Jesus by James Martin Page B

by scholars after the German Quelle , meaning “source.”
    While Matthew, Mark, and Luke carefully edited their books to address specific communities of readers, their Gospels are so similar that they are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, because they include numerous passages that can be looked at together (Greek synopsis , “view together”).
    The Gospel of John, written somewhat later, most likely for Christians in the eastern Mediterranean area in the late first century, is markedly different from the Synoptics. John’s narrative introduces several well-known characters who do not even appear in the other three Gospels, including Nicodemus, the man born blind, the Samaritan woman, and Lazarus. Few of the episodes of Jesus’s public ministry recorded in John mirror those in the Synoptics.
    Jesus himself seems different in the Gospel of John. No longer the earthy spinner of homespun parables or the down-to-earth carpenter at home with Galilean fishermen, John’s Jesus often can seem like an omniscient sage who speaks solemnly, even oracularly: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” 18 To me, the Jesus of John can seem more divine than human. As Joseph A. Fitzmyer, SJ, a New Testament scholar, writes, “What a picture of Jesus we would have, if we had only the Fourth Gospel! Would we know much about the humanity of Jesus?” 19
    Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, my professor of New Testament at Boston College, used to tell our class that the New Testament provides us with “a general outline of Jesus’s life.” We could, he said, imagine the evangelists sitting at their desks before various scraps of paper on which were written parables and proverbs, discussions with the disciples and debates with religious leaders, as well as healing stories and other miracles. Gathering them together, they would stress one thing and omit another in order to provide a complete story.
    But not entirely complete—or one designed for scrupulous accuracy. That’s not to say that the Gospels aren’t true or accurate. Rather, careful readers will discover some continuity problems. Overall, the Gospels agree with one another on both story and sequence. This is often the case with the Synoptics, where Jesus’s words are often repeated verbatim and his actions are nearly identical. When Jesus calls a tax collector named Levi (or Matthew), he utters the same words in all three Synoptic Gospels: “Follow me.” 20
    But in some places, the evangelists—who were not what we consider today to be professional historians—do not agree on important details. Jesus makes only one journey to Jerusalem in the Synoptic Gospels, while he makes several in John. The story of Jesus’s birth in the Gospel of Matthew describes Mary and Joseph as living in Bethlehem, fleeing to Egypt, and then moving for the first time to Nazareth, while Luke has the two living originally in Nazareth, traveling to Bethlehem in time for the birth, and then returning home again. Mark and John have nothing of such traditions. In some Gospel passages Jesus offers his parables without explanation, despite the seeming inability of the disciples to understand. In others, he explains things to help them understand. (“The seed is the word of God.” 21 ) In one telling of the Beatitudes, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor.” In another, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” 22 More crucially, some of the Resurrection stories are substantially different. In some accounts, the Risen Christ appears as a material being; in others he can apparently walk through walls.
    Sometimes these differences reflect the different intentions of the evangelists. Luke, for example, evinces a great deal of concern for the poor in his Gospel (and so may have chosen to write “you who are poor” rather than “the poor in spirit”). But at other times the reasons behind the