Editing Gospel (section)

===Genre and historical reliability===
{{main|Historical reliability of the Gospels|Quest for the historical Jesus}}

The consensus among modern scholars is that the gospels are a subset of the ancient genre of ''bios'', or [[ancient biography]].{{sfn|Lincoln|2004|p=133}} Ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate while preserving and promoting the subject's reputation and memory; the gospels were never simply biographical, they were [[propaganda]] and ''[[kerygma]]'' (preaching),{{sfn|Dunn|2005|p=174}} meant to convince people that Jesus was a charismatic miracle-working holy man.{{sfn|Ehrman|1999|p=52}}{{sfn|Vermes|2013|p=32}}  As such, they present the Christian message of the second half of the first century AD,{{sfn|Keith|Le Donne|2012|p={{page needed|date=July 2021}}}} and modern [[Biblical studies|biblical scholars]] are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically as historical documents,{{sfn|Schoeps|1968|p=261–262}}{{sfn|Sanders|2010}}{{sfn|Ehrman|1999|p=53}}{{refn|group=note|name="a-historical"}}{{refn|group=note|name="nativity"}} though they provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus.{{sfn|Sanders|1995b|p=4-5}}{{refn|group=note|name="Sanders_public_career"}}

The majority view among critical scholars is that the authors of Matthew and Luke based their narratives on Mark's gospel, editing him to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies among these three versions and John make it impossible to accept both traditions as equally reliable with regard to the historical Jesus.{{sfn|Tuckett|2000|p=523}} In addition, the gospels read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading [[Origen]] to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great [...] [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please."{{sfn|Ehrman|2005a|pp=7, 52}} Most of these are insignificant, but some are significant,{{sfn|Ehrman|2005a|p=69}} an example being Matthew 1:18, altered to imply the pre-existence of Jesus.{{sfn|Ehrman|1996|pp=75-76}} For these reasons, modern scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of later authors.{{sfn|Reddish|2011|pp=21–22}}

Scholars usually agree that John is not without historical value: certain of its sayings are as old or older than their synoptic counterparts, and its representation of the [[topography]] around [[Jerusalem]] is often superior to that of the synoptics. Its testimony that Jesus was executed before, rather than on, Passover, might well be more accurate, and its presentation of Jesus in the garden and the prior meeting held by the Jewish authorities are possibly more historically plausible than their synoptic parallels.{{sfn|Theissen|Merz|1998|pp=36–37}} Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that the author had direct knowledge of events, or that his mentions of the [[Beloved Disciple]] as his source should be taken as a guarantee of his reliability,{{sfn|Lincoln|2005|p=26}} and the Synoptic Gospels are the primary sources for Christ's ministry.{{sfn|Sanders|2010}}{{refn|group=note|name="Sanders_primary_sources"}}

Assessments of the reliability of the [[Gospels]] involve not just the texts but studying the long oral and written transmission behind them using methods like memory studies and [[form criticism]], with different scholars coming to different conclusions. There have been different views on the transmission of material that lead to the [[synoptic gospels]], with various scholars arguing memory and orality reliably preserved traditions that ultimately go back to the historical Jesus.{{sfn|Dunn|1995}}<ref name="Wright 1998"/><ref name="Bockmuehl 2006 166–178"/><ref name="McIver 2011"/> Other scholars have been more skeptical and see more changes in the traditions prior to the written Gospels.{{sfn|Ehrman|1997}}{{sfn|Valantasis|Bleyle|Haugh|2009}} Jeffrey Tripp observes a scholarly trend advocating for the reliability of memory and the oral gospel traditions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Tripp |first=Jeffrey |title=The Eyewitnesses in their Own Words |journal=Journal for the Study of the New Testament |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=411-12}}</ref>

