Sifting Traditions–Mark and John: Introduction
Note: This original post is becoming so long I have decided to break it into topics.
Most critical biblical scholars are in agreement that Mark is our earliest gospel and John is the latest. What follows then, in terms of Matthew and Luke, which come in between, is that they are using Mark as their basic narrative source–thus the three of them, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, are called the Synoptic gospels. In other words, Matthew and Luke are “secondary” sources when they are following Mark, in that they, by and large, are recasting or interpreting Mark as their base text. This is not to say that Matthew and Luke have nothing to add to the historical Jesus tradition. Indeed they do. First, they both preserve, in two versions, another source, the one scholars call Q, which most are convinced is earlier than Mark. Second, even in their “redaction” or editing of Mark as a primary source, they sometimes bring in materials that are judged useful to the critical historian.
John, in contrast, is not part of this editorial process and stands as a mostly independent witness to the Jesus tradition with an approach that seems in sharp contrast to Mark (or the Synoptics more generally). His stories are different, his chronology is different, and Jesus in John’s tradition speaks with a different vocabulary and subject matter, and he is viewed much more explicitly as a preexistent, heavenly, divine, Son of God. One might assume then, and many historians have taken just this approach, that John is of little value in reconstructing a critical historical view of Jesus.
I think this is a real mistake. In fact, I am among a growing group of scholars who are convinced that John in fact preserves a level of primitive tradition that Mark knows little about, and that without John’s contribution our knowledge of the historical Jesus would be severely limited. Also, it is demonstrably false to assume that Mark is somehow free of theology and is writing history. In fact, Mark is every bit as “theological” as John, and I am thoroughly convinced that he shares a view of Jesus that is highly influenced by Paul. So what is the historian, interested more in Jesus as a historical figure, to make of these different sources?
My own method and approach is to use Mark and John together to construct what I think is a coherent and plausible portrait of Jesus as apocalyptic messiah and proclaimer of the Kingdom of God, set in the context of the Baptist movement in 1st century Roman Palestine. I am further convinced that John likely knows Mark and is at times offering his own take on Mark’s presentation of Jesus, which he sees as supplementary rather than contradictory.
In a series of posts I want to offer an analysis of how a critical reading of Mark, the earliest gospel source, and John, the latest, that add substantially to our understanding of the historical Jesus.