New Testament

Francis Watson, What is a Gospel?

Watson, Francis. What is a Gospel? Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2022. xvii+335 pp. Hb; $49.99   Link to Eerdmans

Watson intended this collection of essays as a sequel to his 2013 Gospel Writing (Eerdmans, 2013, link to publisher; see here for my four-part review of the book). Chapters 1-2 and 9 are new essays. The rest of What is a Gospel? collects essays published after Gospel Writings (2016-2020, except chapter 13, 2010). Each chapter begins with a brief introduction or abstract.What is a Gospel?

The first chapter addresses the genre “gospel.” The word gospel originally refers to a preached message, not a written one, as summarized in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. But early readers attached the word “gospel” to the four canonical gospels. Therefore, the word was extended to include all the diverse material concerning Jesus’s human existence. “Gospel” was an “emergent literary genre” (7). By way of defining a genre gospel, Watson discusses whether the canonized gospels are the same genre as apocryphal gospels. Are the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Thomas the same genre? The claim gospels are more biographical is only possible if non-canonical gospels are overlooked (13). Watson concludes that any attempt to define the characteristics of the gospel genre “must take all available early gospel literature into account” (15), including non-canonical gospels. With this in mind, “What is a gospel?” First, the gospel genre focuses on the human Jesus and his interaction with other humans, his family, his disciples, etc. Second, Jesus is always the supreme authority figure who definitively mediates human relationships with the divine. Third, the texts ascribed to the apostles or to those closely related to them. The written gospel is authenticated by the claim that the author took part in the events, bearing witness to what they have seen and heard. He then illustrates each point of this definition from the canonical and non-canonical gospels. For Watson, “we should no longer speak of ‘the gospels’ as referring only to the canonical four” (23).

Chapters two and nine are also new contributions to this collection and show what Watson means by including all canonical and non-canonical literature available in the gospel genre. Both chapters concerned Judas. In chapter 2, “Seven Ways to Dispose of Judas,” Watson compares several ways early gospel writers dealt with the problem of Judas. Scholars working on the synoptic problem often trace Judas’s expansion from Mark to Matthew, Luke-Acts, and then John. Watson observes that even in Mark, Judas is mythologized (26). He plays a part in the sacred drama as previewed in Scripture. Matthew expands that role by attaching him to Zechariah 11 (the thirty pieces of silver, the potter’s field).

Luke-Acts takes a slightly different view on the end of Judas’s story (in Luke, supernatural punishments are particularly nasty). Watson then opens the door to non-canonical gospel writing. He points out that in Papias, Judas is a spectacle. He does not die from his fall but wanders around in a grotesque condition, inflated beyond all medical help, as an example of ungodliness. Apollinaris of Laodicea harmonizes Matthew and Luke with Papias, making Judas an example of ungodliness. In the Gospel of Peter, Judas is just ignored. But the manuscript evidence for the Gospel of Peter is thin, but Watson argues the gospel of Peter did not even have a betrayer. The Gospel of Judas is quite different. Judas responded to Jesus properly at the Last Supper, and Jesus rewarded him with a private revelation explaining the mysteries of the Kingdom. But that privileged knowledge excludes him from salvation. Instead of the martyrdom he desired, Judas was stoned by his fellow apostles!

The third new contribution in this collection also treats the Gospel of Judas (ch. 9). Watson says that the Gospel of Judas “flaunts its heretical orientation even in its title. This is a false gospel from a false apostle.” Although the Gospel of Judas was immediately called a gnostic gospel when discovered, Watson thinks this categorization has disadvantages. First, calling the book a “gnostic gospel” perpetuates a divide between Gnosticism and canonical gospels (168). The Gospel of Judas has much more in common with the canonical gospels than Gnosticism. Second, calling the Gospel of Judas a gnostic gospel forces the book into a prior understanding of what Gnosticism was. Although the Gospel of Judas certainly has affinities with the Nag Hammadi texts, we should not read those texts in isolation from the landscape of early Christianity. Applying these observations to the Gospel of Judas, Watson argues the book is part of a gospel genre. The Gospel of Judas focuses on Jesus’s earthly career and interactions with others and on Jesus’s supreme authority as a divine figure.

