Criswell
Theological Review 3.1 (1988) 3-15.
Copyright © 1988 by The
READING THE GOSPELS AS HISTORY
E.
EARLE ELLIS
Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary
The
four NT Gospels are virtually the only source for our knowl-
edge of the acts and teachings of the earthly Jesus.l They are received
by the Christian church as the work of inspired
writers, apostles and
prophets who were guided by the Spirit of God to
give a true
portrayal and interpretation of his life and work,
and they are also
historical documents whose origin and formation can
be investigated
and in some measure discovered. Our topic today
raises the question
whether these two
perceptions of the Gospels are in conflict.
Written some time after Jesus' death
and resurrection, the Gos-
pels have been subjected to
careful and prolonged study to determine
their background and the degree to which they
accurately reflect his
preresurrection ministry. The
historical investigation of the Gospels
has mainly taken four routes, (1) the attempt to
identify underlying
documents (known as "source criticism"),
(2) the attempt to identify
individual literary units and analyse
their formation and classification
(known as "form criticism"), (3) the attempt to
trace changes in these
units during their transmission prior to their use by
the Evangelist
(known as "tradition criticism") and, finally, (4)
the attempt to iden-
tify changes that each
Evangelist himself made in composing his
Gospel (known as "redaction" or
"composition criticism"). Each of
these avenues of research is perfectly legitimate
but, as in other areas
of historical study, the results arrived at are
heavily influenced if not
1 There is a brief
reference to his ministry by the 1st-century Jewish historian,
Josephus
(Antiquities 18, 63f = 18, 3, 3) and
a few additional sayings of the earthly
Jesus
recorded elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 20:35) and in other sources
(cf. J. Jeremias, Unknown Sayings of Jesus [London] 1958).
4
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
determined by the world-view with which the
historian approaches
the texts and by his other historical and
methodological assumptions.2
I
An assumption that may be addressed
at the outset is the view, still
held in some quarters, that history writing is an
objective science in
which the historian is a neutral observer and
evaluator of probabili-
ties. This view has been effectively discredited for
general history by
such writers as C. Becker, and H. S. Commager and, for biblical
history, by A. Richardson.3 Its
fallacies have been illustrated again in
the work of J. Kenyon on critical historians in
Britain.4
As Bernard Lonergan5 and
others have reminded us, the term
"history" may be employed in at least two senses, that
which is
written and that which is written about. It is
history in the former
sense that is presented to us both by the Evangelists
and by modern
historians of early Christianity. Such history is
by its very nature
interpretive and modern historians,
including of course the present
writer, are no less subjectively involved in their
reconstructions than
the Evangelists were in theirs. As one who very
early had to contrast
the history of the War between the States received
at my grand-
mother's knee and in Jefferson Davis' The Rise and Fall of the Con-
federate Government6 with that presented, for example, by C. A.
Beard
in the public school text-books of my high school years, I later
read the diverse accounts of the ministry of Christ
and historicity of
the Gospels by, say, F. W. Farrar, C. H. Dodd and
B. Gerhardsson7
on the one hand and D. F. Strauss and R. Bultmann on the other with
a distinct sense of deja vu.8
2 I address these
questions in more detail in E. E. Ellis, "Gospels Criticism: A
Perspective
on the State of the Art," Das Evangelium und die Evangelien
(ed. P.
Stuhlmacher;
3 C. Becker,
"Detachment and the Writing of History," Atlantic Monthly CVI
(Oct
1910), 524-36; H. S. Commager, The Study of History (Columbus OR, 1966)
43-60;
A. Richardson, History Sacred and Profane
(
4 J. Kenyon, The History Men (
5 B. Lonergan,
Method in Theology (New York, 1972),
175.
6 J.
7 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ
(
Christianity (
(New York, 1953) 1-11; B. Gerhardsson,
Memory and Manuscript (
8 D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus (London 41902
[1835]); R. Bultmann, Jesus and
the Word (
Ellis: READING THE GOSPELS AS
HISTORY 5
The subjectivity inevitably involved
in the reconstruction of the
past does not, of course, diminish the importance of
a proper method
or excuse us from criticizing historical reconstructions
that are demon-
strably defective in this or
other respects. A currently widespread view
of the origins of the Gospels with its skeptical
attitude toward their
historicity seems to me to warrant such criticism,
specifically, (1) in its
misrepresentation of its own confessional
presuppositions as a scientific
or critical stance, (2) in its misuse of
historical method and (3) in its
mistaken historical and literary assumptions. Let
us look at these points
in order.
