The Critical Approach

Following is an overview of the critical approach used by Dr. Sharman in studying the Records of the Life of Jesus:

The critical study of the gospels involves going back to the oldest available sources and translations and attempting to arrive at the most probable picture of the life, activities and teachings of Jesus.

Knowledge about the life and teachings of Jesus was apparently passed on orally for something like twenty years before there was any serious attempt to assemble it in written form. During this time the accounts were, of course, subject to some modification as they passed from one listener to another. The gospels were all, apparently, based on multiple earlier sources, some of which may have been written in Aramaic (an early form of the Syrian language, the language of Palestine after the captivity, and that spoken by Jesus and the disciples) and others in Greek, so that at least one translation stands between us and the original statements. However, these earliest documents are dated one to two centuries after the original writing, and many copyings intervene. The copying was done largely by monks who penned the new copies as another monk read the document. It was not too difficult for accidental alterations to occur, and some deliberate alterations were made in the interest of “clarification.”

But more serious yet is the fact that during the time the gospels were in this fluid form – as oral tradition and scattered collections of sayings – the early Christian Church was in the process of formulation. The disciples, fully persuaded the resurrection had taken place, went about proclaiming that the Messianic promises to Israel had been fulfilled in Jesus, and that his imminent return would mark the dawn of the Kingdom which he had announced. Such a claim needed documentation to support it, and the recollections of Jesus the Nazarene gradually became transformed into the figure of the Messiah who would fulfill the prophesies of the Old Testament and bring about the restoration of the Jewish state.

At the same time, the Gentile form of Christianity was adopting the more pessimistic doctrine of Apocalyptic Messianism. This denied any positive outcome for this world, and proclaimed that Christ’s return from heaven would bring the affairs of this world to an end, and that he would save out of it those who had accepted him, transporting these elect to the realm of the spirit. Rather than the political kingdom of God on earth, there was substituted the spiritual kingdom of heaven. In Paul’s hands these doctrines were still further modified by the addition of the theory of atonement, by Christ’s death, for the sins of all humankind.

All of these variants of doctrine had their effect on the traditions regarding Jesus which were passed on by the early Christians and finally assembled in the gospels more or less as we posses them. Thus the task of attempting to see the historical Jesus over the heads of his reporters is anything but easy.

In this critical study of the records of the life of Jesus there are various principles employed, some of which are:

The Sources

The oldest surviving documents that deal with Jesus are the letters to the early church groups by Paul, of which the earliest goes back to at least 50 A.D. It is thought to have consisted of two portions: “G” dealing with experiences in Galilee, and “P” with experience in Perea (east of the River Jordan). “G” presumably consists essentially of the material now in Luke 3:7-15, 17, 18; 4:2-30; 5:1-11; 6:20-49; 7:1-8:3. “P” is thought to have been essentially the material in Luke 9:51-18:14 and 19:1-23.

Mark

The Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the gospels and is apparently the basic historical source for all the gospels. The other Synoptic Gospels (synoptic: viewing together or in the same way), Matthew and Luke, follow the narrative as given in Mark with some editorial changes and some added material from other sources (particularly document “Q”).

This gospel is thought to have been written in Rome around 60-65 A.D. by the John whom Mark, attendant to Peter, mentioned in Acts 12:12. (The version we now possess is undoubtedly somewhat altered from this original.)

It may be instructive to refer to the Records here to illustrate the method of making deductions from the gospel texts – in this case about the nature of the book of Mark and its author. Thus #17-A, H-Mk seems to indicate the intention to write a straightforward narrative. That he is writing for a non-Jewish, and presumably Gentile, audience is indicated by the fact that he feels it necessary to translate Aramaic phrases into Greek (#52-Q, #63-H, #66-A, #144-G), to explain the coinage of Palestine (#133-A), the time of the ripening of figs in Israel (#125-A) and Jewish customs (#63-B).

(Note that Matthew does not use these explanations from Mark, which supports the premise that he IS writing for a Jewish readers.) In #115-F Mark refers to a woman divorcing a man, which was permissible under Roman law but not under Jewish law, offering some support to the premise that that gospel was written for Romans. Mark inserts very few quotations from the Old Testament, whereas Matthew has many, again indicating the difference in intended audience.

Luke

This gospel is thought to have been written around 80 A.D. by the physician Luke, companion of Paul in his travels, probably in Greece for Gentile readers. The author apparently used as sources an early version of Mark, documents “Q”, and others (#1-Lk). It seems likely that there was a first version, possibly written around 58 A.D. during Luke’s travels with Paul, and that additional material, including the birth and resurrection stories, was incorporated later.

Luke’s literary principles as summarized by Sharman are: (1) to not disturb the form and order of the sources more than necessary in order to fit them into a coherent whole, (2) to adapt from document “G” rather than Mark where they both cover a given incident and “G” gives the fuller account, (3) to supply statements of movement between events, (4) in his use of the document “Q” material to simply open up Mark and insert it in large blocks.

Matthew

The author of the gospel “according to Matthew” is unknown. The author probably worked around 85-90 A.D. in the church at Antioch under Peter (rather than the church of Jerusalem under James); he is quite clearly Jewish and writing for fellow Jews. His sources are Mark, “Q”, a collection of Jesus’ sayings possibly made by the disciple Matthew, and possibly others.

This author’s editorial policies are quite complicated, and are summarized by Sharman as the following: (1) to group together events related by the same geographical center, rearranging material from his sources if necessary to do so; (2) to combine accounts from different sources when they overlap; (3) to group sayings on a single theme from different sources; (4) to use Mark rather than “G” where there is common coverage; (5) to condense Mark’s narrative to eliminate secondary details; (6) to change the order of thoughts to effect a junction with matter from another source; (7) to emphasize unfavorable criticism of the Pharisees; (8) to enlarge and insert quotes from the Old Testament to demonstrate that the new teaching was prophesied in the Old Testament and supersedes it in the divine plan; (9) to modify the apparent rigor of hard sayings; (10) to eliminate all demoniac confessions of Jesus as Christ; (11) to eliminate references to anger in Jesus.

John

The fourth gospel was written sometime after 90 A.D., probably in Ephesys in Asia Minor; the author is unknown, but modern scholarship is mostly against considering him to be the apostle John. Sharman characterizes this as a writing on “The Philosophy and Psychology of Religion.” The insights are John’s rather than those of Jesus, and although the book has great value as a highly symbolical and abstract account of religious experience, it is not a particularly helpful source when one is attempting to establish the most probable account of Jesus’ life and teachings. It does not attempt to be a historical record and should not be considered as such.