Inter-Varsity Press

Contents

Introduction

Part One: Historical Background for Studying the Gospels

Chapter 1 Political Background

Chapter 2 Religious Background

Chapter 3 Socioeconomic Background

Part Two: Critical Methods for Studying the Gospels

Chapter 4 Historical Criticism of the Gospels

Chapter 5 Literary Criticism of the Gospels

Part Three: Introduction to the Four Gospels

Chapter 6 The Gospel of Mark

Chapter 7 The Gospel of Matthew

Chapter 8 The Gospel of Luke

Chapter 9 The Gospel of John

Part Four: A Survey of the Life of Christ

Chapter 10 The Historical Jesus

Chapter 11 The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

Chapter 12 The Beginnings of Jesus’ Ministry

Chapter 13 Jesus’ Galilean Ministry—Earlier Stages

Chapter 14 Jesus’ Galilean Ministry—Later Stages

Chapter 15 Additional Teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Luke, and John

Chapter 16 Jesus’ Judean Ministry

Chapter 17 Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection

Part Five: Historical and Theological Syntheses

Chapter 18 The Historical Trustworthiness of the Gospels

(From the) Introduction

This book is designed to be a “one-stop shopping” textbook for cours­es on the Gospels. It has proved be of interest to thoughtful laypersons who desire to deepen their biblical roots, as well as to pastors and scholars looking for a current summary of the state of a wide swathe of scholarship. But the book is written first of all with theological students in mind. It is the outgrowth of twenty-four years of my teaching on the topic, although my interest in the schol­arly study of the Gospels goes all the way back to my first undergraduate course in religion. As I have studied on the Gospels first as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student, and as I have taught similar courses at both levels, I have discov­ered five topics that lecturers consistently want to introduce: (1) a brief history of the period between Old and New Testaments as a historical backdrop for studying Jesus and first-century Israel; (2) the critical methods that scholars use to study documents like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; (3) an “introduction proper” to each Gospel, that is, a discussion of who wrote it, when, where, to whom, with what kind of structure, under what circumstances, and with what distinctives; (4) a survey of the life of Christ, with comments on Jesus’ primary teachings and actions; and (5) a synthesis of the major issues surrounding the historicity and theology of Jesus himself. When I was writing the introduction to the first edition of this book, I explained that I was unaware of any textbook that set out system­atically to treat all five of these topics; hence, I had been assigning readings from multiple textbooks, never entirely compatible one with another.

This type of pedagogy, of course, has its place. Many instructors make the heart of a course their own lectures, with the assigned readings more supplemen­tary or peripheral. Years ago I began teaching that way, too, but there are so many interesting and worthwhile topics to study in the Gospels that I quickly became frustrated with such a method. To avoid lecturing at dictation speed and to ward off students’ frustrations with trying to take notes from my normal, rapid-fire conversational speech, I began to produce detailed, printed outlines of the major topics I wanted to cover. These eventually turned into a spiral-bound, photocopied notebook that students purchased at the start of the term and read in advance of each class. In this fashion, I could be much more selective about which topics I highlighted in class, I could provide supplementary “mini-lectures,” and there was actually time for questions and discussion.

Nevertheless, I was not satisfied. Outlines communicate only so much, and I still had to clarify many of my cryptic entries in class. In addition, it is arguable that one of the major gaps in theological education today is helping students make connec­tions from theory to application. For too long lecturers have simply left it up to their students to figure out how a given topic applies, if at all, to the real world of life and ministry. Connections that seem obvious to learned scholars do not necessarily come naturally to someone else’s mind. With the growing maturity and diversity of typical student bodies, students themselves have much more to share from their own experiences than was once the norm. Yet, students must be taught to think theologically and analyze real-life problems from a biblical perspective, a rare feat in Christian circles that are dominated these days by a freewheeling pragmatism. When is there time, however, to do all this in the classroom?

As a result, I committed myself to writing out word for word everything I most wanted my students to know—in other words, to writing this book. Now I tell my classes that if they master nothing other than this one book, they still will have the heart of a very solid introduction to the four Gospels. To facilitate careful reading, I create weekly quizzes based on the review questions at the end of each chapter. (Italicized expressions highlight foreign words and important terms and concepts to further help the reader, as do numerous subtitles.) I still use some in-class time to highlight and emphasize the most important concepts in each section, but I have considerable time left for additional brief lectures, questions and answers, discus­sion, application, and case studies.

In fact, there are several ways the book can be used in conjunction with the class­room or lecture hall. I have pitched the level so that it may be read by upper-division college and introductory seminary students alike (in Great Britain, the rough equiv­alent respectively of first-degree university students in general and B.D. students more particularly). In the United States many colleges and seminaries offer quarter- or semester-long courses on only the Synoptic Gospels or the Life of Christ. Others cover all four Gospels. A few combine the Gospels and Acts. This book should be equally usable by teachers of all such courses. In some cases it will need to be supplemented by other readings; in some instances certain topics may be skipped. Although there is a logic to the sequence of sections and chapters, one need not assign the material in the order in which it appears. I have tried to make each chapter relatively self-contained, while at the same time employing an abundance of cross-references to material elsewhere in the book on the topic at hand. As a result, there is occasional overlap between discussions, but hopefully not so much as to distract someone reading sequentially through the work.

To attempt to cover so much material in a manageably-sized volume inevitably means that each discussion must be brief. Still, I have tried to get to the heart of what I think students need to know most about each topic. That, of course, also means that detailed defenses of the numerous positions I articulate are impossible.

I have tried not to overwhelm the reader with footnotes but have included enough (and more than in the first edition) so that interested students can pursue the most important and controversial topics further. The bibliographies at the end of each chapter also serve this objective and include works from a considerable diversity of points of view. With only rare exceptions, I limit myself to citing English lan­guage works although I have also read in some detail from Spanish-, French-, and German-language sources.