The Gospels Are Not Literal Biographies of Jesus

[kayky]

In his book, Liberating the Gospels, Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong, inspired by the work of English theologian Michael Goulder, proposes the synoptic Gospels were written to provide a Christian liturgy that follows the Jewish calendar. Let's consider the Gospel of Luke as an example:

According to this theory, Luke ordered the events in his Gospel based on the Torah readings in the synagogue which are assigned to specific Sabbaths on the Jewish calendar. By doing so, Luke is telling us that Jesus is the new Torah or the new Law.

The Torah readings begin with Genisis, of course. The word genesis means "origins.". So Luke begins his Gospel by explaining the origins of both Jesus and John the Baptist.

We are introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. They are quite overtly patterned after Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis:

1. Both sets of parents are called righteous (Gen. 26:5, Luke 1:6)

2. Both Sarah and Elizabeth are barren (Gen. 11:30, Luke 1:7)

3. Both were advanced in age (Gen. 18:11, Luke 1:7)

4. Both fathers receive an angelic annunciation and are disbelieving (Gen. 18:11, Luke 1:11)

5. Both fathers are told that nothing is impossible with God (Gen. 18:14, Luke 1:37)

************

Genesis then moves on to stories of Jewish origins. Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, and his wife Rebekah are expecting twins. Rebekah feels the twins "leap" in her womb. So she prays about it and is told the elder Essau will serve the younger Jacob.

In Luke the newly pregnant Mary visits the very pregnant Elizabeth. This time we have cousins rather than twins. The older fetus John " leaps" in his mother's womb. It is their destiny that the older will serve the younger.

In Genesis Jacob's favorite wife Rachel is barren. When Rachel finally becomes pregnant, she declares in Genesis 30:23: "God has taken away my reproach." In Luke 1:25, Elizabeth declares: "This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people."

When Isaac's other wife Leah was blessed with children. she proclaims that God has seen her lowliness and she would be called "blessed" (Gen. 29:30,
30:13). These words are placed in the mouth of Mary in Luke 1:48: "for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed."

Luke then moves on to the birth of Jesus. In Genesis 35:16-21, Jacob is on the road with the pregnant Rachel, who stops in Bethlehem to give birth to Benjamin. In Luke 2, Joseph is also on the road with the pregnant Mary, who then gives birth to Jesus in Bethlehem.

When Jacob left his father-in-law Laban, he is guarded by a host of angels (Gen. 32:1). He sends a peace offering of sheep and cattle to his brother Essau (Gen. 32:22). The birth of Jesus is also attended by angels and shepherds.

Luke 2 continues with the circumcision of Jesus. In Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles an angel at a place called Penial and declares: "I have seen God and lived" (v. 22). At the circumcision of Jesus, a priest named Simeon who had been told by God that he would see the Messiah before he died, sees the infant Jesus and declares: "...for my eyes have seen your salvation..." (v. 30). A prophetess named Anna also sees the infant and praises God. She is said to be the daughter of Phanuel, an alternate spelling of Penial.

Luke 2 ends with the story of Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem, echoing the separation of Joseph from his family when he is sold into slavery in Egypt. Earlier when Joseph tells his father about his prophetic dreams, Jacob is said to have kept all these things and pondered them just as Mary does after being reunited with the young Jesus who declares his purpose to her (Gen. 37:11, Luke 2:51).

At this point on the Jewish calandar, we reach the Jewish Festival of Pentacost. This is a problem for Luke because it interrupts the flow of his retelling of Genesis in the life of Jesus. Luke would later in Acts associate Pentacost with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So Luke inserts here the introduction of the adult John the Baptist who announces that one will follow him who will baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Next Luke moves on to the baptism of Jesus when the Holy Spirit descends on him and declares him to be the Son of God. The synagogue reading on this particular Sabbath would have been the Pharoah declaring Joseph to be second in command over the entire realm. Pharoah declares: "Can we find such a man as this in whom is the Spirit of God?" ( Gen. 41:38). For Luke this was the first Christian Pentacost. The second would occur after the death of Jesus when the Holy Spirit would be given to all people.

After the story of Joseph, Genesis provides a genealogy of Jacob's descendants. Luke follows suit with the genealogy of Jesus' ancestors.