Watson draws some intriguing parallels between Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi and the Gospel of Judas. In Mark and Matthew, Peter’s confession that Jesus is Messiah is the story’s turning point. Although Peter is the most faithful disciple, Jesus rebukes him: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” In the gospel of John, Peter’s confession is no longer the turning point of the story, and the most faithful disciple is now the beloved disciple. “Get thee behind me, Satan” becomes Jesus’s statement, “One of you is the devil” (John 6:70). Judas now works on behalf of the devil, not Peter. In the Gospel of Thomas, Thomas confesses Jesus as Messiah and receives a privileged revelation from Jesus. Similarly, in the Gospel of Judas, Judas is the confessor and receives additional revelation.

Chapters 3-8 of deal with aspects of gospel writing and reception. These chapters appeared in various essay collections after Gospel Writing was published. Chapter 3 asks, “How did Mark Survive?” if Matthew is an expanded or “second edition” of Mark, why is Mark retained in the pre-canonical phase? Watson suggests that the Gospel of Mark was a “work in progress” that was completed by the gospels of Matthew and Luke, as well as by non-canonical gospels. Mark survived because it was significant to early Christian communities, which continued to use Mark even after Matthew was available to them. Possibly, the tradition that John Mark was an interpreter for Peter enhanced Mark’s reputation.

Although the gospel of Mark was preserved, another gospel source was lost: Q. In “Does Luke need Q” (ch 4), Watson suggests Q was never lost because it never actually existed. Based on Gospel Writings, he points out gospel writers omit, relocate, or rewrite their sources. Watson shows this is what Luke did with Matthew, dispensing with the need for Q. Watson states, “A rethink of this orthodox critical dogma is long overdue” (81). Chapter 5 also deals with Q and the Logia. He begins by observing that Q is not independent of its canonical containers (100). But the Gospel of Thomas is a collection of sayings, like scholarly reconstructions of Q. Watson, that traces the story of the discovery of the gospel of Thomas (following Grenfell’s account). Still, scholars downplayed any challenge to Q or the two-source hypothesis because Q is academic orthodoxy.

In chapter 6, Watson returns to the idea that gospel writers omit, relocate, and rewrite. Using the story of John the Baptist’s birth and Zechariah’s prophecy (Luke 1), he discusses gospel rewriting in Marcion (falsification), Tatian’s Diatessaron (integration), and Irenaeus (coordination). He suggests there is no sharp distinction between text reception and text production. The desire to recover the original revelatory moment motivates rewriting a gospel. The fourfold canon rejects the assumption that the text and the truth can ever perfectly conform to one another (117).

Chapter 7 examines the ongoing process of gospel rewriting in the Book of Acts and beyond with the Epistula Apostolorum. This document is a gospel-like text that reverses the balance between Jesus’s ministry and post-Easter accounts. Dating to about 170 CE, Epistula Apostolorum adds more post-resurrection activities of Jesus, more instruction, a discussion of the resurrection and punishment, a descent into hell, and even a prediction of Saul’s conversion.

In “Jesus the Lawgiver” (ch. 8), Watson examines several apocryphal gospels that argue allegiance to Jesus is incompatible with the law-giving God of Jewish scripture. Watson briefly summarizes the Apocryphon of John, the Acts of John, the First Apocalypse of John, and the reconstruction of Maricon’s Antitheses and Euangelion. For all these examples, “Jesus is not the emissary of the God of the Hebrew scriptures. He is the revealer of a previously unknown father. These texts confront a Christian reader with a choice: either to continue in the impossible service of two masters or gratefully accept the liberation from the one offered by the other” (166).

Chapters 10-12 are concerned with reception history. Watson discusses Marcion’s rejection of the four-fold canonical gospel in favor of his own highly edited Gospel of Luke, Euangelion. This document was a corruption of the true four-fold canonical gospels for Tertullian. But if one does not impose the later four-fold canonical definition of the gospel on Marcion, Watson argues Marcion was engaged in gospel writing using methods similar to Matthew’s. In chapter 11, Watson examines Tatian’s redactional strategy in the Diatesseron. He uses the gospel prologue, Zechariah the priest, and the Virgin Mary as examples and demonstrates that Tatian’s methods were like Matthew or Luke. A source could be amended and juxtaposed; redactors are not obliged to include all available source material and source material may need to be amplified (233-35). Chapter 12 examines the art of the Lindisfarne Gospels as a form of reception.  This art is intended to interpret the gospels. We not only read the gospels but also view them (253).

