Two Years Behind the Gospels

A Reader's Digest for 2025

Two years ago, I made a New Years’ Resolution: to write Behind the Gospels.

I had just finished my PhD and was teaching theology and philosophy at a boys’ school back home. The regimented life of a school teacher was a mostly welcome change from the autonomous, anxiety-ridden existence of a grad student.

But it also induced a different sort of existential crisis. There was the fear that if I did not use my training I would lose it; a growing sense of distance from the academy – and most of all, a panic that if I was not writing, I would lose the ability to think.

Two years on – and two-hundred thousand words later! – I am so thankful that Behind the Gospels gave me the opportunity to carry on thinking. This blog has made me a more confident writer and given me an outlet for my work. But it has also allowed me to sit a while longer with the topics I could only graze past in my research.

When I write my weekly pieces, I don’t usually have a set template for topics. But looking back over the last year, I can see a number of threads I’ve kept on pulling. Thus, in an attempt to impose some order onto the chaos which is this blog, I have composed a ‘digest.’ If you are new to the blog, this is what I’ve been up to in 2025!

1. The Historical Jesus

Since my undergraduate days, I have been incurably interested in what we can know about Jesus as a historical figure. It is well and good to read the gospels as theological texts. But if we read the gospels as historians – what can we really say about Jesus?

A number of my posts this year have asked this question with respect to on different episodes of Jesus’ life. In the lead up to Easter, I considered whether there is a historical kernel to the stories of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, examined one popular case for the empty tomb, and asked if the Resurrection was a historical event.

I have also touched on aspects of Jesus’ life which are less well-known. What can we say archaeologically about Jesus’ home-town? Is it really true that John the Baptist was Jesus’ teacher? Did Jesus sing? How famous was he? And what are we to make of that bizarre story in Matthew where many rise from the dead and enter the ‘holy city’?

Some of my posts on the historical Jesus have been more methodologically reflective. In one lesser-read piece, I interrogate one of the primary ways scholars have come to knowledge of the historical Jesus: the so-called ‘criteria of authenticity.’ I also asked how it is that historians are confident that they can recover Jesus’ teaching, given the common problems with recovering the actual speech of ancient figures.

More recently, I have also written some seasonal posts. At Halloween, I unpacked why virtually all historians consider Jesus to have been an exorcist. While at Christmas, I answered questions and delivered a lecture on what we can know about Jesus’ birth. I also touched on another Marian doctrine: whether Mary was a perpetual virgin.

2. Dating the Gospels

Another area of interest this year has been the gospels’ dating. When were the gospels written? And how does their dating affect how we understand why they were written?

The most common view is that they were written after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, yet the reasons for holding this view are less well-known. Online, it is often chalked up to an ‘anti-supernaturalist’ bias: the reason why scholars hold this view is because Jesus’ prophecy of the Temple’s destruction could not be authentic. But as I have attempted to explain here, this is not the reasoning employed in scholarship.

Still, there are a minority of scholars who have put forward earlier dates. In one piece, I unpacked some more serious arguments for a pre-70 dating of the gospels, before responding to those arguments. In another, I examine the common idea that Luke used the writings of Josephus’ Antiquities, placing his work sometime after 93 CE.

3. The Historicity of the Gospels

A topic of widespread public interest is the gospels’ historicity. To what extent to the gospels provide a reliable source for the events narrated? Apologists and polemicists seem to think that this is a question with simple answers. In this piece, I show why the question – are the gospels historical? – is more intractable than many suppose.

Other pieces have touched on different aspects of the gospels’ historicity. I look at a popular online argument for thinking that the feeding of the five thousand really happened; I explore whether the gospels’ were originally anonymous; and I ask whether names are a clue to eyewitness testimony behind Mark’s passion story.

One popular piece touched on the historicity of John’s gospel. Why do historians see the fourth gospel as a less reliable guide to the historical Jesus, regardless of how they might construe its spiritual and theological value? Here I look at how John paints a very distinctive portrait of Jesus to the one found in the earlier Synoptic gospels.

4. The Christology of the Gospels

A fourth thread concerns Christology: how do the gospels depict the person of Jesus? How do they understand his status and identity as a human and as a divine being?

