I like @Arethosemyfeet’s nurturing point. Hadn’t thought of that simplicity before but it seems a pretty good speculative answer to the question “why on earth would God have done it this way”.
I think the critical evaluations of the texts of both Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives are very useful and informative to read and certainly show the different theological reflection of the authors and possible future editors. What may be easy to miss is their demonstration of the probable personal belief of these first century authors in the core reality of the Virgin birth. The alternative suggests or asserts that they were pious fraudulent propaganda for the sake of their audience. I really don’t buy that.
(Trying to learn stuff from this fascinating thread!)
Sorry I did not see this question earlier, this is in reference to whether a the incarnation narrative in Matthew came from an oral tradition that would have been around at the time the evangelist was putting his gospel together. My argument is Matthew is drawing from the OT stories of the miraculous births of Isaac, Samuel and Sampson to develop his narrative of the conception of Jesus. He also draws from the Genesis accounts when God created the first man. In other words, he built his story mostly from Scripture to make his testimony that Jesus is from God and is the new Adam.
@Barnabas62 I can't find your statement wondering if Rufus and I were calling the Matthew narrative fraudulent propaganda. Rufus can speak for himself, but my answer is all four of the gospels are propagandistic in that they are giving their individual testimonies of who they believed Jesus was/is; but that does not make them fraudulent. They all are presenting truths as they understood it. They are using our limited symbolic language to convey their faith in God.
Here is a short essay on the differences between Matthew and Luke's birth narratives with an additional comment about how Luke also differs from the Greco Roman divine birth myths familiar to his audience.
Matthew and Luke tell two distinct birth narratives because they are writing for different communities with different questions. Matthew addresses a Jewish audience wrestling with the continuity of their faith in the midst of synagogue conflict. His narrative is structured to show that Jesus fulfills Israel’s Scriptures and stands in the line of Moses and David. Matthew begins in Bethlehem, the royal city, and frames the story with fulfillment quotations. Joseph receives dreams, Herod plays the role of a new Pharaoh, and the family’s flight to Egypt echoes Israel’s ancient story. The tone is political and tense, emphasizing Jesus as the promised Messiah whose arrival threatens the powers of the age.
Luke, by contrast, writes for a largely Gentile, urban, socially mixed audience concerned with inclusion and God’s care for the marginalized. His narrative begins in Nazareth, centers Mary’s voice, and surrounds the birth with songs of reversal—Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon proclaim a God who lifts the lowly and brings down the mighty. Shepherds, not magi, receive the first announcement, signaling that the good news is for the poor and overlooked. Luke situates the story within the machinery of empire—Augustus, Quirinius, and the census—highlighting that God’s salvation emerges not from palaces but from the margins.
Luke’s narrative also stands apart from Greco‑Roman divine‑birth myths familiar to his audience. In those stories, gods impregnate women through physical or sexual encounters, producing heroic conquerors or emperors whose births legitimize political power. Luke deliberately rejects this pattern. The Spirit “overshadows” Mary in a non‑sexual, temple‑like image, and Mary consents freely. The child is not a warrior‑king but a savior for the humble. The first witnesses are not elites but shepherds. Luke uses the same imperial vocabulary—“Savior,” “Son of God,” “peace”—but subverts it, declaring that true salvation comes through humility, justice, and divine compassion rather than domination.
Together, Matthew and Luke offer complementary theological portraits: one rooted in Israel’s story, the other proclaiming good news for the whole world, each resisting the cultural myths of their time.
It's not a matter of imputing insincere motives. It's a matter of stating that the purpose of their writing was not biographical or historical, but polemical through allegory, illustrative narrative, call it what you will. It's Christology, and indeed Deography, not biography.
You know, I find it unlikely that a Gentile audience in the first century AD would be more concerned for the marginalised than a Jewish audience.
Tradition says Matthew was a Jew and wrote as a Jew. Tradition (that pesky word again) suggests Luke was a gentile convert. We do know from Acts Luke traveled with Paul. He was well educated. He is well versed in Greek, and he has a medical vocabulary. Sources from the second and fourth century say he is a Gentile.
Moreover, we also know Luke wrote to a Greek audience when he addresses his books to Theophilus (literally lover of God)
They are more like statements of what the communities they are writing for already believe, using contemporary literary devices that are familiar to their audiences.
They should not be read with our modern literal/historical/biographical perspectives.
They are more like statements of what the communities they are writing for already believe, using contemporary literary devices that are familiar to their audiences.
They should not be read with our modern literal/historical/biographical perspectives.
I think there is a key difference between how I am calling the gospels propagandistic and how you understand the term. The common understanding of propaganda is that is a medium for deceit, distortion and political deceit.
I am saying the gospels are propagandistic in the sense they proclaim a theological vision. They persuade communities toward faith. They shape the narrative for meaning, not neutrality. They use Scripture, symbol and story to express conviction. They are sincere testimonies, written by people convinced the were telling the truth about Jesus.
You see before the 20th century, propaganda did not mean lies, manipulation, or deceit. Its classic meaning is:
Communication designed to promote, spread, or “propagate” a particular belief, worldview, or interpretation of reality.
It comes from the 1622 Catholic institution Congregatio de Propaganda Fide — “the congregation for the propagation of the faith.”
The word originally meant faith‑shaping instruction, not manipulation.
Tradition might be a 'pesky word', but we can't elide it.
All of us here are writing in the context of one tradition or another, even if we are coming at it from outside a Christian tradition, we'll be approaching it from a secular tradition of some form.
We have someone anonymous writing a story about something that happened decades before. They come from a community which teaches direct contact with a deity.
Are they not going to think that whatever "feels right" about the story they are writing is somehow being dictated by God to them? The stories may have come to them from different directions, they may have dreamed some of them. I don't see how any of these would necessarily be discarded.
They hear someone talking about Zeus fathering a human child and maybe that becomes the germ of an idea for the story. Other stories floating around become grounded in the narrative.
