Are the gospels just midrash?

by yadda yadda 2 25 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  yadda yadda 2

  Some responses to this common claim gleaned from internet sources;

  The idea the gospels are simply midrash has several problems associated with it. One is that the genre as such did not exist yet in Judaism as the Midrashim are a few centuries later. Now one might reformulate the idea to say that in spots midrashic technigue is displayed in the gospels. This claim would be true in spots, but need not mean the text's being "midrashed" are unhistorical. To associate texts can be a way of explaining what is or has taken place. However, most importantly, certain teachings in the New Testament cannot be explained as the product of midrash because they represent distinct takes on Jewish teaching. For example, the important idea of a resurrection in the midst of history is not a Jewish idea, but a Christian adaptation of a Jewish idea. No midrash of a text brings us to this fresh idea. Rather it is the claim of an empty tomb and appearances that does (see 1 Cor 15). Had a Jewish idea been midrashed, then Jesus could simply be a raised judge at the end of history such as the idea appears in a text like 1 Enoch. Such distinctions mean that something generated the new belief. One could claim it was simply made up, but if so why die for the idea? The other explanation is that soemthing happened that generated the new beief, which is what Christians claim took place. Either way midrash was not at work at this key juncture.

  I think it's also useful to say that other parts of the New Testament, some written arguably before the gospels, clearly treat events handled in the gospels as historical, not midrash -- e.g., I Cor 15, 1John 1, 2Pet 1. Even if we might be confused as to the nature of the gospels, you wouldn't expect first century Christians to be.

  It has long been an accepted dictum of New Testament scholars that the gospels are not biographies. In the sense that they do not set about their task in the way a modern biographer does this is undoubtedly true. Their records are highly selective, have only a loose chronological framework, focus one-sidedly on matters of theological significance, and tell us little or nothing about their subject's psychology or personal development. In these ways, however, they are much closer to the type of 'biography' which was fashionable in the ancient world. To commend the teaching and example of a great man by means of a selective and 'moralizing' anthology of his sayings and deeds was an accepted approach. Many such 'biographies' were of heroes long ago, and are largely mythical and valueless as historical sources; but in the case of a more recent figure there is no reason a priori why authentic historical reminiscences should not form the basis for such a 'life'.

  The Jewish literary technique midrash has been applied to the gospels, with the suggestion that the source of much that they attribute to Jesus is a scripturally-inspired imagination rather than historical tradition. It must be insisted, however, (a) that 'midrash' (however that slippery word is defined) was far from being the dominant factor in Jewish writing about recent history, however strongly it may have influenced their retelling of ancient, sacred stories, and (b) that while the framework around which midrash was composed was a pre-existing sacred text, the framework of the gospels is a narrative about the recent person of Jesus, into which scriptural elements may be introduced as the narrative suggests them, rather than vice versa. There may be much to be learned by comparing the gospel writers' methods with those of midrashists, but there is no meaningful sense in which the gospels in themselves can be described in literary terms as midrash.

  It is in fact widely agreed that there is no pre-existing literary category into which the gospels will fit. While they may use elements of existing techniques, and may in various respects resemble other genres, in themselves they are sui generis, a specifically Christian literary development. This means that their aims and methods are to be assessed not by extrapolation from those of other literature, but by studying them in their own terms.
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  Doug Mason

  Have you read this book recently?

  "Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes" (Freeing Jesus from 2000 years of misunderstanding), by John Shelby Spong (Harper Collins).

  Doug
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  yadda yadda 2

  Hello Leolaia. I knew you would respond and thank you for doing so. I must confess to this whole subject being somewhat new to me and I am going to have to go away and do some research before I can adequately respond to your post. I hope to be able to do so before too long and look forward to exploring this rather fascinating topic.

  Yadda
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  Witness 007

  Yes the Gospels do give me a mid-rash so I try to avoid them.
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  yadda yadda 2

  Leolaia, I contacted some NT scholars (admittedly Christian ones) on this subject and one of them has recommended Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, especially chap. 8. It apparently confronts this objection carefully.

  I will be ordering this book with much anticipation.

  Dr Darrel Bock says: "The idea that there is midrashic activity in the NT is something I have argued as well. This is because this was a part of Jewish interpretation of Scripture. Reflection on Scripture is not limited to the early church. So Jesus, as a theologian, surely thought of his mission in terms that reflected on the Hebrew Scripture. What I object to is the assumption that such reflection belongs to the early church and never to Jesus which is often the case in challenging the use of the OT in the gospels. To see current events as paralleled in earlier events of history is also a very Jewish way of reading God's actions. So much in your friend's observations are no problem. When discussing midrash we have to distinguish between midrashic genre (which the NT does not have) and midrashic activity (which the NT has plenty of).

