Bible Literature

From the late AD 40s and until his martyrdom in the 60s, Paul wrote letters to the churches that he founded or guided. These are the earliest Christian writings that the church has, and in them he refers to "the gospel" (euangelion). In Romans, chapter 1, verse 1, he says: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God . . ." and goes on to describe this "gospel" in what was already by that time traditional language, such as: "promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended . . . our Lord" (Rom. 1:1-4). This gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith ". . . for in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith . . ." (1:17). In I Corinthians Paul had reminded his congregation in stylized terms of "the gospel" he had brought to them. It consisted of the announcement that Jesus had died and risen according to the Scriptures.

Thus, the "gospel" was an authoritative proclamation (as announced by a herald, keryx), or the kerygma (that which is proclaimed, kerygma). The earthly life of Jesus is hardly noted or missed, because something more glorious--the ascended Lord who sent the Spirit upon the church--is what matters.

In the speeches of Peter in Acts, the transition from kerygma to creed or vice versa is almost interchangeable. In Acts 2 Jesus is viewed as resurrected and exalted at the right hand of God and made both Lord and Christ. In Acts 3 Peter's speech proclaims Jesus as the Christ having been received in heaven to be sent at the end of time as judge for the vindication and salvation of those who believe in him. Here the proclaimed message, the gospel, is more basic than an overview of Jesus' earthly life, which in Acts is referred to only briefly as "his acting with power, going about doing good, and healing and exorcising" (10:38ff.). Such an extended kergyma can be seen as a transition from the original meaning of gospel as the "message" to gospel meaning an account of the life of Jesus.

The term gospel has connotations of the traditions of Jesus' earthly ministry and Passion that were remembered and then written in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are written from the post-Resurrection perspective and they contain an extensive and common Passion narrative as they deal with the earthly ministry of Jesus from hindsight. And so the use of the term gospel for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John has taken the place of the original creedal-kerygmatic use in early Christianity. It is also to be noted that, in the Evangelists' accounts, their theological presuppositions and the situations of their addressees molded the formation of the four canonical Gospels written after the Pauline Letters. The primary affirmations--of Jesus as the Christ, his message of the Kingdom, and his Resurrection--preceded the Evangelists' accounts. Some of these affirmations were extrapolated backward (much as the Exodus event central in the Old Testament was extrapolated backward and was the theological presupposition for the patriarchal narratives in Genesis). These stories were shaped by the purpose for their telling: religious propaganda or preaching to inspire belief. The kerygmatic, or creedal, beginning was expanded with material about the life and teaching of Jesus, which a reverence for and a preoccupation with the holy figure of Jesus demanded out of loving curiosity about his earthly ministry and life.

The English word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon godspell ("good story"). The classical Greek word euangelion means "a reward for bringing of good news" or the "good news" itself. In the emperor cult particularly, in which the Roman emperor was venerated as the spirit and protector of the empire, the term took on a religious meaning: the announcement of the appearance or accession to the throne of the ruler. In contemporary Greek it denoted a weighty, authoritative, royal, and official message.

In the New Testament, no stress can be placed on the etymological (root) meaning of eu ("good"); in Luke, chapter 3, verse 18 (as in other places), the word means simply authoritative news concerning impending judgment.

2) Form criticism.

In the Pauline writings, as noted above, gospel, kerygma, and creed come close together from oral to written formulas that were transmitted about the Christ event: Jesus' death and Resurrection. In the apostolic Fathers (early 2nd century), the transition was made from oral to written tradition; the translation of the presumed Aramaic traditions had taken place before the Gospel material had been committed to writing. By the time of Justin Martyr (c. 155), these writings were called Gospels and referred to in the plural; they contain the words, deeds, and Passion narratives--i.e., the present four Gospels compiled and edited by the Evangelists according to their various needs and theological emphases. Justin also referred to these as "memoirs of the Apostles."

Such a Gospel began with a missionary announcement concerning a cosmic divine figure, a man with divine characteristics who would bring salvation and hope to the world. The earthly historical Jesus, however, was the criterion of the proclamation--being both the content of the church's proclamation and the object of its faith.

The identification of basic patterns in the history of oral and written traditions--the stage of tradition prior to any literary form and particularly as the traditions passed from an oral to a written form--and the determination of their creative milieu, or their situations and functions in various places and under various circumstances, are tasks of form criticism. Through such study, small independent units may be isolated in a postulated more primitive form than they were before being incorporated into more extended accounts. The term Sitz-im-Leben refers to the "Sitz im Leben der Kirche"--i.e., the situation in the life of the church in which the material was shaped and adjusted to the needs at hand. Only through such studies is it possible to progress tentatively to an assessment of a "Sitz im Leben Jesu."

Both Jews and Gentiles could use "biographies," often for propaganda purposes. Philo and Josephus recounted the wonderful lives and deeds of Old Testament heroes such as Moses; and there are miraculous tales of the prophets Elijah and Elisha told in order that faith might be inspired or justified. A miracle worker (theios aner, "divine man") and stories about him comprised an aretalogy (from arete, "virtue"; also manifestation of divine power, miracle). Aretalogies were frequently used to represent the essential creed and belief of a religious or philosophical movement. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a Neo-Pythagorean philosopher and wonder-worker (transmitted by the Greek writer Philostratus), was widely read. He was depicted as having performed miracles and as being possessed of divine cosmic power not as an exception but as an example to men who have the possibility of sharing such power (cf. Matt. 9:8). There were tales of Heracles, the Greek hero, and a whole literature of Alexander the Great as wonder-workers, divine men.

Though the pericopes (small units) of which the Gospels are constituted include many forms, or genres, they are mainly divided into narratives (including legends, miracle stories, exorcisms, healings, and tales) and sayings (prophetic and apocalyptic sayings, proverbs and wisdom sayings, parables, church discipline and rules for the community, Christological sayings, such as the socalled "I am" sayings [e.g., "I am the bread of life"] in John, revelations, and legal sayings). Some stories may simply be the background for a pithy saying; these latter are sometimes called paradigmatic sayings, and the pronouncement stories are their vehicles of transmission. The forms have many different names, but form criticism started with Homeric form analysis (taking oral tradition into account), which was applied to Old Testament studies by Hermann Gunkel, a German biblical scholar, and applied to the New Testament, on the basis of the German classical philologist Eduard Norden's stylistic studies, by such biblical scholars as Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Dibelius.

Form criticism asks and answers questions about what shaped the preliterary tradition and the earliest written traditions into blocks as they are found in the Gospels. This may be a historical context (as a missionary situation), a need for admonition (as church-discipline sections), or for the transmission of teaching in a faithful way (as in a "school," be it Matthean, Pauline, or Johannine). One large block of the material, however, is to all intents and purposes the same (although differing in details) in all four canonical Gospels: the Passion narrative. In the Synoptic Gospels there is also a basic nucleus in the sayings about Jesus that are mysterious, prophetic, and apocalyptic and that point to the significance of Jesus as the Christ who has come in history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Such form-critical studies were centred on the smaller units of tradition (pericopes) that make up the Gospels, and their intention was partly to assess relative age and authenticity of such traditions. In more recent times the tools of form criticism have been applied to a more synthetic method that could be used to determine the relation between a genre of literature and the Christological and theological perspectives that made such genres natural. A presentation of Jesus material in the form of more or less disconnected sayings (as in the so-called Q Source, composed of independent sayings, behind Matthew and Luke, and in the Gospel of Thomas; see below The two- and four-source hypotheses ) tends to fit a Christology in which Jesus is viewed as a teacher of Wisdom, an envoy of Wisdom, or as Wisdom herself. The collections of wonder stories (aretalogies) grew out of a Christology of Jesus as the divine man. Another type of Jesus material with independent existence seems to have been "revelations," or "apocalypses," in which Jesus Christ speaks to his followers. This is seen, for example, in Mark 13, I Thessalonians, chapter 4, the canonical book of Revelation to John, and the noncanonical Didache 16.