[[James D.G. Dunn]] believed that
{{blockquote|the earliest tradents within the Christian churches [were] preservers more than innovators [...] seeking to transmit, retell, explain, interpret, elaborate, but not create ''de novo'' [...] Through the main body of the Synoptic tradition [...] we have in most cases direct access to the teaching and ministry of Jesus as it was remembered from the beginning of the transmission process [...] and so fairly direct access to the ministry and teaching of Jesus through the eyes and ears of those who went about with him.{{sfn|Dunn|1995|pp=371–372}}}}
Anthony Le Donne, a leading memory researcher in Jesus studies, elaborated on Dunn's thesis, basing "his historiography squarely on Dunn’s thesis that the historical Jesus is the memory of Jesus recalled by the earliest disciples."<ref name="Simpson">{{cite web |first=Benjamin I. |last=Simpson |date=April 1, 2014 |title=review of ''The Historiographical Jesus. Memory, Typology, and the Son of David'' |url=https://voice.dts.edu/review/historiographical-jesus-le-donne/ |website=The Voice |publisher=Dallas Theological Seminary}}</ref> According to Le Donne as explained by his reviewer, Benjamin Simpson, memories are fractured, and not exact recalls of the past. Le Donne further argues that the remembrance of events is facilitated by relating it to a common story, or "type." This means the Jesus-tradition is not a theological invention of the early Church, but rather a tradition shaped and refracted through such memory "type." Le Donne too supports a conservative view on typology compared to some other scholars, transmissions involving eyewitnesses, and ultimately a stable tradition resulting in little invention in the Gospels.<ref name="Simpson"/> Le Donne expressed himself thusly vis-a-vis more skeptical scholars, "He (Dale Allison) does not read the gospels as fiction, but even if these early stories derive from memory, memory can be frail and often misleading. While I do not share Allison's point of departure (i.e. I am more optimistic), I am compelled by the method that came from it."<ref>{{cite book |last= Le Donne |first= Anthony |year= 2018 |title= Jesus: A Beginner's Guide |publisher= Oneworld Publications |page= 212 |isbn= 978-1786071446}}</ref>

[[Dale Allison]] emphasizes the weakness of human memory, referring to its 'many sins' and how it frequently misguides people. He expresses skepticism at other scholars' endeavors to identify authentic sayings of Jesus. Instead of isolating and authenticating individual pericopae, Allison advocates for a methodology focused on identifying patterns and finding what he calls 'recurrent attestation'. Allison argues that the general impressions left by the Gospels should be trusted, though he is more skeptical on the details; if they are broadly unreliable, then our sources almost certainly cannot have preserved any of the particulars. Opposing preceding approaches where the Gospels are historically questionable and must be rigorously sifted through by competent scholars for nuggets of information, Allison argues that the Gospels are generally accurate and often 'got Jesus right'. Dale Allison finds apocalypticism to be recurrently attested, among various other themes.<ref>{{cite book |last= Allison |first= Dale |author-link= Dale Allison |year= 2010 |title= Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History |publisher= Baker Academic |page=2-8, 8-9, 16-18, 20, 23-26, 33-43|isbn= 978-0801048753}}</ref> Reviewing his work, Rafael Rodriguez largely agrees with Allison's methodology and conclusions while arguing that Allison's discussion on memory is too one-sided, noting that memory "is nevertheless sufficiently stable to authentically bring the past to bear on the present" and that people are beholden to memory's successes in everyday life.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Rodriguez |first= Rafael |year= 2014 |title= Jesus as his Friends Remembered Him |journal= Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus |volume= 12 |issue= 3 |pages= 224–244 |doi= 10.1163/17455197-01203004}}</ref>

[[Craig Keener]], drawing on the works of previous studies by Dunn, Alan Kirk, [[Kenneth E. Bailey|Kenneth Bailey]], and Robert McIver, among many others, utilizes memory theory and oral tradition to argue that the Gospels are in many ways historically accurate.<ref name="Keener 2019">{{cite book |last= Keener |first= Craig |author-link= Craig Keener |year= 2019 |title= Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels |publisher= Eerdmans |isbn= 978-0802876751}}</ref> His work has been endorsed by [[Markus Bockmuehl]], [[James Charlesworth]], and [[David Aune]], among others.<ref name="Keener 2019"/> 
According to [[Bruce Chilton]] and [[Craig A. Evans|Craig Evans]], "...the Judaism of the period treated such traditions very carefully, and the New Testament writers in numerous passages applied to apostolic traditions the same technical terminology found elsewhere in Judaism [...] In this way they both identified their traditions as 'holy word' and showed their concern for a careful and ordered transmission of it."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chilton |first1=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Chilton |last2=Evans |first2=Craig |author-link2=Craig A. Evans |year=1998 |title=Authenticating the Words of Jesus & Authenticating the Activities of Jesus, Volume 2 Authenticating the Activities of Jesus |publisher=Brill |pages=53–55 |isbn=978-9004113022}}</ref> [[NT Wright]] also argued for a stable oral tradition, stating "Communities that live in an oral culture tend to be story-telling communities [...] Such stories [...] acquire a fairly fixed form, down to precise phraseology [...] they retain that form, and phraseology, as long as they are told [...] The storyteller in such a culture has no license to invent or adapt at will. The less important the story, the more the entire community, in a process that is informal but very effective, will keep a close watch on the precise form and wording with which the story is told.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=NT |author-link=NT Wright |chapter=Five Gospels But No Gospel |title=Authenticating the Activities of Jesus|series=
New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents |publisher=Brill |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=112–113 |doi=10.1163/9789004421295_009|editor1=Craig A. Evans |editor2= Bruce Chilton }}</ref>