Genesis ends with the dying Jacob blessing his children. The famine is in full swing in Egypt, and the hungry of the world come clamoring to Joseph for
bread. In Luke we have Jesus fasting in the wilderness where he is tempted to turn stones into bread. He resists this temptation by saying that man cannot live by bread alone. In Genesis Joseph is said to be clothed in human glory because of his willingness to serve the pharaoh. Jesus is tempted to do the same by bowing to Satan but resists saying that only God is to be served.

**********

The Torah moves on to Exodus. In Luke we find a Jesus who will be rejected by his own people just as Moses was. In Luke 4 Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazereth and gets run out of town. In Exodus Moses flees to the wilderness of Midian just after being told by the Israelites: "Who made you ruler and judge over us?"

It is also interesting to note that Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness lasted 40 days just as Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. In Luke 4 we find that Jesus has power over nature just as Moses did. As it was with Moses, his gifts were often unappreciated.

**********

The Torah moves on to Leviticus, which was read in the synagogue over the course of 8 Sabbaths. This would have posed a difficulty for Luke since this book of prohibitions would have had little meaning for his community. So Jesus chooses twelve disciples (just as Moses led 12 tribes) and he begins his teaching ministry that would supplant the teachings of Moses.

On the Jewish calendar, we then come upon three celebrations proscribed by Leviticus: Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and the feast of Tabernacles (harvest festival).

In Luke Jesus is approached by the disciples of the imprisoned John the Baptist to inquire if he actually is the Messiah. Jesus replies by quoting Isaiah 35, which is the traditional lesson appointed for Rosh Hashanah.

Yom Kippur is a somber time of repentance and confession for Jews. A lamb was sacrificed, and the community's sins were placed on the back of a scapegoat, which was driven into the wilderness.

In Luke an unnamed woman anoints the feet of Jesus. When the disciples protest, Jesus tells them that she is preparing him for his burial, foreshadowing his role as both sacrificial lamb and scapegoat.

Tabernacles is a harvest celebration. In Luke we have the parable of the sower. Light was a minor theme of Tabernacles. In Luke Jesus teaches the meaning of light.

**********

The Torah now moves on to Numbers. Starting in chapter 5, Numbers discusses various things that are considered unclean. In Luke Jesus arrives in Gerasenes, home to unclean Gentiles. There we find a demon-possessed man living among the tombs (the dead are unclean). Jesus sends the demons into unclean swine, whom he sends to their deaths by drowning. So Jesus is seen to have overcome the ritually unclean.

Then in Luke we have the story of the woman with a menstral abnormality, which would have been considered unclean. She is healed by simply touching the hem of Jesus' garment.

This is followed by the raising of Jairus' daughter (contact with the unclean dead).

Then in Numbers 13-15, we have Moses sending 12 spies into Canaan.

In Luke Jesus sends out his 12 disciples to preach and heal.

The next festival on the Jewish calendar was Hanukkah (Dedication). It is not mentioned in the Torah. It comes from the Maccabees when the light of God was believed to have been restored to the Temple.

In Luke we have the story of the Transfiguration. But Luke relates it to Numbers in which the glory of the Lord is said to have appeared upon the meeting place.

Then in Luke, Jesus is said to have "set his face" to go to Jerusalem. In Numbers 24:1, Balaam is said to have "set his face."

Numbers ends with Moses near the banks of the Jordan, ready to leave the wilderness. In Luke Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, leaving Galilee forever.

**********

The Torah then moves on to Deuteronomy. In the first chapter the 12 spies return with fruit and declare the land to be good.

In Luke, Jesus sends out the 70, who return with joy and Jesus declares: "the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few" (Luke 10:2).

In Deuteronomy Moses sends messengers into an alien nation to buy food and water, but they are rejected and this nation is thusly destroyed. In Luke, Jesus tells the 70 to eat and drink whatever they are given. If rejected, that town would be destroyed by God.

In Deuteronomy Moses prays to the Lord but is still denied entry into the Promised Land. Only those born in the wilderness could go in. In Luke, Jesus thanks God for concealing things from the wise and revealing them to babes who would inherit the kingdom.

In Deuteronomy 5 and 6, the Ten Commandments are discussed. In Luke, Jesus has his discussion with the lawyer about the Law.