1. The historical study of the Gospels
has been marked for the
past two centuries by a cleavage in world-views,
characterized on
the one side by deism and on the other by Christian
theism or, in the
categories of H. Thielicke,
by Cartesian and non-Cartesian assump-
tions.9 In the mid-20th century
it was dominated in many circles by a
Cartesian,
that is, rationalistic approach for which Professor R. Bult-
mann was probably the most
influential representative. Regarding
history and the natural world as a closed
continuum of cause and
effect "in which historical happenings cannot be
rent by the inter-
ference of supernatural
transcendent powers,"10 Bultmann
viewed,
and indeed on a
priori grounds had to view, large portions of the
Gospels as later mythological creations. On the same grounds he
had
to limit the "authentic" sayings of
Jesus to those he regarded as
originating in Jesus' earthly ministry since no
exalted Lord could, in
fact, speak to and through the Gospel traditioners and Evangelists.
These
attitudes and conclusions which Bultmann and other
rationalist
historians represented as "scientific"
and "critical" were in fact only
the expression and predetermined result of their
world-view, that is,
their philosophical and thus ultimately confessional
commitments.
2. Other questions of method are not
unrelated to these philo-
sophical assumptions, for
example, the assignment of the "burden of
proof" in determining whether a particular
episode in the Gospels
originated in the preresurrection
mission of Jesus and the criteria by
which its preresurrection
origin could be established. The proposed
criteria were (1) an episode's appearance in more
than one Gospel, (2)
its lack of so-called "developed," that
is, postresurrection tendencies,
(3)
its dissimilarity from the idiom or ideas found in
contemporary
9 H. Thielicke, The
Evangelical Faith (3 vols; Grand Rapids 1974-81)
1.30-173.
10 R. Bultmann,
Existence and Faith (
Zeitschrift 13,
1957, 411f.); cf. idem, "New Testament and Mythology," Kerygma and
Myth (
6
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
Judaism
or early Christianity and (4) its coherence with other Gospels
material thought to be authentic. Some of the
criteria raise certain
probabilities and some simply beg the
question, but none of them
produce any "assured results."11
As the critiques of M. Hooker and
E.
L. Mascall have pointed out, the conclusions drawn
from them
were "very largely the result of [the
scholar's] own presuppositions
and prejudices."12 Moreover, the
criteria received an importance be-
yond their due from the assumption, adopted by E. Kasemann and
others, that the Gospel accounts should be regarded as
postresurrec-
tion creations unless proven
otherwise.13 Does this view of the burden
of proof accord with good historical method?
According to
historian has the two-fold task of testing the
genuineness and demon-
strating the nongenuineness
of his sources.14 Applied to the Gospels
this means, as W. G. Kummel has rightly seen,15
that the historian
must not only test the preresurrection
origin of a Gospel account but
also must demonstrate that any part of that account
is created in the
postresurrection church since the
Gospels present their narrative in
the context of the preresurrection
mission of Jesus. In a word, a good
historical method requires that a Gospel passage be
received as an
episode in Jesus' earthly ministry unless it is
shown that it cannot have
originated there.
II
Under the influence of R. Bultmann and M. Dibelius16 the clas-
sical form criticism raised
many doubts about the historicity of the
11 Cf.
Ellis (n. 2), 3Of.
12 M. Hooker, "On
Using the Wrong Tool," Theology
75 (1972) 581; cf. idem,
"Christology
and Methodology," NTS 17
(1970-71) 480-87; E. L. Mascall, Theology
and the Gospel of Christ (
13 E. Kasemann,
"The Problem of the Historical Jesus" (1954), Essays on New
Testament Themes (
(Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus
[London 1967] 39) and J. M. Robinson (A
New
Quest of the Historical
Jesus [
"The
New Quest of the Historical Jesus," Jesus
of
C.F .H. Henry;
14 E. Bernheim,
Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (New
York, 1965 [1908]),332.
C.
V. Langlois and C. Seignobos
(Introduction to the Study of History
[
1966,
1898] 155-00) are less balanced and more sceptical:
"The historian ought to
distrust a priori every statement of an
author" (157).
15 W.
G. Kummel, "Jesusforschung seit
1950," Theologische Rundschau 31
(1966) 42f.
