How the Gospels Came to Us

Clues from Luke's Preface

Have you ever wondered how we came to have the written accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? The Gospel writer, Luke, gives us some clues that are reinforced by other ancient historians. Read along if you’re interested…

The opening lines of Luke’s Gospel provide the reader with several clues about how memories of Jesus came to be written and preserved. By examining Luke's prologue, testimony from ancient historians and current scholarship, this paper will demonstrate Luke's reliance upon eyewitness accounts and literary sources, with the possibility of reliance on both formally and informally controlled oral tradition. Taken together, these clues will provide a framework for how memories of Jesus found form in other literary texts as well.

Clues From Luke

Luke’s “semitechnical preface” (1:1-4) indicates that he was writing a legitimate “(biographical) history” that met the standards of historians in antiquity.¹ Several language cues make a further bid for the readers’ trust in his report of the history that follows the preface.²

First, Luke references the “many” who endeavored to write an account (of the “things that have been fulfilled among us” (v.1)) as well as the “eyewitnesses and servants of the word” who “handed down” their testimony (v. 2, italics added). This is Luke’s way of referring to both oral and written sources—an “appeal to [both] tradition and to antiquity.”³

The word “eyewitnesses” occurs nowhere else in Luke/Acts, and Joel Green argues that in antiquity, eyewitnesses did not always observe events personally; those that Luke interviewed may have simply experienced “empower[ment] by the Spirit” and may be witnesses in the sense that they can testify to the Spirit’s work.⁴ However, Joshua Jipp believes Luke has interviewed eyewitnesses who were “personally present and involved in the events he recounts.”⁵ This latter theory is compatible with Richard Bauckham’s theory that the Jesus tradition was linked to specific oral reports “in the name of” specific people who experienced the Jesus events.⁶ This kind of personal eyewitness testimony was considered a valid and credible type of historiography at the time as “all history…relies on testimony.”⁷ Possibly, this testimony came from the twelve apostles and the women who traveled with Jesus.⁸

Second, Luke tells his audience that he himself has “carefully investigated” the tradition.⁹ This is another of Luke’s bids for credibility with his addressee, “Theophilus” (v. 3). Not only did Luke employ careful research, but, thirdly, he describes his written account as “orderly,” with narrative features that commence “from the beginning” (v. 3), before the birth of Christ. Implicit here is the claim that the narrative’s orderliness, including its thoroughness in starting from the beginning, is necessary for the proclamation of the truth about Jesus: writing it down is tantamount to proclaiming the Gospel.¹⁰

Fourth, the fact that the letter is addressed to a literate Theophilus, who probably is of relatively high social status, suggests that Theophilus may have inspired or commissioned Luke’s orderly account.¹¹ Surely, Theophilus is at least somewhat familiar with the Jesus events, but Luke writes to persuade him (and perhaps his social circle) of their “certainty.”¹²

A reliance on credible written accounts, eyewitness testimony, careful investigation, and careful ordering are strategies that support claims of narrative credibility and certainty. These same strategies are shared by other ancient historiographers and by those who would desire to trace the formation of the various written Gospel accounts.

Clues from Other Ancient Sources

Eusebius

Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Ecclesiastical History, documents the process whereby the Gospel of Mark came to be written at the request of believers in Rome.¹³ According to Eusebius, new Roman Christians longed for continual access to a formalized Gospel message after receiving it from Peter. They urged Mark (Peter’s traveling companion) to “leave them a monument in writing of the doctrine thus orally communicated.”¹⁴ Presumably, they wanted a way to retain the eyewitness’s message once the messengers moved on to preach in other regions. Peter, an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, supposedly approved Mark’s narrative.¹⁵ Mark then took his written account to Egypt where he was first to proclaim the Gospel message there.¹⁶

Irenaeus

In his work, Against Heresies, Irenaeus corroborates Eusebius’s account of how the Gospel of Mark came to be written with approval from Peter.¹⁷ Irenaeus also claims that the “plan of salvation” received by himself and other believers came not by way of third parties or anonymous testimony but by the very eyewitnesses who first “proclaim[ed] the gospel in public, and, at a later period…handed [it] down” through Scriptures.¹⁸ Eusebius attributes the Gospel of Mark to Mark and the Gospel of Matthew to the so-name apostle who witnessed Jesus’ public ministry and resurrection.

Papias

Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, whose five-volume Interpretation of our Lord’s Declarations has been lost to history (except for fragments and the excerpts quoted by Eusebius), corroborates Irenaeus’s claim that Matthew wrote his Gospel “in the Hebrew dialect” and that Mark, “the interpreter of Peter,” wrote the Gospel of Mark.¹⁹ Papias asserted, however, that Mark’s Gospel, while accurate, was not in chronological “order.”²⁰ A lack of satisfactory narrative ordering in Mark may be one reason Luke felt compelled to write his own “orderly” history. It seems Papias, too, endeavored to write his own account of the teachings of Jesus and that his preference for eyewitnesses and/or sources in proximity to eyewitnesses is evident in his resolve to inquire of “anyone who had been a follower of the elders anywhere” in order to document “the declarations of the elders,...the living voice of those that are still surviving.”²¹ Papias also seemed to have had direct interaction with John and was “an associate of Polycarp.”²²

How Oral Transmission Inspired Written Texts: What Scholars Think

Terrence Mournet outlines three models scholars have used to consider how oral transmission may have preceded the formation of our Gospel texts.²³