In Deuteronomy Moses tells the people they must destroy foreigners with no mercy. In Luke, Jesus reverses this by having the foreigner (Good Samaritan) saving the injured Jew.

In Deuteronomy 8:1-3, Moses says that man cannot live by bread alone but by the words that proceed from God's mouth. In Luke, Martha is rebuked for complaining that Mary is not helping with the food preparation. Jesus says that Mary has chosen "the good portion" by listening to his teachings (Luke 10:38-42).

In Deuteronomy God is said to deal with Israel as a father does a son. In Luke we have the Lord's Prayer (Our Father).

In Deuteronomy there is a discussion of the clean and the unclean. In Luke, Jesus has dinner with a Pharisee who does not know the difference between inner cleanness and outer cleanness.

In Deuteronomy every seventh year the debts of the Jewish people were to be forgiven and slaves set free. In Luke Jesus releases a woman from bondage and is rebuked for doing it on the Sabbath (seventh day).

In Deuteronomy 20:1-7, we are told that the scribes could excuse someone from battle for having a house that had not yet been dedicated, planted a vineyard, or had recently become betrothed. In Luke we have the parable of the great feast in which the invited guests excuse themselves with excuses: had just bought a field, or purchased new oxen, or recently married. The host then opens his table to the poor and handicapped (Luke 15:11-32).

In Deuteronomy crimes that call for the death penalty are listed: rebellious sons and drunkards. In Luke we have the story of the Prodical Son, who wasted his inheritance on riotous living yet was welcomed home by his loving father.

In Deuteronomy injunctions are given against oppression of the poor. In Luke we have the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man ends up with eternal punishment for ignoring Lazarus' plight.

In Deuteronomy Moses said that when one enters the Lord's sanctuary, he was to declare that he had paid his tithes, cared for widows and orphans, obeyed the commandments, and avoided the unclean and, therefore, deserved to be blessed by God (Deut. 26:1-15). In Luke we have the story of the Pharisee and the Publican in which just such a prayer is criticized.

At this point in Luke, now that Deuteronomy has ended, Jesus reaches Jerusalem just as the liturgical year for the Jews begins anew with the month of Nisan. To partake of the Passover and fulfill his destiny. Deuteronomy, of course, is followed by Joshua (Yeshua=Jesus). It is he who will replace Moses and lead his people into the Promised Land.

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Does this not prove that the Gospel writers knew they were not writing literal biographies of Jesus?

[kayky]

[Replying to post 10 by bluethread]

I agree.

[YahWhat]

Does this not prove that the Gospel writers knew they were not writing literal biographies of Jesus?

Since Luke is your suggested model let's look at his opening statement (1:1-4).

• "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught."

Whatever may be said about the historically realiability of Luke, one thing seems certain. He clearly believed what he was writting had occured.

Even critics agree the Gospels are a type of ancient biography.

“Many recent scholars have come to recognize that the New Testament Gospels are a kind of ancient biography.� - Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: An Historical Introduction To The Early Christian Writings, 1997, p. 54

The gospels much more resemble novelistic biographies rather than historical ones. It's also important to note that the genre Greco-Roman biography doesn't necessarily guarantee historical reliability as they routinely contained myths. Compare Luke's prologue to Dionysius of Halicarnassus discussion of his methodology in Roman Antiquities (1.7.1-3):

"Thus, having given an explanation for my choice of subject matter, I wish now to discuss the sources that I used when setting out to write my history. For perhaps readers who are already familiar with Hieronymus, Timaeus, Polybius, or any other historian that I mentioned a short while ago as being careless in their works, when they do not find many things in my own writings that are mentioned in theirs, will suspect me of fabricating them, and will want to know where I learned of such things. Lest anyone should hold such an opinion of me, it seems better that I should state in advance what narratives and records I have used as sources. I sailed to Italy at the very time when Augustus Caesar put an end to civil war, in the middle of the one hundred and eighty-seventh Olympiad [30 BCE], and having spent twenty-two years in Rome from that time to the present, I learned the Latin language and familiarized myself with Roman literature, and during all this time I remained devoted to matters bearing upon my subject. Some of my information I learned orally from the most educated men whose company I shared, while the rest I gathered from the histories that were written by esteemed Roman authors—such as Porcius Cato, Fabius Maximus, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, the Aelii, Gellii and Calpurnii—as well as other men who are noteworthy. Setting out with these works, which are similar to the Greek annalistic accounts, as my sources, I then put my hands to writing my history."