These genres of material now represented in the canonical Gospels are amply represented also in the noncanonical writings from the first Christian centuries. The discovery of a Gnostic library of Coptic writings at Naj' Hammadi, in Egypt, in the 1940s gave scholars a new opportunity to compare the canonical Gospels with the Jesus material of these various types, some of them having been called and used as gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas). In the light of such a wider spectrum of material, it appears that the gospel form for which Mark is the earliest witness became a criterion for the orthodox transmission of the Christian message about Jesus. By making the confession of Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord (the earliest kerygma and "gospel" as found in Paul and Acts) the form of an extensive Passion account prefaced by a limited amount of narrative and teaching, Mark set the stage for a faith that anchored faith in Jesus Christ in the events of the earthly life of Jesus. This form of the "gospel" became the standard within which the other commonly accepted Gospels grew. It became the criterion for later creedal statements concerning Jesus Christ as true God and true man. By such a criterion, gospels that seemed to disregard his humanity (e.g., Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter) were judged heretical.

2. THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM

1) Early theories about the Synoptic problem.

Since the 1780s, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have been referred to as the Synoptic Gospels (from synoptikos, "seen together"). The extensive parallels in structure, content, and wording of Matthew, Mark, and Luke make it even possible to arrange them side by side so that corresponding sections can be seen in parallel columns. John Calvin, the 16th-century Reformer, wrote a commentary on these Gospels as a harmony. Such an arrangement is called a "synopsis," or Gospel harmony, and, by careful comparison of their construction, compilation, and actual agreement or disagreement in wording or content, literary- or source-critical relationships can be seen. Augustine, the great 4th-5th-century Western theologian, considered Mark to be an abridged Matthew, and, until the 19th century, some variation of this solution to literary dependency dominated the scene. It still recurs from time to time.

The Synoptic problem is one of literary or of source criticism and deals with the written sources after compilation and redaction. Matthew was the Gospel most used for the selections read in the liturgy of the church, and other Gospels were used to fill in the picture. One attempted solution to the problem of priority was the proposed existence of an Aramaic primitive gospel, which is now lost, as the first Gospel from which a later Mark in Greek was translated and arranged. The Greek Mark would thus be first based on a prior Semitic Matthew, and later both Mark and Matthew would be translations dependent on Matthew, and Luke dependent on both. The preservation of an ecclesiastical priority of Matthew breaks down because of the literary word-for-word agreement in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This agreement occurs to far too great an extent to be accounted for in translations and revisions, not to mention the agreement in the order of the various pericopes as they are viewed in a synoptic parallel arrangement.

For similar reasons, a fragment theory holding that the Gospels were constructed of small written collections brought together in varying sequences cannot stand the test of actual structure--but it has the merit of stressing compilation of sources.

In 1789 J.J. Griesbach, a German biblical scholar, hypothesized that the Synoptics had not developed independently, but in his "usage-hypothesis" he recognized that there must be literary dependency. He thought that Mark used Matthew as well as Luke, but this could not account for the close relationship of Matthew and Luke. His basic concept of literary dependency, however, paved the way for K. Lachmann, who observed in 1835 that Matthew and Luke agree only when they also agree with Mark and that, where material is introduced that is not in Mark, it is inserted in different places. This, it is held, can only be explained on the basis of the priority of Mark and its use as the patterning form of Matthew and Luke. This insight led to a so-called two-source hypothesis (by two German biblical scholars, Heinrich Holtzmann in 1863, and Bernhard Weiss in 1887-88), which, with various modifications and refinements of other scholars, is the generally accepted solution to the Synoptic problem.

2) The two- and four-source hypotheses.

The two-source hypothesis is predicated upon the following observations: Matthew and Luke used Mark, both for its narrative material as well as for the basic structural outline of chronology of Jesus' life. Matthew and Luke use a second source, which is called Q (from German Quelle, "source"), not extant, for the sayings (logia) found in common in both of them. Thus, Mark and Q are the main components of Matthew and Luke. In both Matthew and Luke there is material that is peculiar to each of their Gospels; this material is probably drawn from some other sources, which may be designated M (material found only in Matthew's special source) and L (material found only in Luke's special source). This is known as the four-document hypothesis, which was elaborated in 1925 by B.H. Streeter, an English biblical scholar. The placement of Q material in Luke and Matthew disagrees at certain points according to the needs and theologies of the addressees of the gospels, but in Matthew the Marcan chronology is the basic scheme into which Q is put. Mark's order is kept, on the whole, by Matthew and Luke, but, where it differs, at least one agrees with Mark. After chapter 4 in Matthew and Luke, not a single passage from Q is in the same place. Q was a source written in Greek as was Mark, which can be demonstrated by word agreement (not possible, for example, with a translation from Aramaic, although perhaps the Greek has vestiges of Semitic structure form). A diagram might thus be:

In approximate figures, Mark's text has 661 verses, more than 600 of which appear in Matthew and 350 in Luke. Only c. 31 verses of Mark are found nowhere in Matthew or Luke. In the material common to all three Synoptics, there is very seldom verbatim agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark, though such agreement is common between Matthew and Mark or Luke and Mark or where all three concur.

The postulated common saying source of Matthew and Luke, Q, would account for much verbatim agreement of Matthew and Luke when they include sayings absent from Mark. The fact that the sayings are used in different ways or different contexts in Matthew and Luke is an indication of a somewhat free way in which the editors could take material and mold it to their given situations and needs. An example of this is the parable in Matthew and Luke about the lost sheep (Matt. 18:10-14, Luke 15:3-7). The basic material has been used in different ways. In Matthew, the context is church discipline--how a brother in Christ who has lapsed or who is in danger of doing so is to be gently and graciously dealt with--and Matthew shapes it accordingly (the sheep has "gone astray"). In Luke, the parable exemplifies Jesus' attitude toward sinners and is directed against the critical Pharisees and scribes who object to Jesus' contact with sinners and outsiders (the sheep is "lost").

Another example of two passages used verbatim in Luke and Matthew is Jesus' lament over Jerusalem. In Luke (13:34-35; the lament over Jerusalem) Jesus refers to how they will cry "Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord" when he enters Jerusalem (Lk. 19:38). In Luke, the passage is structured into the life of Jesus and refers to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"). In Matthew (23:37-39) this same lament is placed after the entry into the city (21:9) and thus refers to the fall of Jerusalem and the Last Judgment. Apparently, Luke has historicized a primarily eschatological saying.

Since the 1930s, scholars have increasingly refined sources, postulated sources behind sources, and many stages of their formation. The premise of the two- (or four-) source hypothesis is basic and provides information as to literary sources; further refinement is of interest only to the specialist. Another movement in synoptic research--and also research including John--is that which concentrates rather on the treatment of gospels as a whole, formally and theologically, with patterns or cycles to be investigated. It may be significant that the latest and best regarded Greek synopsis is that of the German scholar Kurt Aland, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (1964; Synopsis of the Four Gospels, 1972), which includes the Gospel According to John and, as an appendix, the Gospel of Thomas, as well as ample quotations from noncanonical gospels and Jesus' sayings preserved in the Church Fathers.

3. THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS

1) The Gospel According to Mark: Background and overview.

The Gospel According to Mark is the second in canonical order of the Gospels and is both the earliest gospel that survived and the shortest. Probably contemporaneous with Q, it has no direct connection with it. The Passion narrative comprises 40 percent of Mark, and, from chapter 8, verse 27, onward, there is heavy reference forward to the Passion.

Though the author of Mark is probably unknown, authority is traditionally derived from a supposed connection with the Apostle Peter, who had transmitted the traditions before his martyr death under Nero's persecution (c. 64-65). Papias, a 2nd-century bishop in Asia Minor, is quoted as saying that Mark had been Peter's amanuensis (secretary) who wrote as he remembered (after Peter's death), though not in the right order. Because Papias was from the East, perhaps the Johannine order would have priority, as is the case in the structure of the Syrian scholar Tatian's Diatesseron (harmony of the Gospels).

Attempts have been made to identify Mark as the John Mark mentioned in Acts 12 or as the disciple who fled naked in the garden (Mark 14). A reference to "my son, Mark," in I Peter is part of the same tradition by which Mark was related to Peter; thus the Evangelist's apostolic guarantor was Peter.

