The culture of the second half of the twentieth century was marked by diversity and conflict. World War II left Germany, the center of biblical study, split in two. The chasm between east and west broadened into the “cold war,” and soon into hot wars in Korea and Vietnam. The conflicts on the world scene were mirrored in America. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional. This provoked race riots and outbreaks of violence by the Ku Klux Klan and other reactionary groups. Martin Luther King led a massive movement for racial equality but paid for his efforts with his life. These conflicts did not leave religion untouched. Attacks were launched against the World Council and National Council of Churches, charging that the leaders were tainted with liberalism, soft on communism. The Moral Majority, led by fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, entered the political arena in support of conservative causes. Mainline churches declined; conservative mega-churches mushroomed. The feminist movement and the advocates of gay rights were attacked from the right.
These competing forces also impacted the community of biblical scholarship. The liberal domination of the academy was challenged by the rise of evangelical scholars. These conservatives enrolled in major graduate schools like Harvard and graduated to teach in expanding theological schools: Fuller, Trinity Evangelical, Gordon Conwell, Dallas—all dedicated to excellence in scholarship. Many of the evangelicals joined the guild—the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)—but also founded their own, the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). These scholars produced important publications with the major publishing houses. To be sure, many scholars from both sides reached across the barriers to embrace common goals and affirm mutual respect. But, on a host of critical and exegetical issues, polarizing and polemics flourished. Battles also raged within the stereotyped groups. Scholars who shared commitment to the historical critical method differed sharply over their results. These conflicts are especially apparent in regard to critical issues of introduction, gospel research, and the Synoptic Problem.
“Introduction” is the discipline most characteristic of the Enlightenment.[1] It attends to the famous “W” questions: Who wrote, When, Where, to Whom? A host of introductions of all shapes and forms has been published, from textbooks for undergraduates to advanced reference works for scholars. Attention will be given here to two representative examples by two important scholars: the introductions of Werner G. Kümmel and Helmut Koester.
Kümmel was born in Heidelberg, the son of a professor of medicine.[2] He was educated at Heidelberg, Berlin, and Marburg. At Marburg he served as assistant lecturer 1930–32. To escape the Nazi threat he moved to Zürich, where he was appointed associate professor (1932) and promoted to full professor in 1946. After the war Kümmel taught for a time at Mainz, but in 1952 he succeeded Rudolf Bultmann at Marburg, where he remained until his retirement in 1973. He was a coeditor and frequent contributor to Theologische Rundschau (1957–83).[3] Kümmel was also instigator and editor of the series “Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit.”[4] He was elected president of SNTS and received an honorary degree from Glasgow.
Kümmel was devoted to objective critical research. In spring semester 1963, I attended his seminar on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The class was relatively large, and Kümmel did most of the talking, giving a seated lecture. His method focused exclusively on the texts. After a student had translated the text, Kümmel would analyze the exegetical details and then summarize its significance for the topics. In the summary he would review the various ways in which the text had been (or could be) interpreted—sometimes as many as five. He then he would proceed through the list to adjudicate the possibilities. “The first cannot be correct, because . . .” (often he gave more than one reason) and similarly through the rest of the list. Often he would conclude: “Between four and five, no decision is possible. We shall go on to the next text.”
Kümmel made an auspicious debut to his scholarly career. At age twenty-three he completed his dissertation (written under Martin Dibelius at Heidelberg), Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus, a monograph that remained a definitive work on the subject throughout the twentieth century.[5] Impetus for this project was generated in Bultmann’s seminar on the anthropology of Paul at Marburg, which Kümmel attended in 1925–26. As Kümmel observed, interpretation of Romans 7 is plagued by two controversial questions: Does this chapter describe the pre-Christian or post-Christian experience? Is Paul speaking autobiographically when he uses the first person pronoun? Kümmel insists that these questions must be answered by rigorous exegetical research. Within the context of Romans 6 to 8, Rom 7:7-24, according to Kümmel, is an apology for the law. In regard to “I,” which Paul introduces in v. 7 and repeats throughout the section, he argues that the use is not autobiographical. Paul’s language, according to Kümmel, is rhetorical; “I” refers to the unredeemed human being. “Since it is correct that we in Rom. 7 have a description of the non-Christian from the Christian standpoint, so the possibility of viewing Rom. 7 as a presentation of the inner development of Paul is excluded.”[6] Kümmel advances his case by an investigation of Paul’s conversion, an experience that must be interpreted by critical exegesis of the crucial texts: Gal 1:12-17; 1 Cor 15:8; 9:1; Phil 3:7. Kümmel concludes that nothing in these texts supports the notion that Paul had been engaged in life-rending ethical or religious struggle, a conclusion that supports his conviction that Romans 7 is not autobiographical.
Throughout his career Kümmel continued his interest in Paul. For instance, he published an essay on Paul’s eschatology—an important concern of Kümmel—in which he argues that Schweitzer’s notion of “Christ-mysticism” is mistaken.[7] According to Kümmel, Paul’s eschatological thought is grounded in Judaism; it stresses the historical: the Christian lives in the time between God’s saving action in history and its consummation in the future. He also completed the popular edition of Paul that Dibelius left unfinished at his death in 1947,[8] and he published a revision of Hans Lietzmann’s commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians for the series Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (HNT).[9]
Kümmel’s Einleitung remained the standard work on introduction in Germany for several years.[10] Its first edition was published in 1963 as the twelfth edition of the venerable Feine-Behm Einleitung.[11] The first edition that listed Kümmel as the author was the 17th (Kümmel’s 6th), a totally rewritten work that rightly bore the author’s name. In the introduction, Kümmel defines the discipline.
Accordingly the science of introduction is a strictly historical discipline which, by illuminating the historical circumstances of the origin of the individual writings, provides for exegesis the necessary presuppositions for understanding the writings in their historical uniqueness. Through the study of the development and preservation of the collection, it furnishes a sure historical foundation for the question of the doctrinal content of the New Testament.[12]
Kümmel believes an introduction ought to arrange the NT books chronologically, but because the dates of writing are problematic, he adopts canonical order. Part One deals with the formation of the NT documents. Kümmel begins with the narrative books: the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. After an extensive discussion of the Synoptic Problem (some forty pages, prefaced by four pages of bibliography), Kümmel opts for the 2DH.[13] In regard to Mark, he argues that the author’s major concern is theology; the “messianic secret” presents the hidden dignity of the Son of God. Kümmel rejects the tradition that Mark preserves the reminiscences of Peter and the theory that John Mark is the author. In regard to Matthew, Kümmel writes, “There is really no foundation for the notion that Mt tries to portray Jesus as the ‘New Moses.’ ”[14] The author, according to Kümmel, uses Jewish-Christian tradition as ammunition against non-believing Jews. Matthew was written, Kümmel believes, from some place in Syria (probably Antioch) around 80–100 CE. Luke was written, according to Kümmel, by a Gentile Christian writing for Gentiles, probably between 70 and 90. Kümmel thinks Acts had an apologetic purpose: to prove that early Christians always enjoyed cordial relations with Rome. As to the “we sections,” he rejects the theory that they represent the account of a travel companion of Paul; more likely they indicate the author’s use of a source, perhaps a diary.
Kümmel presents five pages of bibliography about the Fourth Gospel. He believes the author—who certainly was not John the son of Zebedee—used both Mark and Luke; borrowing the language of Gnosticism, the author affirms the historical Jesus as the true revelation of God.
Turning to the NT Epistles, Kümmel discusses the letters of Paul. He thinks the apostle wrote 2 Thessalonians, and he believes both 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians represent unified, not composite, documents. At Corinth, according to Kümmel, Paul is fighting on one front only, against a gnostic perversion of the gospel. Kümmel believes Galatians was written to the original ethnic Galatians (he thus adopts the “north Galatian” hypothesis). The opponents are Jewish Christians who preach circumcision and observance of the law. Romans, according to Kümmel, was written to summarize Paul’s gospel, but also with an eye toward anticipated conflict with Jews in Jerusalem; Romans 16 was part of the original letter. As to Philippians, Kümmel believes it was probably written from a Caesarean imprisonment, or possibly from Ephesus; it is a unity, not a composite. Kümmel accepts Colossians as authentic, written in opposition to a religious syncretism that was influenced by Judaism. Neither Ephesians nor the Pastorals, in his judgment, were written by Paul.
As to Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, Kümmel notes that the former—which was not written by Paul—is not a letter but a discourse or sermon. The Epistle of James was written, according to Kümmel, by an unknown Jewish Christian around the turn of the century. The rest of the Catholic Epistles—1 and 2 Peter, Jude, and the Johannine letters—are, in Kümmel’s opinion, pseudonymous. Revelation does not bear some of the typical features of apocalyptic literature: it is not pseudonymous and it is not concerned with the distant past. According to Kümmel it addresses the suffering church of the author’s own time, probably the reign of Domitian.
Parts Two and Three of Kümmel’s Introduction discuss the formation of the canon and textual criticism of the NT. In regard to the canon, Kümmel notes that the Scripture of the earliest Christians was the OT. He sees the beginnings of the formation of a canon in Justin’s “memoirs of the apostles” and Marcion’s canon of ten letters of Paul and the Gospel of Luke. By the end of the second century the basic content of the canon was crystallized: four Gospels and Acts, and thirteen Epistles of Paul. The canon was closed in the East in the fourth century and in the West by the beginning of the fifth. Kümmel concludes that the closing of the canon was necessary, in spite of his suspicion that ancient judgments about apostolicity were flawed. “The factual delimitation and the actual openness of the limits of the canon correspond to the historicity of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.”[15] In regard to the text, Kümmel traces the history of research and notes the work of the International Greek Project and the work on the Editio Critica Maior at the Institute in Münster.[16] He believes the modern critical texts. even the student editions like Nestle/Aland, are very close to the original.
All in all, Kümmel’s Introduction is a monumental work; it displays mastery of an enormous number of secondary sources, attention to detail, clear arguments, and avoiding premature conclusions where the evidence is insufficient. Although Kümmel tends to be conservative on issues of literary unity, his judgment on most issues reflects the “liberal” consensus of modern historical criticism at mid-twentieth century.
Closely related to the science of introduction is Kümmel’s work on the history of NT research.[17] His book does not intend to cover the entire history, “but limits itself deliberately to the delineation of the lines of inquiry and the methods which have proved to be of permanent significance or to anticipate future developments.”[18] In other words, it is an appraisal of research from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century, and one that heralds the triumph of the historical critical method. The book, roughly organized in chronological order, is problem-oriented, concerned with critical issues. A distinctive feature is Kümmel’s presentation of extensive quotations from the primary sources.
After brief discussions of the pre-history and the rise of early textual criticism Kümmel takes up “The Beginnings of the Major Discipline of NT Research” (Part III). He honors the pioneers: “Scientific study of the New Testament is indebted to two men, Johann Salomo Semler and Johann David Michaelis for the first evidences of a consciously historical approach to the New Testament as a historical entity distinct from the Old Testament.”[19] In regard to literary problems, Kümmel reviews the work of Griesbach, Lessing, Herder, Schleiermacher, and Bretschneider, who rejected the authenticity of the Gospel of John. In discussing research into the history of early Christianity, Kümmel attends to the contribution of Reimarus and the rationalism of Paulus. He believes Gabler’s distinction between historical biblical theology and dogmatic theology to be of major importance. He praises rigorous exegesis as the proper foundation of NT research, noting, for example, the commentary series of H. A. W. Meyer (KEK), which was dedicated to the historico-grammatical investigation of the text.
In the next major part Kümmel hails the victory of the “Consistently Historical Approach.” Although he disagrees with him on a host of issues, he praises F. C. Baur:
Baur recognized two problems to whose clarification New Testament research continues to devote itself: the arrangement of the New Testament writings in a total historical perspective, and the understanding of the sequence and of the historical development of the New Testament world of ideas. And more than that, Baur recognized the fundamental significance of the historical understanding of the person and proclamation of Jesus and the importance for the historical evaluation of the New Testament writings of the question concerning the object in view (“tendency”) of every single book. Since Baur’s time, scientific work on the New Testament has been possible only when the fundamental methodological principles he indicated have been followed and his overall historical view has been superseded or improved.[20]
Baur and his student D. F. Strauss had adopted the Griesbach hypothesis concerning the Synoptic Problem, a hypothesis Kümmel believes was overcome by the work of Christian Gottlob Wilke, Christian Hermann Weisse, and H.-J. Holtzmann. Similarly, Baur’s Hegelian reconstruction of early Christianity was corrected by scholars like J. B. Lightfoot and Adolf von Harnack. Also in the latter part of the nineteenth century, contributions were made to the understanding of various individual questions, for example, Jülicher’s work on the parables. Kümmel is less sanguine about attempts to derail the consistently historical view by scholars like Adolf Schlatter and the skeptical Franz Overbeck.
