicate what they thought really happened.¹²⁶

Ancient biographies and histories were different genres, yet (as the contemporary debate over the genre of Luke-Acts shows) the former can draw on the principles of the latter enough to allow considerable overlap (thus our examples in this chapter from ancient histories as well as biographies). Yet claiming a basically historical function by ancient standards does not mean that the Gospel writers wrote history the way modern historians would; ancient historiography proceeded on principles different from those of modern historiography. (To insist otherwise is to force ancient works into a genre that did not yet exist.) Because ancient historians lacked most historiographie tools that are now commonplace and were concerned to produce an engaging as well as informative narrative,¹²⁷ their motives in writing and hence their treatment of details do not conform to modern standards of historical analysis.

One should also note that writers had their own Tendenz (tendentious emphasis), for instance Polybiuss pro-Roman Tendenz¹²⁸ or Josephus's apologetic attempt to whitewash his people from excess complicity in the revolt while simultaneously appealing to the dignity of his Roman readership.¹²⁹ (Although the Cyropaedia is something of a historical romance, it appears noteworthy that Xenophon's Cyrus even reflects some Socratic ideas–e.g., Cyr. 3.1.17!)¹³⁰ Likewise, they would expect morals to be drawn from their stories.¹³¹ Ancient historians felt that history taught moral lessons,¹³² and that if one understood why events happened,¹³³ not merely historians but also statesmen could use them as precedents (παραδείγματα).¹³⁴ Thus some felt that historians should choose a noble subject, so their work would contribute to good moral character as well as information (e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 1.2.1). Historians frequently included moralizing narrative asides to interpret history's meaning for their readers, illustrate the fulfillment of prophetic utterances, or provide the authors perspective (e.g., Polybius 1.35.1–10; Diodorus Siculus 31.10.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 7.65.2; Dio Cassius 1.5.4; Arrian Alex. 4.10.8; Cornelius Nepos 16 [Pelopidas], 3.1).¹³⁵

Dionysius of Halicarnassus lists three purposes for writing history: first, that the courageous will gain «immortal glory» that outlives them; second, that their descendants will recognize their own roots and seek to emulate their virtue; and finally, that he might show proper goodwill and gratitude toward those who provided him training and information.¹³⁶ Elsewhere he includes among history's lessons the virtue of piety toward the gods (R.A. 8.56.1). Livy claimed that history teaches a nation's greatness and what one may imitate (Livy 1. pref.10).¹³⁷ Polybius opened his massive history by explaining that the most effective behavioral corrective is «knowledge of the past» (Polybius 1.1.1, LCL 1:3).¹³⁸ The emphasis on imitating ancestral wisdom and learning from both positive and negative historical examples is at least as old as classical Athenian rhetoric (Aeschines False Embassy 75–76; Lysias Or. 2.61.196) and remained in Roman rhetoric (Cicero Sest. 68.143). Second-century C.E. orators continued to expound morals from fifth-century B.C.E. Greek history (Maximus of Tyre Or. 6.5); later orators also used Plutarch's Lives this way (Menander Rhetor 2.4,392.28–31).

Jewish people understood the Biblés narratives as providing moral lessons in the same manner: the writers recorded examples of virtue and vice for their successors to emulate or avoid (Philo Abraham 4; 1Cor 10:11). They could likewise employ postbiblical models as examples of virtues (e.g., 4 Macc 1:7–8). Because Josephus repeats so much of the biblical narrative in the Antiquities, one can readily note the way he adapts biblical characters to accentuate their value as positive (Isaac;¹³⁹ Joseph; Moses; Ruth and Boaz; Samuel;¹⁴⁰ Hezekiah;¹⁴¹ Jehoshaphat;¹⁴² Josiah;¹⁴³ Daniel; Nehemiah¹⁴⁴), negative (Jeroboam; Ahab¹⁴⁵), or intermediate moral models.¹⁴⁶

No less than other historical writers, biographers frequently sought to teach moral lessons from their stories;¹⁴⁷ one could in a sense learn from great teachers of the past by proxy, as disciples of their recorded teachings.¹⁴⁸ Cornelius Nepos, in fact, declares that biographers dwelt on the virtues of their subjects in ways that historians did not, and intended their work for less technical audiences (16 [Pelopidas], 1.1). Biographers also could write for apologetic and polemical reasons.¹⁴⁹ Some ancient biographers emphasize moral lessons in their stones more than others; some writers, like Plutarch, vary in their moralizing even from one biography to the next.¹⁵⁰

At the same time, the Tendenz of the documents does not destroy their historical value; as Jewish scholar Geza Vermes points out, «a theological interest is no more incompatible with a concern for history than is a political or philosophical conviction,» and we can allow for these in interpretation.¹⁵¹ The better historians like Polybius felt that their work should include praise and blame for individuals, but that–in contrast to the practice of many writers–they should pursue truth and fairness (Polybius 8.8), properly evaluating the right distribution of praise and blame (Polybius 3.4.1). They felt free to critique their heroes» shortcomings (e.g., Arrian Alex. 4.7A; 4.8.1–4.9.6), and most biographies mixed some measure of praise and blame (e.g., Plutarch Cimon 2.4–5; Cornelius Nepos 11 [Iphicrates], 3.2).¹⁵² One could tell a less than flattering story even about ones own teacher, though apt to report especially favorable matters about him (Philostratus Vit. soph. 2.21.602–603).¹⁵³ One could also criticize some activities of other figures one regarded highly.¹⁵⁴ Of course some teachers were regarded as exceptional; Xenophon has only good to report about Socrates (Mem. 4.8.11), and it is hardly likely that early Christians would find flaws in one they worshiped (cf. later Iamblichus V.P. passim). But normally disciples respected their teachers enough to preserve and transmit their teachers» views accurately, even when they disagreed with them, rather than distort their teachers» views to fit their own.¹⁵⁵ Further, when onés source could not recall the substance of a speech, a biographer might not try to reproduce it (Eunapius Lives 484). Much history may be written by the victors,¹⁵⁶ but even in ancient historiography triumph did not always dictate bias.¹⁵⁷ All ancient historians and biographers, like many modern ones, had important agendas; they used history to shed light on their own time, no less than did the Gospels.¹⁵⁸ But had the Gospel writers wished to communicate solely later Christian doctrine and not history, they could have used simpler forms than biography.¹⁵⁹

Thus the Gospel writers» purpose is historical as well as theologica1. As readers of the OT, which most Jews viewed as historically true,¹⁶⁰ they must have believed that history itself communicated theology.¹⁶¹ In the context of a Jewish covenantal understanding of history as the framework for God's revelation, the earliest Christians must have been interested in the history of Jesus.¹⁶² The NT writers claimed to use genuine history as their evocative myth, purporting to announce historical truth in the public arena.¹⁶³ Uncomfortable as this claim may make some modern students of the material, it deserves to be taken seriously. The most frequent counterclaims–that the earliest church experienced radical amnesia before our earliest record or that the disciples offered their lives to defend willful deception–stretch the bounds of historical credibility far more, relieving modern interpreters from having to address philosophically foreign constructs only by permitting our own bias to eliminate testimony for supernatural phenomena engrained in the tradition.

The Fourth Gospel is both historical and literary/theologica1. Of the four canonical gospels, John is certainly the most literary/theological, but a forced choice between reporting of historical tradition and theological interpretation of that tradition is no more appropriate here than with the other gospels. There are simply too many points at which this Gospel includes what sounds like pure Johannine theology yet is in fact confirmed as earlier tradition by parallels in the Synoptics (see commentary, ad loc). Unless one dates John first and claims that the Synoptics or their sources drew from John, John shows some dependence on earlier tradition, although thoroughly reworded in his own idiom. If John's central claim is the Word's enfleshment (1:14), he claims not to merely interpret the church's faith but to interpret also «the apostolic witness concerning Jesus» historical self-disclosure.»¹⁶⁴ Thus the Paraclete recalls and interprets history, aiding the witnesses ( 14:26; 15:26–27).¹⁶⁵

Sometimes modern scholars write as if ancient historians and biographers lacked proper histiographic care or interest, but such a sweeping judgment neglects too much evidence. History was supposed to be truthful,¹⁶⁶ and historians harshly criticized other historians whom they accused of promoting falsehood, especially when they exhibited self-serving agendas.¹⁶⁷ A writer who consistently presents the least favorable interpretation, ignoring the diverse views of his sources, could be accused of malice.¹⁶⁸ (Ancients did, however, permit biography more freedom to be one-sided in praise than academic history.)¹⁶⁹ Biographers might also evaluate witnesses» motives; Antiphone report about Alcibiades is suspect because he hated him (Plutarch Ale. 3.1). To a lesser extent, they critiqued those who unknowingly got their facts wrong.¹⁷⁰ This emphasis did not mean that historians could not omit some events¹⁷¹–indeed, ancient historiographers demanded selectivity and sometimes made that a major distinction between «history» and «chronicles»¹⁷²–but it did prohibit the creation of events.

Aristotle noted that the difference between «history» and «poetry» was not literary style, for one could put Herodotus into verse if one wished; but that history recounts what actually happened whereas poetry tells what might happen.¹⁷³ Thus historical inquiry required not merely rhetorical skill but research (Dionysius of Halicarnassus R.A. 1.1.2–4; 1.4.2),¹⁷⁴ and those thought guilty of inadequate research or acquaintance with their subjects were likely to be doubted (Arrian Ind. 7.1).