The setting is a Gentile church. There is no special interest in problems with Jews and little precision in stating Jewish views, arguments, or terminology. Full validity is given the worship of the Gentiles. In further support of a Gentile setting and Roman provenance is the argument that Mark uses a high percentage of so-called Latinisms--i.e., Latin loanwords in Greek for military officers, money, and other such terms. Similar translations and transliterations, however, have been found in the Jerusalem Talmud, a compendium of Jewish law, lore, and commentary, which certainly was not of Roman provenance. The argument from Latinisms must be weighed against the fact that Latin could be used anywhere in the widespread Roman Empire. In addition, for the first three centuries the language of the church of Rome was Greek--so the Gentile addressees might just as well have been Syrian as Roman. The Latinisms--as well as the Aramaisms--are rather an indication of the vernacular style of Mark, which was "improved" by the other Evangelists.

Mark is written in rather crude and plain Greek, with great realism. Jesus' healing of a blind man is done in two stages: first the blind man sees men, but they look like trees walking, and only after further healing activity on Jesus' part is he restored to see everything clearly. This concrete element was lost in the rest of the tradition. It is also perhaps possible that this two-stage healing is a good analogy for understanding Mark theologically: first, through enigmatic miracles and parables in secret, and only later, after recognition of Jesus as the Christ, is there a gradual clarification leading to the empty tomb. In chapter 3, verse 21, those closest to Jesus call him insane ("he is beside himself"), a statement without parallel in the other Gospels.

In Mark, some Aramaic is retained, transliterated into Greek, and then translated--e.g., in the raising of Jairus' daughter (5:41) and in the healing of the deaf mute (7:34). The well-known abba, Father, is retained in Mark's account of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. In the two miracle stories, the Aramaic may have been retained to enhance the miracle by the technique of preserving Jesus' actual words. And a cry of Jesus on the Cross is given in Aramaized Hebrew. (see also Index: Aramaic language)

The stories in Mark are woven together with simple stereotyped connectives, such as the use of kai euthus ("and immediately," "straightway"), which may be thought of as a Semitic style (as a typical simple connective in the Old Testament narrative style). More likely, however, this abruptness indicated that the compiler-redactor of Mark has used geography and people simply as props or scenes to be used as needed to connect the events in the service of the narrative.

Except for the Passion narrative, there is little chronological information. References in chapters 13 and 14 appear to presuppose that the Jerusalem Temple (destroyed in AD 70) still stood (in Matthew and Luke this is no longer the case); but the context of chapter 13, the "Little Apocalypse," is so interwoven with eschatological traditions of both the Jewish and Christian expectations in the 1st century that it cannot serve with certainty as a historical reference. To some extent, however, chapter 13 does help to date Mark--the priority of which has already been established from literary criticism--because it is in good agreement with the traditions that Mark was written after the martyrdom of Peter. Mark may thus be dated somewhere after 64 and before 70, when the Jewish war ended.

2) The Gospel According to Mark: unique structure.

The organization and schematizing of Mark reveals its special thrust. It may be roughly divided into three parts: (1) 1:1-8:26--the Galilean ministry--an account of mighty deeds (an aretalogy); (2) 8:27-10:52--discussions with his disciples centred on suffering; and (3) 11:1-16:8--controversies, Passion, death, the empty tomb, and the expected Parousia in Galilee.

"The beginning of the Gospel" in the first words of Mark apparently refers to John the Baptist, who is clearly described as a forerunner of the Messiah who calls the people to repentance. Jesus never calls himself the Messiah (Christ). After Jesus' Baptism by John, the heavens open, the Spirit descends, and a heavenly voice proclaims Jesus as God's beloved son with whom He is well pleased. Already in this account there is a certain secrecy, because it is not clear whether the onlookers or only Jesus witnessed or heard. Jesus was then driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, the place of demons and struggle, to be tempted by Satan, surrounded by wild beasts (the symbols of the power of evil and persecution) and ministered to by angels. Here again he is in secret, alone. The opening of the struggle with Satan is depicted, and the attendance by angels is a sign of Jesus' success in the test.

Many references to persecution in Mark point toward Roman oppression and a martyr church that was preoccupied with a confrontation with the Satanic power behind the world's hostility to Jesus and his message. There was stress on the underlying fact that the church must witness before the authorities in a hostile world. Much of the martyrological aspect of Mark's account is grounded in his interpretation of the basic function of Jesus' Passion and death and its implication that the Christian life is a life of suffering witness.

What Jesus preached in Galilee at the beginning of his ministry was that the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is "at hand"; i.e., very very near--therefore repent! (1:15). In Matthew this same message is that of both John the Baptist (3:2) and Jesus (4:17). This sets the stage; and the miraculous ministry in Galilee about which the followers are enjoined to secrecy points not so much to Jesus as the wonder-worker as to the great scheme of pushing back the frontier of Satan. Toward the end of this first section, the Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign, and he answers in no uncertain terms that no sign will be given (8:12). In the Synoptic Gospels the miracles are never called "signs" (as in John); and no sign is to be given prior to the cosmological, eschatological signs from heaven that belong to the end: darkening of the Sun and Moon and extreme tribulations that in postbiblical Jewish eschatology--the mood of the first Christian century--is a sign of the coming of the heavenly Son of man to judge the world.

Parables are a revelatory mode of expression; they are not just illustrations of ideas or principles. Jesus, the revealer, tells his disciples that the secret of the Kingdom of God is given to them but that to the outsider everything is in parables (or riddles) in order that they may not hear and understand lest they repent and be forgiven (4:10-12). This mystery and hiddenness is particularly related to the parables about the coming of the kingdom. Yet, even Jesus' disciples did not recognize him as the Messiah, although his miracles were such that only a messianic figure could perform them: forgiving sins on earth, casting out demons, raising the dead, making the deaf hear and the stammerer (the dumb) speak, and the blind to see--all fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy concerning the Messiah. Only the demons, supranatural beings, recognize Jesus. There is a constant campaign against Satan from the temptation after Jesus' Baptism until his death on the Cross, and, in each act of healing or exorcism, there is anticipated the ultimate defeat of Satan and the manifestation of the power of the new age. In all this Mark stresses the need for secrecy and Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ (8:29) is told in Mark as the opportunity to motivate an acceptance of the admonition "not to tell" by reference to the necessity of suffering. (see also Index: New Testament)

This strong emphasis on the necessity of suffering--in the life of Jesus and in the life of the disciples--before the hour of victory gives the best explanation to what scholars have called the secrecy motif in Mark--i.e., the constant stress on not telling the world about Jesus' messianic power. (see also Index: messiah)

According to William Wrede, a German scholar, the messianic secret motif was a literary and apologetic device by which the Christological faith of the early church could be reconciled with the fact that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. According to Wrede, Mark's solution was: Jesus always knew it but kept it a secret for the inner group. After Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to speak of a suffering Son of man. The Son of man in Jewish apocalyptic was a glorious, transcendent, heavenly figure who would come victorious on clouds of glory to judge the world at the end of time. Suffering was not part of this picture. E. Sjöberg (1955) has interpreted the messianic secret not as a literary invention but as an understanding both that the Messiah would appear without recognition except by those who are chosen and to whom he reveals himself and that he must suffer. For outsiders, then, he remains a mystery until the age to come. Even his disciples did not understand the necessity of suffering. Only in the light of Resurrection faith--the hope of the Parousia and final victory over Satan--could they understand that he had to suffer and die to fulfill his mission and how they, too, must suffer.

Martyrological aspects in Mark can be noted from the beginning. Already according to 2:20 Jesus' disciples are not to fast until "when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast . . . ." In Mark 8 to 10, there is great concentration on discussions with the disciples. The theme is suffering, and repeatedly they are reminded that there is no way of coming to glory except through suffering. Three Passion predictions meet either with rejection, fear, or confusion. In the Transfiguration (9:2-13; in which three disciples--Peter, James, and John--see Jesus become brighter and Elijah and Moses, two Old Testament prophets, appear) there is the same emphasis. The tension between future glory and prior suffering is the more striking when the Transfiguration is recognized as a Resurrection appearance, placed here in an anticipatory manner. The disciples are reminded of an association of Elijah with John the Baptist and his fate. This is also a hidden epiphany (manifestation)--the triumphal enthroned king closely juxtaposed with suffering and death.

After the third Passion prediction, in chapter 10, two of the disciples ask for places of honour when Jesus is glorified. He reminds them that suffering must precede glory for "The Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." It is worth noting that this is the only reference to the death of Christ as a ransom or sacrifice but that Mark does not dwell on the Christological implications, but uses the saying for ethical purposes. Even so, the Marcan text gives one of the important building blocks for Christological growth and reflection on the suffering Son of man.