Kümmel’s final sections deal with the “History-of-Religions School” and the “Historical-Theological View of the NT.” In regard to the former he notes the pioneering work of C. F. G. Heinrici, Edwin Hatch, and Adolf Deissmann, and the theory of “consistent eschatology” by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer. The main figures in the history of religion school are discussed: Wilhelm Bousset, Wilhelm Heitmüller, and Richard Reitzenstein.[21] Kümmel sympathizes with the method—the concern to probe the religious-historical setting—but not with many of the conclusions of the school. He also notes the radical criticism of William Wrede and Alfred Loisy and the conservative reaction by scholars like Paul Feine. In the post-World War I period, Kümmel reviews the form-critical work of Dibelius and Bultmann and the new history-of-religion stress on Jewish backgrounds by Paul Billerbeck. A distinctive theological emphasis emerged in Barth’s Epistle to the Romans, but Kümmel concludes that biblical theology must be built on solid historical exegesis.
In a related work Kümmel focused on twentieth-century research,[22] heir to a legacy from the nineteenth century that included the recognition of the separation between OT and NT research and the necessity of understanding NT documents in their historical and religious setting. Kümmel believed that major achievements of the nineteenth century were advanced and confirmed in the twentieth: the triumph of the 2DH (despite opposition from Scandinavian scholars and William R. Farmer), the move from form to redaction criticism, and the investigation of sources and background of the Gospel of John (for example, in the Qumran texts). He concludes: “New Testament research in the 20th century has in no way reached unanimous results in important areas, and great as the advances in New Testament scholarship have been, one can speak of acknowledged results only to a limited degree, so that there still remains in New Testament research very much to clarify and to do.”[23]
Kümmel’s other research includes a major work on the preaching of Jesus, Promise and Fulfilment.[24] In the first chapter he investigates texts indicating that Jesus believed the coming of the kingdom of God to be imminent, yet still future. Although he acknowledges that Jesus used apocalyptic language, Kümmel insists that Jesus’ message is not essentially apocalyptic. Turning to texts suggesting that the kingdom is present, Kümmel says that “it is quite firmly established that the eschatological consummation, the Kingdom of God, has already become a present reality in the ministry of Jesus.”[25] The presence of the kingdom, according to Kümmel, is restricted to Jesus and his ministry; the coming of the kingdom remains future. Jesus was mistaken about the time of the future coming, but the important factor for Kümmel is the meaning of his message: “the inseparable union of hope and present experience demonstrate the fact that the true meaning of Jesus’ eschatological message is to be found in its reference to God’s action in Jesus himself, that the essential content of Jesus’ preaching about the Kingdom of God is the news of the divine authority of Jesus, who has appeared on earth and is awaited in the last days as the one who effects the divine purpose of mercy.”[26] In a closely related monograph Kümmel argues that Jesus identified himself with the coming Son of Man and understood his present activity as the manifestation of that identity. “The statements of Jesus about the present and coming “Man” fit fully into the total proclamation of Jesus.”[27] Kümmel repeats this conclusion in his contribution to the “new quest” of the historical Jesus.
Indeed, the answer to the question about the historical Jesus allows us to recognize a man who interprets his acts and mission as the present realization of the future eschatological action of God over against the world, and ascribes to himself the decisive role in the end time of God’s salvation history. This claim of Jesus, which according to the faith of the early church, God has confirmed through the cross and resurrection, explains the eschatological, salvation historical meaning of the person of Jesus in early Christianity.[28]
Kümmel also devoted attention to the theology of the NT. In an early work he investigated the NT understanding of “man.”[29] Later in his career Kümmel published his understanding of NT theology according to the three major witnesses: Jesus, Paul, and John.[30] In regard to the proclamation of Jesus, Kümmel argues (contra Bultmann) that the message of Jesus is an essential aspect of NT theology. The central feature of the message, according to Kümmel, is the kingdom of God: the rule of God already present in Jesus’ own life and deeds, to be realized in the imminent future. Kümmel thinks that Jesus did not claim to be messiah but that he did identify himself with the coming Son of Man, already active in his ministry. Turning to Paul, Kümmel believes the experience of conversion involved the recognition of Christ as the revelation of God’s eschatological action. In regard to the human situation, Paul affirms the universality of sin and declares that salvation comes by faith in Jesus Christ. The gift of salvation involves the task of the Christian; the indicative of new life entails the imperative of obedience. As to the Fourth Gospel, Kümmel believes it witnesses not to the historical Jesus but to the Christ of faith. Christ is the pre-existent Logos, the Son sent from the Father, the lamb of God who takes away the sin world. Salvation is received by faith, but faith involves keeping the commandments, above all the new commandment of love. “[T]he three major witnesses of the theology of the New Testament are in agreement in the twofold message, that God has caused his salvation promised for the end of the world to begin in Jesus Christ, and that in this Christ event God has encountered us and intends to encounter us as the Father who seeks to rescue us from imprisonment in the world and to make us free for active love.”[31]
Born in Hamburg, Helmut Koester was the son of an architect.[32] He served in the German armed forces during World War II and was taken prisoner by the Americans in 1945. From 1945 to 1950 he studied under Bultmann at Marburg, and during the academic years 1947/1948 he was invited weekly to lunch at the professor’s home, an occasion that “provided the opportunity to experience personally the unerring human integrity, humility, and piety of my beloved teacher.”[33] In 1954 Koester finished his doctoral dissertation at Marburg and became research assistant to Günther Bornkamm at Heidelberg. In 1956 he completed his qualifying dissertation (Habilitations-schrift) and was appointed instructor. In 1958 Koester began teaching at Harvard Divinity School where, in 1963, he was named John H. Morison Professor of NT Studies and, in 1968, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History; he continued to hold both chairs until his retirement in 1991. In 1972 Koester received a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies for archeological study in Greece and Turkey, and in the following years he offered seminars on location for doctoral students. Looking back over his career, Koester wrote that “it has been a long way from the time when I was an enthusiastic student of Bultmann with the firm belief that demythologizing was the most important issue of New Testament scholarship to a stage in life where bringing archaeologists and students of early Christianity together would occupy much of my time and seemed to me the most worthwhile thing I could contribute.”[34] He added, “I have never given up my first love: biblical exegesis and theology.”[35]
Koester’s Marburg dissertation on the Synoptic tradition in the Apostolic Fathers set the course for much of his later work.[36] In investigating this tradition, Koester discovers that most of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers do not indicate the use of written texts but give evidence of knowledge of the pre-Synoptic tradition. Koester concludes that the Synoptics stand in the midst of the transmission of tradition, neither at the beginning nor at the end. The Apostolic Fathers, he believes, stand beside the Synoptics and reflect parallel, not later development. Even where there is evidence that the Gospels are known, they do not appear, according to Koester, to command a special authority.
Whereas Kümmel’s Introduction was widely used as a text in German universities and American seminaries, Koester’s two-volume contribution is a resource for the advanced scholar.[37] He presents the early Christian documents in the context of the history of early Christianity. “My primary concern is to present the history of the early Christian churches, since it seems to me that the student of the New Testament must learn from the outset to understand the writings of the earliest period within their proper historical context.”[38] As well as the books of the NT, Koester provides critical introductions to over sixty other documents. “These non-canonical books are witnesses to early Christian history no less valuable than the New Testament.”[39]
The first volume presents the “history, culture, and religion of the Hellenistic age.” After a survey of the history of the Hellenistic age, Koester offers chapters on economics and society, education and literature, and philosophy and religion. In regard to the “new religions” of the Hellenistic period, he writes: “What mattered was the appropriation of power and the securing of protection of higher authorities in the adversities of life and for the passage of the soul into a better world after death—ideas that also were widely accepted by Christianity.”[40] Koester also presents a history of Israel in the Hellenistic age, noting the Hellenistic influence on Judaism. “As a development of cultural history,” writes Koester, “Hellenization affected all Israelites, whether they were Jews or Samaritans, Essenes or Pharisees, living in the diaspora or in Palestine. But in the dispersion, the effects of Hellenization were more profound.”[41] Koester also traces the rise of Rome as a world power and its impact on Palestine. He notes the development of religions in the Roman period, with attention to the rise of the imperial cult. In regard to Gnosticism, Koester writes, “Gnosticism thus cannot be derived from anything but the experience of the world as a foreign place and of the liberating message of the divine call through which humans were able to recognize themselves and their true being.”[42]
Koester’s second volume deals with the “history and literature of early Christianity.” “This book endeavors to introduce the student of the New Testament to all of these writings in the context of a reconstruction of the expansion and growth of the Christian communities from their beginnings to the middle of the second century ce.”[43] In the first chapter of this volume Koester investigates the sources of early Christianity. He describes the formation of early Christian writings and the development of the canon. In the latter, an important role was played by a heretic. “The impelling force for the formation of the canon, that is, for the singling out of a limited number of traditional writings of Christian authors as authoritative Holy Scripture, came from a radical theologian of the first half of the 2nd century, who came from the tradition of the Pauline churches: Marcion.”[44] In this chapter Koester also explicates critical methods including textual, form, and source criticism. “As gospels are not free creations of their authors but compilations of sources and oral traditions, also the epistles must not be envisioned as products of the free-ranging minds of creative theological thinkers but as elaboration of various and diverse traditional materials that were current in Israel, the Hellenistic-Roman world, and specifically in early Christian communities.”[45]
The next chapter surveys the history of early Christianity from John the Baptist to the emergence of the church. Koester believes that Jesus was born and raised in Nazareth. He associated for a time with John the Baptist but withdrew to conduct his own mission. According to Koester, Jesus announced the imminent coming of the kingdom of God, which was already present in his words and deeds. His proclamation demanded an ethical response: “the command to love also one’s enemies calls for a move into a new realm that lies beyond the boundaries of Israel’s traditional ethics.”[46] Jesus, according to Koester, did not fully fit any of the typical religious categories of his time: prophet, magician, wisdom teacher, or exorcist. After the execution of Jesus by the Romans, his followers believed he was alive. This resulted in the founding of a community that shared a common meal, anticipating the messianic banquet. Within the Jerusalem church a group of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians advocated a mission to the Gentiles; they established a church in Antioch that, according to Koester, became a center of Greek-speaking, Gentile Christianity.
Turning to Paul, Koester describes his life and ministry up to the Apostolic Council. Paul was a Pharisee, a diaspora Jew, who had a vision that constituted a call to Gentile mission. Paul’s view of the law was established in his conflict with Peter at Antioch. “Henceforth Paul insisted that the constitution of the church ‘in Christ’ abolished all traditional religious, social, and cultural particularities and every claim based upon such privileges (Gal 3:26-28).”[47] Koester believes that 1 Thessalonians was Paul’s first letter, written around 50. Much of Paul’s writing was composed in Ephesus. Galatians was addressed, according to Koester, to north Galatian churches that had been invaded by wandering Jewish Christian missionaries who insisted that Gentile Christians observe circumcision and Jewish ritual regulations. Koester thinks 1 Corinthians was aimed at a single group of opponents: wisdom teachers, spiritual enthusiasts who embraced realized eschatology. The troublemakers of 2 Corinthians, according to Koester, were a different group: false apostles who assumed the posture of the divine man. Koester believes Paul wrote Philippians (a composite of three letters) and Philemon from an Ephesian imprisonment. The Epistle to the Romans, according to Paul, is a letter of recommendation of himself, summarizing his gospel. After his final trip to Jerusalem and imprisonment in Caesarea and Rome, little is known about Paul. He may have been martyred in Philippi.
Following the model of Walter Bauer, Koester surveys the history and literature of early Christianity according to geographical regions.[48] Koester believes sayings of Jesus were collected and translated into Greek, beginning in Palestine and Syria, forming Q at around 50 CE. He thinks the Synoptic Apocalypse and a collection of parables were also composed in this period. Early tradition presented Jesus as a teacher of wisdom, and a collection of sayings was made around 50; Koester believes this is attested by the Gospel of Thomas and the Dialogue of the Savior (NHC). Tradition also developed, according to Koester, about the life and order of the church, as seen in the letter of James and the Didache, which contains earlier tradition. Koester also traces the development from the resurrection kerygma to the gospel of the church. Traditions of the authority of Peter are reflected in the Gospel of Peter and the Kerygma of Peter. Mark, according to Koester, was probably written about 70–80 in Syria, and the Gospel of Matthew, using both Mark and Q, appeared in Syria toward the end of the century. Koester thinks the Johannine tradition also emerged in Syria and is reflected in the Nag Hammadi texts (NHC). Syria is also, in Koester’s view, the seat of the development of Jewish Christianity, a movement that produced the Gospel of the Nazoreans and the Gospel of the Ebionites. Koester thinks Syria was the country of origin of Christian Gnosticism.
