Why Write the Gospels?

Seven Reasons the Gospels Were Written

In my two-part primer on dating the gospels, I argued that all four canonical gospels are best understood in the wake of the Temple’s destruction in AD 70. But this raises an important question: why? Why did the gospel writers bother to write a gospel at all? And more specifically, why did they set out to write a life of Jesus in this period?

#1 Preserving Jesus’ Memory

One possibility is that the gospels were written in part to preserve the memory of Jesus. 70 was already a generation after Jesus’ death, and given ancient mortality rates, the vast majority of the earliest followers of the Jesus movement had now died.¹ It had therefore become imperative to codify the collective memory of this first generation, which had been passed on primarily by word of mouth.

This theory fits well with what collective memory theorist, Jan Assmann, famously terms a Traditionsbruch.This happens when a ‘rupture’ or ‘break’ in tradition occurs so that a community is forced to define or re-define itself. In the case of Mark, this rupture could have been the death of the eyewitnesses, but it could also have been the Neronian persecution of Jesus’ followers and the destruction of Jerusalem.²

At the same time, the idea of preserving Jesus’ memory should not be confused with an antiquarian interest in Jesus. The Gospels do not recall many aspects of Jesus’ memory which we would quite like to learn, and which were presumably still known to some of Jesus’ followers – such as Jesus’ physical appearance! The gospels do not focus on features which were incidental to the narratives they were telling.

#2 Processing Temple Trauma

Another reason for writing a gospel relates more closely to the Temple itself. The ruin of Jerusalem turned out to be a faith-shaping moment for Judaism, which in time came to be more a religion of the book. This could have raised serious questions in the Jesus movement about whether God was really in charge of history.

At least in part, the gospels were written to process this trauma. But they do so in different ways. Mark, for example, records that Jesus predicted the Temple’s destruction, and (implicitly) that his death brought it about. In a previous post, I have suggested that Mark devotes so much attention to the Temple in order to counter the imperial propaganda of Vespasian, who was responsible for Jerusalem’s destruction.

By contrast, John, developing on themes in the earlier gospels, argues that Jesus’ body is the New Temple: it is the place where God’s presence abides and forgiveness is found. In an earlier post this year, I suggested that this is one reason why John moves Jesus’ Temple cleansing to the very beginning of his narrative. We are to read the whole of Jesus’ life through the prism that he is the new Temple after its destruction.

#3 The Return of Jesus

Just as the evangelists had to process the Traditionsbruch of the Temple’s destruction, they also had to process an event which did not occur: namely, the return of Christ.

Reading the letters of Paul, one gets the impression that Paul believed that Jesus would return in his own lifetime. He urges the recipients of 1 Corinthians not to get married (unless they must) and writes that ‘we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air’ (1 Thess. 4:17).

In Mark and Matthew, too, there seems to be an expectation that Jesus might arrive soon. In the so-called ‘mini-apocalypse’ of Mark (taken up by Matthew), Jesus states: ‘Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.’ While there is debate about what these words mean, a common reading is that both authors believed that Jesus would arrive shortly after Jerusalem’s fall.

Yet of course, the parousia or ‘advent’ of Jesus did not happen – or at least not in its prima facie sense. We therefore see the later gospels tempering Mark’s imminent expectation. For example, Matthew picks up Mark’s parable of the unprofitable slave, who does not work while his master (Jesus) is away. Yet Matthew clarifies in his version of the parable that the master would return ‘after a long time’ (25:19).

Luke extends this delay even further. He explicitly provides the context of the parable of the slave as the (mistaken) expectation that the Kingdom of God would appear imminently (19:11). For Luke, it is clear that the Kingdom is already here! Thus Jesus explains: ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed… For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you [or in your midst]’ (17:20-21).

John, on the other hand, has a different strategy. Instead of taking up the Synoptics’ ‘Kingdom of God’ language, he does away with it nearly altogether. Instead of focusing on a Kingdom to come in the future, John focuses on the notion of ‘eternal life’ – a state of being with Jesus that already inheres in the present. By getting rid of the hope for an imminent Kingdom, the problem of the parousia is resolved.

#4 Adapting the Jesus Tradition

Still another reason for writing a Gospel is that the evangelists were grappling with Jesus’ teaching in the increasingly diverse contexts of the Jesus movement. We can see this with respect to another major concern in the early Church: whether Christians were required to follow Torah.

For the readers of Mark, Luke and John, it seems that there is no requirement for Gentiles to follow the Jewish law. By the time that the fourth gospel was written, this seems to reflect the formation of a new sense of identity for ‘Christians’ who had split from the Jewish synagogue (aposynagogue). As John sets out in his prologue, ‘For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (1:17).

Yet in Matthew, the question of Torah observance is more complicated. One common view is that this Gospel reflects a Jewish-Christian community which remained Torah-observant. Thus, here Jesus makes clear that he had not come to abolish the law, that the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat – that is, have real authority – and that to enter the Kingdom one must have a righteousness which exceeds that of the Pharisees.

The requirement to adapt the tradition to clarify the ethical and pastoral needs of diverse communities is also evident in the gospels. A case in point is one of the most vexing moral questions in the early church: whether or not one should get divorced.

In Mark, we find this blanket rule: ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’ Yet Matthew adds an exception clause for cases of divorce and re-marriage: ‘except for sexual immorality’. As some commentators have argued, it seems plausible that Matthew relaxes Jesus’ teaching due to the difficulties with living it out. Matthew is not only thinking theologically, but pastorally.

#5 Imitatio Christi

We have touched on ethics. Yet what is remarkable about the gospels taken in the context of early Christian literature is their failure, by and large, to address everyday issues of religious morality. As we thumb through the gospels, we do not find any clear instruction about when to pray, on what days one should fast, or how to conduct a Church service. Several of the quirks we now associate with a more traditional Christian religious life are completely missing from the gospels.

If we read the gospels as ancient biographies, this makes a good deal of sense. Ancient biographies did not offer a set of instructions, but presented a portrait of their subject for imitation. The subject’s moral ‘character’ (or éthos) was illustrated through a curated selection of their words and deeds – the idea not being that you do the very same things as your subject (‘what would Jesus do?’) but that you imitate their virtues.