I do not find the idea of living witnesses very persuasive. First maybe there's a geographical element, maybe the stories spread in one place rather than another. Maybe they were buried for a while, the "witnesses" died and there was nobody left to dispute them. Maybe the most dramatic parts were added later.
You have a point of course. As a person of Christian faith, I freely acknowledge that I’ve been very strongly influenced by the sayings and stories of Jesus that I’ve heard and read. As C S Lewis put it, I feel like I’ve met a person. That’s the sense in which Christians say that Jesus is the Living Word, not just a purveyor of powerful words.
And I believe I share that experience with those who have recorded for me this Living Word. I belong to that community of faith and feel privileged to be so. I’ve become personally aware of that living community. I very much liked the way @LatchKeyKid put it.
Now of course if one is not in that living community, this sounds very odd! How can someone today have that sense of the person who founded this community as being somehow living? Christians say that is the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts and minds. So we are grateful for that and grateful for the witnesses.
Feel free to see us as deluded if you want. But that’s what it’s like.
You have a point of course. As a person of Christian faith, I freely acknowledge that I’ve been very strongly influenced by the sayings and stories of Jesus that I’ve heard and read. As C S Lewis put it, I feel like I’ve met a person. That’s the sense in which Christians say that Jesus is the Living Word, not just a purveyor of powerful words.
And I believe I share that experience with those who have recorded for me this Living Word. I belong to that community of faith and feel privileged to be so. I’ve become personally aware of that living community. I very much liked the way @LatchKeyKid put it.
Now of course if one is not in that living community, this sounds very odd! How can someone today have that sense of the person who founded this community as being somehow living? Christians say that is the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts and minds. So we are grateful for that and grateful for the witnesses.
Feel free to see us as deluded if you want. But that’s what it’s like.
Splendidly put! I too am 'deluded' .... but I know, 'In Him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Delusion it may be but it gives my life meaning, shape, a community, customs to follow and (now and again) deep joy.
Sorry for the tangent!
My personal struggle with, 'when the Bible doesn't mean what it says' is trying to explain to deeply conservative Christians why I'm happy in churches with a gay priest, a lady vicar or why (as a divorced person) my second marriage has been so deeply blessed and broadened my own ministy when some Christians would consider me deeply disobedient to what they maintain is 'His revealed Word'.
But there you go!
@Basketactortale a thorough answer to your question really needs book-length treatment. And the books have been written. The most recent treatment I’m aware of is Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the eyewitnesses dealing with the composition of the Gospels. And then there’s Kenneth Bailey’s account of “informal controlled oral tradition”. Other works deal with the reliability of subsequent transmission.
As far as writing about events decades ago, I have two comments. First I could give you a fairly good overview of, say, the Falklands war four and a half decades ago, or someone’s personal experience of the aftermath of the Harrods bombing a year later. I could give you much more detail of the time I was fairly badly burnt, now over fifty years ago. None of these events have occupied my mind much in the intervening years, and I’m from a non-oral culture with no regular practice of oral transmission. (In a different context, Alex Haley’s Roots gives evidence of the remarkable power of oral transmission of historical events.)
You ask
Are they not going to think that whatever "feels right" about the story they are writing is somehow being dictated by God to them?
and, bluntly, I think the simple answer is ‘no’. But the evidence to back up that simple answer involves a deep dive into the cultural milieu of the early church. That goes too for your comment about Zeus.
As for the idea of living witnesses not being persuasive is that because you don’t believe there were living witnesses, or you think they were wrong about what they’d experienced? Mark’s gospel, complete with ‘dramatic parts’ is generally agreed to have reached its present form in about 70 CE - comfortably within the possible life span of a reasonably large number of living witnesses, and a much larger number of those who had heard directly from them.
(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become
a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will
enter the kingdom of heaven."
That’s the verse from the Gospel of Thomas that, not surprisingly, causes upset. The obvious interpretation. that women can’t enter the Kingdom unless they become male, is very offensive.
Also, there are I think some concerns that some verses are Gnostic (e.g 39, 62). I’m not convinced. Quite a lot of it is the same or very similar to verses found in the Synoptic gospels. And some of that which isn’t is very strange, like the portion you quoted!
There is a reason why Paul writes in Galatians there are neither male of female ... all are one in Christ.
Indeed.
Of course I’m not saying there is nothing of value in the GOT. I’ve found lots of things of value in early non-canonical Christian writings. Some more than others!
I just can’t see how verse 114 could be interpreted of saying something of value. I can see it’s a correction of what Simon Peter is recorded of saying. A kind of attempted cure. But that recorded attempted cure seems worse than the disease!
I believe the GOT was included in some biblical reprint a few years ago but I can’t remember the details. One of the arguments IIRC related to the alleged antiquity of the writing which I also believe had been unearthed or rediscovered quite recently. That hardly seems enough to justify its inclusion in the canon.
Mark’s gospel, complete with ‘dramatic parts’ is generally agreed to have reached its present form in about 70 CE - comfortably within the possible life span of a reasonably large number of living witnesses, and a much larger number of those who had heard directly from them.
I've heard it suggested that Mark is actually the written version of the preaching material of Peter, the stories that he repeatedly retold in his "preaching" (though the consensus seems to be that that would be very different from what we know as preaching, mostly sitting around telling stories about Jesus). Whether this is true can be debated, but the c70CE date is consistent with the first eye witnesses (including Peter and the other Apostles) getting old and the Second Coming not happening, and someone deciding that it would be good to write down the stories of those first eye witnesses before age (and in some cases persecution) takes them away.
I haven't a clue! That's why I wanted someone to preach on it. Even if the parable of the flour jar ISN'T from Jesus (and I certainly wouldn't claim it was), someone invented it and thought it served a purpose. I just can't think what that purpose was.
You have a point of course. As a person of Christian faith, I freely acknowledge that I’ve been very strongly influenced by the sayings and stories of Jesus that I’ve heard and read. As C S Lewis put it, I feel like I’ve met a person. That’s the sense in which Christians say that Jesus is the Living Word, not just a purveyor of powerful words.
