Differences from the Gospels
Differences from the Gospels
But we must observe some important differences between the canonical Gospels and the Palestinian Jewish works noted above. First, the period in which oral tradition was transmitted before the Gospels is at most two generations (roughly 65 years till the Fourth Gospel); Jewish expositions on Pentateuchal characters often draw on centuries of legends, useful to fill in gaps in the biblical narratives. Second, haggadic expansion characterized stories about the distant past far more frequently than recent generations (although it could occur in the latter case extremely rarely). Third, unlike many of these works, the canonical Gospels anticipate a Diaspora audience familiar with the genre of biography (and for at least three of these Gospels, the particular subgenre of “gospel about Jesus”). Many of the works above are quite distant from biographies.
Some Jewish writers did compose something like self-contained biographies, though again, not all of them fit the conventions we have discussed. The Jewish philosopher Philo certainly adapts his material, and may provide an example of a sort of Jewish biography.49 Nevertheless, Philo’s expositions of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses idealize the figures only to communicate Philo’s philosophical lessons,50 though this observation does not negate the evidence for his use of hellenistic biographic conventions.51 Philo was more of a philosopher than a historian, and his works about biblical individuals are philosophic expositions of biographic information rather than biographies proper.
If we compare Philo’s works about individuals with the Gospels, we must keep in mind several observations. First, as a Platonist, much of Philo’s interest in the “lives” of Pentateuchal characters like Abraham and Noah is allegorical, and Philo’s degree of allegorization is barely comparable even to John, much less to the Synoptics.52 Second, Philo’s narration (as opposed to his allegorical interpretation) normally follows his biblical sources rather than simply his imagination.53 Third, Philo writes about much earlier characters, following the philosophic disposition to allegorize works about characters of the distant, mythical past. In our discussion of ancient historiography we observed that writers normally recognized that their sources about the distant past were less reliable, hence often exercised literary freedoms that they would not employ for the more recent past. Fourth, Philo’s overt resistance to genuine historical content (alongside his emphasis on allegorical significance) at some points involves especially “offensive” texts.
Thus, while we may learn from broad analogies with a wide range of literature, the mainstream Greco-Roman biographies of the Gospels’ era provide the most fruitful grounds for genre comparison.