Synoptic Gospels

Book Review: Keith and Hurtado, Jesus among Friends and Enemies (Part 1)

Keith, Chris and Larry W. Hurtado. Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospel. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2011. 352 pages, pb. $27.00. Link to Baker  Link to Logos

Jesus among Friends and Enemies is a unique idea for a Historical Jesus book. Strictly speaking, this is not a book on Jesus, but rather the characters who encounter Jesus in the Gospels. Some react favorably and are “friends” while others reject Jesus and are labeled “enemies” of Jesus. Each chapter offers a historical sketch about the character from history and tradition, then a brief overview of their role in the Gospels. Sidebars appear throughout the text explaining technical terms or offering a closer look at something mentioned in the chapter. In the Logos version, these sidebars appear as grey boxes interrupting the flow of the chapter (as they do in the paper version). There are also a few photographs which are faithfully reproduced in the Logos version. The sidebars expose a flaw in the way Logos handle footnotes in the iOS app since some sidebars have notes that do not correspond to the rest of the notes on the page. Each chapter ends with a “for further reading” section.

Friends and EnemiesI found this a fascinating book and ended up writing far more than a normal book review. I will therefore dived the review into two installments, covering the introduction and “friends” here, and the “enemies” and conclusion in the next post.

Chris Keith offers an introduction in which he surveys what can be known about Jesus. He begins with agrapha, the sayings of Jesus which appear outside the canonical Gospel. These sayings were preserved because Jesus was seen as a wise man by many ancient sources. Josephus, for example, calls Jesus a wise man. Both Tacitus and Suetonius considered Jesus a rather foolish character who founded and equally foolish band of followers. Keith briefly reviews the apocryphal gospels, including the infancy gospels and the gospels of Peter and Thomas. After sampling this widely diverse literature, Keith compares it to the portrait of Jesus in each of the four canonical gospels. His emphasis in this section is the narrative first of Mark then Matthew and Luke and finally John. For each gospel he answers the question “Who was (or is) Jesus?” and tries to highlight the way each gospel is distinctive from and similar to other canonical Gospels. This very brief survey indicates that the Gospels offer a multifaceted view of Jesus.

Edith Humphreys covers “God and Angels” in the first chapter, neither of which I would have considered as a “friend” of Jesus. Nevertheless, this chapter is a survey of second temple literature on the rather broad topic of God and monotheism. In addition Humphreys surveys this literature on the topic of angels. Here she is able to bring a great deal of information from such books as 1 Enoch. The “earliest Christian writers were informed by this lore of angels and expected their readers to understand such tantalizing details” (45). Turning to a narrative of the Gospels, Humphreys points out that the main character in each of the Gospels is God. Although angels figure significantly in each of the Gospels, the focus of the writers is squarely on Jesus.

In Chapter 2 Michael Bird introduces John the Baptist. Perhaps more than any of the other characters in this book, John the Baptist has generate the largest secondary literature. This is perhaps due to his ongoing legacy as well as the tantalizing possibility that John’s ministry was somehow connected to Qumran. (Bird deal with this possibility in a sidebar, although it is not clear if the sidebars come for the article authors or not.). He begins this chapter with the lone statement in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities that mentions John the Baptist. Bird creates a list of seven items that can be known from Josephus. These resonate with the Gospel narrative but the canonical Gospels go beyond these things in the service of their theology. In fact, “They also interweave traditions about the Baptizer into their own narratives in order to present him as a crucial figure in God’s revelation of his Son to Israel” (74). Bird traces the development from Mark to Matthew and Luke, who adopt material from Q to present John as “an apocalyptic preacher of repentance and judgment” (78).

In Chapter 3 Warren Carter begins with the discussion of disciples in general. He compares the four lists of the disciples, and wonders if there was even a fixed roster of 12. The number 12 seem stable but the lists vary. In addition sometimes others are included in the term disciples, such as Jesus is female followers in Luke 6:30-36. Carter concludes that “there is good historical reason to conclude that Jesus gathered disciples,” although the later traditions of their activities remains dubious at best (87). Turning to the gospels, Carter describes the disciples in Mark as “sustained failure” because they consistently misunderstood Who Jesus was what he was trying to teach them. But is it the case, as Carter suggests, that Mark has a “frequently negative presentation of the disciples” (92)? This is possible since there is a contrast between the disciples and the demons or the Gentiles. In fact, Matthew and Luke are far more positive then marking his presentation of the disciples.