16 R. Bultmann,
History of the Synoptic Tradition
(New York 51963 [1921]);
M.
Dibelius, From
Tradition to Gospel (New York 21965 [1919]).
Ellis: READING THE
GOSPELS AS HISTORY 7
Synoptic
Gospels, but this form criticism itself was shaped by a
number of literary and historical assumptions which
themselves are
increasingly seen to have a doubtful
historical basis.17 Here we may
mention three.
The early form criticism assumed,
first of all, (1) that the Gospel
traditions were transmitted for decades exclusively
in oral form and
began to be fixed in writing only when the early
Christian anticipation
of a soon end of the world faded. This theory
foundered with the
discovery in 1947 of the library of the
poraneous with the ministry of
Jesus and the early church which
combined intense expectation of the End with
prolific writing. The
writing but actually were a spur to it. Also,
the widespread literacy in
1st-century
Palestinian Judaism,18 together with the different
language
backgrounds of Jesus' followers--some Greek, some
Aramaic, some
bilingual--would have facilitated the rapid
written formulation and
transmission of at least some of his
teaching. Finally, the major factor
that occasioned writing in early Christianity was
the separation of the
believers from the teaching leadership. This is
evident in "the Jeru-
already present during the ministry of Jesus,
who had groups of
adherents both in the towns of Galilee and
on the Phoenician coast, in the
good grounds, then, for supposing not only that the traditioning of
Jesus'
acts and teachings began already during his earthly ministry, as
H.
Schurmann has argued,20
but also that some of them were given
written formulation at that time.
The missions of the Twelve21
and of the Seventy22 were two such
occasions for this. Although the missioners may
have been trained
orally and may have so delivered their own messages,
it is doubtful
that during the brief sojourn in a town they could
have trained their
17 Cf. E. E. Ellis, "New Directions in
Form Criticism," Prophecy and Hermeneu-
tic (Tubingen
and Grand Rapids 1978), 237-53; idem (n. 2), 39-43; Stuhlmacher
(n. 2), 2f.
18 Cf. Josephus, Against Apion 2,
204 = 2, 25: The Law "orders that [children]
should be taught to read. ..;" cf. idem, Antiquities 12, 209 = 12,4,9; Philo, Embassy
to Gaius 115, 210.
Further, see R. Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer (
19 Jesus had hearers and
doubtless some converts from
Decapolis (Matt 4:25; Mark 3:8; 5:20; 7:31),
15:21;
Luke 6:21).
20 H. Schurmann,
"Die vorosterlichen Anfange
der Logientradition," Traditions-
geschichtliohe Untersuchungen (
21 Mark
6:7-13, 30 (dida<skein) parr.
Matthew (10:1,7-14) and Luke (9:1-6, 10) also
draw upon a Q tradition of this episode.
22 Luke 10:1-20.
8
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
converts orally. Most likely, they would have
written down some of
Jesus' teachings. If they taught in
Aramaic, Greek-speaking converts
would have had a special need of written
translations.23 There is then
some probability that the apostolic missioners began
a written trans-
mission of at least some of Jesus' word and work
during his pre-
resurrection mission.
Secondly, (2) the early form
criticism tied the theory of oral
transmission to the conjecture that
Gospel traditions were meditated
like folk traditions, being freely altered and even
created ad hoc by
various and sundry wandering charismatic jackleg
preachers. This
view, however, was rooted more in the 18th-century
romanticism of
J.
G. Herder24 than in an understanding of how religious tradition was
handled in 1st-century Judaism. As O. Cullmann, B. Gerhardsson, H.
Riesenfeld and R. Riesner
have demonstrated,25 the Judaism of the
period treated such traditions very carefully. The
rabbinic traditions,
specifically, use technical terms
that show the care with which they
were transmitted. Although they were not written
until the 2nd cen-
tury or later and, as we
shall see, although they differ in important
respects from the Gospel traditions, they exhibit
terminological paral-
lels with NT usage that are
highly significant. The parallels are too
precise to be coincidental, and in all
likelihood they derive from a
common root in pre-Christian Judaism. For the (later)
rabbis hardly
borrowed from the Christians, and the 1st-century
Christian texts
could not, of course, have borrowed from the
subsequent rabbinic
materials.
