CADRE Comments

In this series of posts I want to record some quotes from Craig Keener's The Historical Jesus of the Gospels which I have found of value in answering apologetic challenges. I have decided it would be most useful to post these excerpts in a Q&A format, allowing quotes from the book to directly answer questions people sometimes have about the reliability of the Gospels and how much we know about the historical Jesus. Doesn't the fact that the authors of the Gospels were biased towards Jesus make them unreliable as sources for his life? Contrary to what modern writers sometimes suppose, 'bias' did not make biographies into novels. We take bias into account when we read works of ancient biography or history, yet at the same time we depend heavily on these sources to understand the persons about whom they are written (both because they are the only sources available, and because comparison shows such works to preserve substantial information). If this is true for other ...

This is the fourth installment of my series exploring the issue of the genre of the Gospel of John. My first post on John's genre explored the expressed authorial intent and audience reception. The intent to impart "truth" and eyewitness accounts pointed to the genre of ancient biography or historiography. The second post dealt with John's subject matter, which focused on the life and significance of Jesus, and concluded that this strongly pointed towards the genre of ancient biography. In the third post , I concluded that the prologue of the Gospel of John reinforces the analysis pointing towards the genre of ancient biography, both in its content and as a literary device. This post will analyze the chronological framework and use of time in the Gospel of John as a genre indicator. On the face of it, the Gospel of John does not seem to differ all that much from the other Gospels in its chronological framework. They narrate the beginning of Jesus’ min...

Jason dealt with Richard Pervo’s argument that Acts’ reference to Theudas in Gamaliel’s speech is evidence of dependence on Josephus. Because I think Pervo has been refuted on that point, I wanted to address another, related comment that he makes expressing skepticism at the possibility that Luke could have known about Gamaliel’s speech even if it had been given. Pervo raises two challenges to the authenticity of Gamaliel’s address in Acts: that it is to short to be authentic and that there was no possible source for Luke to draw on. Those who maintain that Luke here reproduces an actual speech have taken on a formidable challenge, not only because of its extreme brevity, but also because Acts represents the action as taking place behind close doors. Pervo, Dating Acts , page 152. In a footnote, Pervo claim that conservative scholar Ben Witherington “concedes that Luke may have concocted the speech, but allows for the possibility that Paul is the source.” That is quite a claim and...

In my online article on Acts, I conclude that " Acts stands out as a work of ancient history. " The genre of Luke, however, can be somewhat more elusive. The preface and literary relationship with Acts count strongly in favor of classifying it as ancient history, but the focus on Jesus and other features, such as the recounting of his lineage, are clear biographical elements. David Aune classifies Luke as ancient historiography for the aforementioned reasons and his inclination to keep their genre unified. Craig Keener, on the other hand, see no problem in classifying Luke as biography and Acts as history. Further, no assessment would be complete without recounting Richard Burridge's analysis of the Synoptics, including Luke, and his conclusion that they all fall within the genre of biography. Although acknowledging the strong biographical focus on Luke, I lean towards classifying it as ancient historiography. As I explained in an early CADRE post , "Acts is...

My first post on John's genre explored the expressed authorial intent and audience reception. The intent to impart "truth" and eyewitness accounts pointed to the genre of ancient biography or historiography. The second post dealt with John's subject matter, which focused on the life and significance of Jesus, and concluded that this strongly pointed towards the genre of ancient biography. In this post, I conclude that the prologue of the Gospel of John reinforces the analysis pointing towards the genre of ancient biography, both in its content and as a literary device. John's Prologue In the third part of this series, I begin to examine the literary features of the Gospel of John, starting with its prologue. Richard Burridge, along with many other scholars, concludes that the Gospel of John’s prologue runs from verse 1 through 18. The prologue begins and ends clearly referring to Jesus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word ...

In my opening post on the genre of the Gospel of John, I explored the expressed intent of the author and the Gospel’s reception by its audience. John’s emphasis on eyewitness testimony and imparting the truth about Jesus were consistent with genres such as ancient biography and historiography but not consistent with ancient fiction, such as novels or wondrous travel tales. However, to develop an accurate understanding of John’s genre we must review the dominant cluster of elements rather than just a few, albeit important ones. To that end, this post proceeds to examine what the Gospel of John’s subject matter indicates as to genre. Put simply, the subject matter of the Gospel of John is Jesus. From beginning to end, the focus is on Jesus, with the goal of demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ. That information is not just interesting, but is crucial to the reader. In John’s own words, “many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not writte...

