The Gospels

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt 15:24)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

The name Jesus has always been a mystery to me especially in view of the early church confession:

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:9-10).

Why the mystery? The name Jesus is a Greek translation of Joshua that arises because Greek has no SH sound.

Joshua’ call is informative: “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.” (Josh 1:2) While Joshua led the people of Israel out of the desert into the Promised Land. Jesus leads his people out of bondage to sin into heaven.

This is the gist of what the angel tells Joseph before Jesus is born: “She [Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21) In a general sense, this is what atonement implies—salvation from sin—our sin—so that we can approach God as sons and daughters.

Jesus’ Humanity

Jerome Neyrey (1998, 1-2) notes in his work on the Gospel of Matthew: “The Gospel follow in great measure conventional formulas for praise articulated in the epideictic rhetoric [a kind of oral obituary] of praise and in the rules for the encomium.” The form of an encomium in the Greco-Roman context appears in an handbook known as a progymnasmata, which is a like a school book for students of rhetoric. An encomium must include all aspects of a “hero’s life (birth, education and training, public and death)” and is particularly important in an honor-shame culture. I have said for years that you don’t really know a person until you have attended their funeral because of the variety of testimonials that are given.

The Gospels are not a typical encomium because Jesus rose from the dead. Nevertheless, the Gospel’s introduce us to the humanity of Jesus by telling his life story, teaching, death, and resurrection. Jesus’ divinity breaks through in his life through his healings, signs, wonders, and exorcisms. These are all miraculous and point beyond his life to God and Jesus’ divinity. The implication is that the humanity and the divinity of Jesus are commingled throughout his life.

An audience today would want to know more about Jesus than the Bible records for our benefit. We know nothing about his personal appearance, education, acquaintances, preferences, or language abilities. We are told that he grew up in Nazareth, was conceived out of wedlock, was an ethnic Jew, his family was poor, and he worked as a carpenter (or builder, Mark 6:3 BNT).

Each of these details pose interesting questions. For example, Nazareth in Galilee lay within walking distance of Sepphoris, a city with a Greek theater burned to the ground in 4 BC following a Jewish revolt against the Herodians (Thurman 1996, 18). Was Jesus a poor, country bumpkin or was he something more? Jesus’ social position rides on answers to such questions, yet often the Gospels do not provide us with clear answers.

Relationship among the Gospels

Throughout the history of the church, the Gospel of Matthew was thought to have been the first to be written. Scholars began in the nineteenth century to argue that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke displayed a literary dependence on the Gospel of Mark with common passages being described as part of an unretained Q document. Because of the common themes and passages Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often described as the synoptic Gospels, while the Gospel of John appears somewhat independent of the others.

The uplifting, spiritual nature of John’s Gospel led some early church writers to describe John’s Gospel as “The Eagle” (Rev 12:14). It is John’s Gospel that gives us a picture of Jesus offering one-on-one pastoral care and the only obvious sermon series in scripture—the “I AM” discourses. The synoptic Gospels provide us more a record of Jesus’ public ministry, travels, and conflict with Jewish leaders.

Matthew and Luke appear to follow the encomium form more closely than Mark or John because they begin with birthing stories. In providing a kingly genealogy up front, Matthew actually starts before Jesus’ birth describing Jesus as a son of David and a son of Abraham (Matt 1). Luke dials back to his genealogy after the birthing narrative, but works backward from Jesus to Adam (Luke 3). Mark and John skip the birthing narrative and begin their Gospels with Jesus’ baptism and ministry, offering no genealogies at all.

The Gospels

Also see: