The Formation of the Four Gospels

Since the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—begin the New Testament, readers often assume that these works were the earliest written products of the Christian church. This assumption is often coupled with the beliefs that the authors of the four Gospels were eyewitnesses of the events they narrate and that the composition of the Gospels was a relatively simple process of preserving in writing what they had seen and heard firsthand. Such assumptions about the Gospels, however, are inaccurate. All the letters of Paul in the New Testament were written prior to any of the Gospels being completed. The authors of the Gospels, or at least the persons responsible for the final form of the Gospels, were almost certainly not eyewitnesses; and the Gospels themselves are the end products of traditions that were transmitted and preserved in various forms, both oral and written.

From Oral Traditions to Written Records

Jesus of Nazareth left behind no written records. He was not an author, but a teacher and preacher. His method of communication was exclusively oral. Furthermore, there is no indication that Jesus expected or desired that his message would be preserved in writing and passed along for generations. He was addressing a first-century audience, dealing with their concerns and situations. The reason his stories and sayings are available to modern readers is that some of his followers considered them important enough to remember and pass on.

These Jesus traditions were almost certainly preserved at first only in oral form. This statement may seem surprising, even incredulous, to readers today. We live in a highly literate society in which the printed media are extremely important. Books, newspapers, magazines, and journals are found in almost every household. Computers, a relatively recent communication tool, present visual representations of words on computer monitors. For many of us, even a trip to the grocery store necessitates a written shopping list, lest we forget the items we need to purchase. First-century Palestine, however, was primarily an oral culture. The ability to read and write was a privilege of the upper class of Palestinian society, as was true of the Mediterranean world in general. Jesus and the crowds to whom he spoke were primarily peasants. They were not a part of the educated elite. The Gospels give scant information about Jesus' education and literacy. The Gospel of Luke contains the story of Jesus as a precocious twelve-year-old engaged in dialogue with the teachers in the Temple. Luke reports, "And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers" (2:47). If this story is historically accurate, it still tells us nothing about Jesus' formal education. Likewise, the additional statement that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor" (Luke 2:52) is no evidence for Jesus' ability to read or write. A person can be wise, yet remain uneducated and illiterate.

Later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus during his ministry in Galilee is described as reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, "where he had been brought up" (4:16-30). If this passage is historically authentic, then we certainly have here evidence of Jesus' ability to read. Many scholars, however, have raised questions about the historical reliability of what is described in this passage. Luke 4:16-30 seems to be an expansion of Mark 6:1-6. The Markan text tells of Jesus teaching in the synagogue in his hometown and the ensuing astonishment of his listeners. Mark does not mention, though, that Jesus read in the synagogue. One must, therefore, use the Lukan passage with caution as evidence of Jesus' literacy.

On the other hand, a passage in the Gospel of John seems to imply that Jesus was educated. In reporting one of Jesus' teaching episodes during his ministry, the Gospel reports that people were astonished at his teaching, saying, "How does this man have such learning, when he has never been taught?" (7:15). The phrase translated in the NRSV as "have such learning" literally means "know what is written" or "know letters." In the context of first-century Judaism, the people's question concerns Jesus' familiarity with and knowledge of the Jewish law. They are puzzled about how one could have such a deep understanding of the scripture, yet lack formal scribal training in the law (cf. Mark 1:22).

The only passage in the New Testament that speaks about Jesus writing anything is also in John. The story of the woman who is caught in adultery, John 7:53–8:11 (the passage is textually suspect), states that twice during the confrontation with the religious leaders who brought the woman to Jesus, he "bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground" (8:6, 8). What he wrote is not known. Once again, one cannot draw any certain conclusions from this text about Jesus' educational or literacy level. Reviewing all the evidence, the safest conclusion about Jesus is that he possibly, perhaps even probably, had rudimentary skills in reading and writing. Any claims beyond that are mere speculation.

The New Testament likewise provides us little information about the educational background of Jesus' followers. The book of Acts records the amazement of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem at the boldness of the disciples Peter and John in their teaching and preaching. They considered the two to be "uneducated and ordinary men" (Acts 4:13). Like the description of Jesus in John 7:15, this statement probably means that they lacked formal scribal training in the Jewish scriptures. Aside from this episode, the New Testament provides no information about the educational sophistication of Jesus' disciples. As will be discussed later, none of the Gospels was likely written by a disciple of Jesus, so these literary documents are no evidence of the disciples' literary skills. What the Gospels do tell us about the earliest followers of Jesus is that they were almost all working-class persons—fishermen, tax collectors, housewives. In ancient Palestine formal education for children was rare. Shaye Cohen claims that "in all likelihood elementary education was the responsibility of the family" and "generally in the ancient world elementary education did not go beyond paternal instruction in a craft." Thus most people in the ancient world never became skilled at reading and writing, although quite a few probably had rudimentary skills necessary for business transactions.

The basic oral nature of ancient Mediterranean societies, then, explains why the earliest traditions about Jesus would have been oral traditions. Stories about Jesus and collections of his teachings would have been passed along from one person to the next and from one community to another. These oral traditions would have been used in many different ways in the early Christian communities. When Jesus' followers were preaching to outsiders, they would have told stories about Jesus. When they were teaching new converts about their faith, they would have recounted Jesus' sayings...