Question of the Week #977: Genesis 1-11 and the Gospels

0:00Hi Dr. Craig, I have read your hermeneutics in Old Testament and they are unbelievable good. In chapter 2 you list 10 family resemblances among myths and Genesis 1 to 11. That lead you conclude myths are sacred narratives. When it comes for the New Testament, specifically the Four Gospels, which family resemblances do they share with other ancient biographies? And which kind of attitude the Orthodox Christian should have when approaching these texts as historical documents? Thank you Rodrigo, Brazil. I'm so grateful Rodrigo that you have evidently taken the time and effort to read my book in quest of the historical atom. Even though it is not yet available in Portuguese, and so has become the victim of misrepresentation

1:04in Brazil. A small correction to your question, I argue not that myths are sacred narratives, which is the standard characterization of myths among folklorists, but rather that Genesis 1 to 11 exhibits a striking number of the family resemblances of myth and are therefore quasi-mythical in their descriptions of historical events. The contrast of these narratives with the Gospels is striking. On the basis of family resemblances among ancient biographies, Richard Burridge demonstrated that the Gospels most closely resemble the genre of ancient biography or lives in Greek bioi of famous Greeks and Romans. He lists quite a number of both external, structural and formal, and internal, content-related

2:12features. He compares the Gospels with ancient biographies in terms of external features like size, structure, scale, literary units, use of sources, and so on, and internal features like topics, style, atmosphere, quality of characterization, social setting, and so on. Rather than delve into all of these, which would take too long, let me simply quote his summations concerning the synoptic Gospels. The external structural pattern of the Gospels is clear. They are works of prose narrative of medium length with an apparently chronological structure into which topical material is inserted. Written on a fairly narrow scale, focused on Jesus, composed from different literary units

3:20of stories and sayings, selected from both oral and written sources, in order to portray the central character of Jesus through his deeds and words and the reactions of others to him. Not all of these generic features are unique to the B.O.I. literature, but the overall combination of them reflects the same family resemblance as was seen in our study of Greco-Roman B.O.I. The synoptic Gospels share the B.O.S. pattern of internal features. The geographical and dramatic settings are focused on Jesus, and selection is made from the usual biographical topics. The style and social setting are probably more down-market than our other examples, but

4:20they have a similarly serious and respectful atmosphere. The quality of characterization is a mix of the real and stereo type, while the range of purposes is also similar, especially the didactic and apologetic. Overall, the mixture of internal features is familiar from our study of B.O.I. End quote. The implication of Berge's genre analysis of the Gospels is that they are a form of historical narrative. But not with the same features as modern biographies. For example, rather than provide a chronological account of the principal figure from the cradle to the grave, ancient biographies will typically tell anecdotes to illustrate the character of the principal figure.

5:22This should dispel any popular level suspicions that my genre analysis of Genesis 1 to 11 might be used to classify the Gospels as myths.