Chapter 73 of 404

Unique Genre?

The twentieth century generated a variety of proposals regarding the genre of the Gospels.²⁰ Some of these proposals have proved less helpful than others. Classifying the Gospels as “gospels” is self-evidently true, but such a classification does not reveal the broader literary expectations for reading them that a broader classification could. That is, if identifying a work’s generic category guides the way the reader interprets a document, the earlier standard classification of the New Testament Gospels as “unique”²¹ is of limited value. Granted, their focus on Jesus’ character makes them unique,²² but this is because of Jesus’ distinctive character more than the literary techniques of the authors. Most works, including other Greco-Roman documents, are “unique” in some sense.²³ Even though the four canonical Gospels are closer to one another than they are to any other documents of antiquity,²⁴ they are also each distinct from the others²⁵ and all fit into a broader category of narrative.²⁶ While it is true that the Gospels tell a story that was unique in their time, their first audience would have been most familiar with coherent literary works surrounding primary characters in terms of Hellenistic “lives,” or ancient biographies.²⁷

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