  Mike Licona has this to say:

  There are a number of scholars today who hold the position you've articulated. However, only the most radical would deny that the historical Jesus performed deeds that both he and his followers regarded as miracles and exorcisms. The miracles and exorcisms of Jesus appear in multiple independent sources. In fact, they're in every Gospel source (Mark, Q, M, L, John) and Josephus. They also appear in multiple literary forms including narratives, summaries of Jesus' activities, and references to his miracles in logia attributed to him. Moreover, the plausibility factor is good since there were others of the period who were regarded as exorcists or who were purported to have performed one or more miracles. What some scholars contend is that the authors of the Gospels cast Jesus' miracles in a manner within their narratives that their readers would see a parallel between Jesus and an OT figure such as Moses or Daniel. Perhaps they did. Perhaps they did not. But, if they did, this would not in any sense challenge the historical conclusion that Jesus performed miracles for which we have very strong evidence.
  
  Historical research on Jesus has its limitations. It has been established that Jesus performed jaw-dropping acts that both he and his followers regarded as miracles and exorcisms. Nearly a complete consensus of scholars crossing theological camps agree with this conclusion. Establishing the historicity of a particular miracle report in the Gospels is another matter. Historians can be confident that Jesus performed some amazing deeds. But they cannot prove that he walked on water. This does not mean that he didn't. It just means that it cannot be proved with any reasonable degree of certainty. We can establish that Jesus performed amazing deeds, but we cannot establish the nature of the deeds; that is, whether they were miracles, magic, or demonic. In terms of reading OT texts back into Jesus' life and ministry and changing the events as a means of fulfilling prophecy, that's the view of John Dominic Crossan. He says that certain events in the life of Jesus may have been invented in order to show him fulfilling prophecy. He refers to it as "prophecy historicized." In other words, prophecy was made into history. I see it differently. When I read the passion narratives and read in John's Gospel that they cast lots for his clothing and used a spear to ensure death so that not a bone of his would be broken and that these things occurred so that the Scriptures would be fulfilled, I observe that the texts John had in mind do not clearly appear to be referring to a crucifixion or the Messiah. In other words, John or the Beloved Disciple was an eyewitness at the crucifixion (many scholars agree) and he attempted to understand what he saw by appealing to certain biblical texts. The fact that he had to strain to find texts for these events (i.e., casting lots and not breaking Jesus' bones) indicates to me that these events actually occurred. So, instead of "prophecy historicised" where events were invented to show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, that is, for apologetic purposes, I think it far more likely that we have "history prophecised" where the author sought for Scriptures to make sense of the historical events.
  
  If you'd like to read more on the historical evidence that Jesus performed miracles, you may want to consult a few books on the historical Jesus, such as John Meier, A Marinal Jew, Vol. 2, Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, and perhaps best of all, Graham Twelftree, Jesus: The Miracle Worker.
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  Leolaia

  Hi yadda yadda....Well, I'm impressed you've got in touch with some actual scholars and I recall that Bock has specifically written on the subject (providing a critique of Gundry's characterization of Matthew's use of OT sources, if I am not mistaken). And I am happy to see that Bock and I are in agreement about the most essential point -- the distinction between midrash as genre and midrash as an interpretive activity in, among other things, composition. And I certainly also credit the "historical Jesus", if we may permit ourselves to indulge in the subjective endeavor of distinguishing the self-portrayal of the "historical Jesus" from later representations, as drawing on a creative hermeneutic of OT texts in his own teaching -- inasmuch as the parables and sapiential material in the gospels are a reflection of teaching of the historical Jesus (which I believe is more likely than the alternative). Dale Allison gives a great survey of the midrashic reappropriation of OT texts in this synoptic material in The Intertextual Jesus (although it unfortunately incorporates assumptions from the two-source theory of the synoptics, which I do not share). So I do not doubt that Jesus thought of his mission as prophetically situated in scripture and he may well have performatively enacted midrashic interpretations of scripture through his actions. A good example of this can be found in Josephus in reference to the prophet Theudas who attempted to enact an antitypical fulfillment of Joshua 3:14-17 by trying to divide the Jordan River (Antiquities 20.97-98), and the gospels similarly portray John the Baptist as characterizing his ministry in terms of Isaiah 40 (an interpretation that may build on older Essene uses of this scripture). It is therefore easy to imagine that episodes like the Temple cleansing (Mark 11:12-19) represent performative acts partly intended to contribute to Jesus' own prophetic self-portrayal.
  

