It seems to me there are three broad possibile answers to the titular question:
A) the authors of the gospels believed the historical claims they recorded, and intended their audiences to accept those claims as history.
This fits with what Luke says at the beginning of his gospel.
The problem with this is that, at least Matthew and Luke seem to be pretty free with reworking their sources, which doesn’t make a lot of sense if they are trying to record a faithful history.
I think we could still make sense of this scenario if we suppose they had a lot of sources they were trying to harmonize, not just mark and q: a passion narrative, a few sayings sources, a bunch of scattered stories–some written and some oral. And given their belief that Jesus had been prophesied in the scriptures, they may also have taken biographical details from those prophecies, treating them as historical sources–“the psalms say they cast lots for his clothes, so they must have cast lots for his clothes”.
They were trying to fit these pieces all together into a coherent narrative as best they could, but fitting them together required a lot of guesswork and creativity. Basically, they were the first harmonizers. Or perhaps better, they were the first historical critics–trying to piece together the historical Jesus from a bunch of conflicting sources. They proceeded in their task with a freedom that would horrify a modern historian–but they did think they were doing history and they intended to be read that way.
B) they didn’t believe the historical claims they were making, but they did intend their readers to accept those claims as history. Basically they were lying–possibly to advance a theological agenda.
It is tempting to see this in places like Matthew having Jesus riding two donkeys into Jerusalem to fulfill a prophecy. Did Matthew actually think that happened, or did he make it up so he could prove that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied?
C) they didn’t believe their historical claims, and they didn’t expect their audience to take them historically. They were doing something like writing historical fiction, like Homer in the Illiad. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Does it actually matter? it’s a good story, just enjoy it.
This option doesn’t seem to fit well with the end of John’s Gospel (jn 20:31 jn 21:24), or with the beginning of Luke (unless that was just a literary device).
I know there are all sorts of problems with determining authorial intent, but it’s also sort of key to figuring out how to read a work, and what genre it should be placed in.
I’m wondering whether A wouldn’t make a lot of sense. It could explain, for example, the minor agreements really elegantly if it wasn’t mark that Mt and lk were copying, but mark’s own source.
Well, it depends who you ask. If you ask for the opinion of biblical scholars, you will get a different answer each time. Gerd Ludeamnn will indicate 5% of the historical material in the Gospels, and the 50 biblical scholars gathered at Jesus Seminar will indicate 18%. I will add that these 5% and these 18% have practically no common parts.
If you ask , this is the next stage in the development of the figure of Jesus. Paul saw in him a man born of a woman with an unknown biography. For 20 years people have been asking Paul about eating meat and if there is a place for women in the kitchen, but they did not ask about the earthly Jesus. He didn’t interest them. Paul did not have to explain that he did not know or that he did not accept the stories he had heard about Nazareth, Bethlehem, Pilate, John the Baptist and Mary.
This lack of stories about the earthly Jesus inPaul’s letters was eagerly used by subsequent ghost writers and wrote fictional biographies for Jesus. They did it in stages, sometimes rewriting whole pericopes from each other and sometimes creating stories for themselves, such as Nativity Story. One has 800 words, the other has 2,000 words. Together, they share less than 20 words.
A big part of the problem is that there are few if any independent sources to prove or disprove much of what the Bible states, both OT and NT. We certainly cannot verify the miracle stories, but we can really only dismiss them entirely if we inherently dismiss the idea of miracles (or at least of Jesus being able to perform them). The virgin birth story has problems, as has been pointed out, but we really cannot prove that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem. The claims about the census seem absurd, but that is not really proof, nor is the absence of evidence in favor of the claim. It seems highly unlikely, but can we really prove it? We can argue that the gospels were not written by the people whose names are assigned to them, but the books themselves really make no such claim anyway. Is that proof that they are not historical? I can assure you that every biography written about Edgar Allan Poe has outright errors, and many points of contention. Are they historical records? Are they invalidated by such concerns? If we have that much trouble with someone who lived only a few centuries ago, and was quite famous during his lifetime, how much worse do we expect the record to be for someone who lived nearly 2000 years ago, and was an impoverished wandering preacher? It is likely that there is some historically accurate information in the NT accounts, and some that is not accurate. Determining which is which is a problem that no one is likely to really solve in any convincing sense any time soon.
It is a more interesting question, but probably equally difficult in terms of answering, as to whether the books were written as histories. It seems probable that they are at least partially intended as histories, since they are a durable record of people and events, presumably with the intention of relating information beyond relying merely on a persistent oral tradition. How can that not be at least somewhat an intention of being historical? Are they necessarily meant as detailed and reliable in terms of every fact, like a civil war history? That may be too modern as a concept. Again, people are trying to assign the thought processes of the writers of the books of the NT, when all we really have to go on, for the most part, is the books themselves.
What is the question that is really being asked? The original post offers 3 possible answers, but it would be quite reasonable that it would be a mixture of A and C. B is also possible, in part or in whole, but it would require some evidence of knowledge of the inaccuracy, and the inaccuracy would need to be substantial. We no longer respect the tradition of myths, although we still often find it convenient to call upon them as cultural references. There can be valuable lessons conveyed by some myths, as long as those lessons are not dependent on the specifics of the story that comes with them.