Just as Jesus' public ministry in Mark started with the calling of disciples, so the central part of the Gospel calls them to participate through suffering in his own confrontation with the power of Satan.

In the last section of the Gospel, the scene is shifted to Jerusalem, where Jesus is going to die. His entry is described as triumphal and openly messianic and is accompanied by acted-out parables in a judgment of a barren fig tree, casting money changers out of the Temple, and in a parable of a vineyard in which the beloved son of the owner is killed. There is an increasing conflict and alienation of the authorities. Chapter 13, the "Little Apocalypse," made up of a complex arrangement of apocalyptic traditions, serves as instruction to the disciples and thence to the church that they must endure through tribulation and persecution until the end time. Thus, although the setting is Jerusalem, the orientation is toward Galilee, the place where the Parousia is expected. The Holy Spirit will come to those who must witness in the situation of trial before governors and authorities (13:11); in the final eschatological trials only by God's intervention can anyone endure unless the time be shortened for the elect. Because this chapter is shaped as a discourse that precedes the Passion narrative, it serves as a farewell address, a type of testament including apocalyptic sayings and warnings to the messianic community at the end of the "narrative" before the Passion--as do most testament forms (admonitions given before death to those beloved who will remain behind).

The Cross is both the high point of the Gospel and its lowest level of abject humiliation and suffering. A cry of dereliction and agony and the cosmic sign of the rending of the Temple veil bring from a Gentile centurion acknowledgment of Jesus as Son of God. The disciples reacted to the scandal of the Cross with discouragement, although already the scene is set for a meeting in Galilee. There are no visions of the risen Lord, however, in the best manuscripts (verses 9-20 are commonly held to be later additions), and Mark thus remains an open-ended Gospel. The Resurrection is neither described nor interpreted. Not exultation but rather involvement in the battle with Satan is the inheritance until the victorious coming in glory of the Lord--a continual process with the empty tomb pointing to hope of the final victory and glory, the Parousia in Galilee. The Gospel ends on the note of expectation. The mood from the last words of Jesus to the disciples remains: What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!

3) The Gospel According to Matthew.

Matthew is the first in order of the four canonical Gospels and is often called the "ecclesiastical" Gospel, both because it was much used for selections for pericopes for the church year and because it deals to a great extent with the life and conduct of the church and its members. Matthew gave the frame, the basic shape and colour, to the early church's picture of Jesus. Matthew used almost all of Mark, upon which it is to a large extent structured, some material peculiar only to Matthew, and sayings from Q as they serve the needs of the church. This Gospel expands and enhances the stark description of Jesus from Mark. The fall of Jerusalem (AD 70) had occurred, and this dates Matthew later than Mark, c. 70-80.

Although there is a Matthew named among the various lists of Jesus' disciples, more telling is the fact that the name of Levi, the tax collector who in Mark became a follower of Jesus, in Matthew is changed to Matthew. It would appear from this that Matthew was claiming apostolic authority for his Gospel through this device but that the writer of Matthew is probably anonymous.

The Gospel grew out of a "school" led by a man with considerable knowledge of Jewish ways of teaching and interpretation. This is suggested by the many ways in which Matthew is related to Judaism. It is in some ways the most "Jewish" Gospel. Striking are 11 "formula quotations" ("This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet . . .") claiming the fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecies.

The outstanding feature of Matthew is its division into five discourses, or sermons, following narrative sections with episodes and vignettes that precede and feed into them: (1) chapters 5-7--the Sermon on the Mount--a sharpened ethic for the Kingdom and a higher righteousness than that of the Pharisees; (2) chapter 10--a discourse on mission, witness, and martyrological potential for disciples with an eschatological context (including material from Mark 13); (3) chapter 13--parables about the coming of the Kingdom; (4) chapter 18--on church discipline, harshness toward leaders who lead their flock astray and more gentleness toward sinning members; and (5) chapters 23-25--concerned with the end time (the Parousia) and watchful waiting for it, and firmness in faith in God and his Holy Spirit. Each sermon is preceded by a didactic use of narratives, events, and miracles leading up to them, many from the Marcan outline. Each of the five sections of narrative and discourse ends with a similar formula: "now when Jesus had finished these sayings. . . ." The style suggests a catechism for Christian behaviour based on the example of Jesus: a handbook for teaching and administration of the church. This presupposes a teaching and acting community, a church, in which the Gospel functions. The Greek word ekklesia, ("church") is used in the Gospels only in Matthew (16:18 and 18:17).

The discourses are preceded by etiological (sources or origins) material of chapters 1-2, in which the birth narrative relates Jesus' descent (by adoption according to the will of God) through Joseph into the Davidic royal line. Though a virgin birth is mentioned, it is not capitalized upon theologically in Matthew. The story includes a flight into Egypt (recalling a Mosaic tradition). Some "Semitisms" add to the Jewish flavour, such as calling the Kingdom of God the Kingdom of the Heaven(s). The name Jesus (Saviour) is theologically meaningful to Matthew (1:21). Chapter 2 reflects on the geographical framework of the Messiah's birth and tells how the messianic baby born in Bethlehem came to dwell in Nazareth. (see also Index: infancy narrative)

After the five narrative and discourse units, Matthew continues from chapter 26 on with the Passion narrative, burial, a Resurrection account, and the appearance of the risen Lord in Galilee, where he gives the final "great commission," with which Matthew ends.

Matthew is not only an original Greek document, but its addressees are Greek-speaking Gentile Christians. By the time of the Gospel According to Matthew, there had been a relatively smooth and mild transition into a Gentile Christian milieu. The setting could be Syria, but hardly Antioch, where the Pauline mission had sharpened the theological issues far beyond what seems to be the case in Matthew. Matthew has no need to argue against the Law, or Torah, as divisive for the church (as had been the case earlier with Paul in Romans and Galatians, in which the Law was divisive among Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians), and, indeed, the Law is upheld in Matthew (5:17-19). For Matthew, there had already been a separation of Christianity from its Jewish matrix. When he speaks about the "scribes and the Pharisees," he thinks of the synagogue "across the street" from the now primarily Gentile church. Christianity is presented as superior to Judaism even in regard to the Law and its ethical demands.

The Matthean church is conscious of its Jewish origins but also of a great difference in that it is permeated with an eschatological perspective, seeing itself not only as participating in the suffering of Christ (as in Mark) but also as functioning even in the face of persecution while patiently--but eagerly--awaiting the Parousia. The questions of the mission of the church and the degree of the "coming" of the Kingdom with the person and coming of Jesus are handled by the Evangelist by a "timetable" device. The Gospel is arranged so that only after the Resurrection is the power of the Lord fully manifest as universal and continuing. Before the Resurrection the disciples are sent nowhere among the Gentiles but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and the end time is expected before the mission will have gone through the towns of Israel. Even in his earthly ministry, however, Jesus proleptically, with a sort of holy impatience, heals the son of a believing Roman centurion and responds to the persistent faith of a Canaanite woman--whose heathen background is stressed even more than her geographical designation, Syro-Phoenician, given in the parallel in Mark--by healing her daughter. The Jewish origins of Jesus' teaching and the way the Evangelist presents them do not deny but push beyond them. The prophecies are fulfilled, the Law is kept, and the church's mission is finally universal, partly because the unbelief of the pious Jewish leaders left the gospel message to the poor, the sick, the sinner, the outcast, and the Gentile.

In Matthew, because of the use of Q and Matthew's theological organization, there is stress on Jesus as teacher, his sharpening or radicalizing of the Law in an eschatological context; and Jesus is presented not in secret but as an openly proclaimed Messiah, King, and Judge. In the temptation narrative Jesus refuses Satan's temptations because they are of the devil, but he himself later in the Gospel does feed the multitude, and after the Resurrection he claims all authority in heaven and on earth. By overcoming Satan, Jesus gave example to his church to stand firm in persecution. Messianic titles are more used in Matthew than in Mark. In the exorcism of demoniacs, the demons cry out, calling him Son of God and rebuking him for having come "before the time" (8:29). Again, this shows that Jesus in his earthly ministry had power over demons, power belonging only to the Messiah and the age to come; and he pushed this timetable ahead. Yet, as in Mark, the miracles are not to be interpreted as signs. When asked for a sign, the Matthean account gives only the sign of Jonah, an Old Testament prophet--i.e., the preaching of the gospel--which in later tradition took on an added interpretation as presaging the Son of man (Jesus) being three days and nights in the tomb (12:40, a later addition to Matthew).