Moving on to Egypt, Koester sees evidence there of Syrian Christianity in second-century fragments of the Fourth Gospel. Early Christian Gnosticism is witnessed by the NHC. “As Jewish Gnostic speculations were the predecessors of Christian Gnosis in Syria, pagan Gnostic mythology and philosophy preceded its Christian offspring in Egypt and even developed further without direct borrowings from Christianity.”[49] Koester expresses his assumption about the burial of the NHC:
[T]he monks of Pachomius, founder of cenobite Christian monasticism, read and copied Gnostic writings for their own religious edification. Thanks to this Christian monastic activity, the writings of the Nag Hammadi Library have been preserved: members of the Pachomian monastery hid these precious books in order to protect them from the officially sanctioned heresy hunters. Thus orthodoxy and heresy continued to exist side by side in Egypt for centuries.[50]
Turning to Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome, Koester notes the revival of apocalypticism in pseudonymous 2 Thessalonians and the use of apocalyptic weapons in the battle with the Gnostics by the author of the letter of Jude. He observes that the Shepherd of Hermas combines apocalyptic thought and church order. In this region Pauline theology was transformed, according to Koester, into ecclesiastical doctrine as seen in Colossians and Ephesians. Koester notes that the authority of both Peter and Paul was recognized: 1 Peter, which purports to be from Peter, actually reflects the teachings of Paul, and the Pastoral Epistles (written 120–160) promote church order in the name of Paul. In this region, especially Rome, Christianity encountered the social world. Koester sees this in Luke-Acts, the work of a Gentile Christian writing to Gentiles in about 100. The idea of miracle-working apostles confronting the world is carried on in the Acts of Peter and the Acts of Paul. In time the apologists appear, eager to prove by philosophical argument that Christianity is the true religion.
Koester’s research on critical introduction is more narrowly focused in his book, Ancient Christian Gospels.[51] “My study of the gospel traditions in the Apostolic Fathers had brought me to the conclusion that gospel materials that were not dependent upon the canonical writings might indeed have survived well into the second century.”[52] This observation led to his conviction that apocryphal as well as canonical gospels should be used in the study of early Christianity. In regard to the term “gospel,” Koester notes that it was not used for documents until the mid-second century. When it is applied to documents the term is used for a variety of genres, confounding the notion that canonical and apocryphal gospels represent two distinctly different genres.
On the basis of these observations one must establish a criterion by which it can be determined whether any extant writing from the early period of Christianity belongs to the corpus of gospel literature. This corpus should include all those writings which are constituted by the transmission, use, and interpretation of materials and traditions from and about Jesus of Nazareth.[53]
Koester proceeds to investigate early collections of the sayings of Jesus. Paul reflects knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, and in 1 Corinthians he disputes with Christians who claim to possess wisdom. Koester believes this implies a collection of wisdom sayings known to Paul and his opponents. A major witness to early collections of sayings of Jesus, according to Koester, is found in the Gospel of Thomas, a later document that embodies early tradition. Thomas includes parables that are also found in Q but, according to Koester, Thomas reflects a stratum of tradition earlier than Q. As to Q, Koester believes it underwent at least one redaction in which apocalyptic material was added; the earlier Q, he thinks, was a collection of wisdom sayings of Jesus. “Therefore, the entire development of Q, from the first collection of the sayings of Jesus and their assembly into sapiential discourses to the apocalyptic redaction and, finally, the pre-Matthean redaction, must be dated within the first three decades after the death of Jesus.”[54]
Koester detects a tradition that evolves from early dialogues of Jesus into the narratives of the Gospel of John. The Dialogue of the Savior (NHC) has parallels in the Gospel of Thomas and in the Fourth Gospel. Koester believes Mark used an early collection of miracle stories that presented Jesus as a Divine Man. In the Gospel of Peter, Koester finds evidence of an earlier passion narrative.
The Gospel of Peter, as a whole, is not dependent upon any of the canonical gospels. It is a composition which is analogous to the Gospels of Mark and John. All three writings, independently of each other, use an older passion narrative which is based upon an exegetical tradition that was still alive when these gospels were composed and to which the Gospel of Matthew also had access.[55]
The Gospel of John makes use of a semeia or sign source that presented Jesus as Divine Man; the author also used dialogue sources that have parallels in the documents of Nag Hammadi. The composition of John, according to Koester, took place over a period of time; the result was a biography of Sophia who comes as the Logos: a polemic against Gnosticism.
Taking up the Synoptics, Koester believes the author of Mark used a collection of parables and a collection of miracle stories. “All arrangements of the sources and traditional materials serve the theological intention of the author to present, in the form of a written document, the ‘messianic secret’ of Jesus that God’s revelation in history is not fulfilled in the demonstration of divine greatness, but in the humiliation of the divine human being in his death on the cross.”[56] Koester thinks that stories about the birth and childhood of Jesus circulated prior to their use in Matthew and Luke and represent a tradition that was developed in other documents like the Proto-Gospel of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The author of Matthew, using Mark, Q and other sources, composed a gospel that highlights the discourses of Jesus. A summary of Koester’s book is presented in his preface:
This book . . . includes extensive treatments of all those writings from which one might, in my judgment, learn more about the earliest stages of the history and development of gospel literature—a history that must have begun with smaller written collections of materials about Jesus and eventually resulted in the composition of a number of gospel writings, including so-called apocryphal gospels as well as the Gospels of the New Testament canon. . . . This historical development culminated in the only partially successful attempt to create the one gospel for the church, that is Tatian’s Diatessaron.[57]
For Koester, archaeology is another tool in the kit of the history of religion—a way to understand early Christian documents in their social-historical setting. Along with his students and colleagues, Koester investigated sites in Asia Minor and Greece that are important for interpreting the NT. The results have been collected in a series of publications Koester edited. In Ephesos: Metropolis of Asia, he published papers that were read at a “Symposium Ephesos” held at Harvard Divinity School in 1994. Participants included archaeologists from the Austrian excavations and American scholars: archaeologists, classicists, and scholars of the history of religion and the NT. Koester writes: “If students of the New Testament wish to benefit from archaeological scholarship, they must become better acquainted with nonliterary materials unearthed by others, and thus must participate in the process of interpretation.”[58] A companion volume on Pergamon includes papers from a similar symposium held at Harvard in 1996. In his introduction Koester affirms his commitment to the “new archaeology”:
Biblical archaeology can no longer be limited to the paths of Jesus of Nazareth, nor should it seek to trace the footsteps of Paul in Asia Minor and Greece, or unearth the remains of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation. Rather, interdisciplinary discussions of scholars from various fields will create a better understanding of the Greco-Roman world, the world in which the New Testament was written, and in which both early Christianity and diaspora Judaism flourished.[59]
To a collection of essays on Philippi, Koester contributed “Paul and Philippi: The Evidence from Early Christian Literature.”[60] In this essay he observes that excavations at the Octagonal Church in Philippi may have located the place of Paul’s martyrdom.
Koester’s critical and tradition-historical research has implications for theology. This can be seen in his essay, “The Structure and Criteria of Early Christian Beliefs.”[61] At the outset he rejects the notion that Christianity began with a unified faith that later eroded into heresies. Instead, he believes Christianity began with a historical person to whom faith and doctrine variously responded; there was diversity from the beginning. He thinks the most primitive belief identified Jesus as the Lord of the future. The application of the titles Lord and Son of Man, according to Koester, interrupted continuity with the preaching of Jesus. This christological development advanced as the church moved into the Hellenistic world. There, says Koester, Jesus was viewed as a Divine Man and the acts of Jesus became the object of faith. “The power of the miracle and the documentation of divine presence in the miraculous events is indeed a symbol that tends to separate Christian faith completely from the criterion of a historical revelation in Jesus and that replaces historical and communal responsibility of Christian faith with personal piety and religious edification.”[62] Koester also notes a theological tradition that recognized Jesus as the envoy of Wisdom, in time identified Jesus as Wisdom, and eventually hailed Jesus as the preexistent Logos. The resurrection of Jesus was also stressed in the early development of doctrine; the creed of the resurrection, according to Koester, was the only confession that took the human life and suffering of Jesus seriously.
Yet in this creed Jesus’ humanity remained the criterion of a gospel that called all those who suffer and die, who are poor and deprived, who neither have social or political identity nor possess accepted moral and religious virtues. It calls them regardless of class, creed, or sex: “Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.”[63]
In conclusion Koester notes that the ideologies from which the early creed arose are not our presuppositions. If Christianity has anything to say today, it must be based on the fact that with Jesus, God has come into the life of humankind in a unique way.
In the era of World War I, Gospel studies were dominated by form criticism; in the post-World War II era attention shifted to redaction criticism.[64] Redaction criticism “is concerned with studying the theological motivation of an author as this is revealed in the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of traditional material, and in the composition of new material or the creation of new forms within the traditions of early Christianity.”[65] Actually, redaction criticism, or Redaktionsgeschichte, is nothing new. Wrede, for example, viewed Mark as a composition that presented a theology.[66] The redaction criticism discussed in this chapter, however, has a different historical context: it functions in the wake of form criticism. In relation to form criticism, redaction criticism presupposes a third Sitz im Leben: the first is the setting of the life of Jesus, the second is the setting of the community that shaped the oral tradition, and the third is the situation of the Gospel writers themselves. The work of Günther Bornkamm in redaction criticism has been reviewed in Chapter 3. In this chapter attention will be given to Hans Conzelmann and to Willi Marxsen, who coined the term “redaction criticism.”
Conzelmann was born in Thailfingen, Württemberg, to parents of modest means.[67] From 1934 to 1938 he studied at Tübingen and at Marburg, where he fell under the spell of Rudolf Bultmann. Returning to Tübingen, he joined the Church Theological Society, a group in Württemberg that corresponded to the Confessing Church. Conzelmann was drafted into the army and served on the Russian front; later in France he was wounded and his leg amputated. After the war he completed his doctorate at Tübingen and his Habilitation in Heidelberg under Bornkamm. Conzelmann taught at Heidelberg and Zürich, and in 1960 he was called to the faculty at Göttingen. He suffered a heart attack in 1975, but continued to teach for two more years. Conzelmann was described as a professor “whose work was not merely a matter of command of the materials, but one who placed his whole person on the line for his theological convictions.”[68]
Conzelmann launched his scholarly career with a dissertation (Habilitations-schrift) that utilized redaction criticism: Die Mitte der Zeit.[69] Beyond form criticism, Conzelmann is concerned with the whole composition as expressing the message of the author of Luke-Acts. “What distinguishes him is not that he thinks in the categories of promise and fulfilment, for this he has in common with others, but the way in which he builds up from these categories a picture of the course of saving history, and the way in which he employs the traditional material for this purpose.”[70]
Conzelmann begins with an investigation of the geographical elements in the composition of Luke’s Gospel. He observes that Luke presents the ministry of Jesus in three stages. The first is the ministry in Galilee, a period in which the devil, who had departed after the temptation, is absent. Luke, according to Conzelmann, views the mountain as place of revelation and the lake as the abyss. The second stage is the journey to Jerusalem, a creation of Luke, who adds material so as to make this stage as long as the other two. The third stage is the time in Jerusalem, a time when Satan is again present (Luke 22:3), a time of trial. In presenting the trial of Jesus, Luke minimizes the role of Pilate, who delivers Jesus to the Jews for execution. Luke also locates the resurrection appearances in or around Jerusalem.
Conzelmann then turns to Luke’s eschatology. He believes Luke avoids the idea of the imminence of the kingdom, stressing its nature rather than its timing. Events that belong to the end, like the destruction of Jerusalem, Luke presents as historical happenings.
The main motif in the recasting to which Luke subjects his source proves to be the delay of the Parousia, which leads to a comprehensive consideration of the nature and course of the Last Things. . . . The delay has to be explained, and this is done by means of the idea of God’s plan which underlies the whole structure of Luke’s account.[71]
The divine plan, according to Conzelmann’s reading of Luke, is God’s redemptive history—a history with three stages: the period of Israel, the period of Jesus, and the period of the church. At the center of redemptive history is Jesus Christ. Luke’s major titles are “Lord” and “Christ,” but he assumes subordination and has no idea of preexistence. Although Jesus must suffer and die, Luke does not, according to Conzelmann, understand the death of Jesus as a sacrifice that provides forgiveness for sins. The period of Jesus ends with his ascension. “In conclusion, therefore, we may say that the Lord is now in Heaven, whilst on earth there lives the community of the Church, equipped with the Spirit, provided with the message which is communicated by the witnesses, and with the abiding blessings of the sacrament.”[72]
The third stage is the period of the church. “In the Church we stand in a mediated relationship to the saving events—mediated by the whole course of redemptive history—and at the same time in an immediate relationship to them, created by the Spirit, in whom we can invoke God and the name of Christ; in other words, the Spirit dwells in the Church, and is imparted through its means of grace and its office-bearers.”[73] The church has a universal task, filled with the Spirit, moved to mission. The church proclaims the message of God for salvation; its life in the “way”—the ethical life, participating in God’s saving history.