JAS said
What is the question that is really being asked? The original post offers 3 possible answers, but it would be quite reasonable that it would be a mixture of A and C. B is also possible, in part or in whole, but it would require some evidence of knowledge of the inaccuracy, and the inaccuracy would need to be substantial. We no longer respect the tradition of myths, although we still often find it convenient to call upon them as cultural references. There can be valuable lessons conveyed by some myths, as long as those lessons are not dependent on the specifics of the story that comes with them.
A and C make an exceptionally awkward marriage. In A the author expects his audience to take what he writes as historically true and in C he doesn’t.
To mix them then, the author would need to think the readers would have a way of distinguishing the historical bits from the unhistorical bits. Without some clear delineation between history and fiction/myth the whole thing becomes tainted, as it were, by the unhistorical bits. Think of a movie that is “based on a true story”. You know some parts have been made up, but you don’t know which parts are which or how much of it is made up, so you won’t accept any of it as history (until you read the Wikipedia article and find out which parts were historical and which were added by Hollywood), and the author doesn’t expect you to take it as history. He knows that you know that he sprinkled in some stuff he made up to make it a better story.
The closest thing I can think to really mixing A and C is this Egyptian history of the pharaohs I vaguely remember reading about: the earliest stories it records are obviously mythological, but at a certain point fairly early on, it transitions into reliable history. It poses a similar problem. Did the guy who wrote that actually believe the earliest records he included? Did he think everyone would know where the mythology stopped and the history started?
JAS said
A and C mix in parts. I do not think either answer can necessarily be applied exclusively to the whole.
So how does one determine which parts of the gospels the authors expected to be believed as historically true and which parts the authors intended the reader not to accept as historically true?
Porphyry said
JAS said
A and C mix in parts. I do not think either answer can necessarily be applied exclusively to the whole.
So how does one determine which parts of the gospels the authors expected to be believed as historically true and which parts the authors intended the reader not to accept as historically true?
As noted, that is a large part of the problem. Was there a suggestion that it was, or should be, easy?
JAS said
Porphyry said
JAS said
A and C mix in parts. I do not think either answer can necessarily be applied exclusively to the whole.
So how does one determine which parts of the gospels the authors expected to be believed as historically true and which parts the authors intended the reader not to accept as historically true?
As noted, that is a large part of the problem. Was there a suggestion that it was, or should be, easy?
If the author didn’t make it fairly easy for his audience to distinguish the parts he meant to be taken as historically true from the parts he did not intend them to take as historically true, he would be a miserable communicator.
Imagine that I wrote a biography of George Washington. I intended large chunks of it to be read and accepted as history, and I take great care to get those historical sections right.
But I also include some material about Washington being a sorcerer who called up dragons a few times to fry the redcoats.
Presumably the part about dragons would tip the reader off that those sections were not historically true.
But unless I clearly distinguished those parts from the parts I mean to be read as historical true, no one will take anything from the work as historically true.
My point isn’t that an author can’t mingle fact and fiction; that happens all the time. My point is that it is hard and unusual to mix passages indiscriminately that the author expects to be read and believed as historical fact with passages he intends to be read as unhistorical myth.
I’d add, though, I do think storytellers sometimes intentionally blur the line. If you are telling a story for its entertainment value and for its moral, your story will be more compelling if people think it really happened.
In storytelling it is a short step from doing C really well to B, from helping your audience willingly suspend disbelief to simply deceiving them.
That’s why “telling tales” is a euphemism for lying.
I think we can safely say that the books were not written with a modern sense of being strictly history. This, of course, is a problem with language and communication in general. Meaning, perspective and all sorts of things necessary for successful communication change over time (and across cultures). Translation both helps and alters the process. The authors were apparently writing down what they thought were the ideas that were important, and we were probably not really the audience they had in mind. It is probably not fair to judge them based on what we would like to know now. And in another sense, would that really help? If they had provided a day by day account of Jesus’ life, it would give us much to read and evaluate, but it would not answer the big questions, and it would probably not serve as theological proof. The complicated history of the books, not to mention the controversies over their contents, should at least make one question the notion of divine inspiration intended for all time.
I think it matters insofar as it fundamentally changes how the gospels should be approached.
If they are writing a Christian myth (C)–we can take it for what it is, a gripping story with some deep moral themes. Any attempting get to an historical Jesus through them would have to be very very careful and unlikely to recover very much, because they were not trying to be historically faithful. Sort of like reading the Aeneid. Whatever historical fact might be in there probably isn’t much and probably won’t be easily sifted out of the fiction.
If they are presenting themselves as history, but the authors were willing to change the facts freely to advance their own agenda (B)–there is probably a lot of good history mixed in, though we need to proceed with caution in getting that history out; and lots of discrepancies can be easily resolved by just saying that one author made something up to advance his agenda (e.g., the infancy narratives can just be written off as fabrications invented to advance a theology.)