Accounts could naturally be expanded or abridged freely without question.¹⁷⁵ Whereas Josephus expands on some biblical narratives while he follows accurately the sequence and substance of the account,¹⁷⁶ 2Maccabees openly claims to be a careful abridgment of a five-volume work by Jason of Cyrene.¹⁷⁷ Among Theon's rhetorical exercises is the practice of «expanding» and «condensing» fables:¹⁷⁸ «We "expand» by lengthening the speeches-in-character in the fable, and by describing a river or something of this sort. We condense by doing the opposite.»¹⁷⁹ When applied to other kinds of narrative, this need not tamper with historical details; aside from adding details known from other sources and adding some description that is either implicit in the narrative or inherently probable in itself, Theon s example for expanding a chreia does not make much change in its basic meaning.¹⁸⁰ Likewise, Longinus explains amplification (αύξησις) as adding more and more phrases to bring home the point with increasing force.¹⁸¹

Similarly, that Matthew often abridges Markan accounts was no more problematic than the process of abridgement is today, and may have been welcomed. Greco-Roman writers and rhetoricians appreciated conciseness in a narrative, provided that it did not impair clarity or plausibility.¹⁸² Expansion was sometimes due to the passage of time and consequent growth of tradition;¹⁸³ in other cases, long stories were sometimes continually abbreviated over time.¹⁸⁴ Both poets and prose writers sometimes added clauses nonessential to the meaning or removed essential ones simply to make the arrangement sound better (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lit. Comp. 9).

Inserting sayings from sayings-collections into narrative, or adding narratives to sayings, was considered a matter of arrangement, not a matter of fabrication.¹⁸⁵ One thing reminding the narrator of another was a common rhetorical technique for transition.¹⁸⁶ It seems to have been understood that sayings in collections were redacted, rather than recited verbatim.¹⁸⁷ Thus Phaedrus feels free to adapt Aesop for aesthetic reasons, meanwhile seeking to keep to the spirit of Aesop (Phaed. 2.pro1.8). And paraphrase of sayings– attempts to rephrase them without changing their meaning–was standard rhetorical practice, as evidenced by the school exercises in which it features prominently.¹⁸⁸ Such paraphrase provided a degree of rhetorical freedom, and in the case of familiar lines would prove more aesthetically appealing than verbatim repetition.¹⁸⁹

Thus even writers intending to write accurate history could «spice up» or «enhance» their narratives for literary, moralistic, and political purposes.¹⁹⁰ This is not to say that good historians fabricated events; but they did often alter or add explanatory details to events.¹⁹¹ Authors differed among themselves as to how much variation in detail they permitted, but some writers who wanted to guard the historical enterprise from distortion had strong feelings about those who permitted too much.¹⁹² Thus the second-century rhetorician Lucian objected to those historical writers who amplified and omitted merely for literary or encomiastic purposes (i.e., to make the character look better).¹⁹³ The earlier historian Polybius reports graphic bloodshed (15.33), but claims that, unlike some other writers, he avoids amplifying it for sensationalism (15.34); indeed, he savages another writer for sensationalism and excess accommodation of tragic conventions (2.56.1–11; with examples, 2.57.1–2.63.6). Diogenes Laertius often cites his sources, and does not fabricate material to produce symmetry in his accounts (for instance, while he cites letters from some ancient philosophers, he apparently has none to cite for others like Socrates, in contrast with some pseudonymous Cynic epistles attributed to Socrates). Often later biographers simply repeat what earlier biographers said (e.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lysias 1).

To be sure, many ancient writers pointed out the obscurity of the earliest reports, from centuries earlier, while demanding a much higher standard of accuracy when handling reports closer to their own period.¹⁹⁴ When writing about characters of the distant past, historians would have to sort through legendary as well as actual historical data, and might well have difficulty ascertaining which was which.¹⁹⁵ Thus, for example, Plutarch, when he writes about Theseus, who reportedly lived over a millennium before him, proposes to purify «Fable, making her submit to reason and take on the semblance of History» by determining what is probable and credible.¹⁹⁶ This means that ancient historiography sometimes had to settle for historical verisimilitude, rather than high probability (by modern standards) concerning the events ancient historians reported.¹⁹⁷ Many critically evaluated their mass of sources, sorting what they regarded as credible from what they did not.¹⁹⁸ Somewhat like the form critics» criterion of coherence, consistency of reported behavior with a persons known behavior provided a criterion for evaluating the probability of ancient sources» claims.¹⁹⁹ They might recognize exaggeration in an account, while averring that genuine historical tradition stood behind it,²⁰⁰ or might regard an account as too implausible altogether.²⁰¹ Thucydides even takes into account the material remains of Mycenae in evaluating the Iliads reliability (1.10.1–2) and takes into account the relative dates of his sources (1.3.2–3). Plutarch disputes Herodotus's claim (9.85) on the basis of the numbers and an extant inscription (Aristides 19.5–6). Writers closer to the events they describe are normally considered more reliable (Plutarch Malice of Herodotus 20, Mor. 859B).

But even if they could not achieve historical certainty about events of the distant past, their attempts to reconstruct the likeliest past indicates that historical writers were concerned with historical probability, as many of them plainly affirm.²⁰² Even when writing about characters from a period for which the evidence was no longer clear, good historical writers tried to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate sources.²⁰³ Thus Arrian often evaluates various reports by comparing them; he notes that one story too prominent to ignore is not reported by any of the eyewitness writers, hence is probably unreliable (Arrian Alex. 6.28.2).²⁰⁴ In more recent as well as in older times, of all possible sources, eyewitness and firsthand sources were the best;²⁰⁵ likewise, ancients could also recognize the superior value of sources published while living eyewitnesses could either confirm or dispute the accounts.²⁰⁶ Others could cite an allegedly genuine letter to challenge other traditions (Plutarch Alex. 46.1–2; Philostratus Vit. soph. 2.1.562–563). Of course, whether for bias or memory lapse, even eyewitnesses did not always agree on details, and this would require some weighing of individual testimony (Thucydides 1.22.3). When such distinction between accurate and inaccurate sources was impossible, writers often simply presented several different current opinions on what had happened.²⁰⁷ A writer might simply admit that he did not know how something happened (Sallust Jug. 67.3).

Their methods for evaluating that probability usually stressed inconsistencies and unlikelihood, as in ancient lawcourts, rather than questioning the sources behind the writers» own sources. Thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus (R.A. 4.6.1) challenges an event recounted in earlier histories because of intrinsic improbabilities in their accounts.²⁰⁸ But the interest of historical writers was essentially historical, even when their sources, mixed with centuries of accretions, were no longer pure.

That ancient historians, biographers, and anthologists depended on earlier sources is not in question; they frequently cite them,²⁰⁹ and often cite varying accounts, even when preferring one above another.²¹⁰ Arrian prefers his two earliest sources, which generally agree, above others, and chooses between them when they diverge;²¹¹ when sources diverge too much, he frankly complains that the exact truth is unrecoverable.²¹² Plutarch cites five sources for one position and nine for another, plus an extant letter attributed to the person about whom he writes; but he then adds that the minor divergence does not affect our view of his herós character (the main point for him; Alex. 46.1–2). Valerius Maximus, a more popular and less careful writer than some others, rarely cites his sources (and often confuses his data), but he mentions them occasionally when they diverge (e.g., 5.7.ext.l; 6.8.3). Earlier exaggerated contrasts between elite and popular literature aside, the Gospels (to some extent with the exception of Luke) do not reflect an elite audience.

Often ancient writers cited sources, however, only when various sources disagreed (or when the writer wished to criticize them).²¹³ The Gospels do not explicitly cite sources, perhaps in part because of their relatively popular level but also probably in part because they report recent events on which sources have not yet diverged greatly (like, e.g., Tacitus, who naturally does not need to cite many sources on his father-in-law Agricola). It is possible that they also follow some Jewish conventions on this point; in some such works we can identify the sources only because they are extant (e.g., 1 Esdras blends Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah with some midrash).²¹⁴ Including material missing from earlier extant sources is not necessarily a sign of fabrication. A writer providing information missing in some earlier historians sometimes was drawing from sources unavailable to the other historians, whether those sources were written, oral, or both.²¹⁵

Although we often lack direct access to firsthand ancient sources, we can look to the ancient historical writers who still had access to such sources, then test them to determine the degree of their fidelity to those sources. Comparing different ancient historians such as Herodian and Dio Cassius turns up discrepancies, but also confirms that both use substantial historical data.²¹⁶ Such a comparison will also reveal that such writers did not always choose to cover the same ground; thus, for example, there are many omissions in Herodian, but hints of the information suggest that he did not lack the information itself.²¹⁷

Although ancient historians did not always have access to the best sources for earlier eras, their treatment of more recent history was more dependable. The Roman historian Tacitus, for instance, recorded much of the history of first-century Rome, often using imperial annals.²¹⁸ He is widely regarded as one of the most reliable sources for the history of this period. When Tacitus wrote biography, he maintained the same standard he had upheld in writing Roman history: although his Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, has a particular agenda (to praise his father-in-law while condemning the depravity of the Flavian era), it is certainly historically reliable. Indeed, Tacitus as Agricoles son-in-law also had firsthand acquaintance with the data he reported.

Other historians reporting contemporary or recent events were also substantially reliable, although one must consider how critically each writer used his sources and how freely he adapted them. Suetonius's biographies of the twelve Caesars provide critical information to modern historians of antiquity; they are less reliable than Tacitus, but where Suetonius errs it is generally by depending too uncritically on his sources, not by fabricating materia1. Other historians and biographers, like Livy and Plutarch, took much more freedom to moralize and spice up their narratives. Similarly, Lucan's war poetry could play on the grotesque yet impossible images of his tradition.²¹⁹ But, as noted above, even Plutarch plainly believes that he is using historical data to make his moral points, and his record frequently parallels other historical sources. Historians did make errors,²²⁰ but could expect their successors to expose their errors when discovered (Diodorus Siculus 4.56.7–8).