Two features of this chapter stand out. First, the chapter seems the most connected to the methods of historical Jesus research. Carter deals with the criteria of authenticity to determine whether Jesus disciples. For some both conservative and less, the use of these criteria is problematic. I personally not that bothered by the use of criteria (especially since in this case I happen to agree with the results). Second, Carter makes use of the Gospel of John, which is normally not used much in a Historical Jesus study. He points out that disciples mentioned 70 times even though the Twelve are only mention four times.

Richard J. Bauckham’s essay on “The Family of Jesus” is one of the more fascinating in this book, probably because so little is known about Jesus’s family. Unlike the prior essays in this collection, Bauckham begins with the biblical material because there is simply very little material outside of The Gospels for him to use.  He does cite the testimony of Hegesippus to the effect that Jesus’ family waned property in Nazareth, but there is no more extra-biblical material on the family of Jesus. Bauckham does deal with the well-known problem of Jesus his brothers in the New Testament. First how are they related to Jesus? Bauckham concludes that they were children of Joseph and Mary born after Jesus. Second, he deals with the fact that all of Jesus’s brothers he came significant leaders in the early church. He cites here the Gospel of Thomas which describes James as “the righteous.” Bauckham describes James as a leader in Jerusalem, but “the other brothers of Jesus worked as traveling missionaries” (111) based on 1 Cor 9:5 (the brothers Jesus had taken wives). My first impression was that this verse referred simply to Christians rather than the literal brothers of Jesus. But Bauckham cites Julius Africanus as evidence that Jesus’ Brothers participated in missionary activity (111).

Dieter T. Roth’s chapter on “Mary Magdalene, the Bethany Family, and the Beloved Disciple” studies some of the most enigmatic characters in the Gospels. While Mary Magdalene has been made famous by The Da Vinci Code, the others characters in this chapter are less well-known. Roth begins with the face that there are two women named Mary and an unnamed sinful woman in Luke 7:37–38 who are often conflated in church history. After showing that he was dealing with different women here, Roth examines apocryphal evidence concerning Mary Magdalene. Most of this evidence he dismisses, and rightly so. The picture from Scripture is that Mary Magdalene was an important disciple of Jesus but not his secret wife, etc. less is known about the Bethany family Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus only appears and John but Mary and Martha appear in Luke10:38-42. The enigmatic beloved disciple appears only in John and there are a bewildering number of suggestions in the literature for his identity. Roth does not solve this problem nor does he even give his preference for the identity of the beloved disciple. Rather, he describes the role of the beloved disciple in John’s Gospel.

David M. Allen discusses two “Secret Disciples” of Jesus, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. These two friends appeared in John’s account of the burial of Jesus (John 19:38-42). Nicodemus also appears in John 3 as a skeptical yet friendly questioner and again in John 7:45-53 as a defender of Jesus. There is little historical data for Nicodemus although there is an apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which Allen briefly discusses. Following the suggestion of Richard Bauckham, Allen observes that there was a wealthy priest by the name of Naqdimon ben Gurion (b. Giṭ. 56a) who may represent a later member of Nicodemus’s family. Even less can be known about Joseph of Arimathea. Other than his role in Holy Grail myth, he rarely appears in apocryphal Gospels. Unlike Nicodemus, Joseph appears in Mark 15:43 and parallels where he requests permission to bury Jesus. Mark describes him as “waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God,” a phrase Allen understands as a reference to being a pious Jew, like Tobit. Matthew adds that Joseph was a wealthy man and Luke comments that he was a member of the council who did not agree with the verdict to execute Jesus.

[This review continues in the next post, the “enemies.”]

