Theology of the New Testament

Frank S. Thielman

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780310864332
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Studying the theology of the New Testament can be a daunting task, even to the knowledgeable Bible student or pastor. Each of the twenty-seven books, written by various authors, has its own theological emphasis and nuances. How do we elicit a coherent message from such theological diversity, especially given that some of the theological statements in the New Testament seem to be at odds with one another? Is such an endeavor achievable or even valid? Theology of the New Testament takes a balanced approach in response to these challenges. Frank Thielman presents a theology of the New Testament that is careful to take into account the cultural and historical circumstances surrounding each book and the New Testament as a whole. He not only examines each book's theological content individually, but also in relation to the rest of the New Testament, particularly within each of the three theological units that comprise the New Testament: the gospels and Acts, the Pauline epistles, and the general epistles and Revelation. This canonical and synthetic approach honors both the theological diversity of the various books and the theological connections between the books. In the end, Thielman finds a unified theological vision of the New Testament, anchored in the centrality of Jesus Christ. Frank Thielman's Theology of the New Testament is an outstanding achievement. The book is marked by scholarly depth, exegetical rigor, and theological profundity. Both students and professors will profit immensely from this lucid treatment of the theology contained in the New Testament documents. Thomas R. Schreiner Professor of New Testament, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary An accessible presentation of the key theological points of the New Testament books by an accomplished New Testament scholar and teacher. Its clear style, lucid organization, and sound theological insight make it a prime resource for serious students in both the academy and the church. Karen H. Jobes, PhD Associate Professor of New Testament, Westmont College

Part One

THE GOSPELS AND ACTS

Chapter 2

THE PERSISTENCE AND IMPORTANCE OF A FOURFOLD GOSPEL

The New Testament contains four narrative witnesses to the ministry of Jesus, each of which describes the theological significance of Christ in distinctive ways. Since Acts is an integral part of Luke’s two-part narrative, it is also part of the fourfold narrative witness to Jesus. Much common theological ground unites these books—they all describe “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1)—but they are also, as their titles suggest, the discrete witnesses of four separate authors (whoever they might be) to this one gospel. The unwillingness of many early Christians, at least from the third century, to consider more or fewer gospels than these four as primary narrative witnesses to the significance of Jesus has posed, and continues to pose, an apologetic problem for the church. Similarly, the plurality and diversity of these four witnesses has over the centuries been the delight of the church’s critics.

Despite intense pressure from opponents of Christianity, from heretical movements that wanted to identify with historic Christianity, and from orthodox Christians themselves, however, the church eventually decided against either accepting more than these gospel narratives or reducing the offensive plurality of the gospels to a single, manageable narrative. The majority of Christians over the centuries has insisted that these four, in all their diversity, but only these four gospel narratives, bear a wholly truthful witness to the one gospel of Jesus Christ. Before investigating the discrete theological intentions of these four narratives and discussing what unites them in the following chapters, therefore, it will be helpful to reflect on the ancient church’s reasons for its commitment to these four gospels and the relevance of its reasoning to more recent challenges to their authority.

DIVERSITY AMONG THE GOSPELS AS A PROBLEM IN THE EARLY CHURCH

Efforts to Reduce or Harmonize the Gospels

As early as the second century, some people who followed Jesus felt the diversity of the four most widely accepted gospels to be a problem. In the middle of the century, Marcion claimed that the four gospels reflected the corrupt Judaizing tendencies of those who wrote them. He tried to restore the single, Pauline gospel in all its purity by radically editing Luke’s gospel, the one of the four most closely linked with Paul.¹ In later years, Marcion’s followers claimed that the differences between their own gospel and the gospels of the orthodox church signaled the falsity of the orthodox gospels.²

The Gospel of Peter also appeared about this time, and although we neither have its text in its entirety nor do we know the motives for its production, it may have been an attempt to combine elements of the four widely accepted gospels (in addition to material from other sources) into a single narrative.³ This single narrative is then attributed to the preeminent apostle Peter. Although it is impossible to say for certain, the editor of this text may have wanted to produce a single, authoritative gospel that would replace the four widely known gospels of the church.⁴