Historians tend to argue that Jesus did not claim to be God, regardless of whether they think that he was. To explore that question further, I reviewed a fascinating debate between Alex O’Connor and David Wood on Jesus’ self-understanding. I also looked at whether Jesus’ reception of ‘worship’ (proskynesis) points to his divinity, and unpack what it means when gospel scholars say that Jesus is ‘divine’.

Another controversial topic in gospel studies is how to understand the titles attributed to Jesus: 'Lord’, ‘Son of Man’, ‘Son of David’, and ‘Christ’. Are these words containers with a fixed meaning, or does their context determine their use? While paying special attention to Jesus’ titles has fallen out of favour in biblical studies, I asked Dr Kendall Davies how we can better understand the gospels’ titles for Jesus.

One of my favourite series to write has focused on Jesus and other ancient figures. In 2024, I looked at how Jesus’ depiction in the gospels shaped by pagan heroes like Aesop, Vespasian and Dionysus. Yet a more immediate parallel in the gospels’ Jewish context. In Was Jesus Modelled on Moses? I look at Mosaic allusions in the gospels.

5. Sources for Jesus’ Life

To get ‘behind the Gospels’ is to think about the sources for Jesus’ life. Perhaps the most valuable pre-gospel source are the writings of Paul (c.50). A number of my posts this year have therefore focused on what we can know about Jesus from Paul. Did Paul know a pre-gospel source ‘Q’? And why does Paul not say more about Jesus?

I have also thought about a source which was often thought to lay behind Mark – the so-called ‘Pre-Markan Passion Narrative.’ In recent scholarship, many scholars have begun to question whether an early written source ever existed. I have argued that Mark is drawing on early materials, but not necessarily an extended written narrative.

A couple of my pieces have also interrogated the Roman sources for Jesus. I took a look at one attempt to argue that Josephus’ description of Jesus (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) is substantially authentic. I also look at whether Jesus is the referent of Suetonius’ reference to ‘Chrestus’, arguing that it probably is not.

6. The Gospels as Literature

For a long time, scholars were hesitant to describe the gospels as ‘literature’. Yet in the second half of the last century, a new wave of literary criticism showed that the evangelists were not mere compilers of tradition but authors in their own right.

A couple of posts this year have touched on the literary artistry of the gospels. In Seeing Double in Matthew, I took a closer look at Matthew’s pattern of ‘doubling’ the number of characters found in the same Markan text. While in Did Someone Order a Markan Sandwich?, I examine of one of Mark’s most fascinating techniques: ‘sandwiching’ episodes inside of each other to create new layers of meaning.

One of the key literary puzzles for scholars is the identity of the beloved disciple – the idealised witness who lays behind the fourth gospels. In my piece, Who was the Beloved Disciple? I assess seven candidates for the identity of this enigmatic character.

7. Jesus’ Physical Appearance

A final thread this year is Jesus’ physical appearance. Bloomsbury recently published a monograph based on my dissertation at Edinburgh, and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Tyler Wilson of Contingent History to discuss the book. I also took a deeper dive into one of the topics in the book: whether Luke presents Jesus as short.

I haven’t written a lot about my academic research on this substack (partly for reasons of plagiarism.) But I have answered a list of 50 popular questions about it. I took part in an interview with Dr Ian Paul on the subject. And in the future, I’m hoping to make more of much research accessible for readers of Behind the Gospels.

Another post on the physical appearance is called Before Jesus was Beautiful. In the early Church from the second century onwards, it was common for Christians to imagine Jesus as ugly – like the suffering servant of Isaiah. In this piece, I unpack why Christians imagined Jesus as ugly and whether there is any foundation to the idea.

What’s Coming Up in 2026…

2025 has been a really exciting year, and there is more to come in 2026. I have begun writing a new book on the historical Jesus, tailored for a popular audience, and I am also going to be offering monthly online lectures for my paid subscribers.

Topic-wise, I am really looking forward to unpacking the tradition behind the gospels. The period of 40 years before the gospels were written is complex and fascinating – so what was really going on in this time? Many of my posts will be asking this question.

All that is left is for me to say a massive thank you to all of my readers, particularly to those who are supporting my writing. I hope you continue to enjoy my posts going forward. If you have any suggestions or questions you would like me to answer – give me a shout at behindthegospels@gmail.com or DM me. Have a very happy new year!