9.8. Conclusion
Conventional biographic models imposed some limitations on conventional biographers. Biographers could not invent their chief characters or make up simply any traits or events they wished; in contrast to novelists, they were bound to the material they inherited.1 But how accurate was their material? Historians were not supposed to invent historical events, even for ancient history, but hypothetical rhetorical exercises sometimes did so.2 Over time, such inventions probably worked their way into memories as if they were true details. This is one reason that the temporal distance between an event and its earliest records matters.
The Gospels may reflect a more popular level of writing than more elite biographies,3 but it is significant that they are also closer in time to their subject than are most ancient biographies.4 As Momigliano notes in a different connection, “To write about men who lived long ago was not the same thing as writing about contemporaries.” In contrast to “poets of the past,” who left little information about themselves, “Philosophers had left behind disciples whose opinions had to be taken into account.”5 So, we should remember, did Jesus.
9.1. Legends Rising Early, Retiring Late
Historical distance multiplies the potential for gratuitous errors.6 In contrast to typical biographers and historians of the early empire, some earlier orators fabricated significant information surrounding history that lay beyond living memory.7 Once told, such stories became part of the collective memory on which later writers might draw, knowingly or unknowingly. Over the span of centuries, adaptations by less conservative tradents and writers would accumulate significantly.
This could happen even with accounts less than two centuries old. Thus for example Suetonius’s account of Caesar crossing the Rubicon adds an epiphany missing in Caesar’s own account.8 While some historians added such features for rhetorical purposes,9 Suetonius could also draw on a legend from before his time.10 Yet Suetonius recounts this event over a century and a half (from 49 BCE to the early second century CE) after its putative occurrence. By way of comparison, this period could be more than four times the length of the period between Jesus’s public ministry and the composition of Mark. In ca. 30 CE, closer to the edge of living memory, an earlier historian, Velleius Paterculus, also mentions crossing the Rubicon, yet without this dramatic sign.11
Over longer periods, even more legends could arise. Scholars today are thus much more cautious about empire-period depictions of the early republic than they are about early empire-period depictions of early imperial history.12 Reports from “within two generations” or at most a century are normally the most reliable.13
9.2. Distrusting the Distant Past?
Ancient writers often noted that material from centuries earlier could be obscure, yet they expected a much higher standard of accuracy for reports closer to their own period.14 Thus, for example, when Arrian writes about Alexander of Macedon half a millennium after Alexander’s death, he complains about the widely divergent views circulating by his day.15 Plutarch recognizes the major difference between his early historical sources regarding a still earlier king.16
This issue becomes even more acute when writing about the most distant past, perhaps a millennium before the writer. Most recognized that this earliest period was generally shrouded in myth,17 even if they sometimes found the myths’ basic outline acceptable.18 Although universal historians often included in their works the period of ancient heroes, many distinguished the mythical period from the more realistic “historical” period.19 Some writers considered the earlier period qualitatively different because of divine involvement;20 by contrast, others mistrusted its reports precisely because of such unusual events.21
When writing about characters of the distant past, historians had to sort through legendary as well as actual historical data,22 and they might well have difficulty ascertaining which was which.23 When depending on historically remote sources, therefore, ancient historiography sometimes had to settle for mere verisimilitude.24 Sometimes they sought to “demythologize” back to a probable historical core behind such stories,25 but Plutarch, who sought such a core,26 rightly recognized that most of his sources were unconfirmable.27 Sometimes historical writers simply repeated apparently incredible information while warning readers to use discretion;28 sometimes they deemed them too implausible even for that expedient.29
Their criteria for distinguishing what was credible from what was not were often inadequate, but they do at least illustrate ancient intellectuals’ recognition of the problem and their critical intentions. In chapter 7 I noted various criteria that ancient historians sometimes adopted, including coherency with other evidence. One additional and particularly important concern was how close sources were to the events that they reported.
Historical writers’ often cautious approach to early sources contrasts with their greater trust in more recent ones.30 The next best source to witnesses, on which we depend today for knowledge of the distant past, is literary memory that may depend on eyewitnesses.31 But while historians often used records to write about the distant past, the historiographic ideal was firsthand investigation and consulting witnesses.