And I believe I share that experience with those who have recorded for me this Living Word. I belong to that community of faith and feel privileged to be so. I’ve become personally aware of that living community. I very much liked the way @LatchKeyKid put it.
Now of course if one is not in that living community, this sounds very odd! How can someone today have that sense of the person who founded this community as being somehow living? Christians say that is the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts and minds. So we are grateful for that and grateful for the witnesses.
Feel free to see us as deluded if you want. But that’s what it’s like.
Splendidly put! I too am 'deluded' .... but I know, 'In Him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Delusion it may be but it gives my life meaning, shape, a community, customs to follow and (now and again) deep joy.
Sorry for the tangent!
My personal struggle with, 'when the Bible doesn't mean what it says' is trying to explain to deeply conservative Christians why I'm happy in churches with a gay priest, a lady vicar or why (as a divorced person) my second marriage has been so deeply blessed and broadened my own ministy when some Christians would consider me deeply disobedient to what they maintain is 'His revealed Word'.
But there you go!
One of the gifts of knowing Christ as a real person, however odd the knowing is, since it isn't quite like how we know the tangible, audible people around us-- but as I started to say, one of the gifts of knowing him is being surprised by him. It's the gift of learning to trust myself to him, even when I don't understand him, even when he puts me in a community of people some of whom are very unlike me and not at all the kind of people I would gravitate towards, left to myself. And he goes on surprising me through them as well, and I become more and more aware of just how often I don't have all the puzzle pieces, can't make out how things work logically or why--and Jesus is perfectly fine with that, he doesn't feel the need to explain himself to me, just as long as I've got enough to go on with--which in the case of people very different from me, usually means just loving them. Even when it comes to my own self, I'm finding I don't understand stuff--and when I ask, as often as not I get the answer, "Never mind that right now, I love you," and a gentle push toward whatever it is I'm supposed to be getting on with.
This is of course very frustrating for me with my tendencies toward worry and my desire to have it all figured out; but it reassures me I'm dealing with the real Lord and not some figment of my imagination, who would be so much more controllable.
It also reminds me I'm not in charge of the universe and I can let him get on with it, including cases where I might think a fellow Christian--or myself!--is somehow messing up. That's his call and his business, even if the one I'm disturbed about is me. He'll cope with whatever changes need making in his own time and way--that is, if he thinks there are changes to make. (It was odd discovering that something in my own life that kind of horrified me didn't disturb him at all. Eventually I worked through the logic of it, but what a weird experience, to find myself more puritan than God!)
I haven't a clue! That's why I wanted someone to preach on it. Even if the parable of the flour jar ISN'T from Jesus (and I certainly wouldn't claim it was), someone invented it and thought it served a purpose. I just can't think what that purpose was.
First thoughts (on something I was unaware of until a couple of days ago when it was raised here): faith is something that needs looking after, other wise it will slip away without you noticing.
Yes. From charismatic understanding about being filled by the Holy Spirit, lots of folks have observed “we leak!”. And of course we have Jesus teaching that not all scattered seed either starts growing at all, or continues to grow.
I haven't a clue! That's why I wanted someone to preach on it. Even if the parable of the flour jar ISN'T from Jesus (and I certainly wouldn't claim it was), someone invented it and thought it served a purpose. I just can't think what that purpose was.
First thoughts (on something I was unaware of until a couple of days ago when it was raised here): faith is something that needs looking after, other wise it will slip away without you noticing.
That's good. I could see how a preacher could run with this on the topic of sustaining faith.
We have someone anonymous writing a story about something that happened decades before. They come from a community which teaches direct contact with a deity.
Are they not going to think that whatever "feels right" about the story they are writing is somehow being dictated by God to them? The stories may have come to them from different directions, they may have dreamed some of them. I don't see how any of these would necessarily be discarded.
They hear someone talking about Zeus fathering a human child and maybe that becomes the germ of an idea for the story. Other stories floating around become grounded in the narrative.
I do not find the idea of living witnesses very persuasive. First maybe there's a geographical element, maybe the stories spread in one place rather than another. Maybe they were buried for a while, the "witnesses" died and there was nobody left to dispute them. Maybe the most dramatic parts were added later.
I hear what you’re saying about myths not depending on witnesses — that’s true in many cultures. But I’m not sure it follows that the early Christians simply wrote down whatever “felt right.”
These were small, argumentative communities that policed their own traditions pretty fiercely. If someone started circulating a story that contradicted what people believed they had received from earlier teachers, it didn’t usually survive. That doesn’t prove the stories are historically exact, but it does mean the process wasn’t as loose or free‑form as “someone dreamed it and everyone accepted it.”
You’re absolutely right that dramatic elements can grow over time. The real debate is how much growth happened in the first century and what constraints those communities placed on it.
What do you make of my parousia (imminent expectation of the Second Coming) argument as a factor in the timing of the production of the written gospels?
It’s pretty clear from the Pauline letters that the expectation was imminent for him. You get the impression that he saw evangelisation as urgent for that reason. Or at least I do.
I think that makes the oral tradition more important than written gospels at that time.
No, there do not appear to be any written gospel before Paul died, I think he knows of the oral tradtions.
I agree with why the Gospels were written down. The first witnesses were passing on. I do think the Gospels were written to counter some of the false information that were developing too. For instance, the Gospel of John is a good counter against Gnosticism.
I am a strong proponent of realized eschatology. It does not replace the expectation of the Parousia, but it reframes how the early Christians understood God's future breaking into their present. Realized eschatology explains why the church didn't abandon hope when the Parousia didn't occur immediately. They believe the end has already broken in if not yet completed.
Modern Christians believe Christ is already present. The Spirit is still active. Salvation is underway. There is still a not yet, though. The world is not yet healed. Justice is still incomplete. But Christ will come again.
@BroJames, I take your point about oral history but I'm not sure that Alex Haley's Roots is a good example as I seem to remember reading that much of the detail has been soundly debunked - and I believe I'm right in thinking, from some West African oral history sources as well.