Matthew Ferguson comments:

"This is but a snippet of Dionysius' extensive introduction about methodology, in which he gives an account of how he came upon his sources, how he learned the relevant languages, names his sources, and even explains why some of his readers will not be familiar with the information in his narrative taken from Roman sources that were less known in the Greek world. The Gospel of Luke does not even come close to this level of historical rigor and the other Gospels are even less substantial.

What is even a greater problem with the Gospels' historical reliability, however, is not their failure to cite the written sources that they consulted about the life of Jesus, but rather their fulfillment of scripture citations derived from the Old Testament. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, the Old Testament is frequently cited regarding the fulfillment of "prophecies" about Jesus." https://infidels.org/library/modern/mat ... genre.html

[kayky]

[Replying to post 12 by YahWhat]

That's fascinating, and I agree with the myth part. Not so sure about the novel part. The novel is a relatively modern genre. What did you think about Spong's theory of the Gospels as liturgy?

[Goose]

Authorship and dating are relevant.

Not to my counter argument to your OP they aren’t.

The church would have had to have separated from the synagogues to have wanted its own liturgy.

Your mistake is to think the Gospels were constructed for liturgical purposes rather than just simply being used as liturgy.

I'll give you that one. But in this case, I don't think we are dealing with an individual. It's impossible to believe a liturgy would be written for a single person.

Maybe that’s because it wasn’t a liturgy.

I think you need to reread the OP. It's obvious that this is only chronological in the literary sense. The events of Jesus' life did not literally align with the Torah. That would require a degree of magical thinking beyond compare.

But Luke isn’t just talking about chronological order in his prologue. He’s talking about compiling an account of the “things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word� so that Theophilus may know the “exact truth.� That sounds to me very much like he intended to record actual history. It sounds very much like the opening statements made in other ancient biographies (e.g. Tacitus’ Agricola, Nicolaus of Damascus’ Augustus). So how does that bit work as a literary device for the idea that Luke deliberately organized his stories and contrived their details to suit his liturgical purposes? If Luke’s intention was to write a liturgy why didn’t he just say that? Why don’t any of the early church fathers confirm this?

You're joking, right? I just took the entire book of Luke and aligned it with the Torah and the Jewish liturgical calendar. I can do the same with Matthew and Mark.

Right. You tried to align it with the Torah. And you did that by forcing parallels for the most part. Selectively choosing events and crafting them as a parallel based on superficial similarities all the while ignoring the differences in context and events which aren’t included by Luke.

And did you properly align it with the Jewish liturgical calendar in the same way the Torah does? I don’t see where you did that. The Torah readings are relatively even with a similar amount of text read at each Sabbath. Go ahead and give me your proposed reading schedule for Luke. Once you do, I think we will find that Luke doesn’t fit that nicely. In other words, if Luke was trying to construct a work aligned with the Jewish liturgical calendar he did a horrible job of it. And besides, why would he be trying to do this for a gentile audience anyway?

And you want to call it an absurd fluke?

I wouldn't use the word fluke. History does often appear to repeat itself. And when it does we usually call it a coincidence. There are couples who can't have children because the women is barren. Couples get old. Some Jews are righteous. These things aren't really that unique or special. They happen all the time.

Sometimes history is repeated intentionally because a person wishes to emulate a figure from the past.

If every time we cried something wasn’t historical because it appears to parallel a prior event we’d have to say many things aren’t historical. Did you read the link to my post where I compared Romulus and Caesar?

The whole point of the OP is that the Gospels do not meet the criteria of the modern biography.

Well that’s a given. No ancient biography would meet a modern criteria. If that was the whole point of the OP you should have just said so. I wouldn’t have wasted my time in this thread if you had.

[Goose]

Does this not prove that the Gospel writers knew they were not writing literal biographies of Jesus?

Since Luke is your suggested model let's look at his opening statement (1:1-4).

• "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught."

Whatever may be said about the historically realiability of Luke, one thing seems certain. He clearly believed what he was writting had occured.

Even critics agree the Gospels are a type of ancient biography.