Eyewitnesses are not a perfect source, of course; an individual witness’s vantage point is limited, and he or she will not remember every detail. Whether because of bias,32 memory lapse,33 or sometimes even incompetence,34 even eyewitnesses did not always agree on details, requiring some weighing of individual testimony.35 Merely four decades after Galba’s death, for example, sources offered no unanimity regarding who assassinated him.36
The second best source after the author being an eyewitness was the author’s use of other eyewitnesses;37 biographers were happy to use recent oral tradition from eyewitnesses.38 Historians today are apt to trust eyewitness knowledge even in otherwise more questionable ancient historians.39 Although some earlier modern historians treated personal involvement as permitting bias,40 today’s oral historiography allows greater appreciation for participation.41
Even better still than consulting witnesses was the historian’s personal experience.42 Historians and biographers who were eyewitnesses usually were happy to mention this fact.43 Josephus condemns Greek historians willing to write about events where they were neither present nor dependent on those with firsthand knowledge.44 Some, he complained, wrote about the war without having been there, which was inadequate research for appropriate histories.45 By contrast, Josephus lived through the events he narrated.46
Best of all would be witnesses writing while other authoritative witnesses remained alive. Josephus emphasizes that he composed his account while witnesses remained alive who could verify or falsify his claims,47 and he complains that Justus, one of his rivals, waited twenty years to publish, till after the eyewitnesses were dead.48 Josephus contends that Justus should be less believable than himself, since the eyewitnesses knew Josephus’s work and they never protested its claims.49 In contrast to Josephus, Justus was not present during key events, and anyone who could have supplied Justus with such information perished in the siege of Jerusalem.50 These claims also suggest that if Josephus’s details included any embellishments (as they surely did), the eyewitnesses did not complain, recognizing such embellishments of comparatively minor details as an accepted part of the genre.51
Many ancient historians and biographers besides Josephus had direct access to their subjects. Thus, for example, a noted fifth-century BCE historian claims to report what he has learned by inquiry and what he saw directly.52 Likewise Xenophon, as a member of Agesilaus’s staff, knew this king directly and could depend on his own experience for his account.53 Against detractors, Xenophon also probably knew Socrates personally.54 Key Alexander historians Ptolemy and Aristobulus knew Alexander personally; although their works have not survived, they are heavily mined by later writers such as Arrian, who valued their proximity to their subject.55 Likewise, Eratosthenes wrote about a figure based on “personal knowledge.”56
Closer to our period of primary interest, Atticus was Nepos’s close friend; Nepos’s biography of Atticus is longer than his other biographies precisely because Nepos had much more information available about Atticus.57 (Where we can test this biography against external sources, it does fare well on most points.)58 Nepos may have also written about Antony while he was alive59 and probably wrote his multivolume work on Cicero within a few years of Cicero’s death.60 Nepos did not always understand his sources about foreign generals, valuable as those sources were, but his Roman lives are quite different. For some of these, he was himself a witness and had access to many other witnesses.61
Tacitus’s fairly intimate knowledge of his father-in-law, Agricola, renders that life of special value, outweighing the risks of his bias.62 Plutarch, who wrote biographies about Galba and Otho, was already alive when they reigned. Lucian’s biography of the sage Demonax also commemorates someone that he claims to have known and admired,63 helping to explain the work’s “emotional closeness.”64 Likewise, Porphyry personally knew his teacher Plotinus and focuses on the part of Plotinus’s life that he knew directly.65 We respect Thucydides and Polybius and (in the first century) Josephus as contemporaries of much of what they report.
9.4. Reasoning about Recent History
Unlike biographers just mentioned, most biographers wrote after their subjects had died. Still, many wrote about recent figures, and after firsthand sources, historical writers valued most highly those closest in date to the events reported.66 Some biographers wrote about subjects soon after the subject’s decease.67 We depend heavily on imperfect but valuable writers of the early empire like Tacitus and Suetonius, who report relatively recent events.
Because oral traditions were most reliable in the generation they recounted, the ideal was for each generation of Greek historians to “establish the record of their own time.”68 The historian Polybius, for example, wrote within living memory of Scipio and had access to Scipio’s own relatives and acquaintances.69 A historian might mention even an account that he could not confirm if he received it from the previous generation.70
Many biographers likewise sought to offer a legacy based on “living memory,” that is, composed at a time when they had “access to firsthand/eyewitness accounts.”71 Many of these biographers wrote as the subject’s “students, disciples or friends”72 (or, in some cases, enemies),73 or had access to such acquaintances’ direct accounts. Apologetic biographic works often use eyewitness accounts to counter slanders against their biographees.74
Not all “living memory” literary analogies are equally relevant, because not all appear in the same literary genre. Roughly half a century transpired between Socrates’s most public activity and the extant writings about him. As some note, this span is roughly comparable to the usually accepted interval between Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels.75 Although this analogy is valuable, however, it has some limitations. Plato and Xenophon knew Socrates personally, but they wrote in a formative period of what we have occasionally called protobiography. Moreover, readers recognized a fictional element of dialogues, which were not characteristic of typical early-empire biographies.
No one claims that all the Evangelists witnessed Jesus’s ministry personally, but the Evangelists wrote at the apex of historical biography, hence, at least in the case of the Synoptics, would be less apt to fill out dialogues with abundant interpretive addenda. For this reason, in chapter 10 I compare them especially with some biographies from their own period that, also like the reports about Socrates, stem from roughly half a century after the events.
Among the Gospels, Luke apparently claims a level of participation; the Fourth Gospel recounts testimony from an eyewitness disciple (see ch. 13), and early tradition claims that Mark knew Peter (and that at least something related to Matthew, a literate disciple, circulated).
9.5. Narrowing the Gap for Earlier Figures
Did works ever contain accurate information even if, unlike the Gospels, their material was passed on for centuries? Beyond living memory, written sources were crucial. By its nature, historical writing about earlier (rather than more recent) events necessarily depended on earlier historians.76 Authors often deferred to written sources as particularly authoritative in any case;77 even an eyewitness might cite another eyewitness source published before his own work.78 Many understood that whereas oral tradition could be modified over time, written sources were fixed.79
At least occasionally, even evidence grounded in the most slender and distant connections to witnesses proves correct. Thus, for example, many historians doubted Sima Qian’s sequential list of rulers from the Shang Dynasty, because he wrote in the early first century BCE, over a millennium after that second-millennium BCE dynasty. While many aspects of his account of the distant past are either unverifiable or legendary, however, the majority of the Shang rulers’ names have now been confirmed by excavations at the final Shang capital.80
More often, even vastly earlier sources can prove valuable when we can be confident that they reflect sources close to the time of the events they report. Because of authors’ agendas, later writers occasionally might even interpret earlier sources’ information more accurately than the authors of those earlier sources,81 although we should not expect this superior interpretation in the majority of cases.