That doesn't mean that Roots isn't of value in providing a 'feel' as it were for the chattel slave experience.
As far as oral tradition and the early Church goes, well yes, it predated the Gospels but that doesn't mean the Gospel writers simply transposed oral stories into written form.
Yes, as an Orthodox Christian I do put a lot of emphasis on the faith being handed down and received 'in community' but equally I agree with what @Gramps49 and others have said about the literary aspects.
The Gospel writers drew parallels and examples from OT texts in a 'midrash' type of way.
I don’t see these views as incompatible. I think it's safe to say that a belief in the virgin birth, for example, was an early one.
Did Matthew 'invent' that or was he dealing with a belief that was already out there but presenting it in a literary way drawing on OT tropes?
That's not to try and move the discussion back to the virgin birth specifically.
But what I think we are dealing with is a fertile synergy between oral tradition and literary accounts in symbiotic relationship with one another - and in a disputatious community that was developing ways of 'policing' its beliefs and so shaping them as it did so.
Big T Tradition people would see this process as guided by the Holy Spirit of course.
Sola scriptura types would hold to that in respect of the development of the NT canon, of course, but not extend it much further than that.
One other factor re Paul. After the road to Damascus I’m pretty sure he would have looked at what were seen by 1st century Christians as prophetic statements re the coming of the Messiah. We can be certain that he knew the Torah very well. Just to give one example, the Epistle to the Galatians contains extensive OT quotations, a pattern that we see throughout the foundational letters.
A similar argument applies to the oral traditions. The most striking example is about the resurrection (1 Cor 15 v3ff). That reference is particularly interesting since he talks about the risen Jesus being seen by more than 500 at once, an account which isn’t in the canonical gospels.
(For @Lamb Chopped ’s benefit, that’s an illustration of how evidence of a prior oral tradition can be found in the written scriptures)
Re the parousia. I’m completely at one with your comments. The kingdom both is, and not yet.
I think what I'm having trouble with is the terminology. In my area of study you wouldn't talk of oral tradition for material that was (say) less than three generations old. You'd be using the terms "research" and "eyewitnesses " more likely. I mean, Paul is so early. How does a proper oral tradition have time to develop?
(114) Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become
a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will
enter the kingdom of heaven."
That’s the verse from the Gospel of Thomas that, not surprisingly, causes upset. The obvious interpretation. that women can’t enter the Kingdom unless they become male, is very offensive.
Also, there are I think some concerns that some verses are Gnostic (e.g 39, 62). I’m not convinced. Quite a lot of it is the same or very similar to verses found in the Synoptic gospels. And some of that which isn’t is very strange, like the portion you quoted!
There is a reason why Paul writes in Galatians there are neither male of female ... all are one in Christ.
Among the blessings traditionally recited by observant Jewish men during morning prayers are these three blessings:
Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, King of the universe, Who has not created me as a gentile.
Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, King of the universe, Who has not created me as a slave.
Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, King of the universe, Who has not created me as a woman.
I’ve never been able to find anything nailing down when these three blessings entered into general use or became part of the Siddur, though they seem to have been in place fairly early in the Common Era. But the parallels with what Paul wrote to the Galatians seem too spot on to be coincidental.
Apologies for taking Nick first. I knew my response to you would take longer to formulate.
I think part of the confusion here is that “oral tradition” in biblical studies doesn’t mean “people making things up because it feels right” or “God whispering story ideas into someone’s head.” It’s simply the technical term for how teachings and stories were preserved, repeated, and passed on in a culture where most people didn’t write.
In other words, “oral tradition” is about transmission, not inspiration.
Scholars use it to describe:
Communal memory—stories repeated in fixed patterns so they can be remembered
Teaching cycles—sayings grouped together because that’s how a rabbi taught
Controlled retelling—elders or eyewitnesses correcting versions that drift
Performance—stories shaped for recitation, not private reading
None of that implies deceit, fabrication, or “whatever feels right.” It’s just how information moved in the first century.
So when someone says Matthew or Luke drew on “oral tradition,” they’re not saying the evangelists invented things. They’re saying the evangelists worked with the living, spoken material their communities had been preserving—just as every ancient historian did before widespread literacy.
Yes, I understand all of that. I was a student of Walter Ong, SJ.
I am still saying that I don't see how oral tradition as it is usually meant in non-biblical literature (my field) develops in a single lifetime. Or are you pushing Paul back into the next century?
I was trying to think if there was a writer with an accessible style who helps folks to understand the processes of identification.
Personally I got a lot out of Jimmy Dunn who is in my mind a “critical user” of oral tradition understandings. I think “Jesus Remembered” is a masterpiece. But it’s a thousand pages long, massively referenced, and I’m not sure I’d describe it as easily accessible!
Yes, I understand all of that. I was a student of Walter Ong, SJ.
I am still saying that I don't see how oral tradition as it is usually meant in non-biblical literature (my field) develops in a single lifetime. Or are you pushing Paul back into the next century?
I think I was saying Paul knew some oral traditions as they were developing. He would have known the witness of all the disciples who attended the first council of Jerusalem. He obviously was familiar with many of the early church's hymns, which are a means of carrying on oral traditions.
Mark was, what, two generations away from the events he wrote about. The writer of Matthew was three generations away. Luke four generations away. I particularly note what Luke says in his preamble. He begins by acknowledging that he is not the first to attempt a written narrative about Jesus. There were already earlier sources, oral traditions and eyewitness testimony.
1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
How long are your generations? I'm thinking of lifetimes, myself. Because if you have a living eyewitness, they are capable of correcting errors in transmission until they are "off the scenes" due to death or dementia. And they can do this with children and grandchildren, even great-grandchildren in some cases.
For that matter, what dates do you accept for the Gospels?
And I'm not convinced that the authors of the Gospels are not who we've held them to be for centuries, myself, regardless of what trendy modern scholarship might say.
