Jesus by James Martin Page A

of Jesus: Did this really happen? To begin to answer that, let’s look at how the Gospels were composed.
    There were several distinct stages to the writing of the Gospels. 14 First was Jesus’s actual public ministry. Next came the “oral tradition,” when the story of Jesus of Nazareth would have been passed orally from person to person. During this period, there would have been little need for a written record. Jesus’s disciples, followers, and other eyewitnesses were still around to offer firsthand, and undoubtedly vivid, accounts of their encounters with Jesus. Indeed, they were probably bursting with enthusiasm and eager to respond when people asked, “What did he say?” “What did he do?” “What was he like?” For some episodes there would have been multiple witnesses; for others, a handful; for a few, just one. 15 But there is no need for books when you have eyewitnesses. In any event, most of the early disciples were likely illiterate.
    By the way, even at this early stage, you can already see the likelihood that differences would arise among the various oral traditions. First of all, not every eyewitness would describe an event in precisely the same way. Each would stress one thing or another, depending on what struck him or her as important. Also, as the Scripture scholar N. T. Wright has pointed out, since Jesus was an itinerant preacher, he probably would have said the same things over and over, but would have said them in slightly different ways to different audiences. “Local variations would no doubt abound.” 16 So already we can see some variations creeping into the story of Jesus at this early stage, which helps to answer the question of why the Gospels don’t always agree with one another.
    As those original witnesses died (and it became clear that Jesus would not, as some expected, return soon), the next stage began. This required the editorial work of those who compiled the Gospels for the early church, generally known as the “evangelists,” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (“Gospel” is an Old English derivation of “good news.” “Evangelist” is from the Greek euangelion , “good news” or “good message.”) Over time the church settled on these four books as the approved, or “canonical,” Gospels because of their wide use, theological orthodoxy, and association with the apostles. 17
    Each evangelist wrote for a slightly different audience and therefore stressed different parts of the story, leaving out what another writer would deem important or adding passages that another writer would consider less significant. During the editing process, these authors also inserted various comments and emendations, for the purposes of explanation or exhortation, that may not have been found in the original stories or texts. An author like Luke, for example, felt it necessary to explain some Jewish religious practices that might have been unfamiliar to his readers. Someone like Matthew, who wrote for a largely Jewish audience, did not.
    Three of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—are deeply intertwined. Although there are competing theories about how they are connected, it is clear that they are. Most scholars posit Mark’s Gospel as coming first, with the evangelist writing to a non-Jewish community around AD 70. Matthew’s Gospel, written around 85 or 90 and addressed to a primarily Jewish audience, is an expanded and revised version of Mark, supplemented with other stories, including, for example, the narratives about the birth of Jesus. Luke, though most likely a Gentile (or non-Jew), nonetheless knew something about Jewish traditions when he wrote his Gospel roughly around the same time as Matthew; he also drew on Mark, and also supplemented his narrative with other stories. Both Matthew and Luke also relied heavily on an independent source of sayings—nicknamed “Q”