Josephus may provide an example of a freer historian. Josephus's history and autobiography are dominated by his apologetic Tendenz.²²¹ Crossan wryly but accurately remarks of Josephus's War, «Nobody from the highest aristocracy on either side is guilty of anything.»²²² Even many of his adaptations of biblical accounts emphasize points pleasing to his Roman sponsors and Gentile audience.²²³ Nevertheless, archaeology confirms that he usually gets right even many minor details unaffected by this Tendenz, even to the color of paint on Herod's bedroom wall²²⁴ (although his accuracy has exceptions).²²⁵ Inscriptions likewise sometimes confirm his accuracy on disputed details, against other historians.²²⁶ He retells the same event in different ways in different books, a practice that does not suggest that the event never happened, but that he presents it from a different perspective.²²⁷ While not striving for modern standards of historical accuracy, «wherever he can be tested, he can be seen to have been a pretty fair historian.»²²⁸

While adding details and perspectives, he even retains the stories of David s sin with Bathsheba (Ant 7.130–131) and Uriahs murder (7.131–146), though–perhaps with an eye toward anti-Judaic polemic like Apion's sources–he omits the episode of the golden calf (Ant 3.95–99). Yet this «substantial» accuracy hardly keeps him from interpreting his sources in strategic ways for his Hellenistic audience. After promising to add nothing to Moses» laws (Ant 4.196), he finds in Moses» laws a specific prohibition against theft from pagan temples (Ant 4.207), a prohibition against women's testimony (Ant 4.219) and the requirement of seven judges per city (Ant 4.214). Numerous studies have traced Josephus's adaptation of biblical accounts, but whereas the degree of adaptation varies from one account to another, one should also note the degree of fidelity to the basic biblical account.²²⁹

That the Gospels purport to be historical biography is clear, but this does not by itself confirm the reliability of all details or even the reliability of the sources the Gospels use. That the Gospels use recent traditions and that those which can be checked (especially Luke) are careful in their use of sources suggests that the Gospels should be placed among the most, rather the least, reliable of ancient biographies. We will consider this issue further after surveying Jewish biographical conventions and their penchant for haggadic expansion.

Penned in Greek, probably to Diaspora audiences, the canonical gospels reflect Greco-Roman rather than strictly Palestinian Jewish literary conventions.²³⁰ That is, they share more external characteristics with Diaspora or aristocratic Palestinian Jewish biographies in Greek than they do with many of the Palestinian works composed in Hebrew or Aramaic. Such a statement does not, however, detract from the Jewishness of the Gospels, since Jewish historical writing in Greek generally adopted Greek historiographic conventions, as suggested below for Josephus.²³¹ In contrast to other Greco-Roman biographies, however, the Gospels, like Diaspora Jewish historical texts, show considerable stylistic and theological influence from the LXX. Further, the Gospels vary among themselves in the degree of their Palestinian character: Matthew and John, whose readers apparently have closer continuing ties with Palestinian Judaism, probably reflect more Palestinian literary influences than Mark and Luke.²³²

The methodology of Hebrew and Aramaic Palestinian Jewish texts concerning historical figures diverges at significant points from that of Greco-Roman historical writing. Since the Palestinian Jewish roots of the Jesus movement affected Diaspora Christianity, a brief consideration of Jewish biographical conventions may be useful in discussing the traditions behind the Gospels. Failing this, yet more importantly for our purposes, they may be useful in understanding literary techniques particularly adapted by Matthew and John.

Although many individuals feature prominently in the Hebrew Bible and in early Jewish literature, only rarely is a document devoted to a person in such a way that it would be called biography in the sense discussed above; usually the treatment of an individual is part of a larger narrative. Job, Ruth, Judith, Jonah, Esther, Daniel, and Tobit all have books about them in the Greek Bible, but the events rather than the characters dominate the accounts.²³³

The various reports of events in the lives of pious rabbis are too piecemeal to supply parallels to biographies like the Gospels,²³⁴ but it is possible that some of these stories were collected and told together like some of the brief philosophical lives in Diogenes Laertius. Since no such early collections are extant, however,²³⁵ rabbinic sources can add little to our discussion of Jewish «biography.» In contrast to Josephus or Tacitus, rabbinic texts are primarily legal, and incidental biographical information tends to serve more purely homiletical than historical purposes.²³⁶

Some Jewish writers did compose self-contained biographies, though again, not all of them fit the conventions discussed above. Philós expositions of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses idealize the figures only to communicate Philos philosophical lessons,²³⁷ though this observation does not negate the evidence for his use of Hellenistic biographical conventions.²³⁸ A collection called the Lives of the Prophets, with genre parallels in the Greek lives of poets, resembles the briefer lives.²³⁹ Josephus's accounts about Moses in his Antiquities often follow Hellenistic philosophical biography²⁴⁰ and novelistic conventions;²⁴¹ soalso his treatment of Jacob,²⁴² Joseph,²⁴³ Samson,²⁴⁴ Saul,²⁴⁵ Zedekiah,²⁴⁶ and the Akedah narrative.²⁴⁷ Thus Cohen lists both 2Maccabees and Josephus among Jewish works of history owing «more to Herodotus, Thucydides, and Hellenistic historiography than to Kings and Chronicles.»²⁴⁸

But parallels with broader classes of Jewish narrative literature can also provide insight into Jewish historiographie and novelistic methods. In Aramaic and Hebrew as well as in Greek, such texts could combine both historiographie and novelistic traits without apology, depending on the nature of the text in question. Biblical narratives were often adapted by later storytellers and eventually formalized into separate accounts;²⁴⁹ storytellers especially favored Pentateuchal characters for this sort of development.²⁵⁰

Although these reworkings are not strictly midrash nor Targum,²⁵¹ certain midrashic or haggadic principles are sometimes at work in their composition.²⁵² Some, like PseudoPhilós Biblical Antiquities (L.A.B.), follow the biblical text very careful (often virtually quoting the text), though adding many details.²⁵³ Others, like Assumption of Moses, have very little to do with the biblical text beyond the characters and a basic story line. The degree of freedom depended also on the nature of onés work: whereas the LXX preserves incidents of patriarchal deception, Philo and apocryphal works often played down such deception, and Josephus took a middle path.²⁵⁴ We find a continuum between historical works and novels composed around historical characters, and can best distinguish the two by evaluating their measure of fidelity to sources the writers accepted as historically accurate, especially the OT.

Like other Greco-Roman literature, ancient Jewish literature generally permitted variation in detai1. Although amplification in matters of halakah was sometimes discouraged,²⁵⁵ the practice was especially frequent in narratives, to answer questions posed by a narrative²⁵⁶ or to heighten the praise of God or the protagonist,²⁵⁷ sometimes by fanciful midrash.²⁵⁸ Sometimes writers added details for literary purposes, to make a better story;²⁵⁹ this could include names,²⁶⁰ sometimes arrived at midrashically or for symbolic value.²⁶¹ (This practice is hardly surprising; Greeks also elaborated their sacred stories, filling in details over the centuries.)²⁶² One could emphasize a theme already present in onés source by reiterating it where it appeared and occasionally adding it elsewhere.²⁶³ Similarly, negative incidents could be toned down,²⁶⁴ omitted,²⁶⁵ or justified²⁶⁶ in the character's favor.

This could range from the sort of «twist» on a narrative acceptable in modern journalism to fabricating details to explain what was not said. While John, like the Synoptics, is far more like Greco-Roman biography than like such «rewritten» biblical accounts, these Palestinian Jewish narrative techniques must also be considered as part of his general milieu.

Variations in the tradition and/or its editing in these sources were also not problematic;²⁶⁷ a greater degree of freedom in telling the story was then permitted than is standard in historically-oriented works today. As Anderson says about 4 Maccabees, «the discrepancies between the descriptions of the tortures administered to the first son and the other six, here and in 2 Mac, indicate no more than that the story circulated in different forms or that each writer claimed his freedom to shape up the narrative in his own way.»²⁶⁸

Thus a wide variety of writing techniques was available in ancient Jewish as well as broader Greco-Roman writing related to history, and the Gospels could fall anywhere in this range. Intending to be essentially historical in the events they report, in principle they could vary in the accuracy of their details.²⁶⁹ Further, as we noted above, paraphrase of sayings was standard Greco-Roman rhetorical practice; Jewish interpreters also regularly employed paraphrase in communicating what they took to be the biblical text's meaning,²⁷⁰ a practice some interpreters deem relevant to understanding John's relation to the earlier Gospel tradition.²⁷¹

Although all ancient biographers attempted to write historical accounts, some succeeded at this enterprise better than others. Factors that affected their reliability include how recently the events described occurred, and how closely the writer followed his sources.

In contrast to the contention of some early form critics,²⁷² early Christians were undoubtedly interested in the life and character of Jesus from the beginning.²⁷³ It is interesting that, by contrast, Qumran literature has thus far provided no sustained account of the community's founder and the events that brought it into existence, although the documents repeatedly allude to these occurrences. The existence of the Gospels themselves, and the role assigned to Jesus in them, testify that early Christianity had a greater interest in the history of its founder than many comparable contemporary movements did.²⁷⁴ As W. D. Davies puts it, «The first alternative is to believe that for some time after his death and resurrection what Jesus did and said was neglected and so forgotten,» and as Christians needed sermon material they «created their own sayings or borrowed material from Jewish and Hellenistic sources and ascribed them to Jesus. The other alternative is to recognize that what Jesus actually taught was remembered by his followers and adapted by the churches as the need arose. On grounds of historical probability, the second alternative is the more likely by far.»²⁷⁵

Luke thus mentions that there were already many written narratives before he set out to write one of his own (Luke 1:1). Since writers steeped in the OT would want to testify in historical terms concerning the one they regarded as the fulfillment of Israel's history, the nature of gospels was somewhat predetermined from the start. What form would a Gospel writer have used to describe Jesus» life even if he wished to avoid the genre of biography?²⁷⁶ Nevertheless, the Gospel writers would have known that the Gospels would have been read in the Greco-Roman world as «lives» of Jesus.