Chapter 13 discusses Albert Schweitzer and the quest for the historical Jesus. This article was originally published in a WUNT volume with the subtitle “on the reception of Schweitzer in English.” He compares the original German from the quest for the historical Jesus to the English translation. He concludes, “The consistent eschatology hypothesis is false because it attempts to answer the wrong question” (278). I found this chapter fascinating. However, I’m not sure it is on the topic of this collection of essays.

The final chapter in this collection is “A Reply to My Critics.” Watson wrote this response as the conclusion of a 2019 volume of essays in dialogue with Gospel Writing. He answers several questions raised by the essays in that volume. First, was the fourfold gospel collection inevitable? He answers no, Matthew might have replaced Mark (cf. chapter 3). More gospels were produced beyond the canonical four. But he does not want to imply any authoritarian suppression of non-canonical books (ala The Da Vinci Code). Second, are canonical gospels uniquely biographical? Some scholars have suggested that canonical gospels are biographical while non-canonical gospels are not. The Gospel of Thomas is an example of this since it is a sayings gospel and not biographical. But Watson answers no. He points out that the Egerton gospel and the Gospel of Peter both include biographical material. Third, is there a gospel genre? Biographical details are insufficient to define the genre gospels (cf., chapter two). As demonstrated by the other essays in this volume, Watson agrees there is a gospel genre, but he defines it broadly enough to include the non-canonical gospels. Fourth, were ancient authors capable of complex redactional procedures? Looking back to chapter 11, Tatian could clearly use the previous gospels using redactional strategies not much different from Matthew. “It is a mistake to assume that sayings and parables were handed down in purely oral form and Mark’s decision to write the Jesus tradition had no precedents” (296). Sayings collections existed before Mark, Matthew, and the Gospel of Thomas.

Conclusion. Essay collections are always welcome since tracking individual volumes and articles is difficult. This book is a welcome contribution to the study of gospel origins. Watson’s What is a Gospel? continues the dialogue started in Gospel Writing by extending the gospel genre to include many non-canonical writings about Jesus. The payoff here is further evidence for Watson’s description of the redactional strategies used in the canonical gospels originally presented in Gospel Writings.

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Book Giveaway Winner – N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives

In order to celebrate the beginning of the new semester as well as my forgetfulness in buying duplicate books, I offered a brand new copy of N. T. Wright’s Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul, 1978-2013 (Fortress, 2013) back on January 12.  All you had to do to win was leave me your name and mention your favorite Pauline scholar. I noticed James  Dunn and John Barclay did quite well in this informal poll, but the winner said N. T. Wright was his favorite.

I put all forty two comments (after deleting a couple duplicates) into a spreadsheet and randomly sorted them. I think used random.org to generate a a number. The winner of the N. T. Wright book is:

Jared Kusz

Jared made his saving throw and succeeds in adding this book to his library. Get in touch with me and I will get you this book ASAP.  I will have one more book to give away this semester, to be sure to check that out tomorrow, or follow me on twitter @plong42.

The winner of the Robert Gundry book never contacted me: Charles, if you are out there, contact me via email (plong42@gmail.com) or twitter so I can get you this book. If I do not hear from you in a couple of days I will give it to someone else.

Book Giveaway – N. T. Wright, Pauline Perspectives

I have a brand new copy of N. T. Wright’s Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul, 1978-2013 (Fortress, 2013). This 620-page book is the companion volume to Paul and the Faithfulness of God and collects Wright’s most articles on Paul over the last 35 years. Several are previously unpublished exegetical essays on Paul’s theology. These thirty-three articles are essential reading for students of Paul whether you think Wright is a friend or a foe. Ben Witherington III blurbs the book:

“Pauline Perspectives gathers into one convenient place the multitudinous essays and lectures on Paul and his thought world that have come forth from the prolific pen of N. T. Wright during the course of the last 35 years. Here you can see the development of seminal ideas, major themes, and the relentless pursuit of understanding important trajectories in Paul’s thought, ranging from justification to the righteousness of God to atonement to much more. Reading a book like this is like going to a great feast put on by a master chef and discovering there were no ephemeral starters but all meat, and none of it half-baked either, but well worth chewing over and always nourishing. Bon appetit!”

