Box 3.3
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus does not ask for information from his disciples or other people. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus asks his disciples questions such as “How many
loaves have you?” (6:38) and “What are you arguing about?”
(9:16). The stories in which these questions occur are found
in Matthew’s Gospel also (see 14:16–18; 17:14–16), but in
Matthew, the story is told in such a way that no questions
are asked. There are several more examples of this (see box
5.2 on pp. 110–11). What are we to make of such a phenomenon? Certainly, Jesus did ask people for information—the
New Testament makes that clear. But the Matthean Jesus
does not ask people for information. Recognizing this fact
may not help us to know anything about Jesus (a goal of
Christian theology and faith), but it does help us to understand Matthew’s Gospel (a goal of New Testament study).
To get a firm grasp of the Gospel of Matthew, we need to
ask, “Why doesn’t this book portray Jesus as asking for
information? Is it just a coincidence that it doesn’t do this?
Or is the author trying to make a point?”
Let’s take one more example. In the Gospel of John,
Jesus never performs any exorcisms, and he never tells any
parables. We know, of course, from the other Gospels that
Jesus did perform exorcisms and that he did tell parables.
So, the New Testament Jesus does these things, but the
Johannine Jesus does not. Again, knowing this probably
does not enhance our understanding of the life and mission of the earthly Jesus, but it may contribute significantly
to our understanding of one particular book of the New
Testament: scholars who study the Gospel of John want
to know why this Gospel does not include exorcisms or
parables.
Students of the New Testament need to become accustomed to hearing statements such as the following:
• The Matthean Jesus insists that all of the commandments of the law will remain valid until the end of
time (Matt. 5:18).
• The Markan Jesus is unable to work miracles for those
who lack faith (Mark 6:5; cf. Matt. 13:58).
• The Lukan Jesus promises that God will give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask (Luke 11:13; cf. Matt. 7:11).
Published by Baker Academic
Copyright 2009 by Mark Allan Powell
A Historian’s
Biography of Jesus:
An Excerpt
He comes as yet unknown into a hamlet of Lower Galilee. He is watched by
the cold, hard eyes of peasants living
long enough at subsistence level to
know exactly where the line is drawn
between poverty and destitution. He
looks like a beggar, yet his eyes lack
the proper cringe, his voice the proper
whine, his walk the proper shuffle. He
speaks about the rule of God, and they
listen as much from curiosity as anything else. They know all about rule
and power, about kingdom and empire, but they know it in terms of tax
and debt, malnutrition and sickness,
agrarian oppression and demonic
possession. What, they really want
to know, can this kingdom of God
do for a lame child, a blind parent, a
demented soul screaming its tortured
isolation among the graves that mark
the edges of the village? Jesus walks
with them to the tombs, and, in the
silence after the exorcism, the villagers listen once more, but now with
curiosity giving way to cupidity, fear,
and embarrassment. He is invited, as
honor demands, to the home of the
village leader. He goes, instead, to
stay in the home of a dispossessed
woman. Not quite proper, to be sure,
but it would be unwise to censure an
exorcist, to criticize a magician.
John Dominic Crossan,
The Historical Jesus (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), xi.
The Earthly Jesus as Understood by Individual New Testament Authors
71