Our earliest extant, fairly full biography of Aristotle comes from Diogenes Laertius, more than half a millennium after the philosopher’s death. That Diogenes Laertius employed much earlier sources, however, somewhat narrows this gap.82 In the case of Agesilaus, Plutarch’s biography contains some information supplemental to that of Xenophon, probably reflecting some other very early sources no longer extant.83
All full works about Alexander that survive date to “three centuries or more after Alexander’s death.”84 Scholars have commented particularly extensively on the date and sources for Arrian’s account, generally considered the best extant account. Arrian had plenty of practice writing before turning to his monumental treatment of Alexander: he had already taken copious notes from the teaching of his mentor Epictetus and published biographies of political figures.85
Yet Arrian himself was quite aware that he wrote long after Alexander—close to half a millennium after him. Noting the contradictory sources, Arrian complains that everyone has been passing on falsehoods for centuries. He proposes to remedy this situation by noting the core of essential facts, on which there was unanimity, and by preferring the eyewitnesses’ published testimony to that of others.86 Arrian was critical, even if not all scholars today agree with some of his choices.
To supply anecdotes for his biography, Plutarch cites Alexander’s chamberlain and his official (propagandistic) historian, but Arrian, writing military history, draws especially on the military sources.87 Although allowing other sources for his more encomiastic praise of Alexander,88 Arrian’s historical narrative draws especially on Alexander’s officer Ptolemy and his engineer Aristobulus.89 Secondarily, he also draws on other sources that he deems authentic, including Nearchus, commander of Alexander’s fleet, and the so-called Royal Journals.90 Although other Alexander biographies drew heavily on Cleitarchus, who provided the most popular account about Alexander in Arrian’s day, Arrian mistrusted this source, perhaps not entirely fairly.91
He reports some traditions that he finds in earlier historians, yet about which he personally expresses suspicion,92 such as about the Amazons93 or a Roman embassy to Alexander.94 He frequently omits details in his sources that he does not think worth recording,95 but he apparently expects his readers to be familiar with some of his predecessors’ accounts in any case.96
Despite his critical efforts, however, the half a millennium between Alexander and Arrian created difficulties. Arrian sometimes includes contradictory accounts,97 unable to harmonize even his best sources.98 Where even Ptolemy and Aristobulus differ, he has to choose between them.99 In a matter as critical as how Alexander died, the reports available in Arrian’s time diverged widely.100 (Admittedly, both views could stem from the first generation; he may have died from fever that some others, seeking someone to blame, attributed to poison. For that matter, some poisons can produce fevers.)
Wherever possible, Arrian depends on sources from living memory of Alexander, from the period of those who knew him. Unfortunately, these direct sources were also writing in a period when biographic treatments were not as rigorously historical (by modern definitions) as (comparatively speaking) in Arrian’s own time. Scholars, however, often differ regarding the authenticity of some of Arrian’s centuries-older sources, a matter that Arrian could no longer evaluate directly in his own day, since none of his sources were from the lifetimes of anyone living in his own day.
If our only extant sources about Jesus were from as long after Jesus as Arrian is after Alexander, we would be depending on sources from the late fifth century, more than a generation after the death of Augustine or John Cassian. One can imagine what historical skeptics would say about Jesus if the first extant historical reports about him came from Paulus Orosius’s History against the Pagans, from Socrates Scholasticus’s Ecclesiastical History, or (more analogous chronologically though not in content) from still later sources such as the Tome of Pope Leo the Great.101
By contrast, the Gospels themselves stem from living memory of Jesus and come from a period when expectations for biographic treatments included greater historical care. The Gospels prove much more consistent on key points such as Jesus’s death by crucifixion.102 The span between Jesus’s public ministry and the publication of Mark’s Gospel may be just one-tenth the period after Jesus’s ministry as Arrian’s work was after Alexander’s death, so one may question why many NT scholars are significantly more skeptical of the Gospels than are other historians of Arrian.103
9.6. Valuing Some Historical Distance for Contemporary History
Although sources within living memory are generally most reliable, ancient historians thought that some sources could be too close to the events to be reliable. Strictly speaking, this is not a matter of memory (for which the earliest sources are usually the best) but of bias, social and political pressure, and (more relevant for the Gospels) historical perspective.104
Self-praise in autobiographies or inscriptions105 could distort the telling of current history. An often greater threat came from contemporary political exigencies.106 Pleasing powerful potential readers was a significant temptation, and avoiding their wrath sometimes a necessity. The advantage of writing about ancient history, one orator noted, was that one could simply collect what earlier historians said, whereas writing about recent matters might lead to trouble!107 Given the political climate of the early empire, Nicolaus of Damascus was prudent to praise Augustus108 and Herod the Great.109 More strikingly, the historian Velleius Paterculus is far less reserved than later historians in his praise of Tiberius,110 which probably has something to do with Tiberius being emperor while the historian was writing.111 His praise of the praetorian prefect Sejanus Aelius112 would have been inconceivable after Sejanus’s shameful execution.113 Velleius’s bias was not wholesale,114 but some topics would have been off-limits even if he privately entertained views unsafe for public expression. Extant early second-century historians do not complain much about constraints—though neither do they write much about contemporary emperors.115 In the third century, political pressures apparently did affect the historian Dio Cassius.116
Life-and-death political pressures were not the only danger of contemporary history; friendship offered a different sort of peril.117 Eager to appear in Tacitus’s history, the orator Pliny the Younger reminds the historian that Pliny prosecuted a corrupt governor.118 Since history must report only truth, Pliny readily concedes, Tacitus will not go beyond the facts.119 To the extent, however, that Tacitus’s sort of history focuses on major events, Pliny’s deed hardly qualifies. Whether Tacitus included the account we cannot say (some of his work has not survived), but I am tempted to ask what hope there is for poor, beleagered authors with too many friends? Pliny’s family knew the risks of accusations of biased historiography. Pliny’s uncle and namesake produced and confirmed a history of an elite family but withheld its publication during his life lest he be accused of writing it from ambition.120
The ideal, of course, was avoiding agendas pro or con. One historian declares that history should cater to leaders neither by flattering nor by attacking them.121 More extensively, Lucian complains that writers who praise their rulers and generals while slandering the other side merely engage in panegyric.122 Flatterers work for the present; historians must preserve truth for the future.123 As particular models of good historians, Lucian offers Xenophon and Thucydides (both contemporaries of the events they report), who would not let personal bias make them change facts. “Public interest” and truth must take priority over personal enmity or friendship.124 Likewise, good biographers avoid flattery that falsifies events.125 Achieving the ideal, however, was usually easier after the demise of the corrupting influences.
