during the 1970s a few New Testament scholars began to propose that the Gospels were ancient
biographies specifically greco-roman biographies in my book I provide 10 qualities many of which
are usually present in greco-roman biography I won't take time to articulate these here those
interested may read them on pages three and four of my book and if you don't have my book
you can find them in the look inside feature of my book on Amazon since the Gospels focus on the
life of Jesus they are some sort of biography most scholars think they are affiliated with
greco-roman biography why greco-roman instead of Jewish biography well for some reason Jews were
fairly silent in writing biographies during that era we only know of four Philo's life of Moses his
life of Abraham life of Joseph and Joseph is's autobiography all written in the first century
in fact according to the late Jewish scholar Lewis Feldman after these four we do not find
biographies written by Jews until modern times Philo's life of Abraham and life of Joseph differ
from his life of Moses whereas the life of Moses is exclusively interested in the life of its main
character as is typical on record greco-roman biography the lives of Abraham and Joseph are
also interested in the lives of others such as annachi Enoch and Noah the lives of Abraham and
Joseph largely follow a pattern of interpreting a biblical story followed by allegory or explaining
the underlying meaning whereas the life of Moses generally avoids allegory and conforms
more closely to greco-roman biography like Philo's life of Moses the Gospels more closely resemble
greco-roman biographies then Philo's lives of Abraham and Joseph or Josephus is autobiography
the average length of greco-roman biography was between 10 and 25 thousand words the Gospels fit
within that range being 11,000 to 19,000 words Philo's life of Moses is a little longer than
average at close to 30 1000 words however the autobiography of Josephus is nearly eighty nine
thousand words in short although three of the four Gospels were written by Jews they share a lot in
common with greco-roman literature some people get hung up on the term greco-roman biography Philo's
life of Moses is the only Jewish biography similar to the Gospels and exhibits the use of several of
the same compositional devices we observe in greco-roman biography in his essay Philo's
adaptation of the Bible in his life of Moses Brian McGinnis instances where Philo employs
transferal elaboration chronological displacement and changes the explicit chronological order of
events so if you're uncomfortable with the term greco-roman biography just think of it as ancient
biography since the only Jewish biography close informed to the Gospels as many of
the same types of differences and literary devices we find in greco-roman biographies
resulting from compositional devices now liddie McGrew does not think the Gospels belong to the
genre of greco-roman biography she asked the following question do the Gospels belong to
or resemble the genre of greco-roman biography in the informative sense that the authors were
probably influenced by the conventions of this genre and chose to write their Gospels according
to the conventions of this genre she answers no for two reasons first she says Burridge's
arguments are utterly unconvincing however a very large and heterogeneous majority of New
Testament scholars have found the arguments of Burrage and others quite convincing of course
this does not make them right but such a large and heterogeneous majority should not be dismissed too
quickly so let's look at McGrew second reason she says there's an antecedent improbability
that the authors of Matthew Mark and John had ever encountered greco-roman biography she writes the
evidence that Matthew Mark and John were written by their traditionally ascribed authors tends to
disconfirm the thesis that they were influenced by greco-roman literature how likely is it that
Matthew the tax collector John Mark Peter or even John the son of zebedee would have read or heard
the earlier writers of biography discussed by Burrage such as Xenophon socrates satirists and
Epis and that they would have desired to emulate a specific greco-roman genre for McGrew only Luke
may have been somewhat influenced by greco-roman genre McGrew did not consider the huge gap that
exists between the extent of literacy required to be a tax collector with that for producing a
biography as sophisticated as Matthew's Gospel there may be an even what greater gap between
the literacy required of a fisherman and that of one who could write John's Gospel McGrew never
considers whether the traditional authors would have needed and enlisted help in writing their
compositions it's not a black-and-white matter of being either very skilled in writing or illiterate
my friend Randy Richards is an expert on scribal practices his book Paul and first century letter
writing Secretary's composition and collection broke new ground Randy once told me of an exercise
he does with his students he gives each of them a piece of papyrus ink and a short read to dip
in the ink he then asked the students to begin writing the words he's about to dictate Paul an
apostle one minute later by the will of God it quickly becomes apparent that Paul very likely
did not dictate his letters word for word Richard says that in the first century shorthand was in
its infancy stages and a few who would have been proficient at it were in Rome Richards shows how
secretaries were employed in three roles in their services transcriber contributor and composer paul
secretaries who assisted him in writing letters would have most likely taken notes from Paul
composed the letter had Paul read it and provide feedback then proceeded to write the final which
would have been sent only after Paul had given his approval several of Paul's letters suggest he made
use of a secretary in his letter writing at the end of first Corinthians Colossians and second
Thessalonians Paul says that he wrote the greeting with his own hand this suggests that a secretary
played some role in the composition of those letters but the crown jewel of Paul's letters
is Romans it's literary quality far surpasses that of his other letters so it's very likely
that Paul's secretary for that letter performed a significant amount of editing his name is tercius
and he mentions his involvement in Romans chapter 16 verse 22 I tercius who wrote this letter greet