Other scholars are less sanguine about oral tradition, and Valantasis, Bleyle, and Hough argue that the early traditions were fluid and subject to alteration, sometimes transmitted by those who had known Jesus personally, but more often by wandering prophets and teachers like the [[Apostle Paul]], who did not know him personally.{{sfn|Valantasis|Bleyle|Haugh|2009|pp=7, 10, 14}} Ehrman explains how the tradition developed as it was transmitted:
{{blockquote|You are probably familiar with the old birthday party game "[[Telephone game|telephone]]." A group of kids sits in a circle, the first tells a brief story to the one sitting next to her, who tells it to the next, and to the next, and so on, until it comes back full circle to the one who started it. Invariably, the story has changed so much in the process of retelling that everyone gets a good laugh. Imagine this same activity taking place, not in a solitary living room with ten kids on one afternoon, but over the expanse of the Roman Empire (some 2,500 miles across), with thousands of participants—from different backgrounds, with different concerns, and in different contexts—some of whom have to translate the stories into different languages.{{sfn|Ehrman|1997|p=44}}}}

While multiple quests have been undertaken to reconstruct the historical Jesus, since the late 1990s concerns have been growing about the possibility to reconstruct a historical Jesus from the Gospel-texts.{{sfn|Keith|2016}} According to Dunn, "What we actually have in the earliest retellings of what is now the Synoptic tradition...are the memories of the first disciples-not Jesus himself, but the remembered Jesus. The idea that we can get back to an objective historical reality, which we can wholly separate and disentangle from the disciples' memories...is simply unrealistic."{{sfn|Dunn|2003|p=130-131}}{{sfn|Dunn|2003}}{{refn|group=note|name="Dunn_2003_back_to_Jesus"}} These memories can contradict and are not always historically correct, as the Gospels display. Chris Keith argues that the [[Historical Jesus]] was the one who could create these memories, both true or not. For instance, Mark and Luke disagree on how Jesus came back to the synagogue, with the likely more accurate Mark arguing he was rejected for being an artisan, while Luke portrays Jesus as literate and his refusal to heal in [[Nazareth]] as cause of his dismissal. Keith does not view Luke's account as a fabrication since different eyewitnesses would have perceived and remembered differently.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Keith |first= Chris |year= 2011 |title= Memory and Authenticity: Jesus Tradition and What Really Happened |journal= Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und Kunde der Älteren Kirche |volume= 102 |issue= 2 |pages= 172, 176 |doi= 10.1515/zntw.2011.011}}</ref> According to Chris Keith, a historical Jesus is "ultimately unattainable, but can be hypothesized on the basis of the interpretations of the [[early Christians]], and as part of a larger process of accounting for how and why early Christians came to view Jesus in the ways that they did." According to Keith, "these two models are methodologically and epistemologically incompatible," calling into question the methods and aim of the first model.{{sfn|Keith|2016}} Keith argues that criticism of the criteria of authenticity does not mean scholars cannot research the [[Historical Jesus]], but rather that scholarship should seek to understand the Gospels rather than trying to sift through them for nuggets of history.{{sfn|Keith|2012}} Regardless of the methodological challenges [[historical Jesus]] studies have flowered in recent years; Dale Allison laments, "The publication of academic books about the historical Jesus continues apace, so much so that no one can any longer keep up; we are all overwhelmed."<ref>{{cite book |last=Barber |first=Michael |year=2023 |title=The Historical Jesus and the Temple: Memory, Methodology and the Gospel of Matthew- Foreword by Dale C. Allison, Jr. |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=ix |isbn=978-1009210850}}</ref>