Category Archives: Gospels

The Gospels as catachetical documents

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It would seem that the four Gospels are ‘carefully crafted and culturally contextualized catechetical documents.’

Matthew seems to be explicitly catechetical, in that he arranges his material according to subject matter rather than chronological sequence.  The result is a handbook on the words and deeds of the Church’s founder.

Mark is often found, in our own day, to provide an excellent basis for catechetical courses such as Christianity Explored.

Luke (along with Acts) was written, in the first place, to provide initial or follow-up catechesis for Theophilus.…

Mt 3:17/Mk 1:11/Lk 3:22 – What did the voice say?

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The three Synoptic Gospels each record the voice from heaven using different wording.

Ehrman summarises the differences:

Mt 3:17 – “This is my one dear Son; in him I take great delight.”  The voice seems to be addressing the people around Jesus, or possibly John the Baptist.

Mk 1:11 – “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.”  Here the voice addresses Jesus directly.

Lk 3:22 – “You are my one dear Son; in you I take great delight.” …

Compositional devices in ancient biographies

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How do we account for difference between the Gospels?

Michael Licona, in his book, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (2017) argued that the Evangelists would have been acquainted with, and would have utilised, compositional devises that were ‘practically universal in ancient historiography’.

These include:

  • transferal (attributing words spoken by one person to another),
  • displacement (placing something spoken in one context to another),
  • conflation (combining elements of two different events or people as one),
  • compression (describing events as taking place in a shorter period of time than actual),
  • spotlighting (focusing attention upon a particular person),
  • simplification (omitting details in order to focus attention),
  • expansion of narrative details (the creative reconstruction and free composition of plausible circumstances),
  • paraphrasing (creative retelling of an event to emphasize a point),
  • the law of biographical relevance (the addition or omission of biographical information according to the purpose of the author)

Robert Stein (from whose review the above list has been taken), comments that a number of these are not only uncontroversial, but by no means limited to ancient Greco-Roman historiography (we find just such spotlighting in the Old Testament stories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon and others. …

Mt 12:30/Mk 9:40/Lk 11:23 – For, or against?

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Matthew 12:30 – “Whoever is not with me is against me.” (Also Luke 11:23)

Mark 9:40 – “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Bart Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted) asks:

‘Did [Jesus] say both things? Could he mean both things? How can both be true at once? Or is it possible that one of the Gospel writers got things switched around?’

Ehrman has failed to notice that these are not two versions of the same saying, but rather two distinct sayings uttered in different circumstances and for different purposes. …

Luke 2:39 – No room for a flight into Egypt?

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Luke 2:39 So when Joseph and Mary had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

This statement is held to be at variance with that of Matthew, which implies that they resided in Bethlehem for some months after the birth of Jesus (i.e. until the visit of the Magi) and states (Mt 2:14) that they then took Jesus to Egypt.

Gundry (Commentary on Matthew) argues partly on linguistic grounds:

‘Luke says that the Holy Family went back to Nazareth when they finished the ceremonies in the Temple (Luke 2:39), i.e.,
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Did the Gospels become increasingly anti-Semitic?

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Bart Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted, p44) argues that the gospels become progressively anti-Jewish and pro-Roman from Mark through to John.  This, of course, assumes, with mainstream scholarship, that Mark was the first, and John the last, of the Gospels to be written.

Ehrman writes,

‘It is significant that in John’s Gospel, on three occasions Pilate expressly declares that Jesus is innocent, does not deserve to be punished, and ought to be released (Jn 18:38; 19:6; and by implication in Jn 19:12).

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Mark 6:45 – ‘To Bethsaida’

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Mark 6:45f ‘Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dispersed the crowd. After saying good-bye to them, he went to the mountain to pray.’

Lk 9:10 appears to place the miracle at or near Bethsaida.  Matthew, whose account many judge to be based on that of Mark, omits the references to Bethsaida.  Was he, perhaps, correcting what he saw to be a minor problem in Mark’s account?  …

Where’s Joseph?

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It is well known that Joseph, the husband of Mary, features in the accounts of Jesus’ birth and childhood (in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke), but does not appear again in any of the New Testament documents.

There is no way of knowing exactly what happened to Joseph, although it is reasonable to suppose that he died some time after Jesus’ 12th birthday (Lk 2).  But it is interesting to note that the New Testament accounts attest to his ‘disappearance’ in highly consistent, yet uncontrived ways.…

The reliability of recollective memory

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What factors tend to increase the reliability of recollective memory, and how do these relate to the historical reliability of the Gospels?

Richard Bauckham identifies the following:

  1. Unique or unusual events. The gospel stories clearly fit this category, as many of the events, such as healings and exorcisms, are unmistakably unusual.
  2. Salient or consequential events. Gospel stories often involve landmark or life changing events that would create vivid memories in people who witnessed them.
  3. An event for which a person is emotionally involved.
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Intentional ‘contradictions’ in John’s writings

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In Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them), Bart D. Ehrman writes about one of his ‘favourite apparent discrepancies’ in John’s Gospel:-

It ‘comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?”
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