The NT writers in numerous passages
applied to apostolic tradi-
tions the same technical
terminology found in rabbinic Judaism for
"delivering," "receiving,"
"learning," "holding," "keeping," and"guard-
ing," the traditioned "teaching."26 The use of
these terms may be
illustrated by the following passages from the NT
letters:
23 On the use of Greek by
many Palestinian Jews in the first century, cf. J. Seven-
ster, Do You Know Greek? (
Aramean (
1974), 1. 58-100.
24 J. G. Herder, Christliche Schriften,
1796, cited in W. G. Kummel, The New
Testament: the History. . . of its Problems (
25 O. Cullmann,
"The Tradition," The Early Church (
B.
Gerhardsson, The Origins of the
Gospel Traditions (
feld, The Gospel Tradition (
26 E.g., 1 Cor
11:2; 15:3; 2 Thess 3:6; 2 Tim 3:14; Tit 1:9; Rev
2:13, 24f.; Aboth 1:1,
3;
Peah 2:6 ("receive," "deliver");
Matt 21:33; Mekilta on Exod
21:11 ("hear"); Matt
9:13;
Sifre on Num 15:41 ("learn"); Matt 28:20; 1
Cor 11:2; 1 Tim 6:20; Sifre
on Deut
11:32
("keep"); cf. John 8:31. Cf. W. Bacher, Die exegetische Terminologie der judi-
Ellis: READING THE GOSPELS
AS HISTORY 9
You obeyed from the heart the type
of teaching (tu<pon didaxh?j)
To which you were committed (paredo<qhte)
. . .
Watch out for those creating
dissensions and roadblocks
Against the teaching (didaxh<n) which you learned (e]ma<qete)
Rom
6:17; 16:17
I received (pare<labon)
from the Lord
That which I also delivered (pare<dwka)
to you.
1
Cor 11:23
What things you learned (e]ma<qete) and received (parela<bete)
And heard and saw in me, do these
things.
Phil
4:9
Therefore, as you received (parela<bete)
Christ Jesus as Lord
So walk in him. ..as
you were taught (e]dida<xqhte)
. . .
Watch out that no one makes a prey
of you
Through philosophy and empty deceit
According to the tradition (para<dosin) of men. . .
And not according to [the tradition]
of Christ.27
Stand firm and hold to (kratei?te) the traditions (parado<seij)
Which you were taught (e]dida<xqhte).
2
Thess 2:15
Anyone who goes too far and does not
abide (parado<seij)
In the teaching (e]dida<xqhte) of Christ
Does not have God
He who abides in the teaching
This one has both the Father and the
Son
2
John 9
Contend for the faith
Once delivered (paradoqei<s^) to the saints.
Jude
3
By
their use of such technical terminology these NT writers, coming
from three apostolic circles--Pauline, Johannine and Jacobean, both
schen Traditionsliteratur (2 vols
in 1;
1.
106£. and 2. 115
("deliver"); 1. 189f. and 2. 219-24 ("hear"); 1. 94ff.,
c£. 199-202 and
2.96-100,
cf. 2.34f. ("learn"); 1. 170
and 2.186£. ("keep"). C£. K. H. Rengstorf,
"mathetes,"
TDNT 4 (1967/1942), 434-50.
27 C£.
Cullmann (n. 25),62f., 68, 74f.;
C.F.D. Moule, The
Epistles to the Colos-
sians and to Philemon (
(
10
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
identified their tradition as "holy word"
and also showed their con-
cern for a careful and
ordered transmission of it.
Rom 6:17, when compared with Rom
16:17, is quite revealing. It
refers to a "type" of teaching that must
have been common to Pauline
and other apostolic circles since the Apostle can
assume it had been
taught to congregations in
more, when Rom 16:17 is brought into consideration,
this "type" is
contrasted to teachings promulgated by another
mission or missions,
probably a judaizing-gnosticizing
group that has given Paul trouble
elsewhere.28
The work and word of Jesus were an
important albeit distinct
part of this apostolic tradition transmitted to the
churches. Luke
(1:2ff.)
used some of the same technical terms, speaking of eyewit-
nesses who "delivered (pare<dosan)
to us" the things contained in his
Gospel
and about which his patron Theophilus has been instructed
(katehxh<qhj). Similarly, the amaneunses or co-worker-secretaries who
composed the Gospel of John speak of the
Evangelist, the beloved
disciple, as an eyewitness and a member of the
inner circle of Jesus'
disciples.29
"This is the disciple," they write, "who is witnessing con-
cerning these things and who
wrote these things; and we know that
his testimony is true." In the same connection
it is not insignificant that
those to whom Jesus entrusted his teachings are not
called "preachers"
(kh<rukej) but "pupils"
(maqhtai<) and
"apostles" (a]po<stoloi), semi-
technical terms for those who represent and
mediate the teachings
and instructions of their mentor or principal.30
From these and other observations it
has become apparent to
many scholars that the early form criticism was
seriously flawed in its
28 Cf. Ellis, "Paul
and his Opponents" (n. 17), 109. On Rom 6:17 as a specific
understanding of the Christian faith
in contrast to other aberrant understandings cf.