What is the genre of the Gospel of John and why does it matter? The latter question is easy to answer. It matters because “identification of a work’s genre helps us understand its place within the literary history . . . and aids us in its interpretation.” A.R. Cross, "Genres of the New Testament," in Dictionary of New Testament Background , eds. Craig Evans and Stanley E. Porter, page 402. When you pick up a contemporary book, you start with the knowledge that what you are reading is a romance, a science text book, a science fiction novel, a biography, or a book of history. That knowledge informs how you understand the text you are reading, such as reading how spaceship's propulsion system works in a scientific textbook or a Star Trek "technical manual". Or a scene of combat found in a historical novel or a biography of a medal of honor winner. Although these accounts may be described in similar ways, one you accept as true and the other you treat as fict...

I was reviewing Lucian's biography of the Cynic philosopher, Demonax, active in the second century. Lucian's account is the only near-contemporary account of Demonax's life. He is otherwise not mentioned by another writer until the fifth century. Ancient biographies were not intended to be comprehensive accounts of the subject's life, but rather selective accounts sufficient to demonstrate the subject's character, accomplishments, or teachings. At the end of Lucian's Life of Demonax , he emphasizes his selectivity with the statement, "I have made but a small selection of the material available; but it may serve to give readers some idea of this great man's character." I found this curiously similar to how the Gospel of John concludes, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." John's statement has mo...

A helpful, concise discussion about determining the genre of literary works is A Preface to Mark , by Christopher Bryan. Genre is, of course, an important first step in properly understanding the purpose and meaning of any ancient document. The strength of Bryan’s discussion about determining genre is the concise two points he makes about the nature of genre and his use of contemporary as well as classical examples. First, “genre involves a cluster of elements. So striking are these elements that we can entirely understand why one might be tempted to regard them as ‘rules.’ Yet they are not precisely ‘rules,’ for they need not all be present in one example. The genre of a particular work is established by the presence of enough generic motifs in sufficient force to dominate.” A Preface to Mark , page 13. Second, “a work of one genre may contain motifs from another. This means that in establishing genre we need to identify the dominant cluster of motifs: just one or two will not ...

I finally got around to ordering a book that was on my Amazon Wish List. It was one of those that I could not remember exactly why it ended up on my list but I am glad it did: Paul, Luke and the Graeco-Roman World . It is a part of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Series; Volume 217 to be exact. It is one of those topically oriented compilation of articles in honor of a leading New Testament Scholar. This one honors Sandy Wedderburn. The book contains many interesting articles but I have only had time to fully read two of them. The first is a critique of Loveday Alexander’s conclusion that the Gospel of Luke is akin to ancient scientific treatises, by David Aune: "Luke 1.1-4: Historical or Scientific Proomiion." Aune is well-positioned to write such a critique given his past work in the study of New Testament genre. He raises some excellent points, but the article is relatively short and is more of a launching pad for areas of further investigation. Th...

I recently began reading Literary Texts and the Roman Historian , by David S. Potter. He begins by quoting a letter Pliny the Younger had written to a friend: I heard a true story, but one that seemed like fiction, and one worthy of your broad, deep, and plainly poetical genius. I heard it at a dinner party when various extraordinary stories were being passed back and forth. I trust the person who told it, although what is true to poets? Still, the person who told the story is one of whom you might think well if you were to write history. Literary Texts and the Roman Historian , page 5 (citing Pliny the Younger, 9.33.1). What I found interesting is the distinction Pliny draws between "fiction" and "history." As Potter writes, "What is perhaps most interesting is the conceptual framework within which Pliny introduced the story. Reliability is defined in terms of dichotomy between poetry and histori a, forms of narrative that are at the opposite ends of the...

A few weeks ago I did a post discussing the characteristics of ancient historiography displayed by the Gospel of John. In response, a commenter asked, “Which other ancient histories never name the author?” As pointed out by another commenter, this question was irrelevant to the point of the post because I did not claim that the Gospel of John was an example of ancient historiography, only that it was influenced by that genre in important aspects. Nevertheless, I provided four examples of Greco-Roman historiography that did not seem to identify the author in the text and asked the commenter whether he could offer any authority indicating that ancient historiography always identified the author in the text. He failed to respond. The Failure to Identify the Author in the Text A few weeks later, it was with great interest that I ran across an article on this very subject during one of my visits to the local seminary to check out the periodicals. In the latest issue of Novum Testame...