Conspicuous flattery often disgusted readers,126 who often contrasted it with honorable frankness127 and viewed flattery as a form of servility.128 Thus, for example, Aristobulus, wanting to please Alexander, allegedly inserted into the first draft of his history a false story of single combat between Alexander and the Indian king Porus. Alexander responded by discarding the fiction angrily and trusted Aristobulus less than before.129 Callisthenes, Alexander’s embedded historian, composed excessively encomiastic tributes of Alexander, which posterity condemned as flattery.130 Such propaganda, Arrian recognized, could help create legend.131 One reason that Arrian preferred Ptolemy and Aristobulus was that, because Alexander was dead when they wrote their histories, their works could not be motivated by flattery.132
Some biographies of Nero that have not survived stem from roughly the same time as the Synoptic Gospels.133 The writers had directly benefitted from Nero’s favors or suffered his repression. Nero died in 68, so these “many” (πολλοὶ, polloi; cf. Luke 1:1) writers, obviously varying in perspective, composed their works at the latest within two decades after Nero’s death. Yet Josephus denounces many of these contemporary accounts (a genre he labels as ἱστορία, historia) as tendentious and including falsehoods, partly because they were too close to the events to write impartially.134 Apart from documentation, Suetonius is ready to question some versions of an emperor’s lineage if they might be attributed to partiality or hostility.135
Usually more relevant for the Gospels than concern for flattery or political pressure is the question of historical distance. Historians often need at least some space after events to discern which events will lead to significant effects in the long run.136 Oxford’s Markus Bockmuehl points out that the 1940 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica devotes only a half column to Adolf Hitler, offering there more information about his “vegetarian diet and lack of respect for the Treaty of Versailles than about his ideological views on Greater Germany or the Jews.” Likewise, its much longer article on Winston Churchill focuses on his military failures in the First World War and dismisses his current relevance as “a political has-been.”137 These two figures bear roles of entirely different significance when viewed from a vantage point several years later.
The ideal setting for historical writing is distant enough to avoid myopia yet within the period of living memory.138
9.7. The Gospels and Recent Information
How much would Diaspora Christians have known about Jesus? Before the writing of the first Gospel, their knowledge may have been limited. Paul cites the Jesus tradition only intermittently (e.g., 1 Cor 9:14), although he also seems to assume at times his audience’s familiarity with some of it, perhaps from his prior teaching (1 Cor 9:5; 11:23–26; 15:3–7; cf. Acts 18:11). But once it became more widely available, the Jesus tradition undoubtedly circulated quickly in the Diaspora as well as in Judea.
Most, though not all, scholars agree that Luke wrote in the first century, most often suggesting a date between 70 and 90.139 That Luke can assume that he is merely confirming the matters that Theophilus had been taught (Luke 1:4) shows that by the time Luke wrote, the bulk of his accounts about Jesus had already been circulating widely in the Diaspora. This probably suggests that many memoirs about Jesus (cf. 1:1–2) were already being read in many of the communities.
By Theophilus’s day, some of the narratives to which Luke refers (1:1), which claim to depend on the earliest witnesses (1:2),140 were standard and respected sources, including almost certainly Mark and probably (on the majority view) Q. Luke seeks to improve the rhetorical order of the sources (perhaps esp. Mark)141 but does not complain about their content. Rather, he affirms that his own acquaintance with the sources142 confirms what Theophilus has learned, information that ultimately goes back to the tradition’s originators (1:2). The Q material probably circulated while some of the original eyewitnesses remained in positions of leadership in the church (cf. Gal 2:9). (Theissen even contends for a date for Q in the 40s.)143
Clearly, the first-century Gospels depend on living memory. They are far enough from the initial events to have historical distance, witnessing some of their developments. At the same time, they are chronologically as close to the events as Suetonius was to Otho or Plutarch was to Galba. As Plutarch and Suetonius belonged to elites that had experienced the times they described, drawing especially on oral history and sources dependent on it, so the Evangelists belonged to a movement that had experienced the times they described, drawing again on oral history and sources dependent on it. Indeed, the Evangelists’ movement had far more interest in the memory of Jesus than did Plutarch or Suetonius in those of Galba or Otho. The following chapter will explore more fully this analogous example of early second-century knowledge about Otho.
Ancient writers admitted that biographies about the distant past often had to work with legends; modern historians have shown that collective memory generally remains most reliable within living memory of the person—that is, within the lifetime of some who personally knew the eyewitnesses. (For discussion of memory within this time frame, see ch. 16.)
Conversely, ancient historians often considered contemporary accounts too prone to bias, primarily because of political pressure (not relevant to the Gospels). Moreover, it often takes time for the dust to settle and people to decide, retroactively, what sort of details matter for subsequent memory (thus the difficulty even today of writing contemporary “history”). In other words, the generation likeliest to supply the most useful memory of a person, by ancient standards, might be the generation just after the person’s death.