“Many recent scholars have come to recognize that the New Testament Gospels are a kind of ancient biography.� - Bart Ehrman, The New Testament: An Historical Introduction To The Early Christian Writings, 1997, p. 54

The gospels much more resemble novelistic biographies rather than historical ones. It's also important to note that the genre Greco-Roman biography doesn't necessarily guarantee historical reliability as they routinely contained myths. Compare Luke's prologue to Dionysius of Halicarnassus discussion of his methodology in Roman Antiquities (1.7.1-3):

"Thus, having given an explanation for my choice of subject matter, I wish now to discuss the sources that I used when setting out to write my history. For perhaps readers who are already familiar with Hieronymus, Timaeus, Polybius, or any other historian that I mentioned a short while ago as being careless in their works, when they do not find many things in my own writings that are mentioned in theirs, will suspect me of fabricating them, and will want to know where I learned of such things. Lest anyone should hold such an opinion of me, it seems better that I should state in advance what narratives and records I have used as sources. I sailed to Italy at the very time when Augustus Caesar put an end to civil war, in the middle of the one hundred and eighty-seventh Olympiad [30 BCE], and having spent twenty-two years in Rome from that time to the present, I learned the Latin language and familiarized myself with Roman literature, and during all this time I remained devoted to matters bearing upon my subject. Some of my information I learned orally from the most educated men whose company I shared, while the rest I gathered from the histories that were written by esteemed Roman authors—such as Porcius Cato, Fabius Maximus, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, the Aelii, Gellii and Calpurnii—as well as other men who are noteworthy. Setting out with these works, which are similar to the Greek annalistic accounts, as my sources, I then put my hands to writing my history."

Matthew Ferguson comments:

"This is but a snippet of Dionysius' extensive introduction about methodology, in which he gives an account of how he came upon his sources, how he learned the relevant languages, names his sources, and even explains why some of his readers will not be familiar with the information in his narrative taken from Roman sources that were less known in the Greek world. The Gospel of Luke does not even come close to this level of historical rigor and the other Gospels are even less substantial.

What is even a greater problem with the Gospels' historical reliability, however, is not their failure to cite the written sources that they consulted about the life of Jesus, but rather their fulfillment of scripture citations derived from the Old Testament. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, the Old Testament is frequently cited regarding the fulfillment of "prophecies" about Jesus." https://infidels.org/library/modern/mat ... genre.html

That's fine. You can compare Dionysius of Halicarnassus statement with Luke and say Luke doesn't make such an extensive statement about his methodology. I wouldn't dispute that.

But what's your point here? What does that prove? And how does this impact the many other ancient biographies that likewise make no such statement about methdology and fail to explicitly cite their sources?

[Overcomer]

Richard Bauckham has an excellent article on the gospels as biography/history here:

http://www.richardbauckham.co.uk/upload ... ospels.pdf

It’s lengthy so let me synopsize the main points.

One of the key aspects of the historical-grammatical approach to Bible exegesis rests in determining how the first audience would have understood the gospels. Given how much they resemble the Greco-Roman biographies of that day, they would have seen them as biographies. Biographies of that day differed from our modern-day biographies. For one thing, they weren’t too interested in chronology, but were arranged often by theme and often included many anecdotes – just as we see in the gospels.

Bauckham notes that readers expected these biographies to be historically accurate. They expected that biographies would be written “within living memory� of the subject of these biographies. They expected that the author would have interviewed eyewitnesses. Again, this is what we see with the biographies of Jesus – written by people who knew him or by people who got their material from people who knew him with many eyewitnesses around to testify to what they had seen and heard.

Given that the Old Testament is a book of history, the gospels' authors writing about Jesus were following in the tradition of recording information accurately. In other words, the story of Jesus is a continuation of God’s purpose in the world.

Here is another excellent -- but lengthy -- article on the gospels as biography:

http://www.jesusevidences.com/ntgospelsbiographies.php

It lists six characteristics of Greco-Roman biographies that we see in the gospels:

1. The openings of the gospels – they begin with Christ’s ancestry (Matthew), one sentence that names the subject of the bio (Mark), a preface, followed by the introduction of the subject (Luke), identity and importance (John).