The Gospels draw on various Septuagintal,²⁷⁷ contemporary Jewish, and Greco-Roman narrative conventions to communicate their portrait of Jesus. Whether or not, or the degree to which, Matthew drew on Jewish midrashic conventions is hotly disputed;²⁷⁸ there is no a priori cultural reason to suppose that he did not:

For if even an exacting Greek philosopher could purvey as his masters teachings his own highly advanced development of them, how much more might a midrashically, haggadically oriented Jew do something similar.… In the Jewish sphere we find the freedom of midrash and haggadah alongside careful memorization and passing on of both the written and the oral law.²⁷⁹

But it should be noted that narratives concerning recent teachers were usually not revised quite as freely as narratives about biblical characters; of many stories about Hanina ben Dosa, none was clearly composed simply on the basis of OT texts.²⁸⁰ And while Matthew undoubtedly adapts his sources somewhat more freely than does Luke,²⁸¹ if we may judge by his use of Mark, he adapts them far less than Josephus, and especially Jubilees and Pseudo-Philo (L.A.B.), adapt the OT.²⁸²

To test the accuracy of the authors of the Synoptic Gospels one must test their use of sources. Evaluated by this criterion, they appear among the more accurate of ancient historians.²⁸³ One can confirm this relatively easily by examining a collection of Synoptic Gospel parallels. Most scholars agree that the written narratives that Luke included among his sources (Luke 1:1) included Mark and what has come to be called «Q,»²⁸⁴ although debate on the nature of «Q» (as a whole document,²⁸⁵ as oral tradition²⁸⁶ or as a composite of sources)²⁸⁷ continues.²⁸⁸ (Some have offered reconstructions of Q that are far more specific than the evidence warrants;²⁸⁹ Q should not at any rate be used to «reconstruct the whole theological outlook» of its community.)²⁹⁰

When one examines Lukés use of these sources, one is repeatedly impressed with his restraint. Granted, Matthew and Luke exercise freedom in arranging and editing Mark and other sources that they share in common; but this editing must be judged minimal by ancient standards, not affecting the content as substantially as those who cite this «freedom» often assume.²⁹¹ That the Gospel writers themselves saw such variation as within their permissible range may be suggested by Lukés triple recounting of Paul's conversion with differences in details each time, though the core of the story remains the same.²⁹² Where Mark and «Q» overlap (e.g., Mark 1:7–13 with Matt 3:7–4:ll/Luke 3:7–17, 4:1–13; Mark 3:22–27 with Matt 12:24–30/Luke 11:15–23), one gains a similar impression of Mark's faithfulness to the preexisting tradition.²⁹³ Although the differences in the accounts may be more striking to a reader accustomed to harmonizing the Gospels, the points of comparison are generally far more striking when one takes into account that the first three gospels were written at different times, from different possible sources, and to different audiences.

Furthermore, even at their latest possible date of composition, they derive from a period close to the events, when the influence of eyewitnesses of the events remained prominent in the early church. Some scholars may place the dates too early, but even on the consensus datings of the Gospels, they must stem from a period when eyewitness testimony remained central to the church,²⁹⁴ and at least Luke seems to have had direct access to eyewitness corroboration for some of his traditional material (1:1–4). Ancient rhetoricians regularly attack the credibility of witnesses for a contrary position (e.g., Josephus Life 356), and courts sometimes dismissed the reliability of some kinds of witnesses on account of their gender or social status.²⁹⁵ One would, however, be hard-pressed to view the earliest disciples» witness as fabrication, given the price they were prepared to pay for it.²⁹⁶

Luke also claims to have investigated matters thoroughly (1:3). Historians valued such investigation, which often included traveling to the places where events had reportedly occurred,²⁹⁷ and criticized those who failed to accomplish it as well as possible.²⁹⁸ Whereas Roman historians consulted records, the Greek model normally entailed travel and consulting with available eyewitnesses,²⁹⁹ although many even in the eastern Mediterranean fell short of this idea1. Evidence strongly suggests that Luke fits the more reliable end of the spectrum.³⁰⁰ Lukés claim to investigation and his dependence on available eyewitness tradition are especially likely if the «we» sections in Acts, which include a meeting with James the Lord's brother in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17–18), may be attributed to the author and not to someone elsés travel journal³⁰¹ or to a fictitious literary device.³⁰² Whereas «we» appears in novelistic texts, it appears no less in historical texts; its function depended on the genre of the text.³⁰³ Further, the «we» sections in Acts may well reflect a travel journal, but it was far more likely Lukes own than another's, for Luke is too skilled a writer to leave a secondary source in his narrative unedited. Given the correspondence of the «we» sections to appropriate geographical intervals (16:11–18, 20:6) and the lack of emphasis the writer gives to his own presence (although known to his patron Theophilus and perhaps his implied audience, he remains in the background and appears rarely), the «we» most likely means, as ancient readers would have normally understood, «we.»³⁰⁴ If «we» includes the author or even identifies merely an eyewitness source, Luke may be accepted as all the more dependable.

Like some other early Christian writers (Acts 26:26; 1Cor 15:6; 2Cor 12:12), Luke also appeals to «public knowledge» (1:4); he has investigated these matters, but his audience, including his probable patron Theophilus, already has some knowledge about them. Appeals to public knowledge such as that contained in documents,³⁰⁵ claims offered among those who could have refuted them (such as the living eyewitnesses in positions of prominence in the church; cf. Gal 2:9),³⁰⁶ or appeals simply to what was widely known (e.g., Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.107; Xenophon Agesilaus 5.6) carried tremendous rhetorical weight.

Whatever else may be said about the Fourth Gospel's genre, it must fall into the same broad category as the Synoptics;³⁰⁷ while it may be strictly independent from the Synoptics (see comments below), it is unlikely that John developed the gospel form independently, and it strains credulity to think that Johannine Christians in either Asia or Syria would be unaware of other written gospels circulating in the Christian communities. (Mark, at least, had circulated for two to three decades, was widespread enough to serve as a major source for Matthew and Luke, and was probably not alone; cf. Luke 1:1.) The genre of the Synoptics is clearly historical biography,³⁰⁸ so the same would likely follow for John.³⁰⁹

That the Synoptic Gospels represent substantial historical data does not, however, demonstrate the degree of the historical character of the Fourth Gospe1. Each of the four canonical gospels applies the biographical genre slightly differently,³¹⁰ just as many different Lives even in Plutarch vary to some degree in content.³¹¹ The Fourth Gospel in some respects resembles political biographies (as in Cornelius Nepos) because of its polemical material, and in more respects resembles philosophical biographies (as in Diogenes Laertius) with their focus on philosophers» teachings;³¹² but neither category actually defines John's specific genre.

Neither among the Synoptics nor elsewhere is there a single, precise parallel to John's interpretation of Jesus. For example, one could compare John's interpretive technique with Josephus. In his Antiquities Josephus interprets Jewish history for a Gentile audience, creating new speeches where necessary to fit the model of a Hellenistic history. But Josephus writes for a far more literate and hellenized audience than John does, and writes a Hellenistic history, not a biography. Some Jewish works concerning Pentateuchal characters elaborate fancifully, but where we can test him from Synoptic material, John departs from the extant Jesus tradition less than these works depart from the biblical text.

Like the Synoptics and other historical works, but in contrast with early Jewish and Christian novels, John mostly avoids the frequent and imaginative appearances of heavenly beings (although John, like most ancient historical works, does not lack supernatural appearances altogether–cf. 12:28,20:12). Many early Jewish works give considerable narrative play to heavenly characters and regularly present God speaking; in the Fourth Gospel, however, Jesus himself is usually the voice of God. The narrative style might more resemble Tobit minus supernatural beings like Raphael and Asmodeus, but with the incarnation added; or like 1Maccabees if it were biographical rather than historical monograph. It resembles the historical sections, or sections in his day regarded as historical sections, in the LXX. John develops a skillful plot from pre-Johannine traditions, yet also expounds Jesus» identity more explicitly than the Synoptics do, especially in the dialogue and discourse material (which differ from the Synoptics far more than his narrative does). His discourse expositions may follow a freedom allowed by Jewish and other Greco-Roman historical writers. We will explore below in chapter 7 of our introduction whether his christological evaluations genuinely cohere with authentic Jesus tradition. Here we can only pose such questions, and below provide the best answers the data will allow.

Given its differences from the Synoptics, it is not surprising that the genre of the Fourth Gospel has been compared with other «gospel» traditions, which exhibit far more resemblances to novels than to Greco-Roman biography.

