Why were the Gospels Written?

The Gospels likely consist of stories and sayings of Jesus that were passed down orally through the decades. These oral traditions were then assembled in book form becoming the individual pericopes of the Gospels. Some pericopes appear in more than one Gospel and each author edited and arranged material according to the needs of his respective readership.

The church was at least thirty years old by the time the first Gospel was written. So each of the Gospels was written in the service of the church, for the congregations of each of the authors. It is doubtful that the church, which grew out of Judaism, had made a clean break with the synagogue by the time the synoptics were composed. So the earliest Christians, who were Jewish, likely continued to gather in synagogues for worship.

Synagogue worship included designated Scripture readings for each worship assembly. The Torah (the five books of Law--Genesis through Deuteronomy) was read through publicly in the course of a year, one passage at a time, one week at a time.  

Returning to Spong's book, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, he contends that the purpose of the Gospels was theological as opposed to historical and liturgical as opposed to literal. What is meant by "liturgical" is that the Gospels were written for use in early Christian worship. Spong contends that each week a pericope about Jesus would be incorporated into synagogue worship which would serve as Christian exposition on the day's reading from the Torah.

So the early Jewish Christians were finding points of correspondence between their sacred Scriptures and what they had experienced in Jesus of Nazareth. Finding Jesus in their Scriptures was their attempt to make sense of the God presence they had discerned in this man. So each week, an episode or saying from the life of Jesus would correspond with, or elaborate on, a passage from the day's Scripture reading.

Building upon the work of Michael Goulder, Spong puts the Gospels beside the Jewish liturgical calendar and concludes that the structure of the Gospels follow the Jewish year. Goulder had argued that the five teaching blocks of Matthew correspond with five major Jewish festivals.

The Sermon on the Mount, for example, corresponds to the Feast of Pentecost which had evolved into a commemoration of the giving of the Law at Sinai. Now Jesus delivers instruction from a mountain, as did Moses.  The Jewish New Year corresponds to Matthew 11 which centers on John the Baptist who announced the New Year theme of the coming of the kingdom. The Feast of Tabernacles (or Harvests) corresponds to the agricultural parables in Matthew 13. The transfiguration text of Matthew 17 would land on the Feast of Dedication which dealt with God's glory. And of course, the sayings of Passion week would correspond to Passover.

Spong has obviously put tedious hours into his research even demonstrating that while Mark only covers six months of the Jewish year from Rosh Hashanah to Passover, Matthew was written to expand upon Mark and cover the entire Jewish year. 

The Passion narrative at the end of Mark's Gospel would obviously correspond to the Passover narrative in Exodus. Spong then goes backward from the Passion narrative counting the divisions of Mark imposed by Codex Alexandrinus (containing one of the earliest manuscripts of Mark to which we have access) and discovers that the teaching block found in Mark 9:14-11:11 would appropriately correspond to the weekly Torah readings from Deuteronomy. This is appropriate since Deuteronomy could be considered a catechism for those entering the Jewish community while these teachings in Mark seem to likewise be catechetical in tone. 

The reading from Genesis describing judgment in the days of Noah would correspond to Mark 13, an apocalyptic text dealing with judgment. And going backward to the beginning of Mark's Gospel, this section corresponds with the Jewish New Year at which the blowing of the shofar announced the coming reign of God. So the kingdom is Mark's concern as the book opens.

So Mark's Gospel seems to follow the Jewish year from Rosh Hashanah to Passover, with the various pericopes consisting of early Christian preaching on the Torah as it was read week to week in the synagogue. Spong continues to apply his liturgical scheme to Matthew and Luke, showing how they expanded upon Mark's liturgical intent.  Now if this seems rather complex, it's because it is. Perhaps Spong had to work too hard to achieve such an elaborate theory.

Whether or not one agrees with Spong's theory that the structure of the Gospels follow the Jewish liturgical year, his book is nevertheless invaluable for showing how the New Testament uses the Old. The life and teachings of Jesus are clearly recorded as Midrash (Rabbinic-style commentary) on the Hebrew Scriptures. Spong gives numerous examples of how New Testament texts retell and heighten the stories of Jewish Scripture. 

The Gospels are saturated with references and allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures, but not usually (if ever) in a prediction-fulfillment mode. But as I've said before, the life and teaching of Jesus recapitulates the sacred history of Israel. The Gospels serve in incorporating the stories and sayings of Jesus into the life and worship of the early church by connecting his story to the Jewish sacred text.

 (Photo courtesy Flickr)         

Comments

[preacherman]

The Gospel of John is my favorite.
I love the way John speaks of beleif and love that God has for us.
I learn so much on your blog Wade.
Keep up the great posts.
I know how much time they take.

[Wade Tannehill]

Thanks Preacherman.