Darrell L. Bock, Jesus according to Scripture

Bock, Darrell L. Jesus according to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2002. 704 pages, pb. $40.00  Link to Baker

This review refers to the first edition of the book. Baker released an updated edition in 2021 with Benjamin Simpson as a co-author . Darrell Bock has made many important contributions to the study of the Gospels and Jesus including a two-volume commentary on Luke in the Baker Exegetical series (1994-96) and a Theology of Luke and Acts (Zondervan, 2012). He also edited a major collection of essays along with Robert L. Webb (Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, Eerdmans 2010).  His Jesus according to Scripture was written to serve as an introduction to the life of Jesus viewed as a whole, primarily from the Synoptic Gospels. He does include three chapters on John’s gospel, but the bulk of the book is a synopsis of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Jesus According to the ScripturePart one is a single chapter overview of the four gospels. Bock provides an outline and an overview of basic introductory questions (author, setting, etc.) along with some of the main interests of the book (prophecy fulfillment in Matthew for example). Bock’s introduction is very short in comparison to the rest of the book, and given the goals of the book this is a good thing. For every position he takes on date or origin, there are major competing views, but in order to keep the focus squarely on the “life of Jesus according to the scripture,” he does not engage opposing views.

Part two is the story of Jesus from the perspective of the Synoptic Gospels. This is the main section of the book and serves two purposes. First, Bock provides a summary of the events of the Gospels with some commentary on background features that will highlight the significance of these events.  Second, Bock will show how each of the three Synoptic Gospels offer a unique insight into an event. This synthetic approach means that Bock will cover the story of Jesus chronologically. Despite protesting that his intention is not to “merge the gospels together” (p. 49), the chronological approach will always appear to do just that. This approach will also frustrate anyone looking for a “historical Jesus” approach. In fact, Bock eschews this kind of study in his introduction to the second section of the book (p. 50). He does not engage in source criticism to determine which account was first and how it was edited by the later gospels, nor does he weigh the sayings of Jesus to determine their authenticity. He simply tells the story of Jesus in a way that reads more or less chronologically, from the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke to the resurrection stories in all four gospels.

In order to organize the story of Jesus, Bock divided the Synoptic Gospels into 294 units. A chart at the beginning of the book shows the parallel passages in each gospel (including John when applicable). In addition, there are 50 units that are only found in John. These numbered sections form the content of the part two, chapters 2-11 (pages 51-405). In the body of the text, each section is number and equivalent numbers are given in other Synopsis systems (Aland, Orchard, and Huck-Greeven). One advantage to reading the book in the Logos format is that clicking the index number link will take you directly to that place in the book, but the scripture in the columns are tagged as Scripture and will open in your preferred Bible. If you roll your pointer over the link (on the desktop version), the text will appear in a floating window.

For each unit, Bock provides a running commentary on the text, usually starting with Mark when available then commenting on any unique features in Matthew and Luke, when available. Reference is made to the Greek text (without transliteration), but this is not an exegetical commentary by any means.  What strikes me as very useful is Bock’s explanation of historical and cultural background. For the average reader, these comments will provide enough background to set the story into a cultural context. Bock does interact briefly with contemporary scholarship, but the footnotes are not overwhelming. The body of each chapter is meant to be read, so he limits these interactions to pointing out important work for students who want to explore more deeply. Each chapter offers a conclusion summarizing the units covered in the chapter.

Part three consists of three chapters devoted to John’s account of the Life of Jesus. The first chapter covers John 1 as a theological introduction to the book. The second chapter in this section covers the “book of signs” (John 2-12). The final chapter in this section of the book covers the “book of glory” (John 13-21). These divisions are natural and well-recognized in scholarship, although these two “books” make for very long chapters. Both John 2-4 and 5-10 are clear sub-units, and might have made this section more manageable for the reader. As with the Synoptic section, Bock is not very interested in critical issues. There is little said about some of the problems of John’s historical reliability. For example, the “cleansing of the Temple” appears in John’s gospel at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, rather than the end. Bock states that the event might have taken place twice, but it is at least possible it happened only once and John moved the event to foreshadow Jesus’ conflict with the leadership in Jerusalem. Either way, the issue is dispatched in two short paragraphs.

Bock does an excellent job showing the Jewish background for Jesus’ actions in John’s gospel, making frequent reference to the Hebrew Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls or other contemporary literature. For example, while commenting on the third sign, a healing on the Sabbath, Bock describes the problem the leadership had with the man carrying his mat on the Sabbath with several illustrations from the Mishnah and shows potential parallels between Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and Philo’s view of the Sabbath and the Exodus Rabbah.

In the final chapter of the book, Bock concludes by tracing the major theological interests of this Gospels. The Gospels present Jesus as the “Uniquely Authoritative One in Act and Word.”  This 80 page chapter is a biblical theology of Jesus drawn from all four gospels, grouped into several sections. Bock’s method is to begin each subsection with a collation of all the verses that pertain to his topic and then offer a synthesis of that material. Again, here is an advantage of the Logos version of the book, since the reader can look at this long list of verses and click through to the verse in context. In addition, once could copy the list and create a “verse list” that provides all of the verses to read one after another.

Beginning with baptism and temptation, Bock shows that the Gospels present Jesus as the obedient Son of God. Bock offers a summary of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God as “as the expression of God’s dynamic rule and vindication of the righteous both now and yet to come” (565). He provides a list of the titles given to Jesus in the Gospels and surveys Jesus’ teaching on a variety of subjects (forgiveness, Sabbath, purity, etc.)

This theological chapter includes a very good section on the type of community Jesus was forming during his ministry, focusing on repentance and forgiveness. Here Bock deals with discipleship: what did it mean to be a follower of Jesus? What is the calling and mission of the disciple of Jesus? Oddly, it is in this section that he discusses the Parables since Parables represent teaching primarily for the disciples, to whom the mysteries of the kingdom were given. The chapter ends with a section on Jesus’ final week, his rejection by his own people, death, burial and resurrection.

Conclusion. As Bock states in his preface, Jesus according to Scripture was intended for use in a college or Seminary class on the Life of Jesus. The text is not overly technical; students and pastors ought to be able to use this text as they teach through the life of Jesus in a variety of contexts. Bock is an Evangelical and that is clear from this book. While he interacts with a wide range of scholarship, his commitment is to the inspiration of the text and the Gospel that is presented in the life of Jesus. Any survey text like this will occasionally frustrate the reader with brevity, but Bock has provided useful footnotes and bibliography for further reading and research.

For a brief overview of issues relating to the historical Jesus, see Marvin Pate’s 40 Questions on the Historical Jesus.

NB: Thanks to Logos for kindly providing me with a review copy of Jesus according to Scripture. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Did John Know the Synoptic Gospels?

Scarcely is there a subject in Johannine studies that is fraught with more mines in the field than the relationship between John and the Synoptics. G. L. Borchert, John 1-11 (NAC 25a Nashville: Broadman & Holman), 37.

Apostle John

One of the reasons that the Gospel of John seems so different is that the three synoptic gospels are so similar. Because of the similarities between Matthew, Mark, and Luke some theory of literary dependence must be given to explain the close relationship. John appears to be quite independent of the synoptics. There are a number of key omissions in John’s gospel. For example, there is no birth or baptism story, nor is there a temptation in the wilderness. Jesus casts out no demons nor are there any real parables (although there are some parabolic actions). There is no “communion” established at the Last Supper. Instead, John describes Jesus washing the feet of the disciples (13:1-16.)

Remarkably, there is no prediction of the fall of Jerusalem. I find this interesting since one of the key arguments for a date after A.D.70 is this predication placed on Jesus’ lips. The Gospel of John is universally thought to be written in the 90’s, well after Jerusalem was destroyed. If the gospel writers were inclined to create things to make Jesus appear to be a prophet, where is any hint of the coming Jewish war? Perhaps this is related to another issue, the complete lack of prophecies concerning a second coming. Instead, Jesus promises to send the Paraclete to the disciples after he returns to heaven (14:25-26, 16:7-15). Where is the Olivet Discourse in John’s Gospel? I suggest that this material was omitted since it was included in the Apocalypse of John.

Stanley Porter lists four possible positions on John and the synoptic Gospels:

  1. John knew the synoptics, or at the very least he knew Mark, which he used in writing his gospel, This “restricted dependence” theory is often complicated by arguing that it was not a canonical Mark he read, but rather a proto-Mark. Few (if any) advocate this position today.
  2. John and the Synoptics used interlocking sources. This “flexible dependence” is advocated by D. A. Carson, C. Blomberg, D. M. Smith, B. de Solages, and G. Beasley-Murray. John may not have used the synoptics, but he was aware of them. Some things are made more clear in John (that Jesus knew his disciples prior to their call, how did Peter get into the courts, why did people think he was going to destroy the temple?)  Some things in John are more clear after reading the synoptics (Jn 12, why is Philip hesitant to bring a Gentile to Jesus? Mt 10:5, do not go to the Gentiles)
  3. John used a combination of written and oral sources, some of which were known to the writers of the synoptics. This is a semi-independence theory, advocated by Gordon Smith, C. K. Barrett). A potential problem is that it is hard to imagine that independent oral traditions continued well into the 90’s if the synoptic gospels were well used by the churches.
  4. John used written or oral sources that the synoptic gospels did not know. This is a complete independence theory. C. H. Dodd (1958, 1963) is the chief commentary here, there is no literary use of the synoptic tradition at all!