How long are your generations? I'm thinking of lifetimes, myself. Because if you have a living eyewitness, they are capable of correcting errors in transmission until they are "off the scenes" due to death or dementia. And they can do this with children and grandchildren, even great-grandchildren in some cases.
For that matter, what dates do you accept for the Gospels?
A generation is 20 years.
To the second question Mark was likely written shortly after the destruction of the temple, around 75 CE. Matthew was likely between 80-90 years, lets say 85 CE. Since it appears Luke used both Matthew and Mark as sources, I would place him closer to 90 years. There is a give and take of about 5 years.
I do know conservatives argue they were written about 10 to twenty years earlier. Luke likely around 60 CE
If anything, there is a two stage model of Gospel formation. There is the early apostolic tradition going from 30-60 CE. That would be the first generation.
In this stage we would likely find
eyewitness preaching,
early written collectons (the sayings, miracle stories, the passion narrative)
And travel notes (Luke's travel diaries.)
Then there is the second state 60-90 CE
This is where the Evangelists shape, arrange, and interpret earlier material.
Communities influence emphasis, not content
Theological framing develops
The Gospels contain early, apostolic eyewitness material but their final literary form reflects later theological shaping and community context.
About the only thing I would differ with you on is the relationship between Matthew and Luke. I've never been convinced that either of them knew the other. My theory (for what it's worth) is they they developed separately in different places at around the same time. Matthew in Israel, aiming at Jewish Christians; Luke in Europe or Turkey, aiming at Gentile Christians in an urban setting.
One reason (though there are many) for this belief is that their birth narratives are so very different. Although they both have a Virgin Birth in Bethlehem, almost everything else is different. We blithely reconcile the two narratives at Christmas, often failing to see how much they differ and appreciating their distinctiveness.
Matthew and Luke are also miles apart on the teaching on prayer.
Matthew tells his audience to keep their prayers short and sweet and private.
Luke has a theme of telling his audience to not give up on prayer and parables about prayer. Luke's audience asks Jesus to tell them how to pray. Jesus does , but provides a much shorter prayer than in Matthew.
Matthew's audience has no such need and, for a Jewish audience, they are told not to copy the practices of the gentiles.
I think you cut off the early apostolic tradition too soon. I think it goes for at least another decade.
‘Generation’ is a very unsatisfactory measure since there are different definitions of generation, and differing lengths of time involved.
I also think Matthew and Luke are about the same date. The evidence that Luke used Matthew rather than Luke and Matthew both having used a common source is thin and unconvincing.
So if Luke and Matthew were being written now (and let’s go for 85 CE as a plausible date) they would effectively be achieving their final literary form in relation to events in the late 1960s-early 1970s (birth and childhood narratives excepted).
Certainly there is some scope for telling the story in such a way as to meet particular needs or agendas (just as we can see with news outlets today), but I find the idea of major ‘creativity’ unconvincing.
And I'm not convinced that the authors of the Gospels are not who we've held them to be for centuries, myself, regardless of what trendy modern scholarship might say.
Bauckham IIRC thinks the earliest witness (Polycarp) doesn't say the authors are exactly who tradition holds them to be, due to the tendency of tradition to conflate all the people with the same names. (So John is not the Son of Zebedee, and Mark is not the John Mark in Acts.) I find him persuasive.
Incidentally, Polycarp says Matthew wrote the document scholars now call Q, and doesn't say who edited that into Mark to produce the Gospel. I find that interesting in that scholars who place weight on traditional attributions often don't believe in Q and vice versa.
"Still it moves" would be appropriate if modern scholarship had a consensus on the authorship. Also, if it didn't have a tendency to confuse "we can't confirm the earliest traditions of authorship are reliable" with "the earliest traditions are unreliable".
It's about the resistance to accept better understandings provided by research and scholarship.
Say I am sceptical about the scepticism.
If you're talking about "understandings" plural I think your confidence that any one of those understandings is better should be accordingly reduced.
I remember Robin Lane Fox's book about the Bible in the early nineties. Fox is an atheist classical historian. He caused a bit of a general outrage in the world of biblical scholarship because he took at face value the claim that John was based on an eyewitness account and that Luke was based on eyewitness testimony. Now normally when a scholar comes into one discipline from an outside discipline and questions a consensus of the discipline they're coming into, one would say they're out of their depth. But Biblical scholarship claims to be applying the methods of secular classical history. If a secular classical historian comes in and reaches different conclusions that implies that the claim that Biblical scholarship applies the methods of secular classical history neutrally is doubtful.
There is a bias based on Christian, especially evangelical belief, towards taking the gospels as meticulous transcripts of all events as they occurred. Biblical scholarship often seems to me to radically overcompensate.
Comments
Amen times a million.
Sorry I did not see this question earlier, this is in reference to whether a the incarnation narrative in Matthew came from an oral tradition that would have been around at the time the evangelist was putting his gospel together. My argument is Matthew is drawing from the OT stories of the miraculous births of Isaac, Samuel and Sampson to develop his narrative of the conception of Jesus. He also draws from the Genesis accounts when God created the first man. In other words, he built his story mostly from Scripture to make his testimony that Jesus is from God and is the new Adam.
@Barnabas62 I can't find your statement wondering if Rufus and I were calling the Matthew narrative fraudulent propaganda. Rufus can speak for himself, but my answer is all four of the gospels are propagandistic in that they are giving their individual testimonies of who they believed Jesus was/is; but that does not make them fraudulent. They all are presenting truths as they understood it. They are using our limited symbolic language to convey their faith in God.
No, I wasn’t accusing either of you. The accusation of pious fraud is something I have seen more than once re NT documents. But not by you or Rufus.