Even the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount are not new but demonstrate a higher ethic--one that is sharpened, strict, more immediate because the end time is perceived as coming soon. People who took this intensification of the Law upon themselves dared to do it as an example of "messianic license"--i.e., to use the ethics of the Kingdom in the present in a church still under historical ambiguity and in constant struggle with Satan.

At such points the peculiar nature of Matthew comes into focus. The sharpening of the Law and the messianic license for the disciples are clearly there. At the same time Matthew presents the maxims of Jesus as attractive to a wider audience with Hellenistic tastes: Jesus is the teacher of a superior ethic, beyond casuistry and particularism. Similarly, in chapter 15, he renders maxims about food laws as an example of enlightened attitudes, not as rules for actual behaviour.

According to Matthew, the "professionally" pious were blind and unhearing, and these traits led to their replacement by those who are called in Matthew the "little ones"; in Final Judgment the King-Messiah will judge according to their response to him who is himself represented as one of "the least of these." The depiction of Jesus as Lord, King, Judge, Saviour, Messiah, Son of man, and Son of God (all messianic titles) is made in a highly pitched eschatological tone. The Lord's Prayer is presented in this context, and, for example, the "temptation" (trial, test) of "Lead us not into temptation" is no ordinary sin but the ordeal before the end time, the coming of the Kingdom for which the Matthean church prays. Martyrdom, though not to be pursued, can be endured through the help of the Spirit and the example of Jesus.

The Passion narrative is forceful and direct. Pilate's part in sentencing Jesus to be crucified is somewhat modified, and the guilt of the Jews increased in comparison with the Marcan account. In Matthew the Resurrection is properly witnessed by more than one male witness so that there can be no ambiguity as to the meaning of the empty tomb. The risen Lord directs his disciples to go to Galilee, and the Gospel According to Matthew ends with a glorious epiphany there and with Jesus' commission to the disciples--the church--to go to the Gentiles, because the risen Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth for all time.

4) The Gospel According to Luke.

Luke is the third in order of the canonical gospels, which, together with Acts, its continuation, is dedicated by Luke to the same patron, "most excellent" Theophilus. Theophilus may have been a Roman called by a title of high degree because he is an official or out of respect; or he may have been an exemplification of the Gentile Christian addressees of the Lucan Gospel. The account in Luke-Acts is for the purpose of instruction and for establishing reliability by going back to the apostolic age. The very style of this preface follows the pattern of Greek historiography, and thus Luke is called the "historical" Gospel. Historically reliable information cannot be expected, however, because Luke's sources were not historical; they rather were embedded in tradition and proclamation. Luke is, however, a historian in structuring his sources, especially in structuring his chronology into periods to show how God's plan of salvation was unfolded in world history. That he uses events and names is secondary to his intention, and their historical accuracy is of less importance than the schematization by which he shows Jesus to be the Saviour of the world and the church in its mission (Acts) to be part of an orderly progress according to God's plan.

The sources of the Gospel are arranged in the service of its theological thrust with definite periodization of the narrative. Approximately one-third of Luke is from Mark (about 60 percent of Mark); 20 percent of Luke is derived from Q (sometimes arranged with parts of L). Almost 50 percent is from Luke's special source (L), especially the infancy narratives of John the Baptist and Jesus, and parables peculiar to Luke (e.g., the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the rich fool). L material is also interwoven into the Passion narrative. While Matthew structured similar teaching materials in his five discourses, Luke places them in an extensive travel account that takes Jesus from Galilee to Judaea via Jericho to Jerusalem. This is similar to the ways in which Acts is structured on the principle of bringing the word from Jerusalem to Rome (see below).

The author has been identified with Luke, "the beloved physician," Paul's companion on his journeys, presumably a Gentile (Col. 4:14 and 11; cf. II Tim. 4:11, Philem. 24). There is no Papias fragment concerning Luke, and only late-2nd-century traditions claim (somewhat ambiguously) that Paul was the guarantor of Luke's Gospel traditions. The Muratorian Canon refers to Luke, the physician, Paul's companion; Irenaeus depicts Luke as a follower of Paul's gospel. Eusebius has Luke as an Antiochene physician who was with Paul in order to give the Gospel apostolic authority. References are often made to Luke's medical language, but there is no evidence of such language beyond that to which any educated Greek might have been exposed. Of more import is the fact that in the writings of Luke specifically Pauline ideas are significantly missing; while Paul speaks of the death of Christ, Luke speaks rather of the suffering, and there are other differing and discrepant ideas on Law and eschatology. In short, the author of this gospel remains unknown.

Luke can be dated c. 80. There is no conjecture about its place of writing, except that it probably was outside of Palestine because the writer had no accurate idea of its geography. Luke uses a good literary style of the Hellenistic Age in terms of syntax. His language has a "biblical" ring already in its own time because of his use of the Septuagint style; he is a Greek familiar with the Septuagint, which was written for Greeks; he seldom uses loanwords and repeatedly improves Mark's wording. The hymns of chapters 1 and 2 (the Magnificat, beginning "My soul magnifies the Lord"; the Benedictus, beginning "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel"; the Nunc Dimittis, beginning "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace") and the birth narratives of John the Baptist and Jesus either came from some early oral tradition or were consciously modelled on the basis of the language of the Septuagint. These sections provide insight into the early Christian community, and the hymns in particular reflect the Old Testament psalms or the Thanksgiving Psalms from Qumran. Though on the whole Matthew is the Gospel most used for the lectionaries, the Christmas story comes from Luke. The "old age" motif of the birth of John to Elizabeth also recalls the Old Testament birth of Samuel, the judge. All the material about John the Baptist, however, is deliberately placed prior to that of Jesus. When Mary, the mother of Jesus, visits Elizabeth, Jesus' superiority to John is already established. The Davidic royal tradition is thus depicted as superior to the priestly tradition.

Writing out of the cultural tradition of Hellenism and that of Jewish 'anawim piety--i.e., the piety of the poor and the humble entertaining messianic expectations--Luke has "humanized" the portrait of Jesus. Piety and prayer (his own and that of others) are stressed. Love and compassion for the poor and despised and hatred of the rich are emphasized, as is Jesus' attitude toward women, children, and sinners. In the Crucifixion scene, the discussion between the robbers and Jesus' assurance that one of them would be with him in Paradise, as well as the words, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!"--which are in contrast to the cry of dereliction in Mark and Matthew--all point toward the paradigm of the truly pious man. Parables peculiar to Luke--among which are those of the good Samaritan, the importunate friend, the lost coin, and the prodigal son--have an element of warmth and tenderness. Thus, Luke "civilizes" the more stark eschatological emphasis of Mark (and Matthew), leading the way, perhaps, to a lessening of eschatological hopes in a time in which the imminent Parousia was not expected but pushed into the distant future.

The interplay between Luke and Acts reveals Luke's answer to the coming of the Kingdom. Once the church has the Holy Spirit, the delay of the Parousia has been answered for a time. Thus, Luke divides history into three periods: (1) the end of the prophetic era of Israel as a preparation for revelation, with John the Baptist as the end of the old dispensation; (2) the revelation of Jesus' ministry as the centre of time--with Satan having departed after the temptation and, until he once again appears, entering into Judas to betray Jesus; and (3) the beginning of the period of the church after Jesus' Passion and Resurrection.

Consistent with this schematization, John the Baptist's arrest occurs before Jesus' Baptism, though it is placed later in Mark and Matthew. From the beginning, the rule of the Spirit is a central theme, important in healing, the ministry, the message, and the promise of the continued guidance of the Spirit in the age of the church, pointing toward part two of Luke's work, the book of Acts of the Apostles, in which Pentecost (the receiving of the Holy Spirit by 120 disciples gathered together the 50th day after Easter) is a decisive event.

