I would have been tempted to make the same error if I were in his shoes. Students in my PhD graduate research group were taking turns practicing our research talks for the upcoming national conference. One of the newest students introduced his topic, discussed background information and described what he had done. So far, so good. But he made the newbie error of withholding key information until the very end. I’m sure the intention was a climactic, big reveal. After our professor gave all the students an opportunity to offer their feedback, he looked at the new student and simply growled, “If I wanted a mystery, I would have read a detective novel.”
Detective novels and scientific communication are completely different types of communication. Or different literary genres, to use the technical term. We read detective novels for personal enjoyment. Perhaps to pit our powers of deduction against those of the protagonist, or maybe just for the satisfaction of everything wrapping up neatly at the end. Detective novels utilize dialogue and descriptive narrative with plot twists to draw us into the story. They cleverly scatter clues throughout so the information is there but unclear how it all connects.
Scientific communication serves a completely different purpose. It is written not for entertainment but to communicate information. Scientists write in a dry, third-person, passive voice following a standard format. The purpose of this boring, formulaic style is to not distract the reader from critically evaluating the content. And a good scientific paper contains no surprises. They start with an abstract that summarizes everything, including the results. The rest of the paper just supplies the details.
Types of writing
There are different types of literary genres. These serve different purposes and come with different sets of conventions and expectations. Poets write differently from historians. Math textbooks differ from grammar manuals. Playwrights write differently from scientists. It is critical to recognize the type of genre and context to properly interpret its meaning. “She has his heart,” means one thing when found in a love song. It means something completely different in cardiologist’s post-surgery report. Correctly identifying the genre is essential to proper interpretation.
The same thing is true about scripture. To properly interpret passages, we need to recognize the purpose for which it was written and what cultural conventions the author employs. It is particularly important to apply this principle to reading the gospels, the four biographies we have about Jesus Christ.
What are the gospels?
What type of writing are the gospels, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Can they be trusted as reasonably accurate accounts of Jesus’ life based on testimony of people who were there? Or are they are legends that grew up during the first few centuries of the early Christian church? The answer makes all the difference in the world in interpreting them.
Legends have certain characteristics. Think of King Arthur; Hercules; or Thor, Odin and Loki. Legends develop and evolve as different people tell and retell the stories to entertain and perhaps teach a lesson. Legends usually center around a hero who faces seemingly insurmountable challenges. But even if at some point it seems helpless, the hero eventually triumphs. He overcomes the opposition through strength, endurance, intelligence, supernatural power, or something along those lines. We can easily distinguish the good guys from the bad guys, with the former finally triumphing and the latter getting what they deserved. Furthermore, legends generally take place in some version of “long, long ago and far, far away,” whether that be Camelot, Asgard, or a fictionalized Mount Olympus.
Real life is messier. Bad things sometimes happen to good people. “Good” people have major flaws, and “bad” people have redeeming qualities. And the action doesn’t occur in some idealized location but in real places and at real times. A proper historical biography paints an honest picture, as their goal is to convey that imperfect reality.
Historical claims
The author of the third gospel, widely believed to be the Greek physician Luke, opens with a claim about his purpose:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)
Right from the get-go, the author of Luke claims to be doing the work of a historian. Not a collector of legends. Then two chapters later, he states things started during a particular year:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. (Luke 3:1,2)
He probably means what we would call 26 or 27 AD, fourteen years after Tiberius Caesar became co-emperor [1]. In the stories that follow, Luke mentions political and religious leaders known from non-biblical sources and places that one can still go visit today. This story happens in a real time and place.
A different kind of hero
The gospels tell a hero story, but an unusual one. Jesus isn’t up against a malevolent monster or a wicked king, but opposition from people who we would perceive as moral and good. It’s just that Jesus insists on upending their religious system and traditions. And Jesus’ response to their opposition is to provoke them even more, eventually forcing a showdown. Then when they finally arrest and put him on trial, he doesn’t resist. At all. Nor does he allow his followers to defend him. And it all ends with a brutal, unjustified execution. The good guy appears to give up and get himself killed while the ‘bad guys’ seem to get away with it.
Furthermore, the story’s supporting cast is a rather mixed bag. Jesus’ closest companions are unreliable friends. One betrays him, another repeatedly denies even knowing him, and the rest run like rabbits. In contrast, it is a member of the opposition that honors Jesus by giving his body a proper burial. Then when Jesus rises from the dead as he predicted, all his friends have forgotten his words and react with confusion and in disbelief. Kind of the messiness of real life.
Calling it what it is
There have been times I would have liked to be able to simply dismiss Jesus’ story as a legend. Then it wouldn’t interfere with doing things I wanted to do. But I believe in following the evidence. And the evidence does not square with it being a legend.
C.S. Lewis, a professor of literature at Oxford and then Cambridge Universities, studied legends and similar literature for a living. In response to the suggestion that the gospels might be legends, he wrote:
Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. –C.S. Lewis, “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?“
So what are the gospels? Not legends. Rather, they fit right into the style of biography that was practiced in the ancient Greco-Roman world. The goal of these ancient biographers was to reveal the character of their subject, primarily through their words and actions. Most importantly how they faced death. The gospels primarily present Jesus through his words and deeds. They don’t contain a lot of extra commentary. Nor do they delve into his childhood or psychology like modern biographies often do.
If you want a mystery, don’t pick up a scientific paper. If you want an entertaining legend, don’t read the gospels. They tell a far more important story.
Note
[1] Tiberius was elevated to co-emperor with his adoptive father Augustus Caesar in either 12 or 13 AD (there are conflicting sources) and became sole emperor after Augustus’ death in 14 AD.
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