If they really believed what the historical claims they made (A)–there is probably a fair amount of the historical Jesus in the gospels, and we have to be very inventive in resolving the discrepancies–often those discrepancies would need to be explained in terms of genuine misunderstandings or bad information from prior sources. If you think they were being honest in portraying the history and they intended the history to be taken as history, a lot of easy solutions to discrepancies get ruled out. So you can’t just say Matthew invented his infancy narrative from whole cloth; a complete explanation of it would need to show how he could have been confused or mislead. Also, the whole synoptic problem gets more complicated, because a person trying to record accurate history doesn’t just copy his sources word for word, while also freely reworking the facts they record when he sees fit to conform to this own theological themes.
I am not suggesting that how the books are interpreted does not have significance; I am saying that extracting certainty from the books is not really possible, except perhaps in very small matters. If it were possible, there would not be so much debate as their meaning and relevance.
JAS said
I am not suggesting that how the books are interpreted does not have significance; I am saying that extracting certainty from the books is not really possible, except perhaps in very small matters. If it were possible, there would not be so much debate as their meaning and relevance.
I won’t argue with that.
I suppose my point is just what we think the authors thought they were doing will have big implications on all aspects of how we read their work, and it seems like we should face those implications up front.
I started thinking about this issue while thinking about the synoptic problem. What the heck did Matthew and Luke think they were doing; how did they understand their own project? A lot of popular solutions to the synoptic problem seem to imply either B or C. Maybe one of those two is right, but it seems like we should look that question and its ramifications in the face and not just quietly imply one answer. It matters a lot whether they are writing mythology, lying, or trying their best to be accurate.
A lot of the synoptic problem is answered, in effect, by admitting that the names assigned to the gospels are not really the writers. We have only books that are written at a distance from the sources, at best second hand (and probably more than that), with the errors of memory and transmission that necessary occur in the works of mere humans. It is not the answer for those who wish to think of the NT as being inerrant; but they are already ignoring all of the problems in such a position.
JAS said
A lot of the synoptic problem is answered, in effect, by admitting that the names assigned to the gospels are not really the writers. We have only books that are written at a distance from the sources, at best second hand (and probably more than that), with the errors of memory and transmission that necessary occur in the works of mere humans. It is not the answer for those who wish to think of the NT as being inerrant; but they are already ignoring all of the problems in such a position.
I see that a preamble to a solution. It opens up possibilities but doesn’t say what happened. It doesn’t, for example, tell us whether Q existed or whether Luke has a copy of Matthew.
Porphyry said
I see that a preamble to a solution. It opens up possibilities but doesn’t say what happened. It doesn’t, for example, tell us whether Q existed or whether Luke has a copy of Matthew.
No, it does not say what happened. We can only make guesses at what happened, and because we cannot really verify most of those guesses, they will never have more value than as guesses. Welcome to uncertainty.
JAS said
Porphyry said
I see that a preamble to a solution. It opens up possibilities but doesn’t say what happened. It doesn’t, for example, tell us whether Q existed or whether Luke has a copy of Matthew.
No, it does not say what happened. We can only make guesses at what happened, and because we cannot really verify most of those guesses, they will never have more value than as guesses. Welcome to uncertainty.
Fine, but the people who are working on the synoptic problem don’t see themselves as guessing. They think they are offering actual evidence that supports a particular answer. I don’t think the evidence is conclusive (I doubt they do either), hence why there remains controversy, but they think their theories are better than a bare guess.
Porphyry said
Fine, but the people who are working on the synoptic problem don’t see themselves as guessing. They think they are offering actual evidence that supports a particular answer. I don’t think the evidence is conclusive (I doubt they do either), hence why there remains controversy, but they think their theories are better than a bare guess.
They might be better than “bare guesses,” but they really cannot be much more than guesses. If they don’t think that their evidence is conclusive, how can they ever be anything more than “slightly educated guesses” . . . which, I note, are still guesses. And their guesses can be interesting, but the controversy remains because no one can really “solve” the dual questions of intention and contradiction.
JAS said
Porphyry said
Fine, but the people who are working on the synoptic problem don’t see themselves as guessing. They think they are offering actual evidence that supports a particular answer. I don’t think the evidence is conclusive (I doubt they do either), hence why there remains controversy, but they think their theories are better than a bare guess.
They might be better than “bare guesses,” but they really cannot be much more than guesses. If they don’t think that their evidence is conclusive, how can they ever be anything more than “slightly educated guesses” . . . which, I note, are still guesses. And their guesses can be interesting, but the controversy remains because no one can really “solve” the dual questions of intention and contradiction.
I think the thesis that Matt and lk each had a copy of mark is, today, more than a slightly educated guess.
I don’t think it reaches mathematical certitude, but I think it is pretty well established by evidence.
And I don’t see any a priori reason we can’t hope one day to have similar confidence about other facets of the synoptic problem (maybe q will get unearthed, or maybe someone will do a clever textual analysis that gives really compelling evidence of direct dependence of one on another that just cant be plausibly explained otherwise.
I think that is part of why people keep working on the problem, they hope to crack the nut open. But even if we can’t achieve reasonable confidence that we have solved the problem, just knowing what the possibilities are (and what possibilities can be excluded) is itself helpful.
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