Students of the Gospels should not forget that the Gospels depict events within living memory (see esp. discussion in chs. 14–16). What can we say about biographies from the early empire written within living memory of their subjects?
* Some material in this chapter is adapted from Keener, Acts, 1:127–31.
1. Noted even in De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 9, who emphasizes a degree of fictionalization.
2. See, e.g., Hermogenes, Invention 2.1.108–9; 2.4.115.
3. Cf. Aletti, Birth, 12–13, 28, drawing on Baum, “Biographien,” though Aletti concludes that their interest is more historiographic than in popular biography (24).
4. Cf. Fitzgerald, “Lives,” 220.
5. Momigliano, Development, 88.
6. E.g., one in 4 Macc 4:15.
7. Pelling, Texts, 67, on a fourth-century BCE politician, although the politician also could have had an additional (presumably much less reliable) source. Cf. similarly Justin, Epitome 38.4.5, 15, suggesting greater flexibility with the past in speeches than in the epitome’s narratives.
8. See Penner, Praise, 137.
9. See, e.g., the ominous bird in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.195; 19.346.
10. Plutarch, Caesar 32.9, notes that before crossing the Rubicon, Caesar had an unusual dream; if this information was early, it may have been developed in later tellings.
11. Velleius Paterculus, History 2.49.4; for discussion of possibly the earliest version, see Rondholz, “Rubicon.”
12. Scholars have usually found more plausible T. P. Wiseman’s skepticism about the early Republic than A. J. Woodman’s skepticism toward “authors of contemporary or near-contemporary history” (Damon, “Rhetoric,” 439). At times, Woodman himself recognizes that likelihood increases with proximity; see, e.g., Woodman, Rhetoric, 204.
13. Downing, Cynics and Churches, 52.
14. E.g., Thucydides, History 1.21.1; Livy, History 6.1.2–3; 7.6.6; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.6.2; 1.9.2; 4.1.1; 4.8.3–5; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.12.3; Thucydides 5; Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.31.7; Josephus, Against Apion 1.15, 24–25, 58; cf. Bowersock, Fiction, 1–2.
15. Arrian, Alexander 1.pref.1–2; Justin, Epitome 12.13.10, notes different versions but is overconfident in his knowledge as to which was correct—though as noted below, some divergences came from writers too close to Alexander’s time. For disagreements among historians, see also Quintilian, Orator’s Education 2.4.19; for various versions of Alcibiades’s death, see, e.g., Nepos, On Great Generals 7 (Alcibiades), 10; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 14.11; Justin, Epitome 5.8.14; Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 1.7.ext.9; Plutarch, Alcibiades 38–39.
16. Almagor, “Narratives,” 70–71, noting Plutarch, Artaxerxes 1.4; 6.9; 9.4; 10–11; 19.2–6.
17. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thucydides 5–7; Plutarch, Theseus 1.1; Justin, Epitome 2.6.7; 11.3.11 (with less recognition, cf. 42.2.10–42.3.9; 44.4.12); Keener, John, 20. See further Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 139, citing Quintilian, Orator’s Education 2.4.18–19, and Livy’s repeated qualifications in his first ten books.
18. E.g., Thucydides, History 1.21.1 (complaining in 1.21.2 that people make ancient events greater than they were). For his inconsistency, see Marincola, Authority, 96.
19. Fornara, Nature, 4–12, esp. 9–10. Becker, Birth, 121, parallels the genre distinction between Gen 1–11 and later OT historiography.
20. Hesiod, Works and Days 158–60, 165; Arrian, Alexander 5.1.2. For Rome, some early public records existed (Lintott, Romans, 15).
21. Thucydides, History 1.23.3. On smaller-scale supernatural reports, however, see ch. 12.
22. Cf. Livy, History 1.1.1. Still, archaeology occasionally confirms even some information behind etiological explanations once deemed mythical; see, e.g., Egelhaaf-Gaiser, “Sites,” 212.
23. Historians might recognize exaggerations in an account, while averring that genuine historical tradition stood behind it (Livy, History 3.8.10), or might regard an account as too implausible altogether (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 10.12.8–10). Some sources, like the Life of Aesop, may simply string together all available popular traditions into a narrative; these traditions had grown over six centuries (see Drury, Design, 28–29).
24. See Dio Cassius, Roman History 62.11.3–4; Aune, Environment, 83; Fornara, Nature, 134–36.
25. See, e.g., Thucydides, History 1.21.1–2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.39.1; 1.41.1 (cf. 1.84.4); Thucydides 6; Justin, Epitome 4.1.13, 16–17 (cf. 44.4.16); Livy, History 3.8.10; Arrian, Alexander 2.16.6; Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.1.554. See also examples in Saïd, “Myth,” 81–88; briefly, Fowler, “History,” 204.
26. Plutarch, Theseus 1.3.
27. Alfred, “Valuation,” 87.
28. E.g., Livy, History 4.29.5–6; 23.47.8; cf. (more skeptically) Lucian, How to Write History 60.
29. Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 10.12.8–10.
30. For the greater confidence in historians recording recent events, see Marincola, Authority, 262. Too recent to engage fully, see esp. now Peters, “Historiography.”
31. Cf. Becker, Birth, 28.
32. Byrskog, Story, 176–79, notes that ancient historians were aware that eyewitnesses could be biased and tried to take this into account (sometimes through the grid of their own biases).
33. For gist generally being reliable in memory even where details are not, see Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 333–34. Historians themselves often quoted their sources from memory, hence could get correct the gist while being confused on some details (Marincola, “Introduction,” 2).