The book is $70 retail (but who pays retail?) I ended up with two copies, so I will celebrate a new academic semester by sending this book to a randomly selected person who leaves a comment below with their name and and the name of their favorite Pauline Scholar.

I will pick the winner on January 23. Be sure to check back to see if the odds were in your favor. If no one wins, I will send the copy to Jim West since he is a huge N. T. Wright fan.

Missed the last giveaway? Follow me on twitter: @plong42

Book Giveaway – Robert Gundry, Peter: False Disciple and Apostate

Gunrdy, PeterIt is time to give a few books way to celebrate the New Year. I happen to have an extra copy of Robert Gundry, Peter: False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew (Eerdmans 2015). The book is new, but the cover has some damage (possibly heat on rippled the finish). If you look at it in the right light, it looks perfect.

This short study by Robert Gundry makes the surprising claim that Matthew considered Peter to be a “false disciple and apostate.” In the introduction to the book Gundry makes his motivations clear: this is not an anti-Catholic book nor is he interested in subverting any traditions about Peter. He not particularly interested in the “historical Peter,” assuming a history of Peter’s life could be written. Gundry’s project is strictly limited to the presentation of Peter in Matthew’s gospel only.

In order to reach this conclusion, Gundry analyzes every appearance of Peter in the Gospel of Matthew using redaction criticism in order to show Matthew edited Mark’s narrative to present Peter as an example of a disciple who was very close to Jesus but ultimately failed to follow through on his commitment to Jesus. In the end, Peter is left “outside in the darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Gundry’s use of redaction criticism is well-known from his commentaries on Matthew and Mark, therefore many will pre-judge some of his comments based on his method alone.

I reviewed the book in August 2015 and I cannot recall another book review which generated so many responses (both for and against Gundry’s thesis). So read the review, stay for the comments and then enter to win the book.

To have a chance to win the book, leave a comment on this post and I will pick a random winner Friday, January 12, 2018.

Book Review: Ben Witherington III, New Testament Theology and Ethics, Volumes 1 and 2

Witherington III, Ben. New Testament Theology and Ethics, Volumes 1 & 2. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2016. 856 pgs.; Pb.; $40.00  Link to InterVarsity

When InterVarsity Press sent me a copy of this massive book my initial thought was that Witherington had simply written another massive book on New Testament Theology. But this is not the case, these two new paperback volumes were previously published as The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament. Volume one was subtitled “The Individual Witnesses” and volume two was subtitled “The Collective Witness.”

New Testament Theology and EthicsAs Witherington wrote in the preface to the original publication of this work, there is a need to write yet another New Testament theology for several reasons. First, Witherington observes that the connection between theology and ethics is seldom explored. There are few New Testament theologies with attempt to write on the ethics of the New Testament writers and typical books on New Testament ethics fail to take into account the theology of the various New Testament witnesses. Second, this is a problem since, as Witherington says, many New Testament theological terms are also ethical terms. He refers to John’s idea of love, for example. Third, Witherington thinks the reason for this disconnect is the Reformation emphasis on doctrine/theology. This had the effect of overlooking the ethics in the New Testament since it sound a little too much like “works righteousness.” Witherington thinks this overemphasis on forensic justification and imputed righteousness has done an injustice to New Testament theology and ethics.

His goal in these two volumes is to address this disconnection of theology and ethics. In order to achieve the goal, the first volume surveys the New Testament witnesses in chronological order. He begins with historical Jesus, although he does not worry too much about this terminology. The second witness is Paul since most of his letters are the earliest Christian writings available. Witherington calls Paul a “paradigm setter,” but he wants to avoid drawing a sharp contrast between Jesus and Paul. Pau believed the teaching of Jesus had an application beyond the original setting and Paul also believed he had a prophetic office with interpreted the teaching of Jesus by applying it to new situations (272). With respect to ethics, both Jesus and Paul would agree with James’s statement that “faith without works is dead.”