The result of Conzelmann’s redaction criticism for understanding Jesus is expressed in his article, “Jesus Christus,” in the third edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart.[74] In regard to sources, Conzelmann points out that Mark’s framework is not a historical record but a witness to faith. Thus the perspective of redaction criticism must be maintained in reconstruction of the life and teaching of Jesus. Conzelmann, discussing the historical background, notes that the activity of Jesus took place within Palestinian Judaism, that he spoke Aramaic, and that his teaching reflects no interest in economic or political relationships. Concerning the birth and heritage of Jesus, Conzelmann believes the location of the birth in Bethlehem and the idea of Davidic descent represent theology rather than history. Jesus’ ministry was prepared by his baptism by John the Baptist. As he began his own mission, Jesus gathered a group of twelve disciples, representative of the people of God.
Conzelmann investigates the self-consciousness of Jesus in terms of titles. He notes that “Christ” (Messiah) is seldom used (not at all in Q), and that texts that apply the title to Jesus, for example the confession of Peter, are not historical. “Son of Man” is a title used exclusively by Jesus, but Conzelmann believes the application of the title to Jesus is a post-Easter phenomenon. Conzelmann points out that the title “Servant of God” is not found in the oldest stratum of tradition, and he rejects the popular theory that Jesus understood himself as the Servant of Second Isaiah. “Son of God” was not used as a messianic title in first-century Judaism, and Conzelmann does not believe Jesus viewed himself as Son in any unique sense. In any event, Conzelmann concludes that Jesus did not use titles directly.
And Jesus does not represent his own relationship to the coming of the kingdom directly as he himself shows with the messianic title. Rather he does so in the indirectness which characterizes his entire ministry—hence through his preaching and his miracles, through his call to repentance, his interpretation of the command of God, through the disclosure of God’s immediacy [Unmittelbarkeit] for sinners and the poor. His “Christology” then is an indirect one.[75]
Conzelmann gives major attention (some thirty pages) to the teachings of Jesus.
The primary element is the absoluteness of the promise of salvation [Heilszusage]. It takes shape in the presentation of God as Father, i.e., in the recovery of immediacy to him through the proclamation of forgiveness. Precisely from this follows the radical understanding of the demand of God which—in its unconditional nature—carries with it its fulfillment, and the understanding of the present time as the last hour, which opens up access to the kingdom of God.[76]
According to Conzelmann, Jesus did not oppose the cult or piety of Judaism; he opposed Jewish hypocrisy. “It is immediately obvious that this preaching had to lead to a fundamental conflict with all the trends within Judaism.”[77] Conzelmann believes that Jesus offered no new doctrine of God, but stressed the absolute will of God, summed up in the command of love. Jesus proclaimed the imminent coming of the kingdom of God, looking to the future, but seeing signs in the present.
If the signs are already here and effect salvation . . . then one cannot any more ask “when?” because the kingdom is no longer represented in a picture. The salvation of the kingdom becomes existentially intelligible to me in the present moment. I understand that on the basis of this present salvation I now can only still repent. And futurity is now no longer “not yet,” but is a positive qualification of this final time, the ground of hope, and the condition for the present experience of salvation.[78]
This statement, of course, is reminiscent of Conzelmann’s teacher, Rudolf Bultmann.
Conzelmann believes the Passion narrative was the earliest fixed form of the Synoptic tradition, formed from the perspective of the Easter faith. Some of the content, he thinks, was historical, based on eyewitness accounts. Of certain historicity is the execution of Jesus by the Romans; Pilate pronounced the death sentence and ordered the crucifixion.
In a final section Conzelmann discusses the question of the relation of the historical Jesus and faith. He notes that some interpreters have argued that faith is the result of historical research and others have insisted that historical reconstruction is not binding for faith. Both of these arguments, in Conzelmann’s view, rest on an objectifying conception of faith—to see faith as an object that can be verified or not verified by historical research. The decisive issue, says Conzelmann, is the transition from Jesus’ ministry to the gathering of his followers under the impact of the appearances of the Risen One and faith in him as messiah and Son of God. Thus Conzelmann sees the line of continuity in the resurrection, but historical research cannot establish its facticity.
This assertion implies that theology can postulate no historical facts [Tatsachen] and does not need to do so, since it lives by proclamation. On the other hand, it implies that the church cannot altogether interpret historical research disinterestedly by constricting itself to a witness of faith. Otherwise the result is the fatal consequence that this witness becomes the object of faith, and faith would then mean accepting a historical fact as true on the basis of someone else’s faith. Faith would then have become a matter of human resolve [Entschluss] and thus a “work.” . . . Precisely in view of the witness to the resurrection, we must maintain that the object of faith appears only to faith itself. Revelation is not “facts laid out before a person”; it emerges—today—in the word.[79]
Redaction critics are concerned with the theology of the final documents, and Conzelmann has exercised this concern for the whole NT. His Outline of the Theology of the New Testament is designed as a textbook for students.[80] He begins with an investigation of the kerygma of the primitive community and the Hellenistic community. The earliest church, he notes, was divided with the emergence of the Hellenists who engaged in Gentile mission.[81] The members of the church viewed themselves as the people of the end time, the true Israel. Their worship included preaching, prayers, Scripture reading and the observance of the Lord’s Supper. Conzelmann believes the central feature of the message was the person and work of Christ. The members of the early community expressed their understanding of Christ, Conzelmann thinks, by the use of titles: Messiah and Son of God.
Conzelmann turns to the Synoptic kerygma. Here emphasis is put on Jesus’ proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God. “The contradiction between the ‘present’ and the future sayings,” writes Conzelmann, “is only an apparent one. The two have the same significance for human existence: man’s attitude of the moment toward the coming kingdom.”[82] Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom included the command of God. “In its absoluteness,” says Conzelmann, “the commandment of love thus does away with casuistry. The individual ethical regulations are not intended to regulate individual instances, but to disclose the immediacy of acting in the moment.”[83] As to his understanding of himself, Jesus, according to Conzelmann, did not use the titles Son of God, Messiah, or Son of Man for himself.
The longest section of the book is Conzelmann’s explication of the theology of Paul. In essence, according to Conzelmann, Paul’s theology is response to God’s action in Christ. “Theology is the understanding of this event.”[84] Conzelmann believes the idea of faith is crucial for Paul’s thought; faith is response to the word of God; it includes knowledge, trust, and obedience. Apart from faith the human person in the world, according to Conzelmann’s reading of Paul, is trapped in the fatal, universal power of sin. Salvation comes only by the action of God in Christ, the preexistent one, sent by God. In regard to Paul’s phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, Conzelmann acknowledges that the genitive may be subjective, but he believes the emphasis is on the righteousness from God.
Paul’s theme is not “God’s righteousness” (that is the Jewish version of the problem), but God’s righteousness as the righteousness of faith. It remains God’s “alien” righteousness, to be experienced in the word, by being spoken. In hearing, we recognized ourselves as really being made righteous, and are freed for “newness of life.”[85]
Conzelmann notes that Paul believes response to God’s saving action creates the community, the church. Life in he community, according to Conzelmann’s understanding of Paul, is a life of freedom: freedom from the flesh for life in the spirit.
The last two sections of Conzelmann’s Outline deal with developments after Paul and with the Johannine writings. Conzelmann takes a dim view of the former. He believes the church degenerated into an institution and theology descended into dogma. The eschatological vitality of Paul was stifled by the delay of the parousia. Salvation was increasingly seen as otherworldly, and this descended into either apocalypticism or Gnosticism. In regard to the Fourth Gospel, Conzelmann sees the major concern of the author as Christology. This author takes up the term Logos, which has its background in Jewish Wisdom and Hellenistic Gnosticism, to present Christ as the preexistent one who can be confessed as Lord and God. According to Conzelmann, the Gospel of John, before its ecclesiastical editing, presented salvation as present, expecting no parousia, no future resurrection.
Conzelmann’s reconstruction of NT theology rests on rigorous exegetical work, the kind of research demonstrated in his commentaries. Early in his career he edited and expanded Dibelius’s commentary on the Pastoral Epistles for the Handbuch zum Neuen Testament (HNT) series, and that volume was adopted into the Hermeneia commentaries.[86] Later Conzelmann wrote a commentary on Acts for the HNT; this, too, became the representative volume in Hermeneia.[87] The English version is much more “user friendly” than the original; the notes, for example, are printed separately at the bottom of the page, not crammed into the comments. This commentary displays Conzelmann’s philological research and concern with history background, expressed tersely and concisely.
For the venerable Meyer series (KEK), Conzelmann produced a commentary on 1 Corinthians that also was adopted by Hermeneia.[88] In the introduction he discusses and dismisses partition theories. He also objects to the notion that 1 Corinthians is weak theologically; instead, he believes this epistle expresses profound thought in terms of applied theology. Of interest is Conzelmann’s demolition of the popular fable that Corinth was a center of sacred prostitution.[89] He does not believe it possible to identify Paul’s opponents precisely, but they represent a single group who can be described as “proto-Gnostics.” In the commentary proper Conzelmann divides the text into three main sections with clearly identified subsections. For each pericope the text is presented in translation and followed by comments, verse by verse. Conzelmann also wrote short commentaries on Ephesians and Colossians for the series Das Neue Testament Deutsch (NTD).[90] His concern for the practice of exegesis is demonstrated in his workbook (written with Andreas Lindemann) on exegetical method.[91]
Born in Kiel, Marxsen served in the German armed forces during World War II.[92] After the war he studied theology in Kiel (1945–48), and served as a pastor in Lübeck from 1948 to 1953. Marxsen competed his education at Kiel in 1954 with a qualifying dissertation (Habilitationsschrift) on the redaction criticism of Mark. Marxsen taught for a time at the theological school in Bethel, and from 1961 to retirement in 1984 he was professor at the University of Münster.
Marxsen’s dissertation, Der Evangelist Markus, set the stage for his future work.[93] In selecting Mark as the text for redaction-critical analysis, Marxsen faced a challenge. Whereas redaction criticism of Matthew and Luke could analyze the editorial work of the authors in relation to their use of Mark and Q, Mark’s redaction had to be investigated without extant written sources. Marxsen explains his method: “First we shall go back behind Mark and separate tradition from redaction, then by way of construction, illumine and explain his composition.”[94] Marxsen pursues his project in four major studies.
First he analyzes Mark’s redaction of the tradition about John the Baptist. Marxsen believes that Mark’s statements about John are primarily christological: the author presents John as forerunner; the fate of John anticipates the fate of Jesus. “Mark’s achievement lies not only in collecting pieces from his sources and combining them by adding material of his own, but in connecting them from a topical viewpoint.”[95]
Marxsen’s second study investigates Mark’s geographical outline. Mark locates the ministry of Jesus in Galilee, and for the author, according to Marxsen, Galilee has a special significance. In Mark 14:28, Jesus is reported as saying, “But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” This same motif is repeated by the young man at the empty tomb: “he is going ahead to you to Galilee; there you will see him” (16:7). Marxsen says that “this redactional note cannot deal with an appearance of the Risen Lord awaited in Galilee; in Mark’s context this passage can only refer to the expected Parousia.”[96] He concludes: “Galilee is not primarily of historical but rather of theological significance as the locale of the imminent Parousia.”[97]
Marxsen’s third redaction-critical study has to do with the use of the term εὐαγγέλιον (gospel). Mark introduced this term into the Synoptic tradition, and Marxsen thinks Mark’s usage presupposes Paul’s understanding of the gospel. For Mark, says Marxsen, Jesus is both the subject and the object of the gospel. “The material as a whole becomes a gospel which Christ, the Risen Lord, proclaims and which proclaims Christ, the Risen Lord.”[98]
The final study investigates Mark 13. Marxsen thinks this chapter is a composition by Mark, using an earlier, apocalyptic source to which he adds material. Mark and his community, according to Marxsen, live in a time of persecution; they believe the parousia is near. Marxsen thinks Mark transforms apocalyptic into eschatology; he eliminates the many apocalyptic acts and focuses on one: the end that has already begun. Marxsen concludes: “This, then defines Mark’s ‘place.’ As a thoroughly unique theologian, he occupies a position between Paul and the anonymous tradition on the one hand, and the later evangelists on the other.”[99] Mark’s intention, according to Marxsen, is to announce that now is the time of the imminent parousia.
Marxsen gave an overview of the NT in his Introduction,[100] in which he intends to bridge the gap between the science of introduction and the larger field of theology. He orders the material chronologically. In regard to the Pauline epistles Marxsen denies the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, adopts the north Galatian hypothesis, and views Philippians as a composite of three letters, the second of which was probably written from Ephesus. In the fourth edition Marxsen says that the possibility that 1 Corinthians is a composite of two letters—a view he had dismissed in the earlier editions—has to be taken seriously. He believes 2 Corinthians is a composite of five letters. Romans, according to Marxsen, is directed to Rome, but with an eye to Paul’s imminent visit to Jerusalem.