  In dealing with the problem of historicity, my last post showed that not all use of midrashic interpretation is "prophecy historicized", that this hermeneutic applies both to historical events that are understood in light of scripture as well as to non-historical stories intended to cast light on the meaning of scripture. Mike Licona in his message to you contrasts "history prophesied" with "prophecy historicized" and he characterizes midrash in the gospels as the former instead of the latter. My position is that the gospels probably contain both and that the view that the gospels contain only "history prophesied" (which has an apologetic concern) is epistemologically unsound. All we have are the gospels in their present form; we do not have an independent frame of reference (such as experiencing the life of Jesus firsthand as a witness) to determine how much of the midrash in the gospel narratives derives from authorial creativity and how much derives from history. That is the fundamental flaw in "historical Jesus research," for the multiplicity of different portraits of the "historical Jesus" in scholarship represents a multiplicity of different subjective approaches to the evidence by scholars. But it is unreasonable to insist that the creativity of the gospel writers was precluded from developing novel narrative structures from OT source material, and there are many (partly subjective) grounds for surmising that such structures exist in the gospels (summarized briefly here): (1) the structuring effect of intertexts at multiple levels of the same narrative, from plot development to word choice in dialogue, (2) the existence of elements from OT texts that better fit their original context than in the gospel narrative, (3) narrative elements portrayed as fulfilling scriptures that are actually the author's own creative paraphrase, (4) contrivances and narrative implausibilities in passages that have an exegetical basis, (5) differences in narratives of the same event that may be explained by the use of different sets of intertexts rather than different historical recollections, (6) plot changes to another gospel's narrative in later redactions that coincide with new uses of intertexts used in the old narrative or incorporate allusions to other texts absent from the old narrative, (7) extracanonical embellishment of gospel stories by appealing to the same OT intertexts used in the gospels themselves, thereby continuing the hermeneutic process started by the gospel writers, etc. If we find "prophecy historicized" (not the best term for the process imho) as a basic compositional technique in other cognate works, I don't see a basis for denying its existence in canonical gospels if they share similar features. There is also the consideration of parsimony, which recommends that (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) explanations requiring fewer entities are better than those that depend on more. In general, the "history prophesied" approach requires the independent existence of all the things related in the narrative in addition to the exegetical process that lends itself to the literary form of the narrative, whereas the "prophecy historicized" approach only requires the exegetical process itself. It is important to recognize that parsimony is not the only consideration, for the less parsimonious explanation is to be preferred especially in cases when the narrative embodies tradition that cannot be reduced to OT exegesis (and there is a lot of this in the gospels). But it is equally important to recognize that in the mass of cases where both are possible, or where "prophecy historicized" seems more probable (on account of the factors mentioned above or the historical plausibility of a given narrative element), parsimony does provide another reason for regarding such narratives as midrashic constructs. And of course it is possible for a single narrative to have features of both historical reminiscence and unhistorical creative storytelling.

  Since you are sharing these thoughts to others who spend a lot more time thinking about these issues than I do, I would hasten to add that my posts in this thread are putting into words for the first time some analytical ideas that I have had for quite a while but to which I haven't given definite form thus far. So despite my best efforts to add nuance to my remarks, I may not have expressed myself as ideally as may be required in an academic presentation of these ideas.
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  yadda yadda 2

  Hi Leolaia. Actually it was Richard Bauckham who recommended to me the book 'The Jesus Legend: A case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition' -Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd.

  These NT scholars are surprisingly very approachable and may welcome hearing from you, especially as you have a PhD in a related field and have fresh ideas on the subject.

  But my intention in starting this thread is to try and keep things at a level that the average poster here can understand. I'd like to avoid, if at all possible for such a complicated subject as this, language and explanations that are too academic and abstruse for most people to get their head around.

  Over this weekend I'll give some serious thought to your last post and attempt to craft a decent response, albeit from a somewhat ignorant position at this stage (at least until Eddy and Boyd's book arrives.) I will order Spong's book as well so I'm getting both sides of the coin.