34. For failure to learn accurately from purported travels, see Strabo, Geography 2.5.10; Hengel, “Geography,” 31; for suspected dishonesty, see Lucian, How to Write History 25, 29.
35. Thucydides, History 1.22.3; Arrian, Alexander 4.14.3. Cf. Becker, Birth, 27, regarding disputes about eyewitness testimony.
36. Ash, “Assassinating Emperors,” 202, citing Tacitus, Histories 1.41.3. For discussion of Caligula’s assassin in Josephus, cf. Kavanagh, “Identity.”
37. Plutarch, Lycurgus 1 (Woldemariam, “Comparison,” 219); Lucian, How to Write History 47; Jervell, “Future,” 118; Derrenbacker, Practices, 73, 75; Pitcher, “Story,” 296–97 (noting, e.g., Sallust, Catiline’s War 48; Livy, History 21.38.3–5; Plutarch, Marc Antony 28.7).
38. E.g., Xenophon, Apology 2; Agesilaus 3.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thucydides 6–7; Cornelius Nepos, On Great Generals 23 (Hannibal), 13.3; 25 (Atticus), 13.7; 17.1; Plutarch, Demosthenes 11.1; Otho 14.1; Suetonius, Otho 10.1; Vespasian 1.4; Arrian, Alexander 1, pref.2–3; 6.11.8.
39. E.g., Brown, Historians, 142, 146; in more recent history, see, e.g., Wigger, Saint, 363.
40. Byrskog, Story, 19–22; less today, cf. 23–26.
41. Byrskog, Story, 153; for its wider use today, see, e.g., Moniot, “Profile,” 50. For discussions of participant observation in anthropology, see, e.g., Tedlock, “Observation”; DeWalt and DeWalt, Observation; Jorgensen, “Observation”; Spradley, Observation.
42. See, e.g., Lucian, How to Write History 47; Josephus, Life 357; Against Apion 1.45–49, 56; Jewish War 1.2–3; Pitcher, “Story,” 297 (citing Thucydides, History 2.48.3; Tacitus, Agricola 24); Aune, Environment, 81 (citing Herodotus, Histories 2.99; Polybius, Histories 3.4.13; 12.25g.1; 12.27.1–6; 12.28.1–5; 20.12.8; Lucian, How to Write History 47); Byrskog, Story, 153–57, 188; Meister, “Historiography: Greece,” 421; cf. Alexander, Preface, 34; Keener, “Claims.”
43. E.g., Xenophon, Symposium 1.1; Polybius, Histories 29.21.8; Cornelius Nepos, On Great Generals 25 (Atticus), 13.7; 17.1; Josephus, Against Apion 1.45–47; Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.21.602–4; Keener, Acts, 3:2353, 2362. Some preferred to include their presence in the third person, as in Xenophon, Anabasis 2.5.41; 3.1.4–6; Thucydides, History 1.1.1; 2.103.2; 5.26.1; Polybius, Histories 31.23.1–31.24.12; 38.19.1; 38.21.1; 38.22.3; Caesar, Civil War, throughout, e.g., 1.1; Gallic Wars, throughout, 1.7; 2.1; 3.28; 4.13; 5.9; 6.4; 7.17 (despite phrases like “our own” and “our men,” 2.9); Eunapius, Lives 494; first-person (when present, not at all important junctures) in Velleius Paterculus, History 2.101.2–3; 2.104.3; 2.106.1; 2.111.3–4; 2.114.1–3; 2.115.5; 2.121.3; 124.4.
44. Josephus, Against Apion 1.45.
45. Josephus, Against Apion 1.46. Naturally, Josephus would be happy to enforce a criterion that excluded his competitors but not himself. Yet Josephus hardly invented this criterion, useful as it proved in his case (for his Jewish War and Life more than his Jewish Antiquities).
46. Josephus, Against Apion 1.47; cf. 1.49, 56.
47. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.266.
48. Josephus, Life 359–60.
49. Josephus, Life 361–66.
50. Josephus, Life 357. Nevertheless, Josephus is happy to depict a scene, such as the suicide of the Sicarii at Masada, where he lacks potential eyewitnesses.
51. Undoubtedly the portrayal was also not to their detriment; Josephus was careful to praise surviving political figures like Agrippa and any member of the Flavian dynasty.
52. Herodotus, Histories 2.99.1.
53. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 85; Beck, “Demonax,” 93 (noting esp. Cartledge, Agesilaus).
54. Votaw, “Biographies,” 55, 224 (on 56, comparing Arrian on Epictetus and contrasting Philostratus on Apollonius).
55. Derrenbacker, Practices, 54–55, noting Arrian, Alexander 1.pref.
56. Momigliano, Development, 84.
57. Geiger, Nepos, 28; cf. Hägg, Biography, 188–97, esp. 189–90.
58. Wright, “Exploration,” 246–49, esp. 249, regarding his death.
59. Geiger, Nepos, 95.
60. Geiger, Nepos, 101.
61. Geiger, Nepos, 109.
62. See Alfred, “Valuation,” 85.
63. Lucian, Demonax 1; Beck, “Demonax,” 80, 95; cf. Eunapius, Lives 454; Humble and Sidwell, “Dreams,” 213, noting also his claims to have experienced Alexander the False Prophet (Alexander 53–57) and Peregrinus’s suicide scene (Peregrinus 2.43–45).