More orthodox attempts at harmonizing may have occurred with Justin Martyr and Theophilus of Antioch, but the effort of Justin’s pupil Tatian was the most thoroughgoing and widely known of such attempts.⁵ Tatian wove a lengthy and rich narrative of Jesus’ life out of the four widely accepted gospels and called it “the gospel from the four,” or, in Greek, [to] dia tessaron [euangelion]: the Diatessaron.⁶ Although we cannot speak precisely of Tatian’s motives, we know from his Oration to the Greeks that he valued simplicity and unity as signs of truth in both religion and historical narrative. This philosophical commitment may have led him to try to advance the cause of the church by creating a harmony of its four diverse, but widely accepted, narratives of Jesus’ ministry.⁷

Tatian’s effort evidently struck a resonant cord with many Christians. His Diatressaron became so popular in the Syriac-speaking church that it was read in worship, and the four separate gospels were not translated into Syriac until the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century.⁸ Eusebius, writing in the early fourth century, said that copies of the Diatessaron were still in circulation in his own time, and the fifth-century Bishop of Cyrrhus, Theodoret, felt compelled to insist that copies of the work be destroyed and replaced with the four gospels. Both manuscript discoveries and literary inferences show that the Diatessaron existed in Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Latin, Old High German, Middle Dutch, and Middle English.⁹

While all this was happening overtly, a few of the scribes who preserved the texts of the four gospels supplied a steady undercurrent of harmonizing readings. Those given to harmonizing tendencies found particularly offensive the differences between these gospels in the passion and resurrection narratives and devised often subtle means for smoothing out what they took to be discrepancies.¹⁰ The longer ending of Mark is one of the earlier and bolder attempts to harmonize the ending of the gospels. It was probably constructed in the early second century in part from the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances in the other three gospels.¹¹ This addition to Mark must have repaired what many felt was a major discrepancy between Mark and its three companions: the absence of resurrection appearances of the Lord.

The Use of Gospel Differences in Anti-Christian Polemic

Coinciding with this evidence of discomfort with the fourfold gospel among many early Christians is evidence that opponents of Christianity regularly pointed to supposed discrepancies between the gospels as proof that Christianity was false. Celsus, writing about A.D. 180, knew of Christian efforts to harmonize their gospels and made merry over it:

Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in face of criticism.¹²

Whether Celsus was thinking of Marcion, Tatian, the harmonizing work of scribes, or simply the diversity of the gospels themselves remains obscure.¹³ It is clear, however, that he saw the variations in the three (or four) gospels as an embarrassment for Christians and charged them with attempting to remove this stumbling block by tampering with their texts.

About a century later, the philosopher Porphyry produced his book Against the Christians, which engaged in a much more detailed critique of the inconsistencies that he thought plagued the four gospels. He pointed out, for example, the differences that a minute comparison of their accounts of Jesus’ death revealed. Especially telling for Porphyry were the differences in Jesus’ final words and the absence from the Synoptics of John’s reference to the piercing of Jesus’ side.¹⁴ The problem that Porphyry’s detailed criticism of the differences between the four gospels posed for Christian apologists is clear from Augustine’s laborious attempt a whole century later to refute him.

In his treatise On the Harmony of the Gospels, Augustine says that he undertook this work because the adversaries of Christianity “are in the habit of adducing” as their primary evidence “that the evangelists are not in harmony with one another” (1.10; cf. 1.52; 2.1). Throughout his treatise, he seems to be thinking primarily of Porphyry.¹⁵