Even if the gospel of John is independent of the other three Gospels, it is hard to imagine John was not aware of the preaching of the gospel (the kerygma) at the foundation of the synoptic Gospels. Carson and Moo call this an “interlocking tradition.” The Gospels use each other without betraying dependence. So John was most likely aware of the contents of the three synoptic Gospels and this accounts for the large amount of unique material. What the other three Gospel writers chose to omit John chose to include, but some details were added with help the reader to understand the three earlier Gospels. For example, Jesus already knew the disciples before he called them (John 1), a fact overlooked in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

These differences may include the more advanced theological agenda found in John compared to the synoptic Gospels. The idea of who Jesus was has developed from the time of Mark, perhaps as many as thirty years of thought has gone into who Jesus was and what Jesus did on the cross! John is interpreting the life of Jesus with the understanding that some 60 years have passed since the crucifixion – providing a theological hindsight to understand the words and deeds of Jesus more clearly.

Bibliography: D. M. Smith, John Among the Synoptics: The Relationship in Twentieth-Century Research (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).

Stanley Porter, “The Sources of John’s Gospel,” an unpublished paper read at the 2003 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Friday at ETS New Orleans

I spent the day in the Synoptic Gospels section, which was divided into two separate topics.  The morning sessions were devoted to Klyne Snodgrass’ Stories With Intent.  I was already quite taken with this mammoth contribution to the study of the parables, as were the three presenters. For the most part, all three presenters were extremely impressed with the book and had only token criticisms and all concluded that everyone ought to own the book.  Snodgrass then gave a brief response and a panel discussion followed.  Most disappointing was the attendance of this session – maybe 30 people at the most.  The fact that VanHoozer was in the next room did not help us at all!

Mark Alan Powell gave an excellent and entertaining overview of the book, and responded to criticisms from an RBL review by van Eck of the book which he felt were unfair.  As Powell observed, every reviewer can complain that a book was “not they one they would write.”  With that in mind, Powell suggested that the book could have been better if Snodgrass had employed some form of Narrative Criticism to enhance his exegesis of the individual parables.

Scot McKnight dealt with the thorny problem of eschatology in the parables.  McKnight offered  the sharpest criticism of Snodgrass, although even here the differing viewpoints were obvious. This lead to a long (and rather interesting) exchange during the panel discussion on the eschatology of Jesus (or lack thereof).  Snodgrass refuses to see the destruction of Jerusalem as predicted by Jesus in the parables, while McKnight disagreed – pointed out that the Olivet Discourse says that says that “these things will happen” before the present generation passes away.  Since this is part of my dissertation topic, I was quite fascinating to see this discussion play out.  I happen to agree with Snodgrass here, especially in Matt 22, although I think the details are a bit different.  I think that I will digest this section a bit more and return to it after I get back to my office (and my own copy of Stories with Intent!)

Robert Stein wondered about the goal of the book, to get back to the intent of Jesus, as if that is separate from the intent of the Evangelist.  For Stein, one cannot say that the words of Jesus are “more inspired” than the words of the Evangelist, and thinks that any attempt to use “criterion of authenticity” or other tools of Historical Jesus research run the risk of making the words of the Evangelist “less inspired” than the words of Jesus.  This too was a fascinating exchange which was really about methodology and the uselessness of many Historical Jesus studies.  I think that I have a bit more use for these sort of studies, these warnings are appreciated.

The afternoon sessions were devoted to four recent commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels, although three were on Matthew and one on Mark.  Four short papers were presented reviewing Robert Stein (Mark, BECNT), R. T. France (NICNT), David Turner (Matthew, BECNT) , and Ben Witherington III (Matthew, Smyth and Helwys).  Other than France, each of the authors made a brief response to their reviews. Darrell Bock did a great job moderating this long session and moderated a panel discussion and Q&A with all the presenters.