Turning to the Synoptics and Acts, Marxsen embraces the 2DH. He believes the tradition from Papias to be historically worthless. He thinks Mark was written in or near Galilee around 70 CE. The author of Matthew, according to Marxsen, presents Christology: “Jesus is the Teacher of the Church; and he is this because he is the Messiah, the King of Israel, who has proved himself as such by the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.”[101] Luke, according to Marxsen, has abandoned the idea of the imminent parousia; the author does not perceive the death of Jesus as the means of salvation. Marxsen contends that “Acts cannot have been written by a companion of Paul.”[102]
Concerning the pseudo-Pauline letters, Marxsen insists that each document should be understood in its own particular situation. These pseudonymous letters include Colossians, Ephesians, the Pastorals, and 2 Thessalonians. Marxsen thinks Hebrews is a homily written by an unknown author, possibly from Rome. He does not believe any of the Catholic Epistles were written by the authors to whom they are ascribed. In regard to the Johannine literature, Marxsen believes the author of the Fourth Gospel used a passion-resurrection account and a book of signs as a sources. He thinks the Gospel underwent an ecclesiastical redaction that added the idea of a futuristic eschatology. The author of Revelation adopted the apocalyptic genre; Marxsen thinks he is a Jewish Christian, writing in the time of Domitian. In sum, Marxsen’s Introduction is somewhat to the left of Kümmel’s; it is out of balance, with over one hundred pages dedicated to Paul and only fifty-five to the Synoptics and Acts.
As noted about Conzelmann, redaction critics are wedded to theology; Marxsen is no exception. Indeed, the work of Marxsen has even caught the attention of systematic theologians.[103] According to Marxsen, “responsible theology is the handmaid of faith. A handmaid does not perform the work herself—that is the function of her master. But she clears everything out of the way which might hinder her master and holds everything in readiness, as far as possible, so that he can do his work.”[104]
Marxsen published a variety of works that deal directly with theology; basic is his essay “Der Exeget als Theologe,”[105] in which he affirms the importance of exegesis for theology and the importance of theology for exegesis. The exegesis of Scripture, he observes, confronts the problem of canon. Marxsen objects to the idea that the exegete is restricted to the canon imposed by the authority of the church. The norm for the earliest tradition was Jesus Christ, says Marxsen, and that norm is expressed in the earliest stratum of tradition.
Marxsen’s view of Scripture is developed in his monograph, Das Neue Testament als Buch der Kirche.[106] Here again he attacks the idea that the canon is the norm. “The norm of the church, therefore, is not the New Testament but the apostolic testimony which is found in the New Testament but is not identical with it.”[107] “The norm for the Christian church and its preaching, however, must always remain Jesus.”[108] For Marxsen, Jesus as norm is found in the earliest tradition, the one that goes back to Jesus himself. This tradition Marxsen calls the “Jesus kerygma,” which preceded the “Christ kerygma” that arose after Easter and makes Christ the object of reflection.[109] The Jesus of the Jesus-kerygma is the person of Jesus, acting and preaching. Marxsen believes this early tradition is continued in the Christian proclamation. “Understood correctly, preaching is not the announcement that there is an eschatological event, but preaching is itself such an event because it is the continuation of the accomplishment of Jesus.”[110] “The truth of faith becomes a truth of faith for me as I meet God through Jesus, and am able to describe the event anew in my own words without being bound to any creedal formula of the past.”[111]
Crucial for Marxsen’s theology is his controversial understanding of the resurrection. His major book on the resurrection of Jesus is based on lectures presented at the University of Münster in 1967–68[112] in response to the furor created by Marxsen’s earlier pamphlet on the resurrection.[113] The lectures intend to explicate the meaning of the widely-accepted statement: “Jesus is risen.” Marxsen begins with the texts. After noting the various contradictory features of the accounts in Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, he writes, “The conclusion is inescapable: a synchronizing harmony of the different accounts proves to be impossible.”[114] Marxsen proceeds to analyze the pre-Gospel tradition recounted in 1 Cor 15:3-7. This tradition preserves the recognition of the first appearance to Peter, and Marxsen believes the other appearances depend on Peter’s witness. Paul claims for himself the same kind of experience, but the proof that he has seen the Lord is the community, “my work in the Lord” (1 Cor 9:1). In 1 Corinthians 15, according to Marxsen, Paul is not proving the resurrection but affirming its result: the faith of the Corinthians. Marxsen asks, “[C]an one deduce the resurrection of Jesus as a factual event from the existence of faith? The answer is an unequivocal no. . . . But faith can give certainty about the truth of the preaching of the resurrection.”[115] Marxsen believes the resurrection must be seen as a miracle.
I hope that it is now clear why I said earlier that the miracle belongs to today. For the miracle is the birth of faith. But since it is a miracle, it eludes my description. And that is the reason why I said about the resurrection that it eludes our grasp. For “Jesus is risen” simply means: today the crucified Jesus is calling us to believe.[116]
Thus Marxsen’s view rests on his understanding of faith, and the language of faith is not creedal language but experiential language—language that confesses the recognition that Jesus’ activity on God’s behalf continues after his death.[117]
Willi Marxsen wrote important monographs on Christology.[118] His view is expressed succinctly in his article, “Christology of the New Testament,”[119] in which he presents Christology in terms of the development of the Christian kerygma. He finds the earliest (and most authentic) Christology in the Jesus kerygma—the implicit Christology of those who knew and accepted Jesus as saving event. After Easter, Christology became explicit, according to Marxsen, in the Christ kerygma. He traces the development of the Christ kerygma in Paul, especially in his use of titles. When he confesses Jesus as “Lord,” Paul hails Jesus as mediator of the relation to God, and with “Son of God” Paul affirms the special relation of Jesus to God. However, according to Marxsen, Paul does not speculate on the nature of Christ but speaks functionally about Christ as action of God. The final stage of development is the Jesus Christ kerygma. Here the attention has shifted from function to the one who performs the function; functional Christology is replaced by doctrine. Jesus is expected as the apocalyptic Son of Man; he is understood as Son of God in terms of his supernatural birth. The Jesus Christ kerygma, according to Marxsen, is expressed in the Gospel of John, which stresses preexistence and incarnation as doctrine.
Late in his career Marxsen published a major work on NT ethics.[120] At the outset he contends that ethics is an essential aspect of theology, though one often neglected by NT theologians. Marxsen begins with an investigation of the ethical teachings of Jesus. He believes that the earliest witnesses viewed Jesus as “an inside-out turner”—one in whom God was acting. According to Marxsen, ethics was a feature of the earliest, pre-Easter Christology. “The Christian Christology,” says Marxsen, “is that Christology in which eschatological existence is experienced and lived. Christian ethics is the actualization of this risky activity.”[121] Turning to Paul, Marxsen asserts that his theology was grounded in the Damascus experience, which engendered a new theology and a new ethic. “In the Christian Paul’s ethic people must let themselves be changed, so they can bear fruit.”[122] The Pauline ethic, according to Marxsen, involves the indicative and the imperative—the gift and the task. “Since there are no unambiguous concrete imperatives in Pauline ethics, but Christianity has to be practiced concretely in the flesh, each decision is always a risk.”[123] Authentic Christian ethics, according to Marxsen, is an expression of worship. “The criterion of a Christian ethics that is authentically Christian remains: Is the worship of God taking place in the concrete secular deed?”[124]
Marxsen turns to post-Pauline development, which he considers to be fallacious. Matthew, according to Marxsen, represents a false development; he stresses the imperative but misses the indicative. He levels the same charge at 2 Thessalonians, the Pastoral Epistles, and the letter of James. These documents are crammed with imperatives, but the authors do not ground their ethics in Christology. By way of contrast, Marxsen believes the author of 1 Peter, who tells the readers who they really are, calls for Christian existence founded on Christology. Similarly, the Gospel of John has only one imperative, the command of love, and that command is grounded in the author’s Christology. “Hence the quest for John’s ethic,” says Marxsen, “proves to be a quest for his Christology. Insofar we can say that ethics and Christology are identical for John.”[125] Marxsen concludes with a plea for the restoration of the unity between Christology and ethics. “The sending of the church into the world.” according to Marxsen, “has only one single purpose: to communicate the indicative to humankind again and again. . . . For the indicative is precisely what makes possible an action that can be called authentically ‘Christian.’”[126]
In sum, the work of Conzelmann and Marxsen has established redaction criticism as a viable and essential method. Their focus on the final composition of the Gospels is crucial for understanding the literature of the NT and for the reconstruction of the history and theology of the early church. Both scholars have shown, too, how redaction criticism has implications for the study of the historical Jesus. Both have also affirmed, from the perspective of historical critics and exegetes, the importance of NT theology. Conzelmann and Marxsen display considerable agreement regarding critical and theological detail. They both understand eschatology existentially—an influence of Rudolf Bultmann that subsequent research has found to be questionable. Similarly, both Conzelmann and Marxsen echo dialectical theology’s Christocentrism and theology of the word. In the same tradition, they affirm a non-objective understanding of faith—faith as risk, not verifiable by historical research. Both scholars affirm the authority of revelation in Christ, but Marxsen’s focus on the Jesus kerygma of the earliest tradition as normative is unique. He believes that this norm of the earliest witness of faith in Jesus avoids the false objectifying of later christological doctrine. However, despite his own objections, Marxsen’s understanding of this witness depends on the objectivity of historical research and reconstruction.
Once hailed as the “assured results” of nineteenth-century criticism, the dominant Two-Document hypothesis (2DH) for solving the Synoptic Problem has come under attack in the twentieth. The attack has been launched primarily by two movements: the revival of the Griesbach hypothesis by William R. Farmer and his associates, and the proposal to dispense with Q articulated by Michael Goulder.
William R. Farmer was born in Needles, California.[127] He studied at Occidental College and Cambridge, and earned his ThD at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1952) under John Knox.[128] Farmer taught at Emory, DePauw, and Drew universities. In 1959 he joined the faculty of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, where he remained until retirement in 1991. Farmer was devoted to ecumenicity. In 1990 he joined a Roman Catholic church in Dallas, hoping to retain his status as an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church. However, the Judicial Council of the UMC ruled that by joining the Catholic Church, Farmer had in effect withdrawn membership from the Methodist Church and surrendered his ministerial orders.[129]
While teaching at Drew, Farmer offered a graduate seminar on the Synoptic Problem. In the course of conducting the seminar he came to the conviction that the 2DH should be abandoned. In its place he promoted a revival of the Griesbach hypothesis, soon renamed the “Two-Gospel Hypothesis” (2GH). Farmer’s major work on the Synoptic Problem was published in 1964.[130] He begins with a history of the research on the problem. In the eighteenth century Griesbach’s hypothesis—the view that Mark used Matthew and Luke—was dominant. A variety of views appeared in the nineteenth century; especially influential was Karl Lachmann’s belief that Mark best preserved the order of a primitive gospel, and C. H. Weisse’s view that Matthew and Luke used two sources: Mark and the logia of Matthew.[131] The Griesbach hypothesis was adopted by F. C. Baur and the Tübingen school, but support for the 2DH gained momentum with the endorsement of H. J. Holtzmann.[132] Farmer devotes considerable space to the triumph of the 2DH in England, especially in the work of B. H. Streeter.[133] Farmer concludes that the 2DH “exhibited features which commended itself to men who were disposed to place their trust in the capacity of science to foster the development of human progress.”[134]
In chapter 6, Farmer presents his own understanding of the Synoptic Problem. “It is historically probable that Mark was written after Matthew and Luke and was dependent upon both.”[135] Farmer proceeds to support this conclusion in sixteen steps or theses. Among the most important are the following: (1) “The similarity between Matthew, Mark, and Luke is such as to justify the assertion that they stand in some kind of literary relationship to one another.” (6) “The phenomena of agreement and disagreement in the respective order and content of material in each of the Synoptic Gospels constitute a category of literary phenomena which is more readily explicable on a hypothesis which places Mark third with Matthew and Luke before him than on any alternative hypothesis.” (7) “The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark constitute a second category of literary phenomena which is more readily explicable on a hypothesis where Mark is regarded as third with Matthew and Luke before him than on any alternative hypothesis.” (9) “It possible to understand the redactional process through which Mark went, on the hypothesis that he composed his Gospel based primarily on Matthew and Luke.” (16) “A historico-critical analysis of the Synoptic tradition, utilizing both literary-historical and form-critical canons of criticism, supports a hypothesis which recognizes that Matthew is in many respects secondary to the life situation of Jesus, and the primitive Palestinian Christian community, but that this Gospel was nonetheless copied by Luke, and that Mark was secondary to both Matthew and Luke, and frequently combined their respective texts.”[136] In the ensuing debate, two of these theses—(7) on the minor agreements and (9) on the redactional process—received major attention.
