The Gospels Are Historical Biographies

Two of the gospels explicitly claim to tell us what Jesus actually did and said and to be based on eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1-4; John 21:20-24).

Luke 1:1-4 - LSB

¹ Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ² just as those, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, handed them down to us, ³ it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in orderly sequence, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ so that you may know the certainty about the things you have been taught.

John 21:20-24 - LSB

²⁰ Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” ²¹ So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” ²² Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” ²³ Therefore this saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” ²⁴ This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true.

They also claim that they are based on eyewitness testimony. In other words, they insist that they are historical biographies (remember opening of Luke).

In order to understand the importance of Luke’s prologue for our argument, four points need to be explained.

• First, as many scholars point out, Luke’s prologue is strikingly similar to the prologues found in ancient Greco-Roman histories, by authors such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Josephus.¹ Like the prologues of other ancient histories, Luke’s prologue is intended to signal to the reader that the Gospel is historical in character.
• Second, Luke uses the word “narrative” (Greek diēgēsis ) to describe his book. As Joseph Fitzmyer has shown, ancient Greco-Roman authors often use this word specifically for “the writing of history” (see Josephus, Life , 336; Lucian, How to Write History, 55).²
• Third, Luke insists that his historical narrative is based on the testimony of “eyewitnesses (Greek autoptai ) from the beginning” of Jesus’s public ministry. Now, why would Luke emphasize the eyewitness nature of his sources if he were just telling folktales? Clearly, Luke wants his readers to know that what he says about Jesus can be corroborated by those who knew him. Fourth and finally, Luke explicitly states that he is writing so that his audience might know “the facts” (Greek asphaleian ). Although some English Bibles translate the Greek word asphalēia as “truth,” elsewhere Luke consistently uses it to refer to secure and verifiable facts (see Acts 21:34; 22:30; 25:26).³ In other words, the Gospel of Luke begins by insisting that it is an accurate, factual account, based directly on eyewitness testimony of what Jesus did and said. In support of this, in the book of Acts, Luke refers back to his own Gospel as an account of “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). So much for the idea that the writers of the Gospels did not intend to tell us “what Jesus really did and said”!⁴ According to Luke, that is exactly what he did in writing his Gospel.

And it’s not just Luke. The same thing is true of the Gospel of John. In John’s account of the death of Jesus on the cross and at the very end of the Gospel, the author insists that his Gospel is based on eyewitness testimony:

John 19:35 - LSB

³⁵ And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

John 21:24-25 - LSB

²⁴ This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true. ²⁵ And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written one after the other, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Notice that the eyewitness “testimony” (Greek martyria ) contained in the Gospel of John is not just any kind of truth. It is the truth about the things Jesus “did” (Greek epoiēsen). In this way, the author of the Gospel signals to his readers that he is writing a kind of historical biography in which he intends to record what Jesus actually did (see also John 20:30; 21:25).⁵

References / Sources

• The Case for Jesus, p 79

Footnotes

1. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke , 1.288. Compare Josephus, Against Apion , 1.1–3. ↩︎

2. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke , 1.292. ↩︎

3. Ibid., 1.300. ↩︎

4. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God , 93. ↩︎

5. See the massive work of Keener, The Gospel of John , 3–52. ↩︎