you in the Lord now since Paul who was highly educated made regular use of a secretary wouldn't
we expect that Matthew Mark and John would also have used secretaries when composing their Gospels
and wouldn't it be likely that those secretaries would have had at least an equal if not an even
greater role in the composition of their Gospels then Paul secretaries had in the composition of
his letters after all Matthew Mark and John were almost certainly less educated than Paul moreover
the Gospels are substantially longer than a letter and they contained thematic focuses that have been
recognized since the days of the early church given the degree of literacy their secretaries
would have possessed they would have been quite familiar with the literary conventions in play
at the time moreover the near non-existence of biographies written by Jews and antiquity provides
little to commend to the position that Jewish biography attempted to distinguish itself from
greco-roman biography of course we can only speak here of plausibility and that applies equally with
McGrew session that said in view of what I just discussed I think mcruiz contention that the
Jewish authors of Matthew Mark and John would not have been in a position to have been influenced by
greco-roman biography has very little relevance if any at all McGrew thinks it's possible that Luke
had encountered greco-roman literature but she downplays it contending his preface expresses his
desire to be truthful she writes he does show that he intends to write according to high standards of
historical factuality this intention may have been influenced by exposure to high standards
of reliability in greco-roman history in which case it does not support the conclusion that
Luke would have used fictionalizing literary devices McGrew merely assumes those using high
standards of reliability would have rejected the use of compositional devices which see
tendentious Lee calls fictionalizing literary devices many of which they had learned in the
compositional textbooks I'll cover this in my next video and what about how some of the
finest historians practiced a history writing Sallust used compositional devices Tacitus used
them Plutarch used them furthermore Josephus says something very similar to Luc pertaining to his
high standards of reporting while making use of many of the same compositional devices we find
in greco-roman biography it may also be observed that Josephus did not live up to the standards
he claimed for his writings Lucian of Samos added lays out high standards historians are to follow
while not practicing them as well in his work the passing of peregrinus so it's not simply a matter
of what one states we must judge and interpret the authors in light of what they do on page 88 of her
book McGrew quotes Colin haymer from his book the book of Acts in the setting of Hellenistic history
Hemmer says Luke's Gospel shares much in common with greco-roman biography however he adds that
since greco-roman biography was a fluid genre Luke must be judged by his performance I'm in complete
agreement here with Hemmer ancient biography was a fluid genre with characteristics that sometimes
bleed over into other genres like history richard Burge says this in his book what are the Gospels
an example is given by Christopher Pelham and he notes that Plutarch's life of Caesar is a
hybrid of biography and history because it's not so much concerned with Caesar's character as it is
with how Caesar became so popular among the Roman people still classicists don't regard Plutarch's
life of caesar as anything other than a biography Casas disses Agricola is likewise a hybrid between
biography and history yet its size and focus on Agricola place it firmly within the genre
of biography so it's surprising to read McGrew say of hammers comments the emphatically cautious
comments could not be farther from Laconia z'n systems that if the Gospels even have much in
common with bi we should be surprised that they did not make use of transferral displacement and
or other fact altering literary devices because they were part and parcel of that genre it's here
that we observe one of mcruiz loaded terms fact altering literary devices it's also one
of many examples where we will see McGrew merely assuming that an author's view of accuracy in this
case hammers view is similar to hers and would not allow for the use of compositional devices
there's nothing in hammers words that suggests he embraced mcruiz wooden concept of truth telling
and reporting to the contrary as classicist jl moles observed a number of compositional
devices are practically universal in ancient historiography now let's revisit the question
McGrew asked that I quoted at the beginning of this video do the Gospels belong to or resemble
the genre of greco-roman B us in the informative sense that the authors were probably influenced by
the conventions of this genre and chose to write their Gospels according to the conventions of this
genre as I stated earlier there are many reasons for thinking the Gospels share much in common
with greco-roman biography again I shared these on pages 3 & 4 of my book and they appear in the look
inside feature of my book on Amazon we've observed that McGrew zkn tensions to the contrary failed to
appreciate the extent of literacy required for writing a gospel moreover McGrew interprets what
others say through the lens of her own thinking this results in her misinterpreting others and
leads her to a conclusion that's at odds with a majority of even conservative New Testament
scholars Craig Blomberg who was taking issue with only a few items in my book wrote the following
in his review of it there is a broad scholarly consensus that the New Testament Gospels are
biographies of Jesus and that they adopt many of the conventions of the ancient writing of
history and biography michael--ah Kona's new book why are there differences in the Gospels builds
on this consensus with an impressive detailed study of one important ancient Greek biographer
Plutarch the majority of his observations involve very minor differences among gospel
parallels and are largely non-controversial and the approach is scarcely novel well this wraps
up this segment of my assessment of Lydia Magoo's book the mirror or the mask do you
think the Gospels are ancient biographies let me know why or why not in the comments section
you