In the next chapter Farmer addresses the redactional process. He proceeds though Mark, assembling data he believes will prove that Mark is editing material from Matthew and Luke. For example, in the account of the cleansing of the temple Farmer believes that Mark’s insertion of the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14) is redactional; Matthew and Luke agree against Mark that the cleansing of the temple took place on the same day as the entry to Jerusalem. In regard to the apocalyptic discourse, Farmer argues that Mark 13 is dependent on Matthew 24; the Matthean account reflects Palestinian Jewish motifs, for instance, reference to the Sabbath, while Mark (13:9, 23) adds the admonition to watch (βλέπετε), a typical Markan motif. Farmer concludes that the writer of Mark intended to present a new Gospel, based on harmonizing Matthew and Luke in the service of unity. “Mark could have been viewed as a remarkably successful form of the Gospel, by practical-minded church authorities who were more concerned with finding the common ground on which all Christians could stand together than in defending or perpetuating the special interest of any particular group, including their own.”[137]
Another example of Farmer’s argument from redaction is his The Last Twelve Verses of Mark.[138] In this monograph Farmer contends that 16:9-20 (the so-called “longer ending” of Mark) is the original ending. He begins with the external evidence, where he finds twenty patristic sources that indicate knowledge of this ending. “In fact, external evidence from the second century for Mk. 16:9-20 is stronger than for most other parts of that Gospel.”[139] In regard to the textual evidence, Farmer notes that the Alexandrian text omits this ending but the Western text includes it—evidence of early support for inclusion. Farmer turns to internal evidence, proceeding through the section verse by verse, finding evidence for what he believes to be the use of Markan terms and expressions. Farmer concludes: “Mk. 16:9-20 represents redactional use of older material by the evangelist and belonged to the autograph.”[140] Very few Markan scholars have been convinced.
One of the basic complaints of the advocates of the 2GH is that the standard synopses, for example, Aland’s Synopsis Quattor Evangeliorum, are arranged on the presumption of the 2DH. An attempt to answer this complaint is made by J. B. Orchard, who edited synopses in both Greek and English.[141] Orchard orders the parallel columns according to the Griesbach hypothesis: Matthew—Luke—Mark—John. In time, however, the devotees of the 2GH found Orchard’s synopsis inadequate.[142] Farmer made an important contribution to this issue with the publication of his Synopticon.[143] This book presents the complete text of each of the Gospels in canonical order, with indication of the verbatim and significant agreements by color code. The result is a highly useful tool for study of the Synoptic problem, regardless of the various hypotheses.
Farmer’s book The Gospel of Jesus has a polemic purpose: to attack the results of the 2DH that have created what Farmer views as a distorted portrait of Jesus.[144] The main villains in the plot are the members of the Koester-Robinson school who accept the priority of Mark and view Q as the most important source for understanding Jesus. Farmer also believes the adoption of the 2DH had drastic political consequences in Germany.
A “critically correct” civil religion, pushed by university-trained German-Christian theologians like Emanuel Hirsch, gloried in the idea of Markan priority with its understanding of Christian theology based on the Two-Source Hypothesis, while Christians who witnessed unto blood and resisted unto death the Nazi horrors that led to the Holocaust drew spiritual support from a reading of the Gospels that called them to be saints and martyrs of the church (an understanding of Christ called for by any hypothesis that recognized the primary character of the Matthean text).[145]
Farmer had apparently forgotten that many scholars who accepted the 2DH, for instance, the members of the Bultmann school, were identified with the anti-Hitler Confessing Church.
Farmer proceeds to explicate and defend the 2GH. He notes that the priority of Matthew was supported by Augustine and the 2GH was defended in the eighteenth century by Henry Owen. Farmer presents major arguments in support. In regard to order, he says that Mark usually follows the order of Matthew and Luke; when they disagree, Mark follows sometimes one, sometimes the other.[146] Minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark contradict the theory that they are independently using Mark as a source. According to Farmer’s reconstruction Mark, probably writing from Rome, unites Matthew and Luke, combining the apostolic tradition of Matthew with the Greek-oriented message of Luke. Farmer presents evidence from the texts that he believes supports the 2GH. For example, he thinks the agreement between Matthew and Luke is so exact in some texts (for example, the account of the healing of the centurion’s slave [Matt 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10]) that it cannot be adequately explained by their independent use of hypothetical Q.
Farmer takes up the question of what difference the adoption of the 2DH makes for worship, theology, and ethics. For instance, he notes that the phrase “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28), lacking in Mark, is depreciated as a later addition, thereby casting doubt on “the universal faith and practice of Christians in their worship at the table of the Lord.”[147] But if the results were so detrimental, how did the theory of Markan priority arise and flourish? Farmer replies that it rests on mistaken assumptions like the notion that the earliest Gospel is shortest but, much more ominous, the triumph of the 2DH was facilitated, he thinks, by social and political forces. In the Kulturkampf of the 1870s—the struggle between Bismarck and Pius IX—the primacy of Peter was a critical feature of the debate. “Markan primacy offered support for discounting the claims for a papal authority, which rested on the Peter passage in Matthew that was absent in Mark.”[148] And what is to explain the current fascination with Q? Farmer blames it on the “Claremont-Harvard Connection” in which “Professors Robinson and Koester have worked together in using the idea of Q to achieve their stated purpose of dismantling the categories of New Testament scholarship to reshape our understanding of Christian origins.”[149] Farmer quotes Robinson: “The saving significance of Jesus, according to Q, does not consist in Jesus having died for our sins.”[150] Farmer concludes, sarcastically, that the 2DH has been useful in supporting mistaken beliefs. He adds, however, “It should be pointed out that many scholars adhere to the Two-Source Hypothesis who have no sympathy with any of the pragmatic benefits listed here.”[151] He might also have added that a large number of scholars in Britain and America who supported the 2DH were in no way captive to the German policies of the 1870s or the 1930s.
In an earlier book, Jesus and the Gospel, Farmer traces the lines of development of the tradition from Jesus to Eusebius and Constantine.[152] In the course of his discussion of Matthew he fires another broadside at the 2DH.
It is the human capacity for credulity that helps explain why, in spite of the fact that no hypothesis has been more thoroughly falsified over a period of many years in learned books, in articles in scholarly journals, and in scientific monographs published by university presses, the two-document hypothesis continues as the generally accepted solution to the synoptic problem. In any case, this hypothesis appears to be incapable of being falsified because of its infinite capacity for modification.[153]
In the first part of this work Farmer discusses the origin and development of the gospel tradition. He emphasizes the continuity between Jesus and Paul. In discussing the move from the gospel tradition to gospel genre he presents his understanding of the chronology of the Gospels: Matthew in the early 70s, Luke-Acts in the later 70s, Mark in the early 80s, and John in the late 80s. In a final section he discusses the development of the canon.[154] He notes the importance of persecution in the formation of the canon and emphasizes the intriguing concept of the “martyr’s canon.” Thus Farmer says that “the New Testament books which are not in dispute in the church after Irenaeus are almost without exception books which had special meaning for certain known churches that had experienced persecution.”[155]
Other scholars, including students and associates of Farmer, have made significant contributions to the discussion of the Synoptic Problem. One of the most important is David L. Dungan, who studied at Harvard (ThD 1967) and spent most of his career as professor at the University of Tennessee. In his article, “The Two-Gospel Hypothesis,” written for the Anchor Bible Dictionary, Dungan presents a concise account of the history and character of the revival of Griesbach hypothesis.[156] As to methodological presuppositions, Dungan articulates a basic conviction of the advocates of the 2GH: “A source hypothesis which limits the number of hypothetical sources needed to explain the perceived literary phenomena (cf. “Occam’s Razor”) is preferable to one which invents numerous imaginary ‘lost sources,’ multiple ‘lost earlier versions’ of the Gospels, hypothetical ‘lost recensions’ of Q, etc., to explain the literary data.”[157] In support of the 2GH, Dungan emphasizes the argument from order that Farmer had articulated. In regard to the external evidence, Dungan believes the 2GH preserves the continuity in the development of early Christian tradition: Matthew represents the teaching of the apostles; Luke revised Matthew along more universal lines; Mark combined Matthew (the tradition of Peter) and Luke (the tradition of Paul). As to theological consequences, Dungan notes the difference between the Two-Document and the Two-Gospel Hypotheses: the former assumes the Enlightenment notion of a gulf between Jesus and Paul; the latter affirms a continuity from 2 Isaiah through Jesus to Paul and the early church to the great church. Dungan also provides an excellent bibliography on the Synoptic Problem.[158]
Dungan’s major contribution is his lengthy book (over 500 pages) on the history of the Synoptic Problem.[159] Dungan’s work has some distinctive features: he deals with the entire history (beginning in the first century); he considers all four components of the problem (composition, canon, text, and hermeneutics); he investigates the cultural, political, economic, and technical presuppositions. The book is ordered in three parts. The first deals with the period from the first to the fifth centuries, that is, the patristic evidence, including the data from Papias, Justin Martyr, Marcion, Origen, Eusebius, and Augustine. The second part focuses on the emergence of the modern historical-critical method. Here Dungan surveys the view of the Reformers, the problems of text and canon, and the discussion of the Synoptic Problem (with attention to Griesbach and Holtzmann). In regard to “extra-scientific factors,” Dungan charges that the 2DH was promoted by menacing social and cultural forces such as an anti-Judaism prevalent in German universities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “With the Two Source Hypothesis in hand, that is, a historical scenario that locates the beginning of the Christian faith in the un-Jewish, pro-Pauline Gospel of Mark, accompanied by a theoretical Sayings Source having a conveniently non-Jewish message, German biblical scholars could decanonize the very Jewish Gospel of Matthew and split the New Testament from the Old in biblical theology.”[160]
The third part of Dungan’s book reviews trends in the postmodern period—the Synoptic Problem in late-twentieth-century research. In this part he begins with the conviction that his account of the previous history has devastated the claim that historical critical method is neutral; instead, he has disclosed “its belligerent ideological mission.”[161] Dungan believes that the historical critical method helped to prepare the way for National Socialism in Germany. The method also, according to Dungan, has damaging effects on the understanding of the canon, text, composition, and interpretation of the Gospels.
Support for the 2GH has been promoted by the International Institute for the Renewal of Gospel Studies. Since the 1970s the Institute has been instrumental in sponsoring research, conferences, and publications. The “research team,” sponsored and supported by the Institute, has produced significant publications. For example, a volume addresses the issue of Luke’s use of Matthew.[162] In the introduction the authors, members of the research team, investigate the origin of what they view as the mistaken belief that Luke had no knowledge of Matthew. The balance of the book proceeds through the text of Luke, presenting arguments in support of the thesis that Luke used Matthew. Another book by the research team deals with the question of Mark’s use of Matthew and Luke.[163] In the introduction the authors note problems with the 2DH and describe alternative proposals. The balance of the book proceeds through the text of Mark, collecting data in support of the theory that Mark uses Matthew and Luke. In their introduction the authors cite the work of E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, which lists four hypotheses that provide possible solutions to the Synoptic Problem: the Two Source Hypothesis, the Griesbach Hypothesis, Michael Goulder’s rejection of Q, and the multiple-source theory of Marie-Émile Boismard.[164] The supporters of the 2GH are grateful for the independent judgment that their solution is possible (which seems modest, compared with the claims of Farmer and Dungan), and they also rejoice that Sanders and Davies believe Luke knew Matthew.
The movement to dispense with Q was inspired by Austin Farrer. Under Farrer’s leadership a series of “Q Parties” was held at Oxford beginning in 1954.[165] The parties took place three times each term and were attended by some two dozen Oxford biblical scholars. The members soon divided along party lines: supporters of the 2DH and opponents of the existence of Q. During the debate both sides scored points, but no clear winner was acclaimed. The major document emerging from the parties was Farrer’s “On Dispensing with Q.”[166] Farrer’s basic argument: “The Q hypothesis is not, of itself, a probable hypothesis. It is simply the sole alternative to the supposition that St. Luke had read St. Matthew (or vice versa). It needs no refutation except the demonstration that its alternative is possible. It hangs on a single thread; cut that, and it falls by its own weight.”[167]
Farrer argues that there is no evidence that early Christians composed a document that was anything like Q. He also contends that arguments against Luke’s use of Mark are unconvincing. He concludes:
St. Matthew will be seen to be an amplified version of St. Mark, based on a decade of habitual preaching, and incorporating oral material, but presupposing no other literary source beside St. Mark himself. St. Luke, in turn, will be found to presuppose St. Matthew and St. Mark, and St. John to presuppose the other three.[168]
Goulder studied at Eaton and Trinity College, Cambridge.[169] While in Hong Kong on business he was ordained deacon and priest of the Anglican Church. Goulder returned to England and studied at Trinity College, Oxford, where he fell under the spell of Farrer, “my tutor and mentor.”[170] Back again in Hong Kong (1962), Goulder served for a time as principal of a small Anglican college. In 1991 he was appointed professor of biblical studies at Birmingham University. Prior to this he had resigned his clerical orders and declared himself an atheist.
