Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§8.1 The Tradition
of analogy (§6.3c). The point was, as Kahler makes clear, that the original
questers were attempting to write biographies on the model of the nineteenthcentury
biography, with its interest in the personal life and development of the
biographical subject. 60 So what Bultmann was actually decrying was the attempt
to write a modern biography of Jesus.
Since the 1970s, however, the question of the Gospels' genre has come under
increasingly close scrutiny, and it has become much clearer that the Gospels
are in fact very similar in type to ancient biographies (Greek bioi; Latin vitae). 61
That is, their interest was not the modem one of analysing the subject's inner life
and tracing how an individual's character developed over time. Rather, the ancient
view was that character was fixed and unchanging; 62 and the biographer's
concern was to portray the chosen subject's character by narrating his words and
deeds. 63 Which is just what we find in the Synoptic (indeed all the canonical)
Gospels, 64 though not, it should be noted, in the other Gospels now frequently
drawn into the neo-Liberal quest. 65 Moreover, it is clear that common purposes
of ancient bioi were to provide examples for their readers to emulate, to give information
about their subject, to preserve his memory, and to defend and promote
his reputation. 66 Here again the Gospels fit the broad genre remarkably
well. 67 Of course, it remains true that the Gospels were never simply biographical;
they were propaganda; they were kerygma. But then neither were ancient biographies
wholly dispassionate and objective (any more than modern biographies).
68 In other words, the overlap between Gospel and ancient biography
remains substantial and significant.
In short, the genre itself tells us at once that there was a considerable historical
interest in the formulating, retelling, and collecting into Gospel format of
the material which now comprises the Synoptic Gospels. 69 This should hardly
60. Kahler, Historical Jesus 55, 63.
61. See particularly D. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1987) chs. 1 and 2; R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison
with Graeco-Roman Biography (SNTSMS 70; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992), both
with further bibliography; Burridge reviews the earlier protests against the critical dogma (the
Gospels not biographies) in ch. 4; D. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie. Die vier
Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst (Tübingen: Francke, 1997).
62. Aune, Literary 28, 63; though note also Burridge, Gospels 183-84.
63. Aune, Literary 30; Burridge, Gospels 144, 150-52, 176-77, 186-88.
64. Aune, Literary 57; Burridge, Gospels particularly 205-206, 211-12.
65. See above, §§4.7 and 7.8.
66. Aune, Literary 36, 62; Burridge, Gospels 150-52, 186-88.
67. Aune, Literary 57-58; Burridge, Gospels 214-17.
68. Recall again the attempts to 'explain' Hitler (above, chapter 6 n. 28).
69. F. G. Downing has argued that in terms of the features of the ancient bios (biography)
adduced by Burridge, Q itself can be designated a bios ('Genre for Q and a Socio-Cultural
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