Just as Luke arranges his Gospel to show the divine plan of salvation in historical periodization, so he orders its structure in accordance with a geographical scheme. Chapter 1 (verse 8) of Acts provides the framework: after the coming of the Spirit, the church will witness in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and then to the end of the inhabited world. These places foreshadow the church's mission. The end of the old dispensation takes place in Jerusalem and its environs. The Resurrection appearances in Luke are placed in Jerusalem (Mark, Matthew, and John point toward Galilee). Jerusalem is also the place of the beginning of the church, and the old holy place thus becomes the centre of the new holy community. The necessity of suffering was made clear and interpreted as the fulfillment of prophecy. Rejection by people from his old home, Nazareth, and by Jewish religious leaders corresponds to the beginning of the ministry to the Gentiles--to the end of the earth.

Luke's account of the Crucifixion heightens the guilt of the Jews, adding a trial and mockery by Herod Antipas. The Crucifixion in Luke is interpreted as an anticipatory event: that the Christ must suffer by means of death before entering into glory. Jesus' death, therefore, is not interpreted in terms of an expiatory redemptive act. The centurion who saw the event praised God and called Jesus a righteous man, thus describing his fate as that of a martyr, but with no special meaning for salvation. The link between past salvation history and the period of the church is through the Spirit; salvation history continues in Acts.

4. THE FOURTH GOSPEL: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN

1) Uniqueness of John.

John is the last Gospel and, in many ways, different from the Synoptic Gospels. The question in the Synoptic Gospels concerns the extent to which the divine reality broke into history in Jesus' coming, and the answers are given in terms of the closeness of the new age. John, from the very beginning, presents Jesus in terms of glory: the Christ, the exalted Lord, mighty from the beginning and throughout his ministry, pointing to the Cross as his glorification and a revelation of the glory of the Father. The Resurrection, together with Jesus' promise to send the Paraclete (the Holy Spirit) as witness, spokesman, and helper for the church, is a continuation of the glorious revelation and manifestation (Greek epiphaneia).

Irenaeus calls John the beloved disciple who wrote the Gospel in Ephesus. Papias mentions John the son of Zebedee, the disciple, as well as another John, the presbyter, who might have been at Ephesus. From internal evidence the Gospel was written by a beloved disciple whose name is unknown. Because both external and internal evidence are doubtful, a working hypothesis is that John and the Johannine letters were written and edited somewhere in the East (perhaps Ephesus) as the product of a "school," or Johannine circle, at the end of the 1st century. The addressees were Gentile Christians, but there is accurate knowledge and much reference to Palestine, which might be a reflection of early Gospel tradition. The Jews are equated with the opponents of Jesus, and the separation of church and synagogue is complete, also pointing to a late-1st-century dating. The author of John knows part of the tradition behind the Synoptic Gospels, but it is unlikely that he knew them as literary sources. His use of common tradition is molded to his own style and theology, differing markedly with the Synoptics in many ways. Yet, John is a significant source of Jesus' life and ministry, and it does not stand as a "foreign body" among the Gospels. Confidence in some apostolic traditions behind John is an organic link with the apostolic witness, and, from beginning to end, the confidence is anchored in Jesus' words and the disciples' experience--although much has been changed in redaction. Traces of eyewitness accounts occur in John's unified Gospel narrative, but they are interpreted, as is also the case with the other Gospels. Clement of Alexandria, a late-2nd-century theologian, calls John the "spiritual gospel" that complements and supplements the Synoptics. Although the Greek of John is relatively simple, the power behind it (and its "poetic" translation especially in the King James Version) makes it a most beautiful writing. Various backgrounds for John have been suggested: Greek philosophy (especially the Stoic concept of the logos, or "word," as immanent reason); the works of Philo of Alexandria, in which there is an impersonal logos concept that can not be the object of faith and love; Hermetic writings, comprising esoteric, magical works from Egypt (2nd-3rd centuries AD) that contain both Greek and Oriental speculations on monotheistic religion and the revelation of God; Gnosticism, a 2nd-century religious movement that emphasized salvation through knowledge and a metaphysical dualism; Mandaeanism, a form of Gnosticism based on Iranian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Jewish sources; and Palestinian Judaism, from which both Hellenistic and Jewish ideas came. In the last source there is a Wisdom component and some ideas that possibly come from Qumran, such as a dualism of good versus evil, truth versus falsehood, and light versus darkness. Of these backgrounds, perhaps, all have played a part, but the last appears to fit John best. In the thought world of Jewish Gnosticism, there is a mythological descending and ascending envoy of God. In the prologue of John, there is embedded what is proclaimed as a historical fact: The Logos (Word) took on new meaning in Christ. The Creator of the world entered anew with creative power. But history and interpretation are always so inextricably bound together that one cannot be separated from the other.

2) Form and content of John.

In John there is a mixture of long meditational discourses on definite themes and concrete events recalling the structure of Matthew (with events plus discourses); and, although the source problem is complex and research is still grappling with it, there can be little doubt that John depended on a distinct source for his seven miracles (the sign [or semeia] source): (1) turning water to wine at the marriage at Cana; (2) the healing of an official's son; (3) the healing of a paralytic at the pool at Bethzatha; (4) the feeding of the multitude; (5) Jesus walking on water; (6) the cure of one blind from birth; and (7) the raising of Lazarus from the dead. In chapter 20, verse 30, the purpose of the signs is stated: "Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."

A major part of John is in the form of self-revelatory discourses by Jesus. Some would assign these to a distinct source, but they may rather be the work of the author.

Jesus' coming "hour"--the hour of his glorification--could not come about at any bidding but only according to a divine plan, and Jesus is obedient to it. The Paraclete is promised to come to the disciples, and it is necessary that Jesus go away in order that the Paraclete may come to the church. In John, Christ is depicted as belonging to a higher world, and his kingship is not of this world. He is said to have come into this world to his own people, and they rejected him, but this is but another example of the church's mission having passed both historically and theologically to the Gentile milieu.

The Christology in John is heightened: though the Synoptics have Jesus speaking about the Kingdom, in John, Jesus speaks about himself. This heightened Christology can be seen in many of the "I am" sayings of Jesus (e.g., "I am the bread of life") in the context of their discourses and accompanying signs. This type of discourse is a concentration in terms and titles of the way in which the Messiah openly reveals his identity by a striking phenomenon: in the Old Testament the association with "I am" is the revelation of the name of God in the theophany (manifestation of God) to Moses (Exodus), and this theophanic interpretation carries over in John. Jesus says "I am" with regard to his function as Messiah, as divine. These sayings are self-revelatory pronouncements: (1) bread of life, (2) light of the world, (3) door of the sheepfold, (4) good shepherd, (5) resurrection and life, (6) way, truth, and life, and (7) true vine. Such theophanic expressions are heightened in other sayings: "I and the Father are one"; "Before Abraham was, I am"; "He who has seen me has seen the Father"; and Thomas' cry after the Resurrection "My Lord and my God."

John 14 is a farewell speech, one of a series, before the Passion. In testament form, it is the bidding of farewell by one who is dying and giving comfort to those he loves. In John, however, the eons (ages) overlap. The significance of the farewell address, thus, is in the teaching that Jesus is God's representative. The fact that he must go to the Father means that the eschatological era already started in Jesus' presence as the Christ and will be intensified at his death and manifested further in the coming of the Spirit to the church. The times shift; the eschatology--here and still to come--also shifts but remains on the whole realized in John, although there is still a tension between the "already" and the "not yet."

John's allegorical thought is shown by his ending of the miracle of Jesus' walking on the sea. The frightened disciples took him into their boat, "and immediately the boat was at the land." This fits the pattern of John's Gospel, namely that, when Jesus is with his church, the new era has already arrived, and, where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom fulfilled. Similarly, the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11 is to demonstrate that the power of the Resurrection, of the fulfilled "eschaton" (last times), is already present in Jesus as Christ now, not only in some future time. Thus, there would appear to be a "realized eschatology" in John; i.e., the last times are realized in the person and work of Jesus. The coming of the Spirit, the Paraclete, however, is still to come, so, even in this most eschatological Gospel, there is a building up, a crescendo, of glorification. In chapter 12, verse 32, Jesus is depicted as saying, "I, when I am lifted up . . . will draw all men to myself"--again an exaltation and glorification that points to the Cross. At the point of death on the Cross, Jesus' words "It is finished" are interpreted to mean that part of the "eschaton" is consummated, fulfilled. After the finding of the empty tomb, there is a Resurrection appearance to the disciples. This includes the "doubting Thomas" pericope, which teaches that those who have to depend on the witness of the Gospel are at no disadvantage.