Goulder’s first major work on the Synoptic Problem was his Midrash and Lection in Matthew.[171] The basic thesis is that Matthew was a Christian scribe who used only Mark as a source. The first part of the book deals with the material in Matthew. Goulder describes his approach:
I shall take it for granted that Matthew had Mark in front of him, and shall ask at each point whether we can provide an adequate account of any new material on the hypothesis that Matthew had very little non-Marcan tradition, written or oral. Or, to put it in other words, I shall consider the grounds for thinking that Matthew was writing a midrashic expansion of Mark: that the new teaching is his teaching, that the new poetry is his poetry, that the new parables are his parables.[172]
Goulder believes that “Matthew’s greatest theological achievement is his reconciliation of the radical position of Mark with the continued validity of the full Torah.”[173] Matthew, according to Goulder, adopted the midrashic method that probed meaning and reconciled older with newer expressions; Matthew writes a midrashic expansion of Mark especially in the area of teachings. He writes poetry and uses distinctive imagery; he is, according to Goulder, a Greek-speaking Jew with a Semitic mind. “Matthew is not merely a scribe, but a Christian scribe; and the rabbi to whom he owes far and away the most is Paul.”[174]
Goulder summarizes his view of the composition of Matthew:
The theory that I wish to propose is a lectionary theory: that is, that the Gospel was developed liturgically, and that it was intended to be used liturgically; and that its order is liturgically significant, in that it follows the lections of the Jewish Year. Matthew, I believe, wrote his Gospel to be read in church round the year; he took the Jewish Festal Year, and the pattern of lections prescribed therefore, as his base. . . . A Gospel is not a literary genre at all, the study of Matthew reveals: it is a liturgical genre. A Gospel is a lectionary book, a series of ‘Gospels’ used in worship week by week in lectio continua.[175]
In the second part of the book Goulder proceeds through Matthew, noting how sections of the Gospel relate to the Jewish festivals. For example, Goulder believes the Sermon on the Mount was composed to be read during Pentecost; Matthew 24–26 is to be read during Passover. Goulder concludes:
I have accepted the common conclusion that Matthew was overwriting Mark. I have found no considerable passage in the Gospel which seemed to require a written or an oral source, and I have suggested reasons for thinking it to be unlikely that there were many non-Marcan traditions in Matthew’s ambit in the 70s. . . . The more closely a passage corresponds to the liturgical structure of the Gospel and the Matthaean manner, in so far as they can be established, the more heavily does the burden of proof rest upon those who claim underlying non-Marcan traditions.[176]
Goulder develops his lectionary theory in a later book, The Evangelists’ Calendar.[177] In this work he contends that all the Synoptic Gospels were written to be read in church. As the first-century synagogue followed a cycle of readings from the law, so the early church, according to Goulder, followed a cycle of reading from the Gospels. Goulder explicates his theory in relation to Luke, Matthew, and Mark, and concludes:
I have now, I hope, given sufficient reasons for believing two theses to be plausible: first, that Luke wrote his Gospel as a cycle of liturgical gospels, to be used round the year in fulfilment of the Old Testament lections; and second, that in the first century the Torah cycle in use in the Western Diaspora of Judaism and Christianity was an annual cycle beginning on the first sabbath in Nisan.[178]
Although Goulder’s lectionary theory has been rejected by most scholars, he reaffirmed it at a symposium on his NT scholarship held at Johns Hopkins University in 2000. In his contribution, Goulder says, “This brings us to my hypothesis: Matthew wrote the Gospel to be read out in church in short units of some sixteen verses each Saturday night; the whole was designed to give readings for a complete year, beginning after Easter and ending at the next Easter.”[179]
Goulder published a major two-volume work on Luke.[180] The first section is devoted to the argument against the 2DH, which Goulder characterizes as “the house built on sand.” Goulder notes that the 2DH assumes the existence of several bodies of lost tradition. He also argues that the minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark support the idea that Luke used Matthew.[181] Goulder believes the only feature of the 2DH that is valid is the recognition of the priority of Mark. According to Goulder’s reconstruction Mark wrote around 70, and some of his tradition goes back to the life of Jesus; Matthew wrote around 80—an expansion of Mark written for Jewish Christians. Luke, written around 90 for a Gentile church, combined Mark and Matthew; John, writing around 100, used all three of the Synoptics. The distinctive feature of this reconstruction is Goulder’s belief that material usually identified as Q and the theoretical special Matthean material (M) are actually the composition of Matthew. Similarly, Goulder believes the so-called special material of Luke (L) was composed by Luke.
Goulder proceeds to discuss Q. He writes, “The most damage has been caused by . . . the Q hypothesis, which has been the grandfather of all synoptic errors.”[182] Goulder recounts the history of the Q hypothesis from Credner to Holtzmann; he believes the hypothesis was based on a misunderstanding of the report attributed to Papias about the logia of Matthew. Goulder also challenges current arguments in support of Q, for instance, the theory that Luke would not have omitted material found in Matthew. Goulder also argues that the Gospel of Thomas does not represent the genre of a document like Q. In regard to recent efforts to discern a distinctive theology in Q, Goulder insists that the so-called Q material displays the same theology as Matthew.
Goulder turns to the special material of Luke. At the outset he writes, “I do not wish to suggest that Luke had no tradition other than that in Mark and Matthew; but I do suggest that if this alternative line is pursued, it will often yield a highly plausible account of the L matter.”[183] In pursuit of the alternative, Goulder investigates the style of Luke. This section of his work is thoroughly analyzed by Mark Goodacre.[184] Goodacre believes Goulder argues that the so-called L material reflects the distinctive and characteristic style of Luke, supporting Goulder’s case for identifying the special material of Luke as the creation of Luke. As to the relation of Luke to Paul, Goulder believes Luke was a traveling companion of the apostle. The balance of volume 1 and all of volume 2 presents Goulder’s commentary on Luke. Throughout the commentary he develops an exegesis that supports the theory that Luke was using two sources: Mark and Matthew. In regard to the account of the Emmaus pilgrims, for example, Goulder believes Luke developed the story in relation to Mark: the young man at the tomb says Jesus “is going ahead of you to Galilee” (16:7); Goulder thinks Luke created the story to depict disciples seeing Jesus on the way to Galilee.
Critics have reacted to Goulder’s work. Many, including Goodacre, have questioned his lectionary hypothesis.[185] They argue that lectionaries are not the work of individual authors; rather, they evolve over time in communities. Also, the existence of early Christian lectionaries is not confirmed by evidence regarding the worship of the early church. As to Goulder’s basic solution to the Synoptic Problem, the advocates of the 2DH, of course, do not agree. For instance, John S. Kloppenborg Verbin insists that Goulder has not demolished the 2DH; the problem of the minor agreements can be explained, and not all of Goulder’s examples of Lukan style are convincing.[186] However, Kloppenborg does recognize Goulder as the most important scholar, next to Farmer, for keeping the Synoptic Problem alive as an important issue in NT research. Goulder’s program was taken up and expanded by a gifted British scholar, Mark Goodacre, who migrated to the faculty of Duke University in 2005.[187]
Some attention should be given to a lesser-known proposal for the solution of the Synoptic Problem—the work of Marie-Émile Boismard and his French colleagues, sometimes designated the “Multiple Source Hypothesis.”[188] Boismard, who has no use for Occam’s razor, writes, “The synoptic problem is complex; it can be solved only by a complex solution.”[189] In essence, Boismard proposes several lost sources and a complex theory of redaction. He presented his understanding of the sources of Mark in a monograph published in 1994.[190] However, the overview of his proposal is most clearly seen in the introduction to the second volume of his synopsis (written with Pierre Benoit).[191] Boismard detects three levels of tradition: primitive sources, intermediary redactions, and final redactions. In regard to the primitive sources, Boismard posits four early documents: A (a Jewish-Christian document of Palestinian origin); B (a revision of A, designed for use by Gentile Christians); C (an independent ancient source, probably originating in Palestine); and Q (similar to the Q of the 2DH, but possibly not a single document). In regard to the intermediary redactions, Boismard detects three: Matthew-Intermediary (which uses A and Q); Mark-Intermediary (which used A, B, and C); and Proto-Luke (which uses B, C, and Q). As to the final redactions, Boismard believes Matthew used Matthew-Intermediary and Mark-Intermediary; Mark used Matthew Intermediary, Mark-Intermediary, and Q; Luke used Mark-Intermediary and Proto-Luke; John used B and C, and the final redaction of John used John and the final redaction of Matthew. Boismard appears uncharacteristically simple in his conclusion that the final redactor of Matthew and the final redactor of Mark are one and the same, and similarly, the redactor of Proto-Luke and the final redactor of Luke were probably the same individual.
Despite the vigor of the advocates of alternative hypotheses, the 2DH has survived and prevailed. In 2008 a Conference on the Synoptic Problem was convened at Oxford, commemorating the Oxford seminar of a century earlier. The results of the recent Conference were published in 2011, one hundred years after the publication of Studies in the Synoptic Problem.[192] The 2008 Oxford Conference, attended by a large number of scholars from Europe and North America, published essays representing virtually all the major hypotheses. In an overview, Christopher M. Tuckett says that “the most widely held theory probably remains some form of the 2HD.”[193] Tuckett concludes that though the general results do not differ widely from the those of the earlier Oxford seminar, the recent challenges to the majority have sharpened the issues and exposed the provisional nature of all hypotheses. The 2DH may be the most plausible, but it is not the only possible, and indeed, not the final solution to the Synoptic Problem.
Two scholars whose work in support of the 2DH is exemplary deserve recognition. Christopher Tuckett has been mentioned.[194] Born and educated in England (Cambridge), Tuckett taught at Manchester, where he held the Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis before moving to Oxford in 1996. Tuckett’s PhD thesis (Lancaster) was on The Revival of the Griesbach Hypothesis.[195] For the Synoptic Problem his most important book is Q and the History of Early Christianity.[196] Frans Neirynck, the dean of Synoptic research, was born in Wingene, Belgium and educated at the Catholic University of Leuven.[197] From 1960 to 1992 he served on the theological faculty at Leaven. He was elected president of the SNTS in 1989. Neirynck’s major works on the Synoptic Problem include The Minor Agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark,[198]Duality in Mark,[199] and Evangelica—three large volumes of collected essays.[200]
In regard to the major issues, the 2DH rests on two premises: the priority of Mark and the existence of and independent use of Q by Matthew and Luke.[201] Mark contains some 660 verses, over 80% of which are reproduced in Matthew, some 60% in Luke. Mark is shorter than either of the other Synoptics. Although some have claimed that Mark intentionally shortened or epitomized Matthew and Luke, in many pericopes Mark is actually longer. Why, ask the advocates of priority of Mark, would Mark omit the birth narratives or the Lord’s Prayer? It is more likely that Matthew and Luke expanded Mark. As regards language and style, Mark writes an unliterary Greek in infelicitous style with unrefined vocabulary and many redundancies. Matthew and Luke, working independently, tend to improve Mark’s language and style. Mark confronts the reader with “harder” readings that call for mollification; for example, in Nazareth, according to Mark 6:5-5, Jesus could do “no” mighty deeds, but in Matthew’s revision (13:58) Jesus did not do “many” mighty deeds there. In regard to theology, Mark (like Paul) uses the title “Lord” almost exclusively for the exalted Christ, but with Matthew and Luke this title is frequently applied to the historical Jesus, as is typical in later usage.
As to the existence and use of Q, the advocates of the 2DH observe that some 230 verses of Matthew and Luke are parallel in non-Markan passages.[202] Against the view that these parallels are to be explained by independent use of a hypothetical document, the advocates of the Farrer-Goulder Hypothesis (reviewed above) point to the problem of the “minor agreements” of Matthew and Luke against Mark. The defenders of the 2DH offer several explanations: independent redaction of Mark by Matthew and Luke, the influence of oral tradition, the belief that Matthew and Luke used different editions of Mark (Ur-Markus or Deutero-Marcus).[203] In any case it is obvious that Matthew and Luke did not use the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece.
Those who would dispense with Q must answer why Luke omitted material like the flight into Egypt, and above all they must explain why (and how) Luke so drastically rearranged the teaching material from the discourses of Matthew. In support of Q and its use, the advocates of the 2DH observe that after the narrative of the Temptation, Matthew and Luke never agree in placing Q material in the same Markan context—evidence of independent use of the same document. Also in support of Q, sometimes the common material appears in the earlier or more original form in Matthew, sometimes in Luke. The genre of a gospel that is largely a collection of teachings has been confirmed by the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas.[204]
The polarization of NT research is apparent in the research on the hypothetical Q. While scholars like Farmer, Goulder, and Goodacre argue vigorously that Q never existed, another coterie of scholars claims not only to have reconstructed Q but to have detected stages of Q redaction, and have attempted to described the nature and theology of the community that produced Q.
Q, according to its defenders, includes all the material of the “double tradition,” that is, the non-Markan material common to Matthew and Luke.[205] In citing Q, scholars refer to chapter and verse according to Luke, who is understood to reproduce Q more faithfully that Matthew. Q, according to most experts, begins at Luke 3:7-9 and ends at Luke 22:28-30. It contains material from Luke chapters 4, 6, 7, 8–19, although the exact verses are not entirely certain. Q mainly contains teaching material, although it also includes narrative: the preaching of John the Baptist, the temptation, the healing of the centurion’s servant; it does not contain the passion narrative. Most scholars agree that Q was written in Greek and that it represents a single source. The provenance is usually said to be Palestine, or Galilee, or the Galilee-Syrian border region. Q is usually identified as a document of Jewish Christianity, dated (in its final form) slightly before or after 70.