The apocryphal gospels tend to display second-century tendencies far removed from a Palestinian tradition; they exhibit many more clearly secondary and tendentious features than the earlier gospels ultimately received as canonical by the majority of the church.³¹³ The Gospel of Peter is not docetic and has some apocalyptic elements, but it would be difficult to argue that this text, with its self-rolling stone, walking cross, and other features uncharacteristic of the Jesus tradition, is earlier than the canonical gospels.³¹⁴ The apocryphal gospels seem concerned to fill in missing details of Jesus» life,³¹⁵ and in genre are closer to novels than to biographies.³¹⁶

With regard to literary form, the gnostic gospels are nothing like the canonical gospels; they are called gospels only because they purport to convey good news.³¹⁷ Much of what we find in the gnostic «gospels» are random sayings collections that include both sayings of Jesus and later gnosticizing words attributed to him. Most «new» sayings in the gnostic «gospels» are hardly early, though these collections may preserve or adapt some agrapha as well as sayings also reported in our canonical gospels;³¹⁸ the collections as a whole are tendentious in a gnosticizing (and hence later) direction and lack most of the sort of early Palestinian Jewish material frequently found in the Synoptics and John.³¹⁹

Some have argued that apocryphal and gnostic gospels reflect a form earlier than that of the canonical gospels and similar gospels no longer extant.³²⁰

Starting from a study of the apocryphal gospels, Helmut Koester has argued that their forms are not developments from those of the canonical gospels but are rather related to earlier types of gospel literature such as sayings collections, aretalogies (miracle collections), and apocalypses. As a result, the Coptic Gospel of Thomas should be seen in a trajectory from Q, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas from collections like the Johannine Semeia source, and the Apocryphon of John from revelations like the Apocalypse of John.³²¹

In principle, these genre considerations are not objectionable; sayings collections are as old as Israelite and other ancient Near Eastern proverbs, "Abot, and Greek collections of philosophers» witticisms.³²² It is not unlikely that the Gospel of Thomas intentionally follows a similar form as a sayings collection; but acknowledging this does not require us to retroject incipient gnosticism into earlier Christian sayings collections, or to imply that the sayings genre was opposed in principle to narrative gospels, as some scholars have thought.³²³ Sayings and narratives were regularly reported separately or combined at will in antiquity,³²⁴ reports of sages» teachings frequently incorporated accounts of their lives or settings for their sayings,³²⁵ and Ahiqar's wisdom sayings and narrative were probably already combined more than half a millennium before the Gospels were written.³²⁶ Early Christian tradition and use of genre was also not likely isolated in a single stream; where Paul's incidental use attests Jesus traditions, these traditions attest both Q and Markan forms, and some of the Q material is more like Matthew whereas some is more like Luke.³²⁷

While sayings collections, like narratives, could be either early or late, both the gnostic texts and their more «orthodox» second-century competitors are clearly later, expansive, and considerably farther removed from the Palestinian Jesus tradition than the canonical gospels. Most scholars today agree that even the Gospel of Thomas in its present form (for about one-third of its sayings) is gnostic;³²⁸ because it has parallels to every stratum of gospel tradition and some of its sayings follow others solely because of the sequence in the canonical gospels, most scholars today acknowledge that Thomas in its current form depends on the Synoptics.³²⁹ Other texts contain even less authentic materia1. Secret Gospel of Mark, for instance, is probably a forgery dating from somewhere between the late second and the twentieth centuries.³³⁰ Apart from a few sayings in Thomas, it is unlikely that any of the apocryphal or gnostic gospels reflect any degree of authentic Jesus tradition.³³¹

Noting that the gnostic «gospels» are often sayings collections does, however, eliminate the hope of a complete comparison with our present Fourth Gospel, despite its distinctive speeches. As noted above, all four gospels fall into the range of biography, but gnostic «gospels» constitute an entirely different genre.³³²

Conclusions concerning them should not, therefore, be read back into studies of the extant first-century gospels, although if any of the four gospels would tend toward this later type, it would have to be the late-first-century Fourth Gospe1. John follows the narrative format also attested in the Synoptics, though developing cohesive discourses and dialogues at much greater length (see our next chapter).³³³ But although gnostics read and developed John, John's speeches are neither gnostic nor mere collections of sayings. Because the Fourth Gospel deals much less with the stream of tradition we are able to test from the Synoptics, examinations of John's relation to history are far less provable than those of his prior siblings. Other putative sources for the Fourth Gospel remain hypothetica1.³³⁴ The extent of John's reliability as a historical source, if ascertainable, will therefore have to be determined on other grounds. If one turns to the question of the burden of proof, we should ask how historically reliable John appears to be where we can check him. Once the question is framed in such terms, we must return to passages where John's story runs parallel to that in the Synoptics.

The assumptions of traditional source criticism have proved tenuous in the study of Greco-Roman literature. Writers could depend on a variety of sources and might not need written sources for events that had occurred in their lifetimes.³³⁵ The case of the Synoptic Gospels is different, where the degree of overlap in particular accounts recited indicates a literary relationship at least between Mark and the other gospels; but the problem is even more difficult in the Fourth Gospel than among most Greek and Roman historians.

Moody Smith's Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel proved a decisive critique of Bultmann's source theories,³³⁶ and since then these theories have been widely regarded as unproved, except for his signs source (on which see below).³³⁷ Bultmann's stylistic criteria have failed to persuade scholars, particularly in the discourses.³³⁸ Source criticism on this Gospel is far less popular today, though it has not died out.³³⁹ In the 1970s Sydney Temple argued for a very substantial «core» of the Gospel that was quite early,³⁴⁰ but has not been widely followed. Some scholars have continued to arrive at brilliant but unverifiable constructions of sources. Thomas Brodie, for instance, finds all of Mark, much of Matthew, parts of Luke-Acts, and Ephesians in this Gospe1.³⁴¹ A. J. Blasi adopts a sociological approach to identifying sources,³⁴² but unconvincingly presses too far behind the extant texts. The leading advocate of source criticism on the Fourth Gospel today probably remains Robert Fortna.³⁴³ Von Wahlde also has offered significant work in this area.³⁴⁴

Nevertheless, sources are next to impossible to distinguish in this Gospel, as most contemporary commentators recognize.³⁴⁵ As Margaret Davies contends with reference even to the putative signs source, Bultmann and others made valiant attempts, but all «fail because of the Gospel's impressive stylistic unity.»³⁴⁶ Schnackenburg followed Bultmann in regarding future eschatological material as redactional, but since other parts of early Christianity held future and realized eschatology together in tension, it makes little sense to exclude these passages that textually and stylistically belong to the whole.³⁴⁷ An analysis of plot and rhetorical structures fails to coincide with earlier scholarly divisions of the Gospel based on source or redactional theories.³⁴⁸ Even earlier scholars most inclined to distinguish redactions and locate displacements recognized its stylistic unity.³⁴⁹ C. K. Barrett accepted John s use of the Synoptics and acknowledged that he used other sources now unrecoverable, but otherwise thought that all other source criticism of the Gospel was pure speculation.³⁵⁰

Some scholars have modified or at least qualified their earlier source-critical views. Fernando Segovia, who produced a substantial source-critical study on the Farewell Discourses,³⁵¹ now writes in the forefront of Johannine literary criticism, and recognizes much more unity and coherence in the text.³⁵² John Ashton concedes that in his earlier, monumental work Understanding the Fourth Gospel he accepted too uncritically the common older view of various versions of the Gospe1. Although he continues to think there were two editions, he admits that he is no longer sure;³⁵³ authors could certainly tinker with their work, but the image of various editions of books may be «somewhat misleading» before printing presses from the fourteenth century.³⁵⁴ In our view, if the Gospel had an earlier form (aside from its early draft stage, which was probably not circulated), it may have been the oral form in which the beloved disciple and/or the Fourth Evangelist preached it.³⁵⁵

The Fourth Gospel functions as a unity, as various comments in our commentary will emphasize. Claiming that the Gospel is a unity does not mean that every element within it readily fits every other element without extrinsic context for both; but such dissonances need not in every case imply distinct sources.³⁵⁶ As literary deconstructionists have repeatedly shown, such incongruities appear often enough in unified works. This certainly includes ancient Mediterranean works that through most of their ancient history were treated as unities regardless of the disparate oral sources on which they might depend. Thus Harpalion's father Pylaemenes mourned for him in Homer Iliad 13.658– but Pylaemenes, Harpalion's father, had already died in 5.5 76.³⁵⁷ The story world of the Iliad appears inconsistent when Hephaistos took a full day to fall from heaven (I1. 1.592), but Thetis could leap directly from Olympus into the sea (I1. 1.532), Athene could dart immediately to earth (IL 4.78), and Ares could flee swiftly from earth to heaven (I1. 5.885). Some accounts appear inconsistent with the extrinsic world we know: the dog Argos, admittedly old, recognizes Odysseus, though according to the story line, Odysseus has been away twenty years, much longer than a normal dog's life (Homer Od. 17.292, 301–302).³⁵⁸

In Ovid s patchwork of stories, the Bears constellations appear unable to descend into the ocean in Metam. 2.171–172, yet they became constellations more than fifteen years later (2.497; cf. 2.401–416, 505–507), when they are prohibited from descending into the sea (2.508–531). If one reads the Latin in its most common sense, then Alpheus is both father of Arethusa (Ovid Metam. 5.487) and a river god who tries to rape her (5.599–641, likely suggesting inadequate editing of distinct stories). But if such divergences represent sources (which is quite possible), these sources are forever unrecoverable to us today.³⁵⁹ Such inconsistencies also appear in historical works, such as Livy's claim that a Numidian's nephew is a brothers son (28.35.8) at one point and a sister's son (27.19.9) at another; this may stem from different sources³⁶⁰–or from an oversight of Livy's. Although Plutarch reports a detailed tradition (possibly partly legendary) from his own hometown, many pieces of the story fail to cohere because much is missing (why did the Romans not hunt Damon in Cimon 1.5–6 [though they do appear in 2.1–2]?). Pseudo-Callisthenes seems to accept conflicting versions of Alexander's paternity (Alex. 1.1–14, 30, 35); Parmenion also remains general after being removed from that office for conspiracy (Alex. 2.9, 17). In other cases inconsistencies may stem from writers» faulty interpretations, as ancient historians recognized (Polybius 3.8.1–11; 3.9.1–5). Orators expected and exploited inconsistencies in their opponents» accounts (e.g., Rhet. Alex. 5.1427b. 12–30; 9.1430a. 14–21; 10.1430a.26–27).