In an appended chapter, 21, there is a touching story of the Apostle Peter, who, having denied his Lord thrice, is three times asked by Jesus if he loves him. Peter affirms his knowledge that Jesus knows what love is in his heart and is given the care of the church and a prediction that he himself will be persecuted and crucified.

The numerous differences between the Synoptics and John can be summed up thus: in John eternal life is already present for the believer, while in the Synoptics there is a waiting for the Parousia for the fulfillment of eschatological expectations. This Johannine theology and piety has great similarities to the views that Paul criticizes in I Cor. 15 (see below). The contrast between Paul and John is even more striking if one accepts the most plausible theory that John as we have it includes passages (added later) by which the realized eschatology has been corrected so as to fit better into the more futuristic eschatology that was stressed in defense against the Gnostics. John 5:25-28 is such a striking correction.

The Johannine chronology also differs from the Synoptic. John starts the public ministry with the casting out of the money changers: the Synoptics have this as the last event of the earthly ministry leading to Jesus' apprehension. The public ministry in John occupies two or three years, but the Synoptics telescope it into one. In John Jesus is crucified on 14 Nisan, the same day that the Jewish Passover lamb is sacrificed; in the Synoptics Jesus is crucified on 15 Nisan. The difference in the chronologies of the Passion between John and the Synoptics may be because of the use of a solar calendar in John and a lunar calendar in the Synoptics. Nevertheless, the actual dating is of less importance than the fact that John places the Crucifixion at the time of the Passover sacrifice to emphasize Jesus as the Paschal lamb. There is no celebration of the Last Supper in John, but the feeding of the multitude in chapter 6 gives the opportunity for a eucharistic discourse. Because Jesus is regarded as the Christ from the very beginning of John, there is no baptism story-- John the Baptist bears witness to Jesus as the Lamb of God--no temptation, and no demon exorcisms. Satan is vanquished in the presence of Christ. Each of the four Gospels presents a different facet of the picture, a different theology. Although in all the Gospels there is warning about persecution and the danger of discipleship, each has the retrospective comfort of having knowledge of the risen Lord who will send the Spirit. In John, however, there is a triumphant, glorious confidence: "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

5. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

As indicated by both its introduction and its theological plan (see The Gospel According to Luke ), Acts is the second of a two-volume work compiled by the author of Luke. Both volumes are dedicated to Theophilus (presumably an imperial official), and its contents are divided into periods. In the Gospel, Luke describes first the end of the old dispensation and then the earthly life of Jesus. Near the end of the Gospel, the stage is set for the next period: the "new dispensation" of the church as presented in Acts. After the Ascension of the risen Lord in Jerusalem (Acts 1), there is Pentecost, called Shavuot in Hebrew (i.e., "the 50th day" after Passover). This Jewish festival of the revelation of the Law on Mt. Sinai becomes the day when the Spirit is poured out. For Acts this event marks the beginning of a new era (Acts 2): as in Luke, Jesus, endowed by the Spirit, was led from Nazareth to Jerusalem, so in Acts, the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost leads the church from Jerusalem to Rome.

1) The purpose and style of Acts.

Although the title, Acts of the Apostles, suggests that the aim of Acts is to give an account of the deeds of the Apostles, the title actually was a later addition to the work (about the end of the 2nd century). Acts depicts the shift from Jewish Christianity to Gentile Christianity as relatively smooth and portrays the Roman government as regarding the Christian doctrine as harmless. This book is the earliest "church history," viewing the church as guided by the Spirit until a future Parousia (coming of the Lord).

Probably written shortly after Luke (c. 85) as a companion volume, in no manuscripts or canonical lists is Acts attached to the Gospel.

Luke edited his history as a series of accounts, and thus Acts is not history in the sense of accurate chronology or of continuity of events but in the ancient sense of rhetoric with an apologetic aim. The author weaves strands of varying traditions and sources into patterns loosely clustered around a nucleus of past events viewed from the vantage point of later development.

The structuring of the material by time and geography may account for the unique way in which both the Ascension of Christ to heaven (40 days after the Resurrection) and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost (50 days after the Resurrection) became fixed and dated events.

The redactor (editor) of Acts composed speeches with primary primitive material within them; about one-fifth of Acts is composed in this way. This manner of using speeches was part of the style and purpose of the work and was not unlike that of other ancient historians such as Josephus, Plutarch, and Tacitus.

In the latter part of Acts are several sections known as the "we-passages" (e.g., 16:10, 20:5, 21:1,8, 27:1, 28:16) that appear to be extracts from a travel diary, or narrative. These do not, however, necessarily point to Luke as a companion of Paul--as has been commonly assumed--but are rather a stylistic device, such as that noted particularly in itinerary accounts in other ancient historical works (e.g., Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana). Though the pronoun changes from "they" to "we," the style, subject matter, and theology do not differ. That an actual companion of Paul writing about his mission journeys could be in so much disagreement with Paul (whose theology is evidenced in his letters) about fundamental issues such as the Law, his apostleship, and his relationship to the Jerusalem church is hardly conceivable.

Acts was written in relatively good literary Greek (especially where it addresses the Gentiles), but it is not consistent, and the Koine (vernacular) Greek of the 1st century was apparently more natural to the writer. There are some Semitisms, especially when stressing Jewish backgrounds; thus, Paul is called Saul in accounts of his conversion experience on Damascus road. In chapter 17, Paul's speech on the Areopagus, a hill in Athens that traditionally was the meeting place of the city's council, for an intellectual Athenian audience is in good Greek, assimilating Gentile thought patterns, but is expressed in Old Testament universalistic terms.

2) The content of Acts.

The outline of Acts can be roughly divided into two parts: the mission under Peter, centred in Jerusalem (chapters 1-12); and the missions to the Gentiles all the way to Rome (cf. chapter 1, verse 8), under the leadership of Paul (chapters 13-28). The earlier sections deal with the Jerusalem church under Peter and the gradual spread of the gospel beyond Jewish limits (in chapters 10-11, for example, Peter is led by the Spirit to baptize the Roman centurion, Cornelius). References to Peter are abruptly ended in chapter 12; James, the brother of the Lord, has become the head of the Jerusalem church, and Philip, a Greek-speaking missionary, is commanded by the Spirit to baptize an Ethiopian eunuch.

Paul's missionary journeys are traditionally separated into three: (1) 13:1-14:28; followed by the Council of Jerusalem c. AD 49 (15:1-35); (2) 15:36-18:22 with a stop at Antioch; and (3) 18:23-21:14. After that, Paul is imprisoned and sent to Rome where Acts leaves him witnessing openly and unhindered in the capital of the Empire. These journeys may be seen as a part of the writer's "theological geography," because they form one continuous circuit--with stops on the way--between the geographical poles of Jerusalem and Rome. After the Council of Jerusalem c. AD 49, the situation was changed, and Paul became the spokesman for the whole Christian mission.

The earliest chapters of Acts contain some primitive traditions important both for any study of the early church and its preaching and for the church's own development of its understanding of itself and of Jesus. After Peter healed a lame man, he made a speech, in chapter 3, in which Jesus is proclaimed as the one appointed but who is now in heaven and who will come as the Christ at the Parousia (Second Coming). In his Pentecost speech in chapter 2, Peter preached that God made Jesus Lord and Christ at his Resurrection.

The titles used for Jesus show both a preservation of primitive tradition and theology and a clear differentiation made by the writer between Jesus in his earthly life (in Luke) and reflection on him in Acts. Christ (Messiah) is consciously used as the title of Jesus; the title Son of man, used frequently in Luke, is used only once in Acts, at the death of the martyr Stephen, when he is granted a vision of the Lord in glory. Early titles, "servant" and "righteous one," reflect the Old Testament background of God's "suffering servant." The Hellenistic term saviour (soter) is used in Acts in chapters 5 and 13. The more primitive Christologies and titles show not only a flexibility of traditions but also the functional nature of New Testament Christology.

