Modern Versus Ancient Historiography
Modern Versus Ancient Historiography
Although it should go without saying, we must be careful to distinguish ancient historiography from modern historiography.2 When we claim that a biblical (or other ancient) work is history or letter, modern readers often make the facile assumption (happily more difficult for apocalyptic texts) that we are talking about the same genres as modern history or modern letters.3 Granted, there are considerable similarities; the ranges overlap; and modern analogies evolved from these ancient forms. But conventions differed, and only those who have done little reading in the ancient sources will simply equate them.
It is anachronistic to assume that ancient and modern histories would share all the same generic features (such as the way speeches should be composed) simply because we employ the same term today to describe both. Barring supernatural inspiration to write according to as-yet nonexistent historical conventions that no one expected (even when they did assume such inspiration), we should not demand that ancient historians conform precisely to modern historiography. Ancient historians sometimes fleshed out scenes and speeches to produce a coherent narrative in a way that their contemporaries expected but that modern academic historians would not consider acceptable when writing for their own peers. This contrast reflects the different interests of ancient and modern historiography: ancient writers (at least those whose works survived) emphasized a cohesive narrative more than simple recitation of facts. By contrast, modern scholars value accuracy in facts much more than the “flow” of the narrative for their audience.
Ancient historical writers varied in the degree of cohesiveness and attention to bare facts, just as modern historical writers do; but on the whole, the ancient range was far more concerned with fleshing out missing details for cohesive narratives than modern ones are.4 Because of their focus on traditional, sacred content, the Synoptics differ from elite expectations. They are sometimes less cohesive, sometimes with more evidence of their sources, and do not develop scenes with elaborate descriptions. Nevertheless, it is helpful here to establish the options available to ancient writers and the degree of freedom within which they worked.
Perhaps the biggest difference between ancient and modern historiography would appear in the treatment of speeches. Rhetorically minded elite ancient historians augmented or adjusted information about speeches (or when necessary invented them) to fill out a full scene, as opposed to simply offering what would have been considered rhetorically inept tidbits of tradition.5 (Thus one orator criticizes a historian who conveys much accurate information yet fails to achieve this eloquently.)6 Because such speeches are not directly relevant to biographies (including the Synoptics),7 and because the Synoptics generally involve sayings traditions rather than speeches, I will, for the sake of space, omit full discussion of speeches here. The interested reader may find my treatment of them elsewhere.8
Such differences do not mean that most historians made up “events.” They do mean that where necessary historians had the generic freedom to fill in a missing detail to make sense of their sources, to flesh out a speech or even a scene, and so forth.9 In such situations, plausible and probable inferences could be acceptable.10 Having noted this general caveat, however, we do have good reason to believe (as we will show later) that the first Gospel writers had sources for the events and sayings they depict and wrote reasonably close in time to the events they narrate. After having written commentaries on Matthew, John, and Acts, I believe that Luke, in particular, while making some use of the ancient historian’s freedoms for arrangement,11 remained as careful as possible according to the standards typically expected for popular historiography.