2. The focus is on one individual

3. Very little information given about early days

4. Written in continuous prose narrative

5. Included a variety of literary units (i.e. sayings, stories, speeches)

6. Intent on displaying the quality of the main subject's character

Bear this in mind: Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The Old Testament offers foreshadowing (i.e. Abraham offering son foreshadows God offering his son). It involves typology wherein a figure like Moses who leads the Israelites to freedom parallels Christ leading humankind to freedom (see here: https://www.theopedia.com/biblical-typology). Therefore, we are going to find lots of allusions and references to the Old Testament in the New.

But Spong has arbitrarily created a lot of parallels that are dubious (i.e. comparing Jesus' parents losing him with Jacob losing Joseph) and his work has been severely criticized. One critic used the following analogy to demonstrate how far-fetched some of his comparisons are:

John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960. Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860. Both had lost vice-presidential campaigns four years earlier. Both were succeeded by a man named Johnson. Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre. Kennedy drove a Lincoln made by Ford.

And there are times when his analogy completely breaks down. For example, he can't find any point of comparison with Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. See here for a rebuttal of his book in general:

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/spong02.php

Therefore, I suggest taking Spong’s writing with a grain of salt. It’s creative, but questionable.

I'd like to add one more thing: Luke was Greek and he was writing to a Greek audience. Therefore, the Torah, Jewish liturgy and calendar, etc. would be of little interest to his readers so there is no reason for him to write his gospel in the manner Spong suggests.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 16 by Overcomer]

Well, perhaps...
But biographers use birth dates, events and dates to chronicle real stories: histories.

Now story tellers do not use dates. What year did Hansel and Gretel occur?
What year was the flood?
What year did Set kill Osirus?
What year did Star Wars occur?

If it were a serious story, as it is alleged to be, we would all know the date and events surrounding when Lazarus was raised.

We have nothing.

[kayky]

Authorship and dating are relevant.

Not to my counter argument to your OP they aren’t.

But to the overall argument, it is and cannot be ignored. The Christians had been kicked out of the synagogues. A Church with an identity now separate from Judaism. A church without a liturgy of its own. If you'll pardon a cliche, necessity is the mother of invention.

Forgive me for saying so, but you have provided no counterargument except to deny the reality of all these parallels because...?

Your mistake is to think the Gospels were constructed for liturgical purposes rather than just simply being used as liturgy.

Then how do you account for all the parallels? Coincidence wears thin at the sheer number of them. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I say liturgy came first. You say that was an afterthought. I find that argument (?) just a bit lame.

Maybe that’s because it wasn’t a liturgy.

You think this "pronouncement" settles it? Come on.

But Luke isn’t just talking about chronological order in his prologue. He’s talking about compiling an account of the “things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word� so that Theophilus may know the “exact truth.� That sounds to me very much like he intended to record actual history. It sounds very much like the opening statements made in other ancient biographies (e.g. Tacitus’ Agricola, Nicolaus of Damascus’ Augustus). So how does that bit work as a literary device for the idea that Luke deliberately organized his stories and contrived their details to suit his liturgical purposes? If Luke’s intention was to write a liturgy why didn’t he just say that? Why don’t any of the early church fathers confirm this?

It was the early church fathers--most of them pagan converts--who, unmindful of the Jewish mindset of the Gospels, but instead approached them with a Greek mindset (just as you are doing)--that first mistook them for typical biographies. Luke speaks of certainty, not "exact truth." Certainty of what? Certainty of Truth, not factual information.

Let's consider the birth narrative as an example. Do you really think God made a virgin pregnant? Do you really think Joseph took his heavily pregnant wife to Bethlehem just to fulfill a prophecy, or that Caesar would even conduct a census in such a cumbersome way? Do you honestly believe choirs of angels appeared to a group of shepherds who then managed to find a nondescript infant lying in a corncrib? These are obviously mythical elements meant to express the identity of Jesus--not historical events. And the author of Luke knew it. He used Mark as a source, and Mark has no birth narrative.

The author of Luke claims his stories were handed down by eyewitnesses, eyewitnesses he never knew. I just finished reading Bart Ehrman's latest book, Jesus Before the Gospels. He applies modern memory studies to the time between the departure of Jesus to when the Gospels were actually written. There would have been a variety of versions of all of these stories, and the author of Luke would have been aware of this. Making such stories fit his liturgical agenda would have seemed a natural step for him.