E.
Kasemann, Commentary
on Romans (Grand Rapids, 1980) 18lf. (GT: 17lf.);
F.
Godet, Epistle
to the Romans (
Otherwise:
C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols;
I.
324. I now incline, with Cranfield and Donfried, to include Romans 16 in the letter
to
K.
P. Donfried, ed., The
Romans Debate (
Manson,
Studies in the Gospels and Epistles
(Manchester UK, 1962),225-41.
29 John 19:35; 21:24f.; cf. 13:23; 18:15f.; 19:26f.; 20:1-10; 21:7, 20-23. Cf.
J. A. T.
Robinson,
Redating the New Testament (
ground and Christianity of John's Gospel" SWJT 31 (1988). Pace S. S. Smalley, John:
Evangelist and
Interpreter (
according to John (2 vols; Garden City, NY, 1970),
1. CI-CII, who distinguish the
Evangelist from the Beloved Disciple. On Jesus traditions in
Paul's letters cf. E. E. Ellis,
"Traditions
in 1 Corinthians," NTS 32 (1986)
481-502.
30 On parallels with
other rabbis and their disciples and other Jewish usage cf.
Mark
2:18 = Luke 5:33; K. H. Rengstorf, 'a]po<stoloj,' 'maqhth<j,' TDNT 1.413-33;
4.
431-55.
Ellis: READING THE GOSPELS AS
HISTORY 11
use of folk-tradition analogies to understand the
earliest transmission
of the Gospel traditions. While the practices
reflected in the somewhat
later rabbinic writings are not analogous in every
respect, as we shall
see below, they do provide, from the same culture
and general time-
frame, important insights for understanding the usage
of Jesus and his
apostles. It is not without significance that
Jesus was known as a
"rabbi," that is, a "teacher,"31 a
prophet-teacher to be sure but a
teacher nonetheless. Those who passed on his
message not only had
their "teacher training" under a master
rabbi but also continued his
methods in their transmission of his word and
story to others.32
A third fundamental axiom of classical
form criticism is also
historically doubtful, that is, that
the geographical and chronological
framework of the Gospels was wholly the creation
of the traditioners
and Evangelists. The Gospels are not chronologues, of course, and the
Evangelists
feel free, as did the Roman historian Suetonius, to orga-
nize their presentation on
thematic or other lines. However, if C. H.
Dodd's
schematic framework of Jesus' ministry is not fully accept-
able,33 K. L. Schmidt's views are much less
satisfactory.34 Among
other things Schmidt drew too sharp a dichotomy
between editorial
and traditional elements in the Gospels and did not
recognize that the
Evangelists'
editorial arrangements--such as the journey to
in Luke (9:51-19:44)--are often simply a reworking
of received
traditions.
If the classical form criticism
built, in a number of respects, upon
a poor foundation, is there a better explanation
of the origin and
formation of our Gospels?
III
An acceptable reconstruction of the
formation of the Gospels
must take into account both 1st-century Jewish
attitudes toward the
31 Matt
23:8; John 1:38; 20:16. Cf. H. Shanks, "Is the Title Rabbi
Anachronistic in
the Gospels?" JQR 53 (1963) 343f.; M. Hengel, Judaism and
Hellenism (2 vols;
1974), 1. 81f.; A. F.
Zimmerman, Die Urchristliche
Lehrer (
course, the term, "rabbi," does not have in
the Gospels the same technical connotation
of "ordained scripture-scholar" that it
has in the later rabbinic writings (cf. M. Hengel,
The Charismatic Leader
and his Followers
[
connotation of "biblical teacher" was
clearly present in the 1st century. Jesus had this
role and his instruction had more in common with
rabbinic methods than is usually
recognized (cf. E. E. Ellis, "Biblical
Interpretation in the New Testament Church,"
Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum (4 vols;
ed. S. Safrai et al.