Matthew and Luke tell two distinct birth narratives because they are writing for different communities with different questions. Matthew addresses a Jewish audience wrestling with the continuity of their faith in the midst of synagogue conflict. His narrative is structured to show that Jesus fulfills Israel’s Scriptures and stands in the line of Moses and David. Matthew begins in Bethlehem, the royal city, and frames the story with fulfillment quotations. Joseph receives dreams, Herod plays the role of a new Pharaoh, and the family’s flight to Egypt echoes Israel’s ancient story. The tone is political and tense, emphasizing Jesus as the promised Messiah whose arrival threatens the powers of the age.
Luke, by contrast, writes for a largely Gentile, urban, socially mixed audience concerned with inclusion and God’s care for the marginalized. His narrative begins in Nazareth, centers Mary’s voice, and surrounds the birth with songs of reversal—Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon proclaim a God who lifts the lowly and brings down the mighty. Shepherds, not magi, receive the first announcement, signaling that the good news is for the poor and overlooked. Luke situates the story within the machinery of empire—Augustus, Quirinius, and the census—highlighting that God’s salvation emerges not from palaces but from the margins.
Luke’s narrative also stands apart from Greco‑Roman divine‑birth myths familiar to his audience. In those stories, gods impregnate women through physical or sexual encounters, producing heroic conquerors or emperors whose births legitimize political power. Luke deliberately rejects this pattern. The Spirit “overshadows” Mary in a non‑sexual, temple‑like image, and Mary consents freely. The child is not a warrior‑king but a savior for the humble. The first witnesses are not elites but shepherds. Luke uses the same imperial vocabulary—“Savior,” “Son of God,” “peace”—but subverts it, declaring that true salvation comes through humility, justice, and divine compassion rather than domination.
Together, Matthew and Luke offer complementary theological portraits: one rooted in Israel’s story, the other proclaiming good news for the whole world, each resisting the cultural myths of their time.
It’s probably worth a further clarification.
I think there’s an irregular verb in play
I’m an evangelist
You’re a propagandist
He’s a deceiver
I don’t attribute insincere motives to folks I don’t know who lived 2 thousand years ago.
Tradition says Matthew was a Jew and wrote as a Jew. Tradition (that pesky word again) suggests Luke was a gentile convert. We do know from Acts Luke traveled with Paul. He was well educated. He is well versed in Greek, and he has a medical vocabulary. Sources from the second and fourth century say he is a Gentile.
Moreover, we also know Luke wrote to a Greek audience when he addresses his books to Theophilus (literally lover of God)
They are more like statements of what the communities they are writing for already believe, using contemporary literary devices that are familiar to their audiences.
They should not be read with our modern literal/historical/biographical perspectives.
I am saying the gospels are propagandistic in the sense they proclaim a theological vision. They persuade communities toward faith. They shape the narrative for meaning, not neutrality. They use Scripture, symbol and story to express conviction. They are sincere testimonies, written by people convinced the were telling the truth about Jesus.
You see before the 20th century, propaganda did not mean lies, manipulation, or deceit. Its classic meaning is:
Communication designed to promote, spread, or “propagate” a particular belief, worldview, or interpretation of reality.
It comes from the 1622 Catholic institution Congregatio de Propaganda Fide — “the congregation for the propagation of the faith.”
The word originally meant faith‑shaping instruction, not manipulation.
Is "propagatory" a word?
😉
Tradition might be a 'pesky word', but we can't elide it.
All of us here are writing in the context of one tradition or another, even if we are coming at it from outside a Christian tradition, we'll be approaching it from a secular tradition of some form.
We have someone anonymous writing a story about something that happened decades before. They come from a community which teaches direct contact with a deity.
Are they not going to think that whatever "feels right" about the story they are writing is somehow being dictated by God to them? The stories may have come to them from different directions, they may have dreamed some of them. I don't see how any of these would necessarily be discarded.
They hear someone talking about Zeus fathering a human child and maybe that becomes the germ of an idea for the story. Other stories floating around become grounded in the narrative.
I do not find the idea of living witnesses very persuasive. First maybe there's a geographical element, maybe the stories spread in one place rather than another. Maybe they were buried for a while, the "witnesses" died and there was nobody left to dispute them. Maybe the most dramatic parts were added later.
You have a point of course. As a person of Christian faith, I freely acknowledge that I’ve been very strongly influenced by the sayings and stories of Jesus that I’ve heard and read. As C S Lewis put it, I feel like I’ve met a person. That’s the sense in which Christians say that Jesus is the Living Word, not just a purveyor of powerful words.
And I believe I share that experience with those who have recorded for me this Living Word. I belong to that community of faith and feel privileged to be so. I’ve become personally aware of that living community. I very much liked the way @LatchKeyKid put it.
Now of course if one is not in that living community, this sounds very odd! How can someone today have that sense of the person who founded this community as being somehow living? Christians say that is the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts and minds. So we are grateful for that and grateful for the witnesses.
Feel free to see us as deluded if you want. But that’s what it’s like.
Splendidly put! I too am 'deluded' .... but I know, 'In Him I live and breathe and have my being'.
Delusion it may be but it gives my life meaning, shape, a community, customs to follow and (now and again) deep joy.
Sorry for the tangent!
My personal struggle with, 'when the Bible doesn't mean what it says' is trying to explain to deeply conservative Christians why I'm happy in churches with a gay priest, a lady vicar or why (as a divorced person) my second marriage has been so deeply blessed and broadened my own ministy when some Christians would consider me deeply disobedient to what they maintain is 'His revealed Word'.
But there you go!
As far as writing about events decades ago, I have two comments. First I could give you a fairly good overview of, say, the Falklands war four and a half decades ago, or someone’s personal experience of the aftermath of the Harrods bombing a year later. I could give you much more detail of the time I was fairly badly burnt, now over fifty years ago. None of these events have occupied my mind much in the intervening years, and I’m from a non-oral culture with no regular practice of oral transmission. (In a different context, Alex Haley’s Roots gives evidence of the remarkable power of oral transmission of historical events.)
You ask and, bluntly, I think the simple answer is ‘no’. But the evidence to back up that simple answer involves a deep dive into the cultural milieu of the early church. That goes too for your comment about Zeus.
