Although I don’t believe in Scripture’s inerrancy, I do believe in its inspiration, that God “breathed into” the ancient writings that comprise the anthology we Christians call Scripture, enlivening them to make them “useful” for teaching and training us in God’s ways, the way of Jesus (2 Tim 3:15-17). And although I have spoken out against fundagelical “bibliolatry” (venerating the Bible in the place of God, acting as if the Bible and not Jesus is Lord), it is certainly true that, as I’ve also said, we need to “read the Bible to follow Jesus.”

But how do I fit this all together? If the biblical writings—and the Gospels in particular—are not inerrant, how are they reliable for teaching us about Jesus and his way?

Here’s how I make sense of this.

I agree with scholars who determine that the Gospels are a form of ancient biography (bios), along the lines of those by Suetonius or Plutarch. These bioi are similar to modern biographies in that they tell the story of a historical person of some significance. Like modern biographies, bioi rely on prior sources for the story they create: written sources, oral traditions, and personal testimony.

Of course, ancient biographers didn’t have the advantages of their modern counterparts—video and audio recordings, extensive libraries and archives, the internet. They worked with the sources they had, which often wasn’t much. Because of this, ancient biographers felt freedom to paraphrase or expand or summarize their sources, and even fill in gaps with their own creations. In fact, rhetorical education of the day provided opportunities to practice this.

Ancient biographers included fantastical elements like cosmic portents at the subject’s birth or death, or miracles performed by the person or because of their presence. Some of these may have been prompted by an actual event of some kind (not necessarily “supernatural” or “miraculous”), but these were seen as signs of the person’s significance regardless of whether or not they actually happened as described. And ancient biographers were unconcerned with an accurate order of events or even necessarily providing what we might today consider basic biographical information.

In short, an ancient bios was a story about a historical person deemed to have public significance, using prior sources but with freedom to “play with” those sources, in order to enlighten the reader about the person’s significance and encourage the reader to learn from their life and characteristic ideas.

This is the canonical Gospels. This understanding of the Gospels itself suggests that Jesus was a historical person and that the Gospels reflect a variety of sources, however much each of the Gospel authors “played with” those sources to portray Jesus in a particular way. And this in turn prompts me to read them through two different sets of lenses.

The first set of lenses is a critical historical one: I read through the Gospels (and other sources) to learn who Jesus was as a person in history.

Now, this is a whole blog post in itself (a book, really, or a set of them). But in summary, I think Jesus of Nazareth would have seen himself as a prophet, sort of a cross between Elijah/Elisha and Isaiah. More specifically, and roughly in line with a wide cross-section of historical Jesus scholars, I think that:

• Jesus of Nazareth announced that Isaiah’s promised “reign of God” was imminent—God’s reign of true justice and lasting peace on earth, bringing flourishing life for God’s people and all creation, in contrast to the “kingdoms” of this world.
• Jesus gathered disciples and taught them his interpretation of the Torah, focusing moral obligations around loving God pre-eminently by loving others, including neighbours, strangers, and enemies.
• Influenced by Isaiah’s “peaceable kingdom” visions, Jesus taught and lived out a form of nonviolent resistance to evil oppressors.
• Jesus, like Elijah and Elisha, paid special attention to the poor, widows, children, and others impoverished in power.
• Jesus shared meals with those deemed “sinners” as well as the religiously powerful.
• Jesus, following Elijah’s/Elisha’s footsteps, became known as a healer (whether or not these healings were miraculous, Jesus’ reputation as a healer is one thing even ancient non-Christian references to Jesus highlight).
• At some point, Jesus began to take on a messianic mantle, presenting himself as Isaiah’s “servant” who would bring about God’s reign in its fullness (note: “messiah” does not in itself imply “deity”).
• Jesus lived and taught these things in such a way that he was deemed an enemy of powerful people, including the Roman state, and so was crucified.

There’s more to this “Jesus as prophet” picture one gets through critical historical means, some of which is troubling (e.g. his anti-“family values” teachings) and some of which was wrong (e.g. predicting the fulfilment of God’s reign within a generation). But I do find this Jesus of Nazareth compelling—enough to read the Gospels through a second set of lenses.

This second set of lenses is a historical-theological one: I read the Gospels to learn how each of them interpreted the stories and traditions of Jesus they had inherited to understand Jesus for their own time.

This is another blog post (or book, or book series), but here are a few summary thoughts. In general, each of the Gospels emphasizes different aspects of Jesus of Nazareth, and in some respects they highlight those aspects beyond what I imagine Jesus himself would have found comfortable.

• Mark highlights Jesus as the “messianic servant” of Isaiah, especially emphasizing Jesus’ suffering and death as critical for understanding Jesus’ messianic identity and the nature of God’s reign.
• Matthew builds on Mark, but also highlights Jesus as the “messianic teacher” who authoritatively interprets Torah for his followers in the messianic age.
• Luke builds on (and to an extent critiques) Mark and Matthew, but highlights Jesus as “messianic peacemaker” who shows the way of peace and brings about inclusion for the marginalized and justice for the oppressed.
• John mostly (but not entirely) ignores Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and highlights Jesus as “divine messiah” who reveals God to the world and draws the world to God.

The Gospel authors, then, use the genre of ancient bioi to present their portraits of Jesus. They “play with” their sources—paraphrasing, expanding, summarizing, re-ordering, and embellishing them, but still relying on them—to present a particular angle on Jesus of Nazareth, to enlighten their readers about what Jesus said and did and why he is significant.

This also means the cosmic portents they describe at Jesus’ birth and death highlight Jesus as true messianic king in contrast to the line of Caesars. The healing miracles show him to be a true prophet like Elijah and Elisha. The nature miracles point to his divine mission or even, in the case of John’s Gospel, his divine origin. Whether or not those things actually happened is less important than what they signify.

Here’s the thing for me: I not only find the historical Jesus of Nazareth to be a compelling person, I find the canonical Gospels’ bioi of Jesus to be compelling interpretations of Jesus’ life and teaching and larger significance. And this—along with other factors such as my own spiritual experience—compels me to believe in Jesus as Messiah bringing about God’s reign on earth, as Lord owning our allegiance above all other powers of this world, as Saviour bringing about justice and peace and flourishing life for all, and even as God incarnate revealing God as God truly is.

Will this convince others? I don’t presume to think so. All I can say is, along with the late Rachel Held Evans, “The story of Jesus is the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.”

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There’s a massive amount of scholarly literature on the Gospels and Jesus. The following are just a few examples, including both more technical volumes and more popular works.

The classic study of the canonical Gospels as ancient biographies is Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (3rd ed.; Baylor University Press, 2020).

The best works on the relationship of the Gospels to each other are E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (Trinity Press, 1989); Mark Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze (T&T Clark, 2001); Mark Goodacre, The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Trinity Press, 2002); Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Eerdmans, 2012).

Good representative works on the historical Jesus reflecting a cross-section of author backgrounds and perspectives: E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Fortress, 1985); John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (5 vols.; Doubleday, 1991-2016); E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (Penguin, 1993); N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996); Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Fortress, 1998); Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford University Press, 1999); Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (Vintage, 1999); Dale C. Allison, Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Baker, 2010); N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters (HarperOne, 2011); Anthony Le Donne, Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? (Eerdmans, 2011); Helen K. Bond, The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, 2012).

© Michael W. Pahl