Some tensions are contradictions; others remain simply tensions, and both tensions and contradictions can represent either inadequately harmonized sources or simply an overarching structure to the narrative inadequate for harmonizing all its details.³⁶¹ No finite narrative, even if it reflects many aspects of history, can be complete; it may omit some details that would make fuller sense of others. But this incompleteness does not mean (pace radical deconstructionists) that the narrative is inadequate for the basic purpose for which it is written (whether history, fiction, or some other purpose).

The thesis of Johannine dependence on the Synoptics has been argued often and thoroughly.³⁶² It has been argued that John used Matthew; both Johannine and Matthean tradition probably originated and developed in Syria-Palestine.³⁶³ Scholars more often affirm that John used Luke,³⁶⁴ though common sources might explain the relationship better,³⁶⁵ and one writer even suggests conversely that Lukes research (Lk 1:3) may have included interviewing the beloved disciple.³⁶⁶ More commonly scholars deny John's direct dependence on Luke, appealing instead to minor coincidences and dependence on similar traditions.³⁶⁷ Most often scholars who think John used another Gospel suggest that he used Mark.³⁶⁸ Some also argue that John believed his tradition superior to that of the Synoptics and critiqued them accordingly.³⁶⁹

But many parallels indicate only John s use of pre-Synoptic tradition (which could also have been drawn upon at times by Matthew or Luke independently of Mark or Q).³⁷⁰ At other points he could depend on Matthean or Lukan redaction that was incorporated into subsequent preaching tradition,³⁷¹ or could have gleaned such tradition from a cursory reading of the Gospels in question without a greater degree of dependence.³⁷² But arguments for even marginal dependence rather than common tradition must be made with caution; a high degree of the minor parallels can be accounted for by coincidence and the simple limitations of vocabulary imposed by the common language in which they wrote.³⁷³ Variations among the Gospels on the story of the anointing could have arisen during oral transmission; the writers could have independently drawn elements from different forms of the story³⁷⁴ or two stories, conflating these elements in the process.

Not only John's Passion Narrative³⁷⁵ or the aretalogical signs source often held to stand behind his miracle stories,³⁷⁶ but his entire Gospel has been viewed as independent from the Synoptics.³⁷⁷ This became, in fact, the prevailing view in recent years, although new developments have evaporated what seemed to be a «consensus.»³⁷⁸ Although some argue that John used the Synoptics,³⁷⁹ probably a greater number of scholars still hold that he simply used independent traditions that have contacts with the Synoptics.³⁸⁰

Suggesting that the Fourth Gospel is not directly dependent on the Synoptics need not imply that John did not know of the existence of the Synoptics; even if (as is unlikely) Johannine Christianity were as isolated from other circles of Christianity as some have proposed, other gospels must have been known if travelers afforded any contact at all among Christian communities.³⁸¹ That travelers did so may be regarded as virtually certain.³⁸² Urban Christians traveled (1Cor 16:10,12,17; Phil 2:30; 4:18), carried letters (Rom 16:1–2; Phil 2:25),³⁸³ relocated to other places (Rom 16:3,5; perhaps 16:6–15), and sent greetings to other churches (Rom 16:21–23; 1Cor 16:19; Phil 4:22; Col 4:10–15). In the first century many churches knew what was happening with churches in other cities (Rom 1:8; 1Cor 11:16; 14:33; 1 Thess 1:7–9), and even shared letters (Col 4:16). Missionaries could speak of some churches to others (Rom 15:26; 2Cor 8:1–5; 9:2–4; Phil 4:16; 1 Thess 2:14–16; cf. 3 John 5–12) and send personal news by other workers (Eph 6:21–22; Col 4:7–9). Although we need not suppose connections among churches as pervasive as Ignatiuse letters suggest perhaps two decades later, neither need we imagine that such connections emerged ex nihilo in the altogether brief silence between Johns Gospel and the «postapostolic» period. No one familiar with the urban society of the eastern empire will be impressed with the isolation Gospel scholars often attribute to the Gospel «communities.»

John could have known one, two, or more other published gospels and yet have chosen not to follow their model or employ them as sources in writing his own.³⁸⁴ (Xenophon, for example, knows of an earlier work recounting the retreat of Greek mercenaries from Persia, mentioned in Hel1. 3.1.2, but later composes his own eyewitness account.) If, as is likely, Mark circulated widely (and hence could provide a primary framework for both Matthew and Luke), John might even safely assume his readers» knowledge of it.³⁸⁵ Certainly a few decades earlier the tradition was widely known; given its circulation in Jerusalem and Antioch, «it is historically quite unlikely that Paul would have no knowledge of the Jesus-tradition» that circulated in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Damascus, locations he had frequented.³⁸⁶ By John's day, such tradition would be even more pervasive. In other words, independence need not mean anything so dramatic as that Mark and John «developed the gospel form independently.»³⁸⁷ John's very divergence from the Synoptics probably led to its relatively slower reception in the broader church until it could be explained in relation to them.³⁸⁸

Whether John draws directly on the Synoptics or (more likely) on independent tradition confirmed occasionally in the Synoptics, we see that the Synoptics sometimes confirm the pre-Johannine character of the events in some stylistically Johannine narratives. In addition to such occasional confirmations, some scholars note points of ««interlocking»… where either the Johannine or the Synoptic tradition contains puzzling material that is explained only by information from the other tradition.»³⁸⁹ Nor in the case of differences need we always prefer the Synoptics» «majority opinion,» which may at times reflect a single stream of early tradition that coexisted with others whose emphasis differed (such as Mark and Q). D. Moody Smith has argued that at many points of divergence from the Synoptics (for example, some details of the arrest and trial) John actually provides accounts that cohere better with known historical conditions and are not generated by John's theology.³⁹⁰ In working through the Gospel, my own conclusion is that John tells these stories freely without direct dependence on the Synoptics, whether we think that his source or sources are pre- or post-Synoptic. Yet while John goes his own way, he reflects earlier traditions in these cases. Because these narratives are no different in style from his other narratives, there is no reason to assume that John does not reflect earlier traditions elsewhere.

A close examination of the Fourth Gospel reveals that John has rearranged many details, apparently in the service of his symbolic message. This is especially clear in the Passion Narrative, where direct conflicts with the presumably widely known passion tradition (most notably that Jesus gives the sop to Judas, is crucified on Passover, and carries his own cross) fulfill symbolic narrative functions. John s long discourses are of a different genre than the sayings collections in Q or even Mark's long «apocalyptic» discourse. Such features naturally invite us to question the nature of (or, by modern historiographic criteria, the degree of) this Gospel's historicity; certainly he is not writing a work of the exact historiographic nature of Luke-Acts.

Nevertheless, scholars who dismiss too quickly the possibility of substantial historical tradition in John ignore abundant details that would have made fullest sense only in a Palestinian Jewish setting, as well as numerous incidental parallels in the Synoptics. Some questions can be answered only by examining passages one at a time (particularly those which appear to overlap or conflict with Synoptic claims).³⁹¹ For the most part, such a comparison (see commentary) suggests that John adapts fairly freely at points (more than one would expect from a Luke, for example) but within the setting of traditional events or sayings. It is, however, appropriate to frame the discussion with some general issues here (a few of which summarize arguments above).

The Fourth Gospel, no less than the Synoptics, fits the general format of ancient biography, as we have already suggested.³⁹² Its purpose reported in 20was a legitimate purpose in ancient biographies, especially in philosophical bioi?³⁹³ The explicit centrality of Jesus» «works» in the Fourth Gospel (John 5:36; 7:3, 21; 9:4; 10:25, 32, 37–38; 14:10–11; 15:24; 17:4) fits the biographical genre followed by the Synoptics and most other biographical works.³⁹⁴ In its genre, John is certainly closer to the Synoptics than to «sayings sources» like Thomas,³⁹⁵ and it is those most familiar with the four canonical gospels, rather than those approaching these gospels in the context of Greco-Roman literature as a whole, who are inclined to emphasize the differences most strongly.³⁹⁶

It is difficult to deny that much historical tradition about Jesus existed in the first century that was never recorded in the Synoptics. No one in Mediterranean antiquity would assume that a one-volume account sampling an oral cycle would be comprehensive; the countless allusions to other stories in Homer (e.g., to the voyage of the Argonauts in Od. 12.69–72) lent themselves to later development, but clearly refer to fuller stories Homer's works did not record. In the case of the Gospels, the writers themselves assume knowledge of traditions about Jesus not recorded in their Gospels (e.g., Acts 20:35; John 20:30).