64. Beck, “Demonax,” 96.
65. Dillon, “Interpretation,” 158.
66. E.g., Livy, History 7.6.6; 25.11.20; Tacitus, Annals 15.73; Plutarch, Malice of Herodotus 20, Moralia 859B.
67. Smith, “Genre,” 212, cites Nepos’s On Great Generals 24 (Cato) and Suetonius’s Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; cf. Smith, βίος, 59–60.
68. Fornara, Nature, 48.
69. Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 517. Even Pompeius Trogus, who aspired to a more universal history, was happy to note his direct family connections with recent events (Justin, Epitome 43.5.11–12).
70. Tacitus, Annals 3.16.
71. Smith, “Genre,” 212n128; cf. also 213–16; Smith, βίος, 57n174, 60. On living memory, see ch. 16. For greater reliability for recent history, see esp. Peters, “Historiography,” esp. chs. 4–6 (pp. 47–184).
72. Smith, “Genre,” 216; cf. Smith, βίος, 61.
73. Cf. Aristoxenus’s critique of Socrates; more strident if less biographic, Lucian’s Alexander and Peregrinus.
74. Smith, “Genre,” 213 (and Smith, βίος, 60), citing Isocrates, Euagoras 4–6; Xenophon, Agesilaus 3.1; 10.3; Tacitus, Agricola 4.3; 24.3; 44.5.
75. Votaw, “Biographies,” 223, 246.
76. Pliny, Letters 5.8.12.
77. Eunapius, Lives 460. Suetonius depends more heavily on older written records than interviews of more recent persons (Rolfe, “Introduction,” xviii). The Greek method preferred interviews, but even Romans could write about contemporary figures (e.g., Pliny, Letters 9.19.5); even some Greek writers like Ephorus and Timaeus critically emphasized written sources, though Polybius appreciated the former and attacked the latter (Schepens, “History,” 50–51).
78. Xenophon, Hellenica 3.1.2; those who attribute the Gospel of Matthew to one of the Twelve yet accept its dependence on Mark (e.g., Gundry, Matthew, 609–22) could adduce that case as a further example.
79. Eunapius, Lives 453; for anthropological observations consistent with this practice, see Lord, Singer, 138. Nevertheless, oral material can become fixed, and scribes can adapt written material (Niditch, “Hebrew Bible,” 5, following Nagy, Questions, 68–69, who offers medieval examples of the latter).
80. Brought to my attention by David Marshall through his then-forthcoming book, Jesus Is No Myth, 72.
81. Pelling, Texts, 54.
82. Fitzgerald, “Lives,” 214–15, 220. Even Hermippus, however, wrote roughly a century after Aristotle’s death (216).
83. See, e.g., Theopompus in Plutarch, Agesilaus 10.5; 31.3; 32.8; 33.1; Spartan records in 19.6; with Woldemariam, “Comparison,” 219.
84. Lee, “Source Criticism,” 208.
85. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xiv, xvii.
86. Arrian, Alexander 6.11.2–3, 8.
87. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxx.
88. See discussion in Derrenbacker, Practices, 54–59.
89. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxvii.
90. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxxi. On these Ephemerides, see Hammond, Sources, 158, 162, 203, 331–32; Bosworth, Arrian, 157–84, esp. 183–84.
91. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxxii–xxxiii, contrasting the approach of Diodorus Siculus, Library of History bk. 17; Quintus Curtius Rufus; Trogus’s Philippica bks. 11–12; and Plutarch; cf. Bosworth, Arrian, 7, 9.
92. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxix, citing, e.g., Arrian, Alexander 2.12.8.
93. Arrian, Alexander 7.13.2–6 (cf. 4.15.4); Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxix; Bosworth, Arrian, 66; further discussion in Keener, Acts, 2:1557–60, 1576.
94. Bosworth, Arrian, 91; Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxix, citing Arrian, Alexander 7.15.5–6. Bosworth, Arrian, 92–93, suggests that Cleitarchus rightly reported such an embassy, simply not considered important enough in immediately subsequent generations to be recorded by others.
95. See Arrian, Alexander 2.24.6.
96. Arrian, Alexander 7.3.6.
97. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxx.
98. Sometimes he cites potential solutions, e.g., Arrian, Indica 5.13.
99. “What I feel to be more likely and also better worth narrating” (Alexander 1.pref.; LCL); cf. Derrenbacker, Practices, 54.
100. For the different views of Alexander’s death, see Lee, “Source Criticism,” 209–14.
101. Orosius apparently died after 418 CE; Socrates of Constantinople, ca. 450 CE; and Leo in 461.
102. Lee, “Source Criticism,” 214, notes also Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64; Lucian, Peregrinus 11; and the implications of Tacitus, Annals 15.44.
103. Emphasized by Lee, “Source Criticism,” 208–9, 214–15.
104. Cf. Velleius Paterculus, History 2.92.5; 2.126.1. Biographies of living persons may prove too encomiastic, though they also provide invaluable information once we take into account their perspectives (Laistner, Historians, 34–35). Cf. Marincola, Authority, 166.
105. Livy did not always trust written records, including recent inscriptions; too often they were designed for boasting by those who commissioned them (Small, Wax Tablets, 59).
106. Cf. also Momigliano, Development, 99–100; Becker, Birth, 152–53.
107. Pliny, Letters 5.8.12–13 (considering earlier times more praiseworthy); Tacitus, Annals 4.33; cf. also Becker, Birth, 149–50.
108. Becker, Birth, 150, citing FGrH 90, F 125–30 (though Augustus remained popular afterward as well).
109. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 16.184.