  Yadda
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  Leolaia

  Cool....I've liked a lot of Richard Baukham's work (his commentary on Jude and 2 Peter is still the best around), and his recent Jesus and the Eyewitnesses puts together a very well articulated (tho imho not entirely convincing) case for substantial historical recollection in the gospels. My main criticism is that the book does not really address the structuring effects of OT intertextuality in the gospel narratives, which I think is quite relevant to the question of whether a given tradition rests more on OT exegesis than eyewitness recollection. His focus on Papias as an instance of dependance on eyewitnesses is especially relevant to this problem since the Hierapolis bishop reported traditions about Judas Iscariot that derive their legendary embellishments from the same OT exegetical source utilized in canonical tradition. The density of OT intertexts in gospel narratives also seems to be highest in narratives where there would have been the least opportunity for eyewitness input (e.g. the infancy narratives, the temptation in the wilderness, the scourging, etc.), although this could be interpreted in different ways. The main issue for me seems to be that once we acknowledge that the gospels draw on traditions directly reported by those who knew Jesus (as opposed to anonymous tradents), the question then becomes one of degree -- to what extent do the gospels embody tradition that has nothing at all to do with eyewitness recollection, or tradition that transforms what witnesses report on the basis of theological reflection of the scriptures. We know at least from Papias and the apocryphal acts that these writers (or the tradents before them, as is almost certain to be the case with Papias) turned to the OT to obtain details and narrative elements about the apostles. If they did this regarding the apostles, I see no reason to deny that it happened with Jesus.

  Edited to add: I haven't read Spong much -- I thumbed through one of his books in a bookstore and wasn't impressed enough to buy it. His arguments seemed to often be overstated and incorporated evaluative rhetoric about the material. I think it would be better to just read some Koester, Crossan, Allison, Gundry, and similar writers to get a less rhetorial and more even-handed approach to the literary evidence.
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  yadda yadda 2

  Leolaia, thanks. I will not order Spong then. May I ask which particular book of John Dominic Crossan's you would recommend on this subject? He has a few similar ones. I see that Crossan admits to interpreting from a purely naturalistic philosophy. N T Wright says Crossan is "wholly wrong" in his views.

  Alternatively, which books in particular of those other authors (Koester, Gundry etc) would you recommend that discuss this subject? I'll wait for your response before I order the book Richard Bauckham recommends re answring claims of midrash activity in the gospels.

  Obviously every scholar is biased. Trying to assess all this from as neutral and objective a viewpoint as possible is the ideal. I do think a position that at least allows for the possibility of supernatural events in history can be more helpful because of the astonishing (when you think about it) fact that the gospels are portrayed as eyewitness testimonies and are so packed with reports of miracles. As Mike Licona puts it: "It has been established that Jesus performed jaw-dropping acts that both he and his followers regarded as miracles and exorcisms. Nearly a complete consensus of scholars crossing theological camps agree with this conclusion." If Licona is right on that, and Jesus actually did do some amazingly mind-blowing things that profoundly affected those who witnessed them (whether they were tricked or not), it seems it is logical and reasonable to put our starting point for assessing these reports in the gospels somewhere beyond dismissing them as sheer fiction while retaining healthy scepticism. It seems foolish, arrogant to close our minds to the possibility that supernatural, miraculous events may have occurred in first century Palestine (that the gospels may indeed be eyewitness testimonies of), even though this is unprovable and even though belief in miracles is irrational to our modern, sceptical, western materialistic view of the world and history (and not forgetting that the world is full of anecdotal 'evidence' - from oiuja boards to ghosts to UFO's - of the unexplained and supernatural that should surely give us pause to wonder.). It is all lost in the mists of time of course but since all we have is the record and 'testimony' of ancient writers, if that record is full of miraculous events, we surely should not be too quick to dismiss their writings as fiction. As James Dunn puts it: "if we are unsatisfied with the Jesus of the Synoptic tradition, then we will simply have to lump it; there is no other truly historical or historic Jesus."

  As I mentioned, I have not as yet adequately researched this fascinating subject of "prophecy historicised" (as John Crossan puts it, or as Mike Licona more helpfully describes it, the claim "that certain events in the life of Jesus may have been invented in order to show him fulfilling prophecy"). Nevertheless, at this stage, I have real trouble with accepting the idea that the synoptic gospel writers would have deliberately and creatively portrayed old stories and scriptures from the OT as the actual sayings and events in Jesus life to such a degree that we can not really tell one from the other. Drawing on OT scriptures and parallels definitely occurs in abundance in the NT, but when we look at the writings of Paul and Peter (for example), it is usually obvious where they are talking about a real event and whre they are merely expanding on the meaning of something by drawing in OT scripture. Jesus also does this. He sometimes explicitly refers to some scripture or 'prophesy' and says it is now fulfilled or specifically quotes a scripture when teachin or expositing on something, eg, in his sermon on the mount or when debating with the Pharisees, etc. Given this,, to then assert that the writers of the gospels deliberately wove into their accounts in a subterfuge manner OT accounts and 'prophecies' so cleverly and imaginatively to make them appear as real historical events, really seems a bit rich. It seems more in the realms of conspiracy theory. I think at best we could say perhaps there may have been a bit of literalistic licence, but not wholesale in the way you purport.