It is furthermore inherently likely that early Christian leaders knew one another better and exchanged more information than scholars have often taken into account (as noted above).³⁹⁷ Some scholars have also found indications that some of John's material, such as Johannine parables, seems to have skipped the processes of tradition which stand behind the Synoptics.³⁹⁸ More clearly, R. A. Culpepper has demonstrated that «the reader has prior knowledge of many of the key elements of the gospel story,» including some elements omitted in the Synoptics (11:2).³⁹⁹ John further assumes that most of the geography of the gospel story, like Nazareth and Capernaum, is known to his implied reader, though Judean sites and the topography of Jerusalem are not.⁴⁰⁰

In contrast to scholars like Dibelius, who view the Fourth Gospel as a climax of an early Christian development blending tradition and mythology,⁴⁰¹ some prominent scholars have argued for substantial historical tradition in the Fourth Gospe1.⁴⁰² Albright, for instance, asserts that both John's narratives and sayings material must depend on pre-70 Palestinian tradition, since they presuppose information and language that were lost after that point. John may have adapted his presentation of this material to the needs of his audience, «But there is absolutely nothing to show that any of Jesus» teachings have been distorted or falsified, or that any vital new element has been added to them.»⁴⁰³ Many of John's geographical details have no immediate theological significance to Diaspora readers (e.g., Cana, Tiberias), and would therefore seem to stem from his Palestinian tradition. An Australian scholar offers an analogy on a more popular level; while summarizing points where John reflects accurate knowledge of geographical details,⁴⁰⁴ Barnett focuses on John 10:23, noting that John had no theological reason to indicate that Jesus sought shelter from winter weather in Solomon's portico. Yet «if someone wrote of a person seeking shelter from the sun on Christmas day in the Bennelong restaurant in the Sydney Opera House, it would be reasonable to conclude that he had first-hand knowledge of the Australian climate and of a Sydney landmark in the period after the year 1973 when the Opera House was completed.»⁴⁰⁵ This at least suggests that John or his source of tradition was rooted in pre-70 Jewish Palestine, where reliable traditions of Jesus would have flourished; given the incidental character of the remark, it more likely represents a historical reminiscence than a theological or literary embellishment.

Perhaps even more to the point, the Gospel is full of allusions to Jewish traditions that may have made little sense to much of his post-70 audience but that once would have illumined accounts that he relates.⁴⁰⁶ Tabernacles traditions concerning the use of Siloam (9:7) and rivers of water from the temple (7:37–38) are a case in point (see comments in the commentary).⁴⁰⁷ The frequent elements of Palestinian Jewish tradition in the Gospel (noted regularly throughout the commentary) support the view that what we see as Johannine tradition must have existed alongside what we see as Synoptic tradition in pre-70 Palestine.

C. H. Dodd's general case for historical tradition in the Fourth Gospel is more often cited than these arguments based on geographical details.⁴⁰⁸ Dodd finds traditional material in the connective passages which provide a chronological framework for the Fourth Gospe1.⁴⁰⁹ The chronology of the Fourth Gospel is distinctive, and it may fit some of our other data. Contrary to what one might expect from the Gospel's theology, Jesus» ministry overlaps with the Baptist's (3:23), which probably began in 26 or 27 C.E. (Luke 3:1). This also fits the date suggested by John 2(forty-six years). Presumably, John's readers would not have counted those years even if they could have, but this chronological marker points to about 27 for the beginning of Jesus» public ministry, whereas Jesus was probably crucified about 30–roughly three years later (see commentary ad loc. on these points). If Jesus was «about thirty» when he began public ministry (Luke 3:23), this may also suggest a public ministry that began in the late twenties rather than shortly before his crucifixion, as one might surmise only from the Synoptics.⁴¹⁰ Indeed, by the time of Irenaeus, the non-Johannine view of a year's public ministry for Jesus had become no longer acceptable– Irenaeus assumes that his readers know better than the gnostics in this regard.⁴¹¹ These arguments are not foolproof. Irenaeus could depend on John here as easily as on a parallel but independent tradition,⁴¹² and one could argue that John's structure around three Passovers is theologically motivated, to bring the shadow of the cross (and the temple cleansing) to the beginning of his ministry (2:13–14) and perhaps even to create a theological paschal context for the multiplication of the loaves.⁴¹³ Thus in the final analysis this argument of Dodd's may not prove adequately compelling.

Although Dodd's monumental work demonstrates the possibility of historical traditions in the Fourth Gospel, D. A. Carson is correct that much of the historical information cannot be verified either way.⁴¹⁴ As Aune notes, «the claim for historicity is generally limited to narrative sequence and topography; the task of finding genuine Jesuanic traditions in the discourse material is an arduous one, and one for which the appropriate methodological tools are currently non-existent.»⁴¹⁵

At the same time, the usual skepticism toward the contents of the Fourth Gospel, which has sometimes proved almost thoroughgoing, seems to be more influenced by scholars» presuppositions than by any demand of historical-critical methodology itself.⁴¹⁶ Granted, John adapts the gospel form (see comment below), apparently employing a considerably more creative style than Mark or Luke (though it still falls within the acceptable range of ancient biography). But Johns adaptation of the Jesus tradition for his community hardly means wholesale fabrication in which Jesus merely symbolizes the community; thus, for example, Jesus is never expelled from the synagogue in this Gospe1.⁴¹⁷

Points where John overlaps with the Synoptics yet remains independent of them (e.g., 6:1–21; possibly 4:46–54) demonstrate that John freely cast all his material in Johannine idiom,⁴¹⁸ yet included material that is no farther removed from the source of tradition than the material in the Synoptics is.⁴¹⁹ Jesus» sayings in the Fourth Gospel likewise match much of the sayings material in the Synoptics (e.g., 12:25,48; 13:16).⁴²⁰ The yield would be much higher if we included not only specific parallels but also the kinds of materials revealing coherency with such content (as is sometimes pursued in Synoptic studies).⁴²¹ After an extensive study of common material, Leon Morris concludes that John, though without direct literary dependence on the Synoptics, knows the traditions they used: «My conclusion is that John is independent of the Synoptics, but that he is in essential agreement with them.»⁴²²

My own conclusions are similar to Morris's (with the special exception of the Passion Narratives). Although my predisposition is more favorable toward the material than that of many scholars to begin with, most of my early work in John involved John's theology and literary unity, whereas historical tradition in the Gospel seemed to me an untestable matter that was largely irrelevant to the Gospel's meaning in any case. Despite the interest of my doctoral mentor, D. Moody Smith, in the question of John and the Synoptics, I had not pursued that question in any detail until examining some parallel pericopes in the early stages of preparing this commentary, an examination undertaken merely in an effort to be somewhat thorough. What surprised me was that, where John could be tested against the Synoptics, he recounted earlier traditions in the same basic idiom in which he covered ground otherwise unfamiliar to us. While current historical methods cannot locate John precisely on the continuum of historical reliability, they can demonstrate that, where we can test him, John is both historian and theologian. The focal point of our study must be his theology, but he presupposes the Jewish salvation-historical perspective in which God reveals his character (hence true theology) by his acts in history.

Indeed, John's Palestinian cast and his topographical accuracy–verifiable after 70 only by excavations in the twentieth century–lend a greater degree of credibility to John's witness in certain regards.⁴²³ He updates some language (such as «Pharisees»; see comment on 1:19,24) but also preserves early traditions (see comment on 7:37–39). Like other ancient writers, John could select and shape events without fabricating them;⁴²⁴ as in the Jewish exodus tradition upon which he depends, the theological value of the «signs» he reports depend on their historical validity, and his «witness» is valueless if taken any other way (19:35, 20:26–31).

Raymond Brown summarizes a challenge to the old consensus:

It is well known that the categorical rejection of the historicity of John, so familiar in earlier critical exegesis, can no longer be maintained. We may still find writers stating that the Fourth Gospel cannot be seriously considered as a witness to the historical Jesus, but these represent a type of uncritical traditionalism which arises with age, even in heterodoxy.⁴²⁵

Charlesworth suggests that today nearly all John scholars «have concluded that John may contain some of the oldest traditions in … the Gospels.»⁴²⁶

Given that John is closer to the Synoptics than to other writings, and that both fall within the spectrum of the ancient biographical genre, one must still seek to account for the differences.⁴²⁷ Johns narrative progressively nuances the character of the genre, adapting expectations with which readers more accustomed to such gospels as the Synoptics would have approached his work. That John's biography of Jesus differs from those of the Synoptic writers is evident; what accounts for these differences?⁴²⁸

Certainly John's style, first of all, is distinctive.⁴²⁹ The distinctiveness is most evident in the discourses (John's most distinctive literary feature vis-à-vis the Synoptics, discussed in our following chapter) but hardly limited to them. Because this commentary's focus is the Fourth Gospel's Mediterranean context, we may focus our remarks about John's style here on the elements that lend themselves most readily to comparison with other ancient style (though, for further discussion, see ch. 2 of the introduction on discourses, and comments on individual passages).