110. Velleius Paterculus, History, throughout, e.g., 2.94.2–3; 2.129.1–2.130.5. See further Gowing, “Republic,” 412–17.
111. E.g., Velleius Paterculus, History 2.94.3.
112. E.g., Velleius Paterculus, History 2.127.3; 2.128.4.
113. For history’s later verdicts, see, e.g., Philo, Flaccus 1; Embassy 37, 159–60; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.181–82, 250; Tacitus, Annals 1.69; 3.16; 3.29; 4.10–5.9; Suetonius, Tiberius 48, 55, 65; Juvenal, Satires 10.66, 76, 89–90, 104; Phaedrus, Fables 3, prol. 41–44.
114. Velleius fairly consistently unveils tragic weaknesses, errors, or misdeeds in otherwise strong characters (History 2.1.1–3; 2.3.1–2; 2.4.4; 2.6.1–2; 2.7.1; 2.33.2, 4; 2.46.2; 2.88.2; 2.91.2; cf. 2.98.2–3) and often positive traits in weak characters (2.24.2, 5); or characters changing (2.18.5; 2.25.3; 2.28.2).
115. Tacitus apparently never carried through his plans to write about his own time; see Marincola, Authority, 167.
116. Hose, “Cassius Dio,” 462–63.
117. One might be thought biased when writing about close friends (Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.33.628).
118. Pliny, Letters 7.33.1–9; cf. 6.16, 20.
119. Pliny, Letters 7.33.10.
120. Pliny, Natural History pref.
121. Tacitus, Histories 1.1.
122. Lucian, How to Write History 7.
123. Lucian, How to Write History 40. One must, he emphasized, tell the truth, no matter how offensive to one’s own contemporaries; thus one would win praise in future generations (61–62)—assuming, of course, one’s work survived. On writing for the future, for posterity, see also 42.
124. Lucian, How to Write History 39.
125. Lucian, How to Write History 12. Against flattery corrupting historiography, see further Lucian, How to Write History 13, 17, 38–41, 61–62.
126. See, e.g., Isocrates, To Nicocles 28; Seneca, Dialogues 10.15.2; Plutarch, How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend 17–37, Moralia 59A–74E; cf. 1 Thess 2:5; Plutarch, On the Education of Children 17, Moralia 13B.
127. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 11.9.1; Tacitus, Histories 1.15; Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus 11.3; How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend 1–37, Moralia 48E–74E; How to Profit by One’s Enemies 6, Moralia 89B; Dio Chrysostom, Orations 4.15; Lucian, Nigrinus 15; Demonax 3; cf. Kemp, “Flattery.”
128. E.g., Velleius Paterculus, History 2.83.1; Musonius Rufus 7, p. 58.3; Dio Chrysostom, Orations 51.1; 66.13–14; Aelius Aristides, Defense of Oratory 309, §100D; Iamblichus, Pythagorean Life 32.226; Marshall, Enmity, 73–90, 256–57.
129. Lucian, How to Write History 12, commending Alexander. The story itself might be a fiction.
130. Brown, Historians, 125. His tributes, distinct from Ps.-Callisthenes’s Alexander Romance, have not survived.
131. Arrian, Alexander 4.28.1–2.
132. Arrian, Alexander 1.pref.2. Atkinson, “Introduction,” xxxi, suggests, however, that Aristobulus wrote almost too long after Alexander’s death.
133. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.154.
134. Despite the relatively short gap between the events in and writing of his Life.
135. Suetonius, Vitellius 1.
136. Noted already by Polybius, Histories 9.2.5; cf. 3.31.11–13.
137. Bockmuehl, Seeing, 167.
138. Bockmuehl, Seeing, 168. The same is true even in our personal lives; for example, long-range outcomes sift for me what in my old journal entries is ultimately “significant.” It may also correspond with what some call “impact” (e.g., in the subtitle of Belmonte, Joy).
139. See the extensive survey of views in Pervo, Dating Acts, 359–63, although Pervo himself supported an early second-century date (Dating Acts, throughout; Pervo, “Dating Acts”); Tyson, Marcion, ix, also acknowledges that the second-century view, which he defends, is a minority. The later date requires a significant temporal gap between Luke and Acts, but most scholars affirm the work’s unity (see, e.g., Pesch, Apostelgeschichte, 1:24–25; Schneider, “Zweck”; Marguerat, Histoire, 65–92; Marguerat, “Unité”; Marguerat, Actes, 17–18; Hemer, Acts, 3–33; Marshall, “Theme”; Marshall, “Reading”; Mekkattukunnel, “Proof”; Pate et al., Story, 177–87; Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 91; Verheyden, Unity; Rothschild, Rhetoric, 115–16; Borgman, Way; Keener, Acts, 1:550–62, esp. 551); p4 (P.Paris 1120) offers fragments of Luke’s Gospel from perhaps already the first half of the second century (Barnett, Finding, 35); cf. 1 Clem. 2.1; 13.1; 18.1; 46.7; Magn. 5.1; Smyrn. 3.3; Polycarp 1.2. With a majority of scholars (see, e.g., Jervell, Apostelgeschichte, 86; Fitzmyer, Acts, 54–55; Sterling, Historiography, 329–30; Zwiep, Ascension, 168; Powell, Acts, 37), I have argued for a first-century date, in my case finding 70–80 somewhat more probable than the alternatives (Keener, Acts, 1:383–401; Keener, “Apologetic”). For a somewhat more recent survey, and supporting an earlier (pre-70) date, see Armstrong, “Plea,” 98–108.
140. For discussion of the meaning of these verses, see Keener, Acts, 1:658–60.
141. Cf. possibly Papias, fragment, 3.15, depending on how he means τάξις, taxis (“order”).
142. See Moessner, “Poetics,” 85–97; Moessner, Historian, 68–107.
143. Theissen, Gospels, 220–21, 230–32.