As for the idea of living witnesses not being persuasive is that because you don’t believe there were living witnesses, or you think they were wrong about what they’d experienced? Mark’s gospel, complete with ‘dramatic parts’ is generally agreed to have reached its present form in about 70 CE - comfortably within the possible life span of a reasonably large number of living witnesses, and a much larger number of those who had heard directly from them.
Indeed.
Of course I’m not saying there is nothing of value in the GOT. I’ve found lots of things of value in early non-canonical Christian writings. Some more than others!
I just can’t see how verse 114 could be interpreted of saying something of value. I can see it’s a correction of what Simon Peter is recorded of saying. A kind of attempted cure. But that recorded attempted cure seems worse than the disease!
I believe the GOT was included in some biblical reprint a few years ago but I can’t remember the details. One of the arguments IIRC related to the alleged antiquity of the writing which I also believe had been unearthed or rediscovered quite recently. That hardly seems enough to justify its inclusion in the canon.
All the other stuff sounds to me like special pleading because someone thousands of years later wants it to be factually true.
Time for me to think about other stuff.
I haven't a clue! That's why I wanted someone to preach on it. Even if the parable of the flour jar ISN'T from Jesus (and I certainly wouldn't claim it was), someone invented it and thought it served a purpose. I just can't think what that purpose was.
One of the gifts of knowing Christ as a real person, however odd the knowing is, since it isn't quite like how we know the tangible, audible people around us-- but as I started to say, one of the gifts of knowing him is being surprised by him. It's the gift of learning to trust myself to him, even when I don't understand him, even when he puts me in a community of people some of whom are very unlike me and not at all the kind of people I would gravitate towards, left to myself. And he goes on surprising me through them as well, and I become more and more aware of just how often I don't have all the puzzle pieces, can't make out how things work logically or why--and Jesus is perfectly fine with that, he doesn't feel the need to explain himself to me, just as long as I've got enough to go on with--which in the case of people very different from me, usually means just loving them. Even when it comes to my own self, I'm finding I don't understand stuff--and when I ask, as often as not I get the answer, "Never mind that right now, I love you," and a gentle push toward whatever it is I'm supposed to be getting on with.
This is of course very frustrating for me with my tendencies toward worry and my desire to have it all figured out; but it reassures me I'm dealing with the real Lord and not some figment of my imagination, who would be so much more controllable.
It also reminds me I'm not in charge of the universe and I can let him get on with it, including cases where I might think a fellow Christian--or myself!--is somehow messing up. That's his call and his business, even if the one I'm disturbed about is me. He'll cope with whatever changes need making in his own time and way--that is, if he thinks there are changes to make. (It was odd discovering that something in my own life that kind of horrified me didn't disturb him at all. Eventually I worked through the logic of it, but what a weird experience, to find myself more puritan than God!)
I guess that resonates with the GOT saying.
That's good. I could see how a preacher could run with this on the topic of sustaining faith.
I hear what you’re saying about myths not depending on witnesses — that’s true in many cultures. But I’m not sure it follows that the early Christians simply wrote down whatever “felt right.”
These were small, argumentative communities that policed their own traditions pretty fiercely. If someone started circulating a story that contradicted what people believed they had received from earlier teachers, it didn’t usually survive. That doesn’t prove the stories are historically exact, but it does mean the process wasn’t as loose or free‑form as “someone dreamed it and everyone accepted it.”
You’re absolutely right that dramatic elements can grow over time. The real debate is how much growth happened in the first century and what constraints those communities placed on it.
What do you make of my parousia (imminent expectation of the Second Coming) argument as a factor in the timing of the production of the written gospels?
It’s pretty clear from the Pauline letters that the expectation was imminent for him. You get the impression that he saw evangelisation as urgent for that reason. Or at least I do.
I think that makes the oral tradition more important than written gospels at that time.
I agree with why the Gospels were written down. The first witnesses were passing on. I do think the Gospels were written to counter some of the false information that were developing too. For instance, the Gospel of John is a good counter against Gnosticism.
I am a strong proponent of realized eschatology. It does not replace the expectation of the Parousia, but it reframes how the early Christians understood God's future breaking into their present. Realized eschatology explains why the church didn't abandon hope when the Parousia didn't occur immediately. They believe the end has already broken in if not yet completed.
Modern Christians believe Christ is already present. The Spirit is still active. Salvation is underway. There is still a not yet, though. The world is not yet healed. Justice is still incomplete. But Christ will come again.
That doesn't mean that Roots isn't of value in providing a 'feel' as it were for the chattel slave experience.
As far as oral tradition and the early Church goes, well yes, it predated the Gospels but that doesn't mean the Gospel writers simply transposed oral stories into written form.
Yes, as an Orthodox Christian I do put a lot of emphasis on the faith being handed down and received 'in community' but equally I agree with what @Gramps49 and others have said about the literary aspects.
The Gospel writers drew parallels and examples from OT texts in a 'midrash' type of way.
I don’t see these views as incompatible. I think it's safe to say that a belief in the virgin birth, for example, was an early one.
Did Matthew 'invent' that or was he dealing with a belief that was already out there but presenting it in a literary way drawing on OT tropes?
That's not to try and move the discussion back to the virgin birth specifically.
But what I think we are dealing with is a fertile synergy between oral tradition and literary accounts in symbiotic relationship with one another - and in a disputatious community that was developing ways of 'policing' its beliefs and so shaping them as it did so.
Big T Tradition people would see this process as guided by the Holy Spirit of course.
Sola scriptura types would hold to that in respect of the development of the NT canon, of course, but not extend it much further than that.
One other factor re Paul. After the road to Damascus I’m pretty sure he would have looked at what were seen by 1st century Christians as prophetic statements re the coming of the Messiah. We can be certain that he knew the Torah very well. Just to give one example, the Epistle to the Galatians contains extensive OT quotations, a pattern that we see throughout the foundational letters.