[Assen and
32 Cf. Riesner (n. 25), 246-98,408-87; Zimmermann (n. 31), 144-93.
33 C. H. Dodd, "The
Framework of the Gospel Narrative" (1932), New Testament
Studies (New York, 1953) 1-11.
34 K.
L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu
(Darmstadt, 1964 [1919]).
12
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
transmission of religious traditions
and the charismatic, prophetic
character of the ministry of Jesus and of the
primitive church. With
respect to the former B. Gerhardsson's
conception of a controlled
transmission of Gospel traditions
marked a clear advance beyond the
earlier form criticism, but his analogy between
the Gospels and rab-
binic writings was unable to
account for the kind of alteration and
elaboration of traditions, uncharacteristic of the
rabbis, that one ob-
serves even when comparing one Gospel with another.
Indeed, the
traditioners and Evangelists seem to
handle Jesus' word with the same
kind of freedom that they use with another type of
"holy word,"
citations from OT scriptures. How is this free
handling of their Lord's
word to be understood? Their conduct in this respect
is best ex-
plained, I believe, by a
prophetic consciousness.
Jesus viewed himself35
and was perceived by others36 to be the
bearer of the prophetic Spirit, and he promised the
same Spirit to his
followers.37 Already in his earthly
ministry the apostles were sent on
their missions of teaching, healing and exorcisms in
the role of prophets
whether, as J. Jeremias
has argued, the Spirit was already conferred on
them38 or, perhaps not very
different, whether the endowment of the
Spirit
upon Jesus was active in their use of his nanie. It
is clear in any
case that the Gospel traditioners
and the Evangelists included them-
selves among those who fulfilled a prophetic role in
their perception of
the "mysteries" of the
persecution and in their writing as "wise men
and scribes," that is,
scripture teachers.40
The following two passages may serve
to illustrate the prophetic
status of those to whom Jesus entrusted his story and
his teachings. The
first is from the Sermon on the Mount, Matt 5:11f.:
Blessed are you
When.
. . they persecute you. . . for my sake
35 Matt 13:57 = Mark 6:4
= Luke 4:18, 24; 13:33f.; John 4:44; c£. Matt 12:28 =
Luke
11:20.
36 Mark 6:15; 8:28; cf.
8:11; 14:65 = Matt 26:67f. = Luke 22:63f.; 24:19.
37 Matt 10:19f. = Mark
13:11 == Luke 21:15; 12:12; John 7:38f.; 14:17f., 26;
16:7; ct.
Matt
3:11 = Mark 1:8 = Luke 3:16.
38 J. Jeremias,
New Testament Theology (
6:7,
30; Luke 9:1f.; 10:9, 17.
39 Matt 13:11 = Luke
8:10. This Q tradition has a parallel in Mark 4:11. "To know
mysteries" of God's purposes is a prophetic
trait in apocalyptic Judaism, going back to
Daniel.
Cf. Ellis (n. 17), 57-62; Luke 10:23f. par.
40 Matt 13:52. In Matt
23:34 "wise men and scribes" are apparently equivalent to
"apostles" in Luke 11:49. "Wise man" is
equivalent to "prophet" in Philo (On
the Giants
5, 22; idem,
On the Unchangeableness of God 1, 3).
Ellis: READING THE
GOSPELS AS HISTORY 13
Rejoice and exult (a]gallia?sqe) . . .
For so they persecuted
The
prophets who were before you.
The
Sermon on the Mount is addressed to Jesus' disciples, that is, his
"pupils" (oi[
maqhtai> au]tou?), a term that in
Matthew often designates the
Twelve
but also may refer to a much larger body of people who sat
under Christ's instruction.41 The present pericope is directed to, or at
least finds its fulfillment in, a narrower group of
those who are sent to
carry Jesus' message to others, that is, those who
are apostles. It is in
this context that they are essentially equated with
earlier prophets, who
also mediated God's word under persecution and
martyrdom.42 The
term "exult" (a]gallia?sqai) is often used in early Christianity to char-
acterize the exalted state of
inspired prophetic exclamation.43
A second teaching, found in all
three Synoptics and in sources
underlying them, appears in the mission of the
Twelve (Matthew), in
instructions to disciples (Luke)44
and in the apocalyptic discourse on
the destruction of
When they bring you [to
trial] . . .
