Filed under: Opinion
I start with the claim that the New Testament was written within the lifetime of those who had witnessed the ministry and death of Jesus, and who were accessible to those writers who were not themselves witnesses. While this claim cannot be strictly proved, it seems as likely as the converse, and is consistent with the “face value” of the writings themselves, so that the onus of proof is on those who contest it.
Nevertheless, the New Testament texts were not composed to give a purely neutral record of facts, but to suggest the meaning and relevance of those facts. In accordance with the literary styles and conventions of their time, this intention affects the way the stories were told. Thus commentators must distinguish the “face value” of a narrative from its “interpretative value” – something perfectly possible, but requiring careful study of each particular text. We cannot assume that, for instance, the author of “Mark” had exactly the same intention as the author of “Luke”, let alone the intention of Paul in his letters.
In this regard, I take seriously the early witness of Bishop Papias regarding the authorship of the Gospels. He says that Matthew was the first to record the sayings of Jesus, in Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic), which were then translated into Greek. It is not clear what he understood by “the sayings of Jesus”, and I will leave this for the moment.
“Mark” is usually taken now as the earliest Gospel in the form we now have it. Papias says that Mark was an associate of Peter, and drew his information from the Apostle. The Gospel was composed in Rome. This claim is consistent with the internal evidence of the Gospel, in which Peter is featured prominently, yet not entirely favourably (unlike other NT writings and later tradition). The Gospel has small details that suggest first-hand information, such as snatches of Aramaic (“Talitha, Koum!”) or the remark that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It is perfectly possible that the Gospel was composed from Peter’s reminiscences by, say, 60AD. The structure is schematic rather than chronological, save that the Gospel begins with the baptism of Jesus (at which, according to John’s Gospel, Peter was first associated with Jesus), and proceeds to the point at which Peter acknowledges Jesus as “Messiah”. Then, with a second theophany in which Jesus is named “Beloved Son”, the repeated prophecy of suffering and death leads to the narrative of the final week. Almost the last words are the command to the women to give news of the resurrection to “the disciples and Peter”.
Proceeding next to “Luke” and “Acts”, the face-value claim is that this two-part work is by a companion of Paul, who at certain points gives his story in the first person plural (the “we” passages). From the narrative itself, we can deduce that the author was with Paul during his two-year detention at Caesarea, and so would have had the opportunity to gather information about the ministry of Jesus from eye-witnesses, as well as from earlier writings that he alludes to in his preamble to the Gospel. These may well have included one or more versions of “the sayings of Jesus” mentioned above. Luke accompanied Paul to Rome, but leaves the story three years later with Paul still awaiting trial. My own working hypothesis, for what it is worth, is that Luke spent those three years completing his two works. He found in Rome that Mark had already completed his own account of Jesus’s ministry, and incorporated it into his own work. The whole work, with the story of Jesus and that of Paul, was designed to provide background for Roman authorities dealing with Paul’s case (in which case, “Theophilus” may be a flattering address to the judge as “God-loving”). Luke therefore presents a version more favourable to Roman authorities than to the Jerusalem priesthood, and soft-pedals some of Paul’s own brushes with Roman authorities.
“Matthew” I regard as of Palestinian (even Galilean) origin, also combining Mark’s Gospel with “Sayings of Jesus”. Whether this was done by the Apostle Matthew himself, or by another, is impossible to say. The arrangement of material falls into a pattern based on the Torah (the very first word is “Genesis”), with alternate sections of narrative (largely Marcan) and teaching. The Passion narrative has some additional features, and the resurrection narrative concludes in Galilee with the command to go and preach, with the assurance of Christ’s continuing presence.
In John’s Gospel, “Mark” is conspicuous by its absence, and I regard this as quite deliberate. The author (or source of information) claims to have been an eye-witness at the crucifixion, and since the disciple John is also conspicuous by never being named – unlike the others – I have no doubt that the traditional ascription of the Fourth Gospel to John is correct. John assumes his readers will be familiar with one or other of the preceding Gospels (for instance, in the account of the death of Lazarus he refers to Mary as the one who anointed Jesus before including that incident in his own narrative). Even where there appears to be overlap, such as the baptism of Jesus, he does not in fact narrate the event, but refers to the following days. Apart from the Passion narrative itself, the one substantial overlap is the feeding of the five thousand, included probably to give a context to the discourse on the Bread of Life that follows. John implies a longer ministry, with several visits to Jerusalem, than a face-value reading of the other Gospels, and this is historically more probable. The longer discourse may or may not have been “worked up” by John from sayings and teachings given at different times. I am, personally, struck by the two Marian incidents, at Cana and at the Cross, in which Jesus’s mother is addressed as “Woman”, and combined with Pilate’s words about Jesus, “Behold, the Man!” are to me echoes of Genesis, with Jesus and Mary seen as the archetypes of Man and Woman, the true Adam and Eve.
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