The text of Q is available in various editions. For the study of Q, John Kloppenborg’s QParallels is useful, especially for the English reader.[206] The book consists of the text of Q according to the Matthew/Luke parallels in Greek, with English translation. Agreements between Matthew and Luke are indicated by underlining. This synopsis also presents parallels from other sources including Mark, the Septuagint, the Apostolic Fathers, the Gospel of Thomas (in Coptic), and other NT documents. It also includes critical notes, a concordance of Greek words, and bibliography. The Critical Edition of Q is a huge volume that assembles comprehensive research on the Q document. The introduction, by James M. Robinson, presents an extensive account of the history of Q research, which extends from the logia of Papias to the recent work of Kloppenborg. The Greek text is presented in eight columns, across facing pages: (1) any Markan parallel to Matthew, (2) any Matthean doublet, (3) Matthean text derived from Q, (4) the critical text of Q, (5) Lukan text derived from Q, (6) any Lukan doublet, (7) any Markan parallel to Luke; (8) any parallel from the Gospel of Thomas (in Coptic). Below the columns a critical apparatus indicates variant readings suggested by the major editors; below the critical apparatus are critical notes; below the critical notes are text-critical notes; below the text-critical notes is the text of Q in Greek and in English, German, and French translation; and below the text of Q are parallels from the Gospel of Thomas. The presentation of the critical text is over 550 pages. A concordance, which is essentially the same as Kloppenborg’s in Q Parallels, is included.
An abbreviated and simplified version of the critical text[207] presents the text of the Critical Edition on the left and the English translation on the right facing page. Also included is Robinson’s introduction to the Critical Edition and that edition’s history. The project was begun at the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont in 1983. Q consultations were held at the annual meetings of the SBL in 1983 and 1984. These consultations developed into the Q Seminar of the SBL (1985–89), which became the International Q Project in 1989. A German branch of the Project was established at the University of Bamberg in 1992. The International Project also began a series of studies of individual texts of Q, beginning in 1994, published by Peeters: Documenta Q: Reconstructions of Q Through Two Centuries of Gospel Research Excerpted, Sorted, and Evaluated.
Research on Q has been extensive.[208] The work of John Kloppenborg, a recognized leader in Q research, provides a notable example.[209] Kloppenborg was educated at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto (PhD 1984), where he later has served as Professor in the Department and Centre for the Study of Religion.
Kloppenborg published two major works on Q. The purpose of the earlier book, The Formation of Q, is “to trace the literary evolution of Q as a document of primitive Christianity and then to view that development within the context of antique literary genres.”[210] At the outset Kloppenborg summarizes the character of Q: it is a document written in Greek; a substantial portion of it is included in Matthew and Luke; the order is better preserved in Luke. Q, according to Kloppenborg, is not a random collection. Instead, he believes the material has been organized into topical clusters. Kloppenborg detects clusters of material around two themes: the announcement of judgment and the teaching of wisdom. He thinks that the latter, sapiential sayings belong to the earliest stratum of Q, to which the judgment oracles were later added. Kloppenborg also thinks the narrative material has been added. He concludes that the genre of the original Q is “instruction,” and with the addition of narrative it is evolving into proto-biography.
Kloppenborg’s larger work, Excavating Q, reflects an archaeological imagery.[211] In this book he is concerned about two issues: how to talk about Q, and why Q matters. The first part of the book deals with the text of Q and the history of Q research. The reconstruction of the text assumes the validity of the 2DH for the solution of the Synoptic Problem. In an irenic spirit Kloppenborg reviews other views, including the Griesbach Hypothesis and the Farrer-Goulder Hypothesis. He believes the case for the 2DH is strongest, but insists that “[h]ypotheses are all that we have and all we will ever have.”[212] As to the character and reconstruction of Q, Kloppenborg reaffirms the conclusion of his earlier book. He observes that Q contains sixty-eight pericopes. In regard to methodology, Kloppenborg notes that analysis of Q uses the methods of redaction criticism such as detecting repetitive elements and recurring motifs. Working backward from the final form of Q, Kloppenborg discovers three stages in its development: an early stage of hortatory instruction, a stage adding oracles of judgment, and a final stage that added material about the law.
Kloppenborg turns to the Q community and the theology of Q. He believes the people of the formative stage (Q1) were village or town scribes who were concerned with instruction; the people of the main redaction (Q2) were people who lived in towns with markets and who emphasize judgment; the people of Q3 were concerned with the law and the temple. In regard to the original scribes (Q1), Kloppenborg writes:
[T]he Sayings Gospel and the scribes who framed it proposed a model of local cooperation based on strategies of tension reduction, debt release, and forgiveness, and appealing to an image of God as generous patron and parent who could be depended upon for sustenance. These scribes also resisted any efforts to impose a southern, hierocratically-defined vision of Israel in which human affairs are centered on a central sanctuary and its priestly officers. This is not opposition to the Temple; but it is also not an endorsement of the hierocratic worldview of either the priestly aristocracy or the Pharisees, both of whom come in for serious criticism. Q is thus engaged in a struggle on two fronts: in support of town and village culture against the encroachments of the cities, and in support of local forms of Israelite religion in the face of pressures from the hierocratic worldview of Judaea.[213]
In discussing the theology of Q, Kloppenborg notes the ideological and theological features of Q research. F. C. Baur, for example, adopted the Griesbach theory, which supported his reconstruction of early Christian history, and Holtzmann believed the priority of Mark advanced his liberal view of Jesus. More recently, notes Kloppenborg, studies in Q (and the Gospel of Thomas) have provided the basis for Robinson’s identification of an early genre, “the sayings of the sages,” and encouraged the identification of Jesus as a sage. Kloppenborg believes that “Q’s silence concerning a salvific interpretation of Jesus’ fate makes it difficult or impossible to conclude that the historical Jesus considered his own death vicarious,” and that “Q displays no signs of applying resurrection language to Jesus.”[214] The theological center of Q, according to Kloppenborg, is not Christology but the understanding of the kingdom. Also, since the earliest stratum of Q is sapiential, Kloppenborg believes that apocalyptic does not belong to the earliest Jesus tradition. Since the earliest tradition is sapiential, he thinks it possible that Jesus and his earliest followers were Cynics.
All in all, Kloppenborg has constructed a masterful work, built on a mountain of research in the primary and secondary sources. He writes clearly and attends to detail. He argues his case in an irenic spirit. However, in regard to his theological reconstruction critics may wish he had more faithfully followed his own methodological principle: “It is a fundamental error . . . to allow considerations of nonliterary utility or advantage to influence the solutions to a literary problem.”[215] Those who have not been initiated into the mysteries of Q may be wary of what appears to be overinterpretation. A lost document that is hypothesized on the basis two independent uses of it, about which there is debate as to its exact content and scope, and is then subjected to an analysis that can predicate three stages of development related to three different social groups and adhering to three different theologies seems top-heavy. As Kloppenborg himself admits, other Q specialists, using the same data, arrive at different conclusions.[216]
In sum, research on Q in the twentieth century has advanced far beyond earlier work. The detailed analysis of Q has provided additional support for the 2DH, although the opponents suppose that the excesses of Q research illustrate the hazards of the whole Q hypothesis. The theories about Q have perhaps contributed more than any other feature of recent criticism to the polarization of NT research. On the other hand, research in Q has encouraged the study of pre-Gospel tradition and has provided data in the quest for the historical Jesus. Redaction criticism, with its stress on the theology of the evangelists, has reduced the importance of the final form of the Gospels for the reconstruction of the historical Jesus, which instead must rely on the study of the earliest tradition. Redaction criticism, in turn, has provided a methodology for investigating Q and other early tradition. For scholars suspicious of the whole historical critical enterprise, the debate about Q illustrates the triumph of elitism in biblical research.
The research reviewed in this chapter makes it abundantly clear that historical criticism continues to function with vigor: older questions have been reconsidered, ancient arguments have been resurrected and revised, new issues have been addressed, and creative hypotheses from new perspectives have emerged. As to the science of introduction, issues that arose in the Enlightenment continue to be debated—questions of authorship, date, provenance, and recipients. Both Kümmel and Koester are committed to the historical critical method. Kümmel is a shade more conservative, for example, in regard to authorship and the unity of NT documents. Koester more than Kümmel stresses Hellenist backgrounds. In the discussion, a new perspective has emerged, namely that of social and cultural research. Already emphasized in the “new archaeology” discussed in Chapter 4, this approach has influenced virtually all aspects of NT research.
Redaction criticism, although practiced under other names in the nineteenth century, has developed as an important method. The attention to the final composition—the stress on the particular point of view of the individual authors—has contributed to the understanding of the history, sociology, and theology of the NT. Marxsen’s research on the Jesus-kerygma uses the methods of redaction criticism to detect the earliest layer of tradition, just as Kloppenborg employs similar analysis to discover the earliest stratum of Q. The results are very different: Marxsen uncovers an eschatological motif; Kloppenborg detects a non-apocalyptic, sapiential theme. Methodologically, the differences are substantial: Marxsen’s approach is essentially, almost exclusively, theological. Kloppenborg’s method is socio-cultural. Marxsen seems to view the early church as a community of university-trained theologians, while Kloppenborg sees them as inhabitants of Palestinian villages whose faith was shaped in the context of their socio-economic setting.
The major result of the challenges to the consensus concerning the Synoptic Problem is the energetic reinvestigation of the issues. Before the challenges, many scholars were content simply to repeat the time-worn solutions found in the standard textbooks. The challenges have forced Synoptic scholars to restudy the issues with direct attention to the Greek texts, to sharpen their colored pencils and trace the agreements and variations verse by verse. The majority still adhere to the 2DH, but their reasons for doing so are better informed because of rigorous attention to the data from the texts.
Various issues discussed in this chapter have implications for the study of the historical Jesus. Here again, conflict is apparent. This is seen in the analysis of sources. Koester (and James M. Robinson) make extensive use of non-canonical sources and hypothetical reconstruction of literary genres. The result is a portrait of Jesus as a wisdom teacher, possibly a Cynic—an idea supported by Kloppenborg’s research on Q. As discussion of the historical Jesus in subsequent chapters will show, many scholars support a Jesus whose message of the kingdom has its meaning in an eschatological context. Of special interest is Marxsen’s view of the Jesus-kerygma as primary and authoritative. Whereas most interpreters believe the Christian message has its origin in the resurrection faith, Marxsen goes back to an earlier source: a message that has its origin in the historical Jesus himself. The message can only be understood by faith, but it can only be recovered by historical research. The relation of faith and history, and the relation of criticism and faith, are methodological-theological issues that will continue to confound the history of NT research throughout the century.
790-12. Introduction (rev. ed. 1975), 28. ↵
790-16. See pp. 242–43 above. ↵
790-25. Promise and Fulfilment, 114. ↵
790-33. “Insights from a Career,” 280. ↵
790-49. Introduction, 2: 231. ↵
790-62. “Structure and Criteria,” 219. ↵
790-65. Perrin, Redaction Criticism, 1. ↵
790-68. Lange, “In Memoriam,” xv. ↵
790-70. Theology of Luke, 13. ↵
790-75. The Classic Article, 46. ↵
790-82. Outline of Theology, 114. ↵
790-94. Mark the Evangelist, 28. ↵
790-105. In Der Exeget als Theologe: Vorträge zum Neuen Testament (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1968), 104–14. ↵
790-107. The New Testament as the Church’s Book, 29. ↵
790-110. The New Testament as the Church’s Book, 123. ↵
790-114. Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, 74. ↵
790-119. Willi Marxsen, “Christology of the New Testament,” IDBSup, 146–56. ↵
790-121. New Testament Foundations, 86. ↵
790-134. Synoptic Problem, 179. ↵
790-147. Gospel of Jesus, 63. ↵
790-151. Gospel of Jesus, 200. ↵
790-155. Jesus and the Gospel, 214–15. ↵
790-156. David L. Dungan, “The Two-Gospel Hypothesis,” ABD 6: 671–79. ↵
790-160. History of the Synoptic Problem, 339. ↵
790-165. See Hollis W. Huston, “The ‘Q Parties’ at Oxford, JBR 25 (1957): 123–28. ↵
790-167. “Dispensing with Q,” 62 (repr. 330). ↵
790-182. Luke 1: 27. See Michael D. Goulder, “On Putting Q to the Test,” NTS 24 (1978): 218–40. ↵
790-184. Goulder and the Gospels, 13–58. ↵
790-190. Marie-Émile Boismard, L’Évangile de Marc: sa préhistoire, EBib 26 (Paris: Gabalda, 1994). ↵
790-204. See pp. 201–3 above. ↵