You tried to align it with the Torah. And you did that by forcing parallels for the most part. Selectively choosing events and crafting them as a parallel based on superficial similarities all the while ignoring the differences in context and events which aren’t included by Luke.

And did you properly align it with the Jewish liturgical calendar in the same way the Torah does? I don’t see where you did that. The Torah readings are relatively even with a similar amount of text read at each Sabbath. Go ahead and give me your proposed reading schedule for Luke. Once you do, I think we will find that Luke doesn’t fit that nicely. In other words, if Luke was trying to construct a work aligned with the Jewish liturgical calendar he did a horrible job of it. And besides, why would he be trying to do this for a gentile audience anyway?

Even if Luke were the author (he isn't), he was a Jewish convert before he became a Christian. All four Gospels were written for a Jewish audience. Why isn't the Christian liturgy exactly like the Torah readings? Why would it be? The similarities far outweigh the differences.

I wouldn't use the word fluke. History does often appear to repeat itself. And when it does we usually call it a coincidence. There are couples who can't have children because the women is barren. Couples get old. Some Jews are righteous. These things aren't really that unique or special. They happen all the time.

Sometimes history is repeated intentionally because a person wishes to emulate a figure from the past.

Come on, Goose. Considering the same thing can be done with Matthew and Mark (I will, if you want), make this incredulous.

If every time we cried something wasn’t historical because it appears to parallel a prior event we’d have to say many things aren’t historical. Did you read the link to my post where I compared Romulus and Caesar?

I think this is the crux of it for you, Goose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's important to you that the Gospels are historically accurate. I did not read your link, but it would have pleased Caesar very much to have his life aligned with that of Romulus, the heroic founder of Rome. That's the thing about ancient "biographies." They're not all that interested in the facts.

Well that’s a given. No ancient biography would meet a modern criteria. If that was the whole point of the OP you should have just said so. I wouldn’t have wasted my time in this thread if you had.

Yet you seem to want the Gospels to be historically accurate. I have offered proof that this cannot possibly be the case, and you have vehemently tried to argue it away.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by kayky]

Just some impressions at first glance. Wow...I think your post here, as well as other factors do prove that Luke (and by extension the other Gospel Evangelists) did not write sequential biographies of Jesus*. Clearly, Luke at least, was attempting to tie the events and teachings of Jesus to Torah narrative. Not sure though, if the tie-in's to the Jewish liturgical year are all that well established here.

And some of the narrative parallels are quite subtle, sometime to the point of being a stretch.

And I don't really see how the parallels, ( even the clear ones) are tied to the Christian liturgical year. Perhaps it was for the primitive Christian church, but I don't really see how the events in Luke parallel the holidays and seasons of the present liturgical churches, namely the RCC, Anglican/Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Orthodox.

I think that it is clear, however that Luke for one, is presenting Jesus as the "New Moses", I think your post, and Spong's book, is strong evidence for that.

Also, I believe there is a literary theory that Jesus was wholly invented, he was in fact, a literary device to personify the Torah, it's narrative and teachings. This could well account for the parallels between the Gospels and the Torah.

IF Jesus were indeed a fiction, it would matter greatly to orthodox (small "o") Trintarian Christians whose main focus is on the "atoning death" and resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus never lived, how could he die to "pay for" our sins?

It wouldn't matter as much to me, as I consider Jesus' teachings about the expansive mercy of the Father to be most important. Whether Jesus lived or not, the teachings attributed to him live on!

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*how could they be literal biographies, when the sequence of the narrative events in each Gospel conflict to some degree, especially with the Gospe of John, right?

[marco]

You make a good point, but I use the phrase "literal history" in the practical sense regarding how fundamentalists tend to read the Gospels. So I don't see how Goose and I can both be correct. To come up with such parallels would have taken a great deal of contrivance on the part of the author of Luke.

He didn't necessarily come up with the parallels any more than some modern artists have seen all that critics read into the work. Obviously the author, consciously or not, is influenced by his own schooling.

On the other hand there seems rather more to the tales than external interpretation; they do seem contrived and consequently of dubious truth. Letting Jesus wander around aimlessly "in the wilderness", wherever that was, and have his direct speech recorded is taking poetic license to extremes.

The gospels are not biographical portraits of Jesus, of whom we know next to nothing. They are psychological portraits and impressions of what he opined.