The Response of the Orthodox Church

Despite the pressure exerted by these forces, both from within orthodoxy and outside its bounds, and despite the high quality of Tatian’s carefully constructed mega-gospel, most Christians refused to abandon the four ancient witnesses to the founding events of their faith. Marcion’s insistence on a single gospel was rejected. The Gospel of Peter, although it enjoyed acceptance in the church at Rhossus in Syria and although Serapion, the early third-century bishop of Antioch, tolerated it for a time, was evidently not widely known even during Serapion’s time and was never widely accepted.¹⁶ Tatian’s Diatessaron was rejected eventually even in Syria as an unfit substitute for the four gospels. The very subtlety with which the scribes who made harmonizing changes to the gospels tried to hide their repairs also demonstrates their awareness that most Christians frowned on the practice. Origen considered scribes who purposely harmonized the gospels to be rascals: “Villainous recklessness” drove them to harmonize the text (Comm. Matt. 15.14).¹⁷ Jerome, writing to Pope Damasus in the late fourth century, was also deeply annoyed:

The numerous errors in our manuscripts result first and foremost from the fact that those passages in the gospels which record the same event have been filled out from one another. To avoid the difficulties in the four gospels, men have taken as a model the first account they have read, and then corrected the others to bring them into line with it.¹⁸

Most Christians wanted their four ancient witnesses to the one gospel to stand as they were, in all their “offensive” diversity. Even Augustine, although writing specifically to explain how the four gospels can be historically credible despite supposed discrepancies, affirmed the need for their separate witness to “the gospel” and did not wish to replace them with a single, harmonious narrative (Cons. 1.1–9).

The Reasons for This Response

The reasons for this reaction to attempts to remove the offensive diversity of the four gospels were theological. Three reasons seem to have been particularly important.

The Theological Necessity of Truthful History

The early Christians had a theological stake in an accurate historical record of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Their one gospel made historical claims, and fraudulent forms of that gospel also made historical claims. It was critical, therefore, that orthodox early Christians plant their own theological convictions firmly in the earliest witnesses to Jesus and his significance. The efforts of Marcion, Tatian, and harmonizing scribes were useless for this purpose—they simply did not have antiquity on their side. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, however, were from an early date and considered by a wide variety of parties to be the best witnesses to the historical Jesus.

Irenaeus, writing in the second half of the second century, claimed that both orthodox and heretical Christians grappled for control of the four gospels because of the widespread conviction that these gospels were the best witnesses to the historical Jesus and his teaching:

So firm is the ground upon which these Gospels rest, that the very heretics themselves bear witness to them, and, starting from these [documents], each one of them endeavours to establish his own peculiar doctrine.¹⁹

Irenaeus then listed four heretical groups, each of which had attached itself to a particular gospel: the Ebionites to Matthew, Marcionites to Luke, docetists to Mark, and Valentinians to John. He concluded this section with this observation: “Since, then, our opponents do bear testimony to us, and make use of these [documents], our proof derived from them is firm and true.”

Everyone, in other words, had to appeal to these four texts because they were commonly accepted as the best witnesses to the real Jesus. Whatever the theological battle, it had to be fought on the battlefield of the gospels because they were considered the authoritative voices on Jesus.

The validity of Irenaeus’s claim about the widespread recognition of the four gospels is confirmed when we move back into the first half of the second century. Justin Martyr, writing around A.D. 136, can speak of “the memoirs which I say were drawn up by His apostles and those who followed them.”²⁰ This implies that Justin knew at least four gospels, at least two by apostles and two by followers.²¹ It seems reasonable to conclude that he was speaking of Matthew and John (both apostles) and of Luke and Mark (both followers of apostles), and doing so in an order that corresponds to the sequence in which the four gospels appear in many ancient gospel collections.²²

This conclusion becomes all but certain when we realize that Justin quotes from all three Synoptics and probably alludes to John’s gospel, but never from noncanonical gospels. He feels, moreover, no need to argue for the authority of these gospels but takes their authority for granted. Statistical analysis of the actual use of the gospels in early Christian literature shows why Justin could do this: From the time of the Apostolic Fathers o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION
• Part One: THE GOSPELS AND ACTS
• Part Two: THE PAULINE LETTERS
• Part Three: THE NON–PAULINE LETTERS AND THE REVELATION OF JOHN
• CONCLUSION
• WORKS CITED
• SCRIPTURE AND APOCRYPHA INDEX
• OTHER ANCIENT LITERATURE INDEX
• SUBJECT INDEX
• MODERN AUTHOR INDEX
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher