Moore Perspective: The Literary World of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Part 1 of 2)

Authors can reasonably assume their readers share their world and apprehend what they mean. Since the Gospels present the life of Jesus in the historical, sociopolitical, cultural environment in which he lived, to truly understand Jesus (what he said, how he taught, what he did), we need to understand his world. But as we learn about Jesus through the communicative efforts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we also need to appreciate their circumstances and that of the reading audiences for whom they wrote. These authors intended to be understood, not by twenty-first-century westerners but within their own literary-cultural environment shared with those with whom they interacted.¹

Invariably “shared histories, assumptions, and experiences shape how these authors’ words and phrases might be heard…. We need more than the words on the page. We need to be oriented to the background assumed by people in the NT era. We need context.”² A high view of scripture and its self-claims of divine inspiration does not ignore the fact that the Gospel message is presented “in specific, historical situations,” and “the way we listen to God (our interpretive approach) must honor the way God chose to communicate.”³

Historically Relevant Historiography

Historians, interested in real people and actual events, are naturally limited to the amount of information they can realistically put into writing. It is necessary, therefore, to be discerning and to restrict reporting to what is deemed most significant. None of the Gospels professes to be exhaustive. The aim of the ancient historian was to depict historical accounts so that readers could learn political, moral, or religious principles.⁴ Otherwise, what would be the point? “Ancient writers were more highly selective, ideological, and artistic in narrating the great events of their day or the lives of key individuals. They arranged material thematically as well as chronologically.”⁵

In the ancient near eastern and Greco-Roman worlds, literature was designed to be read aloud, with oral and aural features and rhetorical clues mostly foreign to other cultures with much higher literacy rates.⁶ The historian’s methodology (familiar to his contemporary audiences) was not entirely the same as that of modern times and westernized societies. While completeness and accuracy were important, he was not preoccupied with linear thinking and was less concerned about chronological arrangement and precision of dating. Long before the present-day copyright mentality, the meticulous documenting of sources was not necessary. In ancient oral cultures an author could reasonably assume his readers or listeners were familiar with and could easily recognize quoted materials and allusions.⁷ “It would be sheer anachronism and a monstrous injustice to evaluate Matthew, Mark, and Luke [and John] by twenty-first-century standards of precision, some of which they probably never even could have imagined! Theirs was a world without any symbol for a quotation mark or any felt need for one.”⁸

More Than Historians and Biographers

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were historians in the sense they have provided accurate and relevant historical information. But they were more than historians. They were also biographers in the sense of having provided a biographical record of the life of Jesus. But they were more than biographers. First and foremost they were theologians and evangelists. All four, according to the biblical record, were actively involved in the evangelistic enterprise.⁹

Each Gospel seems to have a special theological emphasis, i.e., Jesus portrayed as Messiah in Matthew, Savior in Luke, Suffering Servant in Mark, and the Son of God in John. Each appears to have been arranged so that readers might learn about Jesus, his teachings, and his works in order to be transformed by what they encounter. Merely gleaning factual information without attention to the kerygmatic function of these writings misses their primary purpose. Trying to identify a specific genre according to the historical-literary approach is otherwise futile,¹⁰ as “we will inevitably miss some of the important points being made by the author or text.”¹¹ Perhaps “theological biographies” most adequately describes the unique genre of the canonical Gospels,¹² while “narrative Christology” is an apt description as well.¹³

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

¹ “If reader and writer share the same social system, communication is highly probable. But if reader and writer come from mutually alien social systems, then as a rule, non-understanding prevails … Should a translation of the wording (words and sentences) be offered, apart from a comparative explanation of the social systems involved, misunderstanding inevitably follows” (B. J. Malina, The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels 8; see also J. K. Brown, Scripture as Communication 24-27).

² J. B. Green and L. M. McDonald, The World of the New Testament 1-2.

³ J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God’s Word (3rd ed.) 116-117.

⁴ See R. Nocolai, “The Place of History in the Ancient World,” in A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, ed. J. Marincola 1-14; also I. H. Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian 21-22.

⁵ C. L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (2nd ed.) 121; also The Historical Reliability of the NT 25.

⁶ On the oral and aural features of Mark’s Gospel, as a composition designed to be read aloud, see C. Bryan, A Preface to Mark 67-162; cf. also M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark 52; M. A. Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel 72, 82. It has been estimated that in the world of the Roman Empire, particularly among non-Jews, only about 10 and at most 20 per cent of the entire population could read, and in the western part of the Empire no higher than 5 to 10 per cent (W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy 130-45).

⁷ “Usually the writer was expecting the hearers to recognize the material and therefore did not call attention to it…. New Testament writers often quoted hymnic fragments, standardized arguments (topoi), [the OT] and early kerygma, often without identifying it” (E. R. Richards, “Reading, Writing, and Manuscripts,” in The World of the NT [eds. J. B. Green and L. M. McDonald] 357). “In the first-century Jewish context it does not seem to have made much difference whether a passage of Scripture is explicitly quoted or alluded to” (D. W. Pao and E. J. Schnabel, “Luke,” in Commentary on the NT Use of the OT, eds. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson 251).

⁸ C. L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the NT 25; also Jesus and the Gospels (2nd ed.) 128.

⁹ Matt. 10:1-8; 28:18-20; Acts 13:5; 15:39; 16:10-16; 1 Cor. 15:11; Col. 4:10-14; Philem. 24; 2 Tim. 4:11.

¹⁰ Proposed classifications have included history, technical treatise, ancient memorabilia, aretalogy (narrative of miraculous deeds), peripatetic biography, Greco-Roman popular biography, aretalogical biography, laudatory biography, tragic drama, and a unique literary (gospel) form. See J. E. Toews, “The Synoptic Problem and the Genre Question,” Direction10.2 (April 1981): 11-18.

¹¹ J. G. Crossley, Reading the New Testament 24.

¹² C. L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (2nd ed.) 122.

¹³ M. E. Boring, Mark: a Commentary NTL 8.

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