A standard Greek grammar rightly observes that in the technical sense John's discourses lack «rhetorical art.»⁴³⁰ John's style is uniform whether in narrative or discourse,⁴³¹ whereas rhetorically trained writers preferred to adapt speeches even to their specific audiences. Lack of indication of technical rhetorical training does not, however, imply a lack of some rhetorical strategies familiar from the milieu.⁴³² At various points in the commentary, we observe parallels from ancient rhetorical conventions, not because John or his aides would have consciously drawn on rhetorical training but because they are the closest available sources we have for studying speeches disseminated in an ancient Mediterranean context. Many of these parallels apply to the rhythmic patterns in Jesus» speech; such features may, however, simply represent standard techniques of oral patterning for an oral culture, an area that invites much more detailed exploration.⁴³³

Rhetoricians normally emphasized the importance of clarity.⁴³⁴ John's language is often obscure, which, though generally a rhetorical fault (and probably viewed by some as such if they encountered this Gospel), could be praised when it was deliberate.⁴³⁵ It could lend an exotic character to speech, sometimes in cultic or theological settings.⁴³⁶ Some thus connect John's enigmatic style with his high Christology, comparing the grand style of rhetoric.⁴³⁷ The grand (μέγεθος) style was used where the subject matter was great (Menander Rhetor 2.1–2, 368.9), as in hymns to the gods (Menander Rhetor 1.1, 335.21–22).⁴³⁸ As Maximus of Tyre complains, the subject of the divine merits more splendid diction than mortals can provide (Or. 11.1).⁴³⁹ Various ancient writers found the eloquence of sublimity appropriate for lofty thoughts.⁴⁴⁰ Some critics thus conclude that John developed various features of obscurity «to write in a way appropriate to the mysterious and profound nature of his subject.»⁴⁴¹

One obvious feature of Johannine style is repetition on a number of levels.⁴⁴² Although rhetoric did not recommend «a limited repetitive vocabulary,» in John's case it does offer «rhetorical emphasis and amplification to the central themes»⁴⁴³ (see our chapter surveying some of the key terms in Johannine theology). Narrative repetition, characteristic of oral narratives,⁴⁴⁴ is also a paramount feature of this Gospel (see e.g., the standard comparison of the healings in chs. 5 and 9). Repetition to drive home a central point certainly was emphasized in ancient, no less than modern, persuasion.⁴⁴⁵ Interestingly, emphatic repetition could figure into the grand style,⁴⁴⁶ and some have suggested a connection with writing about religious themes.⁴⁴⁷

One should note, however, that the grand style contained amplification and ornament,⁴⁴⁸ in contrast to Johns typically simple style. Simplicity often was a rhetorical virtue, at least in many circles.⁴⁴⁹ Certainly, traditional rhetorical theory generally preferred plain, as opposed to flowery, style for narratives.⁴⁵⁰

Although his theological complexity is undoubtedly deliberate, however, some obscure features of his grammar prove more surprising. He often includes δέ where we would expect καί and vice-versa, supplies neither where we would expect a conjunction (see comment on 1:17);⁴⁵¹ and includes ούν in unexpected locations. This pattern, along with often oscillating verb tenses, may reflect a loose storytelling style due to repeated retelling of the Johannine tradition. Otherwise it could resemble a deliberately abrasive κακοφωνία, unexpected syntax meant to hold attention in the forceful style of some rhetoric.⁴⁵²

Johns distinctiveness is most evident to the majority of readers, however, at the theological leve1. Commentators regularly cite the verdict of Clement of Alexandria, preserved in Eusebius, that John differs from the Synoptics as a more «spiritual» gospel, that is, a more theologically interpretive one.⁴⁵³ While this verdict is probably correct, we should note that not all early Christian writers would have concurred to the same degree. Origen regarded John's portrait of Jesus as sometimes only symbolic (although he also allegorized the Synoptics to a lesser degree); but other early Christian commentators did not agree.⁴⁵⁴ Origen noted disagreements between John and the Synoptics but often resolved them by arguing that John made spiritual points by these divergences;⁴⁵⁵ Theodore of Mopsuestia sometimes harmonized but sometimes treated the divergences as a sign that John was an eyewitness more accurate than the Synoptics;⁴⁵⁶ Cyril focused on John's theology, claiming that John addressed the deeper spiritual significance of events, but also harmonized at times.⁴⁵⁷ Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Augustine worked especially hard to harmonize John and the Synoptics;⁴⁵⁸ the emphasis on harmonization is hardly surprising given the apologetic needs of early Christians.

With his philosophic penchant for allegory, Origen clearly overstated the case, but in some sense John did engage in more theological exposition than the other gospels;⁴⁵⁹ his great number of asides testify to considerable explanation, though much of it is historica1. Certainly John's Christology invites more than historical treatment: a Gospel that speaks of «eating» and «drinking» Jesus the way other works described consuming divine Wisdom may invite mystical contemplation of the divine such as appeared in both Platonist and merkabah mysticism.⁴⁶⁰ Citing examples such as the anointing story (12:1–8), which shows that John followed his sources but employed them creatively,⁴⁶¹ Lindars compares this Gospel with a historical play of Shakespeare that conveys real issues and character yet exhibits freedom in details.⁴⁶² Conservative scholar Bruce puts it similarly, comparing Shakespeares interpretive paraphrase of Mark Antony's eulogy with a source like Caesar in Plutarch's Life of Brutus:

What Shakespeare does by dramatic insight (and, it may be added, what many a preacher does by homiletical skill), all this and much more the Spirit of God accomplished in our Evangelist. It does not take divine inspiration to produce a verbatim transcript; but to reproduce the words which were spirit and life to their first believing hearers in such a way that they continue to communicate their saving message and prove themselves to be spirit and life … that is the work of the Spirit of God.⁴⁶³

Bruce believes that John's tradition was not simply "preserved by John and his disciples… it flourished as a living and growing tradition, but remained faithful to its historical basis.»⁴⁶⁴ We suspect that John displays more historical substance and interest than Shakespeare, but the analogy of Lindars and Bruce points us in a fruitful direction. John is more «impressionistic» and less «photographic» than the Synoptics, yet clearly works from historical tradition.⁴⁶⁵ All our extant Gospels are interpretive, but John, like the others, «only gave an interpretation where there was something to be interpreted.»⁴⁶⁶

Seeking more ancient analogies than Shakespeare, one could compare John's «spiritual» Gospel's interpretation of Jesus (as some early Christians saw it) with Platós reading of Socrates: a more meditative interpretation of his teacher than Xenophon's or the Synoptics» interpretations of their teachers.⁴⁶⁷ The analogy is helpful but imperfect; evidence for historical tradition in John probably exceeds that for Platós dialogues. A stronger analogy may be two different kinds of wisdom language; Matthew records especially the sort of wisdom a sage would give in public, John the more esoteric wisdom tradition, both in keeping with Jesus the sage.⁴⁶⁸ Yet another analogy may lie still closer at hand for a Jewish audience. If John was aware of other narrative gospels circulating (and it would be difficult to believe that he was not, even if, as we think, he did not have those scrolls open in front of him), his adaptation of the form could well rest on a precedent he found in his Bible.

Thus perhaps more significantly as an analogy, John's Greek-speaking Jewish contemporaries knew Deuteronomy as a sort of «second law,» a more cohesive epitome or revisitation of the law from a different angle.⁴⁶⁹ Johns many speeches may resemble the lengthy deliberative speeches of Moses in Deuteronomy. This is not to suggest that John has structured his Gospel like Deuteronomy, with its blessings or curses. Nor does this Gospel directly resemble the many rewritings of Pentateuchal material from this period.⁴⁷⁰ But the book is full of Deuteronomic and Mosaic allusions (such as Moses» signs) and comparisons favoring Jesus over Moses.⁴⁷¹ The prologue presents Jesus as Torah, greater than Moses; assertions of his deity frame the prologue (1:1, 18) and the gospel minus its epilogue (1:1; 20:28). Other texts also present Jesus as greater than Moses (5:45–46; 6:32; 9:28–29; 15:13–15). Jesus» final discourse in the Gospel would fulfill the same function as that of Moses in Deuteronomy, planting the narrative into the life of the future community, followed by the narrative of his death.⁴⁷² Moses was the greatest prophet because he knew God «face to face» (Deut 34:10); Jesus himself is God's face (John 1:18).

The Fourth Gospel is closer in form and substance to the Synoptic Gospels than to the apocryphal and gnostic gospels, but its divergence from dependence on Synoptic tradition makes most of its contents impossible to verify (or falsify) on purely historical grounds. That John falls into the general category of biography, however, at least shifts the burden of proof on the matter of reported events (albeit not the particular ways of describing them) onto those who deny John's use of tradition for the events he describes, although the historical method cannot check the accuracy of most of his individual details. The different portrait of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel suggests that John has taken more sermonic liberties in his portrayal of Jesus, but this does not demonstrate that he lacks historical tradition on which the portrayal is based.⁴⁷³ Comparisons with the Synoptics suggest that John both uses historical tradition and tells it in a distinctive way; but this pattern is more obvious for the narratives than for the more interpretive discourses, on which see the next chapter.

This impasse in deciding between John as a substantially reliable historical source (reporting events and Jesus» teachings in his own way) and John as a free adapter of relatively few traditions could be challenged more effectively if we could determine the nature of his sources. Although knowing his sources would not determine the degree of adaptation, dependence on a genuinely historically reliable source would improve our ability to trust the Fourth Gospel's historical witness to Jesus, a trust much of the Johannine community regarded as very important (1 John 4:1–6).

Given the common traditions early Christians shared, the frequency of travel in the Roman world, and the widespread circulation of at least Mark by this period, it is not unlikely that John knew some forms of the Synoptic tradition. Even where he overlaps with this tradition, however, he goes his own way, telling the story independently and probably from memory. But if the author of the Fourth Gospel, its tradition or its nucleus were himself an eyewitness–a view much disputed in recent years but consonant with the claims of the Gospel itself (1:14, 19:35; cf. 1 John 1:1)–independence from the Synoptic tradition would not call into question its essential reliability; indeed, it could (in the documentary sense) make the Fourth Gospel a step closer to the historical Jesus than the Synoptics are. If the Fourth Gospel was not dictated by but nevertheless depends on an eyewitness, its basic claims concerning events remain at least on historical par with the Synoptics. Only if no eyewitness tradition stands behind it on any level, and it was freely composed novelistically or with the most liberal haggadic adaptation (all scholars acknowledge some adaptation and conformity with Johannine idiom), does the Gospel fail to provide substantial historical data about Jesus. The question of authorship is therefore important for determining where this Gospel fits within the continuum of ancient biographies» treatment of history. Before we turn to that question, however, we must examine a specific form-critical matter in this Gospel that is distinctive to it vis-à-vis the Synoptics: its speech materia1.