  Other factors also seem to weigh in to make it difficult to imagine the gospel writings engaging in large-scale, midrashic type activity, especially at such an early date before the genre started:

  1. the generally accepted early dating of the gospels - the time between Jesus death and the NT writings is too short for large-scale fictional content to have developed. (elaborated on below).

  2. There is now a consensus in academic circles that the gospels more resemble an ancient form of biography in genre (with a theological aim) more than anything else. Persons who write biographical matter are generally concerned with accuracy of information and a fair portrayal, particularly with many eyewitnesses still around.

  3. Luke is regarded as a type of historian, and he writes like an historian. He explicitly states that he has made a careful investigation and asks the reader to accept his account as historical. It is ludicrous to suggest he simply borrowed wholesale from Mark's gospel, never verifying any of it, then merely extended it. This would mean he was nothing like a historian at all but was a charlatan.

  4. As mentioned earlier, if the early dates for the gospels are correct (a widely held view now), there would have been many eyewitness and original disciples in the early Christian communities who would have acted as protection against wrong stories and corrupting influences (a point Bauckham in particular strongly champions). These original disciples, although diminishing in number and aged, would have read the gospels and would have quickly condemned them. We know the Christians in the early Christian era had a concern for authenticity and reliability because of the very fact that later 'gospels' and logia attributed to Jesus was never fully accepted and widely distributed, for the reason these works did not met the already established 'criteria' for reliability.

  5. Jesus, his disciples, and the early Christians were devout, God-fearing persons who clearly were concerned with truth and righteousness, justice and purity, doing what pleases God. These themes are intrinsic throughout the NT. In this kind of environment, it seems implausible and counter-intuitive to imagine the gospel writers consciously fabricating the accounts. These persons were not liars, a point they even bring out (eg, Peter talking about the transformation). Yet John Dominic Crossan is effectively saying they were. It may be argued that they would not have seen it as lying, that they felt borrowing and 'historicising' OT texts and parallels would be seen as justified to further the agenda to persuade belief in what they had come to believe, to add persuasiveness (and there is some evidence of very minor tampering by later translators with such motives, but those incidences occur much later in time.) But such a view flies in the face of the internal evidence within the gospels that shows the stark concern for truth and how Jesus exposed and condemned liars and deceivers (such as the Pharisees). Can we really imagine Mark, who was obviously a trusted devoted disciple, engaging in what his Lord had roundly condemned? Also, the idea that the gospel writers deliberately wove in fictional elaborations (either derived from the OT or hellenistic sources) merely to add more persuasiveness and cogency to their accounts, to encourage belief, flies in the face of the extremely candid tenure and accounts we read about of all the flaws and foibles of the apostles and early disciples.

  6. Similarly, neither were the audiences in the remoter congregations just incredulous heathens turning up to hear a good tale of some mythological god-man hero; they were individuals desirous to hear the truth about a very recent person, not some distant myth. The early Christian teachers were preaching a rejection of the fables and false gods they formerly embraced. This is borne out in Paul's speech to the pagans at the Aeropagus in Acts 17. And of course, tradents and elders in the congregations had a role to teach authentically what had been handed down to them. The environment was one of turning away from the pagan fables and beliefs to something new, premised on rejection of all that was false and wicked.

  Re your comment here: "We know at least from Papias and the apocryphal acts that these writers (or the tradents before them, as is almost certain to be the case with Papias ) turned to the OT to obtain details and narrative elements about the apostles. If they did this regarding the apostles, I see no reason to deny that it happened with Jesus."

  Could you kindly identify your sources for this Leolaia? I'd like to compare these writings about the apostles with the gospels. I suspect they may be quite different in how they bring in OT matter.

  Regards, Yadda
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  Blueblades

  Yadda! Is Bart D. Ehrman credible? His book "Misquoting Jesus" the story behind who changed the Bible and why, is an interesting read. He writes about how mistakes and changes shaped the Bible we read today. It involves scribes, scholars and Bible translators. If this is true, then how can we even discuss the gospel accounts as if they were given to us in their original form?

  Blueblades who is always reading and learning and not yet coming to a conclusion about the gospel accounts.