Say whatever is given
you in that hour
For it is not you who
speak
But the Holy Spirit
Mark
13:11
The
Lukan form is somewhat different: 'I will give you a
mouth and
wisdom' (Luke 21:15, sto<ma
kai> sofi<an). This is perhaps to
underscore
an allusion to the persecuted apostolic witnesses
in Acts, especially
Stephen.45
These passages point to the
prophetic credentials of those disciples
of Jesus who transmit his word to others. They are
included in the
Gospels
because inter alia
the traditioners and Evangelists regarded
themselves as also having such credentials. This
best explains their
boldness and confidence in adapting and applying
OT texts to Jesus as
well as in contemporizing Jesus' words to their own
situation.
A brief example may illustrate one
way in which they do this.
Mark
8:34 reads
41
E.g., Matt 10:1; 11:1; 20:17. The qualified "twelve disciples"
presupposes that
there were more. Cf. Luke 10:39; 19:37; John 4:1; 6:60-67;
1 Cor 15:6; K. H. Rengstorf,
'maqhth<j,' TDNT
4 (1967/1942) 450-53.
42 On the prophet as
martyr cf. G. Friedrich, 'profh<thj,'
TDNT 6 (1968) 834f.
43 Luke 1:46f.; 10:21; John 8:56; Acts 2:26, 30f.; Rev 19:7; cf. 1 Pet
1:6; Ignatius,
Eph
9:2, Mag 1:1, Phld.
preface, cf. 7:1f.; Shepherd of Hermas,
Mandates 5, 1, 2; 5, 2, 3.
44 Cf. Matt 10:19f.; Luke 12:11f.
45 Acts 6:3, 10; 15:7;
cf. Acts 3:18, 21; 4:24f.
14
CRISWELL THEOLOGICAL
REVIEW
If anyone would come
after me
Let him deny himself
And take up his cross
And follow me
In
Jesus' earthly ministry this invitation had one meaning and one
only: 'Come and die with me in
word to this saying:
And take up his cross daily
By
this addition Luke or better, the exalted Lord through his prophet,
universalizes the invitation. In
effect he says, "No one died with Jesus
at
in their daily lives and in their deaths follow
him, carrying whatever
cross that may be their lot." In this way Luke
brings Christ's teaching
into the present situation of his hearers. Given the
Evangelists' pro-
phetic credentials, such
elaborations and con temporizations are no
less an authentic word of Jesus than the words he
spoke in his earthly
ministry.
Ordinarily oracles of the risen
Lord, such as one finds in Revela-
tion 2-3, are not
incorporated into the Gospel traditions. But there are
a few instances in which this appears to have
occurred.46 If so, they
also are no less authentic teachings of Jesus.47
As an example of this,
one may cite Matt 18:20:
Where two or three are
gathered in my name
There am I in their
midst
It
is difficult, though perhaps not impossible,48
to conceive of an
extended presence of the earthly Jesus. More
likely this is the exalted
Lord's
presence via the Holy Spirit in the corporate body of believers.
There are few if any historical or
literary grounds, however, to
suppose that the Gospel traditioners
created events in Jesus' life.
46 For example, Luke
11:49-52 = Matt 23:341f. In Luke the passage is a quotation
introduced by the formula, “the Wisdom of God said,”
but in Matthew it is simply a
saying of Jesus. "Wisdom of God" is a
designation for the exalted Christ in I Cor 1:24
and a title for him in 2nd-century texts (Justin,
Dialogue 38:2; 61:1; 100:4; Clement of
introduces a prophetic saying from the exalted
Lord. Cf. E. E. Ellis, The Gospel of
Luke (
47 Ct. G. F. Hawthorne,
"The Role of Christian Prophets in the Gospel Tradition,"
Tradition and
Interpretation in the New Testament. Essays in
Honor of E. E. Ellis
(ed. G. F. Hawthorne with O. Betz;
48 Cf. Luke 9:47; John
1:48; 2 Kgs 5:25f.
Ellis: READING THE
GOSPELS AS HISTORY 15
Assertions
to this effect almost always represent a failure to under-
stand the care and historical concern with which the
Gospel tradi-
tioners transmitted the story of
Jesus. If a proper historical critical
method is followed, proper presuppositions observed
and the prac-
tices of 1st-century
religious Judaism understood, the Gospels of the
NT
will be found to be a reliable presentation and faithful portrait of
the teachings and acts of the preresurrection
mission of Jesus.
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