A similar argument applies to the oral traditions. The most striking example is about the resurrection (1 Cor 15 v3ff). That reference is particularly interesting since he talks about the risen Jesus being seen by more than 500 at once, an account which isn’t in the canonical gospels.
(For @Lamb Chopped ’s benefit, that’s an illustration of how evidence of a prior oral tradition can be found in the written scriptures)
Re the parousia. I’m completely at one with your comments. The kingdom both is, and not yet.
I’ve never been able to find anything nailing down when these three blessings entered into general use or became part of the Siddur, though they seem to have been in place fairly early in the Common Era. But the parallels with what Paul wrote to the Galatians seem too spot on to be coincidental.
I havy wondered if these prayers were much like the story of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14)
@Lamb Chopped
Apologies for taking Nick first. I knew my response to you would take longer to formulate.
I think part of the confusion here is that “oral tradition” in biblical studies doesn’t mean “people making things up because it feels right” or “God whispering story ideas into someone’s head.” It’s simply the technical term for how teachings and stories were preserved, repeated, and passed on in a culture where most people didn’t write.
In other words, “oral tradition” is about transmission, not inspiration.
Scholars use it to describe:
Communal memory—stories repeated in fixed patterns so they can be remembered
Teaching cycles—sayings grouped together because that’s how a rabbi taught
Controlled retelling—elders or eyewitnesses correcting versions that drift
Performance—stories shaped for recitation, not private reading
None of that implies deceit, fabrication, or “whatever feels right.” It’s just how information moved in the first century.
So when someone says Matthew or Luke drew on “oral tradition,” they’re not saying the evangelists invented things. They’re saying the evangelists worked with the living, spoken material their communities had been preserving—just as every ancient historian did before widespread literacy.
I am still saying that I don't see how oral tradition as it is usually meant in non-biblical literature (my field) develops in a single lifetime. Or are you pushing Paul back into the next century?
I was trying to think if there was a writer with an accessible style who helps folks to understand the processes of identification.
Personally I got a lot out of Jimmy Dunn who is in my mind a “critical user” of oral tradition understandings. I think “Jesus Remembered” is a masterpiece. But it’s a thousand pages long, massively referenced, and I’m not sure I’d describe it as easily accessible!
Maybe others have a recommendation or two?
I think I was saying Paul knew some oral traditions as they were developing. He would have known the witness of all the disciples who attended the first council of Jerusalem. He obviously was familiar with many of the early church's hymns, which are a means of carrying on oral traditions.
Mark was, what, two generations away from the events he wrote about. The writer of Matthew was three generations away. Luke four generations away. I particularly note what Luke says in his preamble. He begins by acknowledging that he is not the first to attempt a written narrative about Jesus. There were already earlier sources, oral traditions and eyewitness testimony.
For that matter, what dates do you accept for the Gospels?
I note your pejorative about modern scholarship.
"Still it moves."
A generation is 20 years.
To the second question Mark was likely written shortly after the destruction of the temple, around 75 CE. Matthew was likely between 80-90 years, lets say 85 CE. Since it appears Luke used both Matthew and Mark as sources, I would place him closer to 90 years. There is a give and take of about 5 years.
I do know conservatives argue they were written about 10 to twenty years earlier. Luke likely around 60 CE
If anything, there is a two stage model of Gospel formation. There is the early apostolic tradition going from 30-60 CE. That would be the first generation.
In this stage we would likely find
eyewitness preaching,
early written collectons (the sayings, miracle stories, the passion narrative)
And travel notes (Luke's travel diaries.)
Then there is the second state 60-90 CE
This is where the Evangelists shape, arrange, and interpret earlier material.
Communities influence emphasis, not content
Theological framing develops
The Gospels contain early, apostolic eyewitness material but their final literary form reflects later theological shaping and community context.
One reason (though there are many) for this belief is that their birth narratives are so very different. Although they both have a Virgin Birth in Bethlehem, almost everything else is different. We blithely reconcile the two narratives at Christmas, often failing to see how much they differ and appreciating their distinctiveness.
Matthew tells his audience to keep their prayers short and sweet and private.
Luke has a theme of telling his audience to not give up on prayer and parables about prayer. Luke's audience asks Jesus to tell them how to pray. Jesus does , but provides a much shorter prayer than in Matthew.
Matthew's audience has no such need and, for a Jewish audience, they are told not to copy the practices of the gentiles.
‘Generation’ is a very unsatisfactory measure since there are different definitions of generation, and differing lengths of time involved.
I also think Matthew and Luke are about the same date. The evidence that Luke used Matthew rather than Luke and Matthew both having used a common source is thin and unconvincing.
So if Luke and Matthew were being written now (and let’s go for 85 CE as a plausible date) they would effectively be achieving their final literary form in relation to events in the late 1960s-early 1970s (birth and childhood narratives excepted).
Certainly there is some scope for telling the story in such a way as to meet particular needs or agendas (just as we can see with news outlets today), but I find the idea of major ‘creativity’ unconvincing.
Incidentally, Polycarp says Matthew wrote the document scholars now call Q, and doesn't say who edited that into Mark to produce the Gospel. I find that interesting in that scholars who place weight on traditional attributions often don't believe in Q and vice versa.
If you're talking about "understandings" plural I think your confidence that any one of those understandings is better should be accordingly reduced.
I remember Robin Lane Fox's book about the Bible in the early nineties. Fox is an atheist classical historian. He caused a bit of a general outrage in the world of biblical scholarship because he took at face value the claim that John was based on an eyewitness account and that Luke was based on eyewitness testimony. Now normally when a scholar comes into one discipline from an outside discipline and questions a consensus of the discipline they're coming into, one would say they're out of their depth. But Biblical scholarship claims to be applying the methods of secular classical history. If a secular classical historian comes in and reaches different conclusions that implies that the claim that Biblical scholarship applies the methods of secular classical history neutrally is doubtful.
There is a bias based on Christian, especially evangelical belief, towards taking the gospels as meticulous transcripts of all events as they occurred. Biblical scholarship often seems to me to radically overcompensate.