Acts presents a picture of Paul that differs from his own description of himself in many of his letters, both factually and theologically. In Acts, Paul, on his way to Damascus to persecute the church, is dramatically stopped by a visionary experience of Jesus and is later instructed. In his letters, however, Paul stated that he was called by direct revelation of the risen Lord and given a vocation for which he had been born (recalling the call of an Old Testament prophet, such as Jeremiah) and was instructed by no man.

The account of Paul's relation to Judaism in Acts also differs from that in his letters. In Acts, Paul is presented as having received from the Jerusalem apostolic council the authority for his mission to the Gentiles as well as their decision--the so-called apostolic decree (15:20; cf. 15:29)--as to the minimal basis upon which a Gentile could be accepted into fellowship with Jewish Christians. According to this decree, Gentile converts to Christianity were to abstain from pollutions of idols (pagan cults), unchastity, from what is strangled, and from blood (referring to the Jewish cultic food laws as showing continuity with the old Israel). Circumcision, however, was not required, an important concession on the part of the Jewish Christians.

In Acts Paul is not called an Apostle except in passing, and the impression is given, contrary to Paul's letters, that he is subordinate to and dependent upon the twelve Apostles. When Paul entered a new city, he went first to the synagogue. If his message of the gospel was rejected, he turned to the Gentiles. According to Paul's missionary practice and theology, the message had first to be spoken to the Jews as a reminder that Christianity is grounded in redemptive history; this prevents the connection with the old Israel from being forgotten. Because most Jews rejected Paul's message, the author proclaimed that salvation thus passed to the Gentiles.

Roman authorities are depicted as treating Paul (and other Christians) in a just manner. The author repeatedly stressed that the Roman authorities did not find fault with the Christians but rather viewed Christian-Jewish antagonisms merely as one problem among Jewish factions. While in Corinth, during a conflict with the Jews, the Roman proconsul of Achaea in Greece, Gallio, refused to hear the charges brought against Paul because, according to Roman law, they were extralegal. On a later occasion in Ephesus, during a conflict with the silversmiths who derived their income from selling statuettes of the goddess Diana, Paul was protected from local antagonisms and a riot by Roman authorities. Toward the end of his career, after having been in the protective custody of the Judaean procurator Felix, Paul was heard by Felix's successor, Festus, and the Jewish king Agrippa II, and, had he not appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen, he could have been set free. He thus had to go to Rome to be tried, and that is the last that is heard about him in Acts.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a dominant theme in Acts, as it is in the Gospel According to Luke. Just as Jesus started his public ministry in Luke by reading from the Book of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me . . ." so also in Acts the new age of the Spirit began at Pentecost, which is viewed as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel that in the new age the Spirit would be poured out on all men. That persons from many nations heard in their own tongues the mighty works of God has been viewed as a reversal of the Tower of Babel narrative, with languages no more confused and people no longer scattered.

Although Peter, Stephen, and Paul are central figures in Acts, the piety of the humbler members of the church also permeates the book. Church structure and organization, with apostles, disciples, elders, prophets, and teachers, exhibits great fluidity. Paul, in bidding farewell at Miletus to the elders from Ephesus, exhorted them to "take heed . . . to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit made you guardians (bishops) to feed the church. . . ." Offices may be conveyed by prayer and laying on of hands but there is little stress on distinction of office or succession, thus indicating a very early period in the life of the church.

Because Peter "departs and goes to another place" and Paul is left under house arrest awaiting trial, the readers appear to be left in suspense concerning the fates of these two leaders. The readers, however, probably knew what had happened to them--i.e., that these Apostles had eventually been martyred sometime in the 60s before Acts was written. What is more, the interest in Acts is not in the fates of Peter and Paul; the gospel has finally reached Rome, the center of the oikoumene ("the inhabited world"), and thus the ending is suitable to the book--Paul is left "preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered."

6. THE PAULINE LETTERS

1) Background and overview.

In the New Testament canon of 27 books, 21 are called "letters," and even the Revelation to John starts and ends in letter form. Of the 21, 13 belong to the Pauline corpus; the Letter to the Hebrews is included in the Pauline corpus in the East but not, however, in the West. Three letters of this corpus, the Pastoral Letters, are pseudonymous and thus are not considered here. Of the remaining 10, the Letters to the Colossians and Ephesians are from the hand of a later Pauline follower and II Thessalonians is spurious. How this Pauline corpus was collected and published remains obscure, but letters as part of Holy Scripture were an early established phenomenon of Christianity.

The church was poor and widespread, and, in the early stages, expected an imminent Parousia. More formal sacred writings were thus superseded in importance by letters (e.g., those of bishop Ignatius of Antioch) that answered practical questions of the early churches.

The letters of Paul, written only about 20-30 years after the crucifixion, were preserved, collected, and eventually "published." In general, they answered questions of churches that he had founded. When all the Pauline Letters as a corpus were first known is difficult to determine. Because Pauline theology and some quotations and allusions were certainly known at the end of the 1st century, the Pauline Letters probably were collected and circulated for general church use by the end of the 1st century or soon thereafter. A disciple of Paul, possibly Onesimus, may have used Ephesians as a covering letter for the whole collection.

The letters Galatians and Romans both contain an extensive discussion about the Law (Torah) and justification (in language not found in the other letters) to solve the problem of the relation of Christianity to Judaism and of the relationship of Jewish Christians with Gentile Christians. Galatians is older and differs from Romans in that it deals with Judaizers--i.e., Gentile Christians who were infatuated with Jewish ways and championed Jewish ceremonial law for Gentile Christians. On the other hand, Romans speaks to the question of the Jews and the Christian faith and church in God's plan of salvation.

In I and II Corinthians (which may include fragments of much Corinthian correspondence preserved in a somewhat haphazard order), there is no preoccupation with either Jews or Judaizing practices. They deal with a church of Gentile Christians and are therefore the best evidence of how Paul operated on Gentile territory.

The earliest book in the New Testament is I Thessalonians, which is concerned with the problem of eschatology. Though II Thessalonians is obvious in its imitation of the style of I Thessalonians, it reflects a later time, elaborates on I Thessalonians, and is thus not viewed as genuine.

Philippians may be a composite letter in which various themes of Pauline teaching are held together by a testament form. Thus, it is a compendium without too specific a focus on the Philippian situation. Philemon, although addressed to a house church, is uniquely concerned with the fate of a slave being returned to his master, with the hope that he will be forgiven and be sent back to help Paul in prison, an example of manumission in Paul's name.

Ephesians appears to be dependent on Colossians, and both, although using the Pauline style, reflect a time and imagery sometimes different from and later than Paul's genuine letters. Ephesians covers the content of Colossians in more compact form and may be a covering letter for the entire Pauline corpus by a disciple or other later Paulinist.

The style of Paul's letters is an admixture of Greek and Jewish form, combining Paul's personal concern with his official status as Apostle. After his own name, Paul names the addressees or congregation being addressed and adds "grace and peace." This is often followed by thanksgivings and intercession that are significantly adapted to the content and purpose of the letter. Doctrinal material usually precedes advice or exhortation (parenesis), and the letters conclude with personal news or admonition and a blessing: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Paul's letters were probably dictated to an amanuensis (who might be named, for example, Sosthenes, I Cor. 1:2), and some greetings were written at the end of the letters in his own hand. They were obviously meant to be read aloud in the church, however, and thus their style is different from that of purely personal letters.

2) The Letter of Paul to the Romans.

Romans differs from all the other Pauline letters in that it was written to a congregation over which Paul did not claim apostolic authority. He stressed that he was merely going to Rome in transit, because it was his principle not to evangelize where others had worked. Because his apostolic ministry appeared to be completed in Asia Minor and Greece, Paul planned to go to Spain via Rome, a city that he had never visited. Before going westward, however, he first had to go to Jerusalem to deliver to the church there a collection of money.

Because Paul was going to a church he had not founded, his writing to the Roman Christians offered him an opportunity to present his theological views in a systematic way, which he had not done in other letters. Paul reflected on how his special mission fitted into God's plan for the salvation of mankind, of both Jews and Gentiles--a theme that reached its climax in chapters 9-11. Chapters 1-8 unfold with great specificity how the coming of Jesus the Messiah has made it possible for the Gentiles to become heirs to God's promises. His argument is at first negative, stating that neither Gentile nor Jew could effect his own salvation. He then shows