James, Jude and Peter are the topic of the third section of the book. The dating for the letters of Jude and James is important since they may pre-date Paul’s earliest letters. Witherington uses this chapter to outline a Jewish Christianity which in some ways stands in contrast to Pauline theology. The fourth chapter deals with Hebrews, a book often associated with Jewish Christianity, but Witherington draws parallels to Pauline theology. The Johannine literature in defined as the Gospel of John and the three epistles, Revelation is separated out to the final chapter of the book. The Gospel of John was also intended for a Jewish Christian audience but describes Jesus as a sage (a point Witherington has argued in Jesus the Sage (Fortress, revised edition 2000). Placing the sixth chapter on the synoptic Gospels may indicate they were written after the Gospel of John, but Witherington merely wants to trace the development of Christology in the Gospels in a single chapter. Perhaps the inclusion of Acts in this chapter is a methodological mistake, but the problem of the genre of Acts and its relationship to Luke is always a difficult problem. Despite having written a major commentary on Acts, Witherington only has a few pages on Acts in this chapter and then only focusing on Acts 2. The final chapter on Revelation and 2 Peter deals with the ethics of the persecuted as well as a brief introduction to the beginnings of the New Testament canon.

The second volume begins with a methodological discussion, is a New Testament “theology or ethics” even possible? Witherington’s main dialogue partner in this introduction is Joel Green’s Seized by Truth (Abingdon, 2007). This book argued for an ecclesiastical approach to Scripture, really what is now called theological interpretation. In this approach meaning is found behind, in and in front of the text. This approach takes into account how people have read Scripture in the past (how they have “received” the text within a faith community) as well as the text itself. Witherington is more cautious, pointing out that background and reception of a text cannot be the meaning of the actual text (2:25). His approach will focus on the meaning of the text in the final form and taking into consideration the cultural embeddedness of the text while attempting to apply the text to transformed lives in faith communities.

To achieve this, he offers two chapters on the symbolic and narrative world of the New Testament writers. These wide ranging chapters attempt to locate the New Testament writers in the overarching story of the Bible. The following chapters survey consensus views on Christology, Discipleship, the Holy Spirit, Eschatology and ethics (two chapters).

Witherington devotes three chapters to ethical teaching for Jewish Christians (everyone except Paul, Mark, Luke and 2 Peter), Pauline ethical teaching and ethical teaching for Gentiles (Mark, Luke and 2 Peter). The first volume explains why Witherington has divided the material as he has, especially his (correct) decision to place Matthew among the Jewish Christian writers as well as placing Mark among the Gentiles.

The result of this lengthy survey is what Witherington calls a “matrix of meanings” (chapter 13). By sticking to the overall narrative of the canon of Scripture, he observes that the thought world of both the Old and New Testaments blend with other (non-canonical) ethical sources to provide an ethical foundation for “going beyond the Bible.” Witherington interacts with I. Howard Marshall’s small book by this title in order to suggest all academic sub-disciplines ought to work together develop ethical teaching from the biblical foundation in order to meet the needs of the world today.

There are a few minor differences with respect to formatting. For example, the table of contents in the new volume is far more detailed. Several chapter titles were change to avoid some confusion. Chapter 3 was originally entitled “The Kinsmen and their Redeemer and Peter and his Principles,” the new volume has the more sensible “Jude, James and Peter: Bridging the Ministry of Jesus and the Apostolic Church.” Chapter four was originally “the Famous Anonymous Preacher” but now is “Hebrews: Looking unto Jesus in the Pauline Tradition.” The title of the sixth chapter was changed from the ambiguous “One-Eyed Gospels” to “Matthew Mark and Luke-Acts: Retrospective Portraits of Jesus and His Gospel” and chapter seven was change from “The End of All Things and the Beginning of the Canon” to “Revelation and 2 Peter: Transitioning to a Postapostolic Church.” If there are other adjustments in the body of the text, they are minor and do not effect page numbering between the two volumes.

This new publication makes these massive volumes available in less expensive paperback binding. The reduced cost is of course welcome, but since both volumes are well over 800 pages, I am concerned about the long-term durability of the binding.

NB: Thanks to Intervarsity Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of Volume One of New Testament Theology and Ethics; I previously purchased both volumes of The Indelible Image. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.