Literary Model

Often viewing the Gospels through a “Western lens,” many scholars assumed the Jesus tradition was passed down mostly in written form.²⁴ There is wide agreement that Mark’s written Gospel directly informed portions of Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels. In addition, Luke admits familiarity with multiple written accounts. However, the Christians who were first to inherit the tradition lived in a culture that was “predominantly oral.”²⁵ Therefore, any attention given to the formation of the written Gospels must include recognition that literacy rates were low in antiquity and that literary transmission of the texts stemmed from “oral communication.”²⁶ Scholars must also contend with the reality of “a complex interaction between the Jesus tradition in multiple forms, oral tradition informing and perhaps modifying the textual tradition, and the textual tradition informing and perhaps modifying the oral Jesus tradition.²⁷ Therefore any “simple” literary models ought to be discarded.²⁸

Rabbinical Model

Some scholars like Birger Gerhardsson believe that transmission of Jesus’ teachings followed a process similar to that of rabbinic Judaism, in which disciples employed memorization strategies, perhaps with the help of a notebook.²⁹ Gerhardsson helped scholars consider the “activity of Jesus through the matrix of first-century Judaism.”³⁰ This theory would encourage scholars to believe that literary forms of the Gospel later developed were more likely to contain the actual words of Jesus.³¹

Orality Model

The orality model, embraced by Mournet himself, assumes that Jesus was “at home within the oral performance arena.”³² This recent model invites scholars to consider the “dynamics of orality” as performance that does not attempt to replicate “word for word” or “line for line” renditions of a tradition, but uses “mnemonically appropriate phrases…used in varied fashion to meet…the needs in performance.”³³ The very act of narrativizing the Gospel message required flexibility in its presentation, as all narrative employs storytelling techniques and deliberate choices of emphasis on the part of the narrator.³⁴

Mournet argues for the existence of “multiple Jesus communities, multiple tradition-transmission contexts, and the influx of Jesus tradition from numerous sources—in both textual and oral forms.”³⁵ As the story was performed in new social contexts, both “continuity” of the story and “flexibility” were required in each transmission. ³⁶Communities, rather than individuals, “controlled” transmission of the tradition in an “informal” way. ³⁷Yet, the heart of the Jesus message remained “fixed” as it was remembered aloud at church baptisms, communion meals, times of corporate prayer, and preaching within each and every congregation to which the message spread.³⁸

Bauckham’s Eyewitness Testimony Theory

While Mournet’s orality model provides a compelling account of various Gospel transmissions that preceded unique Gospel texts, Richard Bauckham argues that the written gospels are “closer to the form in which the eyewitnesses told their stories or passed on their traditions” than many scholars have envisioned.³⁹ While many scholars assumed “a long process of anonymous transmission” from eyewitness to Gospel writers, Bauckham believes the writers had access to eyewitnesses.⁴⁰ If this is the case, an orality model is not appropriate. Rather, an eyewitness testimony model is. This kind of testimony was considered “historiographic best practice,” and ancient historians were critical of those who did not rely on eyewitness accounts.⁴¹ Papias, a third-generation Christian, modeled his own research on eyewitness testimony as well. He sought not the living “‘voice’ of oral tradition” but of specific informants who could teach from first-hand experiences with Jesus.⁴²

Conclusion

Several models of transmission may be at play in the context of Luke’s endeavor to write his Gospel. The clues in his prologue suggest his reliance upon eyewitness accounts (Bauckham’s theory). He also relied on literary modes of transmission because of the “many” written Gospel accounts he was familiar with. Evidence of these two models does not rule out the existence of rabbinic models of transmission or informally controlled community transmission, either. The authors of Matthew, Luke, and John most likely relied upon some combination of all of the above-mentioned models, yet it seems unlikely that John Mark relied on literary sources when writing his Gospel.

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1. Joshua W. Jipp, Reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture: A Literary, Canonical, and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024), ch. 16, ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=30611367.

2. Joel B Green, The Gospel of Luke, Kindle., The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1997), ch. 1, Kindle.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Jipp, Reading the New Testament, ch.16.

6. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels As Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Chicago: William B. Eerdmans, 2017), ch. 1, ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=4857043.

7. Ibid.

8. Jipp, Reading the New Testament, ch.16.

9. Ibid.

10. Green, Gospel of Luke, ch. 1.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Eusebius, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Complete and Unabridged, trans. C.F. Cruse, 2nd ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 60.

14. Ibid, italics added.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1.

18. Ibid.

19. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 105-106.

20. Ibid, 60.

21. Ibid, 104.

22. Ibid, 105.

23. Terrance C Mournet, “Jesus Tradition as Oral Tradition,” in Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives, ed. Werner H. Kelber and Samuel Byrskog (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 41.

24. Ibid, 44, 51.

25. Ibid, 44.

26. Ibid, 45, 61

27. Ibid, 42.

28. Ibid, 41-42.

29. Ibid, 47.

30. Ibid, 48.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid, 49.

33. Ibid.

34. Rebekah Eklund, “Jesus of Nazareth,” in The State of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research, ed. Scot McKnight and Nijay K. Gupta (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019), accessed October 27, 2024, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5966825.

35. Mournet, “Jesus Tradition,” 60.

36. Kenneth E. Bailey, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,” Themelios 20, no. 2 (1995), accessed October 27, 2024, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/informal-controlled-oral-tradition-and-the-synoptic-gospels/.

37. Mournet, “Jesus Tradition,” 53.

38. Eklund, “Jesus of Nazareth.”
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 117-122.

39. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, ch 1.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid, ch. 2.