Abstract
Michael Bird, Lecturer in Theology at Ridley Melbourne Mission and Ministry College, explores what the Gospels are and how and why the Jesus tradition developed from its oral form into the four-fold written Gospels. The first three chapters focus on the preservation and formation of the Jesus tradition. Bird argues that the early Church preserved the Jesus tradition because it provided the content of the faith, addressed the needs and situations of the later Church, and provided the foundation of the Church’s self-understanding. Jesus’ teaching style and example, the use of notebooks, and authentication by eyewitnesses were just a few ways through which the Church was equipped to preserve the tradition effectively. Bird qualifies that we cannot be certain of how the tradition originated or solidified into the written Gospels because of the nature of the evidence, but ultimately argues that social memory theory, which allows for ‘a fluid exchange between orality and textuality’, best accounts for this process (p. 112). The final three chapters focus on the Gospels as written documents. After explaining various solutions to the Synoptic Problem, Bird advocates for the Holtzmann-Gundry (three-source) hypothesis on the basis that the evidence demands a more complicated solution than most other hypotheses allow. The Synoptics ‘left a soft fingerprint’ on John, but John is literarily independent of them (p. 213). Bird argues that the Gospels are most appropriately viewed as the fluid genre of Greco-Roman biography and concludes the book by showing how widespread usage, connection to the apostles, and consistency with the faith of the earlier generation account for why Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were ultimately collected as the Church’s Gospels. Each chapter concludes with an excursus on topics such as the ‘other’ gospels and patristic quotations on the order of the Gospels.
This work is an excellent blend of primary and secondary sources. Bird’s most significant contributions are the early chapters on the formation of the Jesus tradition and his later explanation of the identity of the authors and the origins of the titles of the Gospels. While much of this information is not new to seasoned scholars, his collection of the primary source data and his analysis of the state of the question (e.g. oral transmission models, source theories, genre) prove helpful nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly, these are issues that most textbooks on the Gospels lack or treat in only a cursory fashion, making the book a nice supplement to a Gospels survey, particularly for upper-level undergraduates or graduate students. Bird answers questions that many students do not even know they need to ask. Furthermore, since many treatments discuss either the oral period or the literary period, this is a welcome volume insomuch as it refuses to segregate the two. Bird’s treatment of the Synoptic problem (nearly ninety pages), while excellent, could be condensed since other books cover the topic well. Bird is to be commended for his engaging writing style, his discussion of the oft-neglected relationship between John and the Synoptics, and his helpful orientation to key discussions in Jesus research.