Greco-Roman Biography and History
Greco-Roman Biography and History
Classifying the Gospels as ancient biography is helpful for understanding the Gospels only if we define some of the characteristics of ancient biography, particularly (for our interests here) with respect to biographies’ particular historical character. Although biographies were, as we shall argue, meant to be historical works in the general sense, we must first point out that their genre is distinct from history proper (while overlapping with it at points).
Because the Gospels include elements that connect them with historiography proper as well as with biography,79 some scholars have argued that the Gospels fit the genre of history and not biography.80 Thus one scholar argues that though the Gospels are “lives,” they differ from Greek lives because they cannot trace moral development in one they regard as God incarnate.81 He argues that in any case Roman biographies fall closer to history, starting with the second-century writer Suetonius.82 This association, however, appears too narrow: did the Roman historian Tacitus (in his Agricola) suddenly develop a new, mixed genre in the same generation as Suetonius without prior models? Biographies of the Greek writer Plutarch also include considerable historical content. Moreover, historical works that focused on a particular individual were “lives” (bioi), the most natural category in which ancient readers would place most of the Gospels.83 Historical features in biographies are too pervasive to require us to simply transfer biographies from the narrower biographic genre to the wider historical one.
As noted above, although biographies could serve a wide range of literary functions,84 ancient biographers intended their works to be more historical than novelistic.85 This observation especially fits the forms of biography dominant in this era (writers like Nepos, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus). Thus some classicists treat biography as a particular “subdivision of history.”86 This classification respects both biography’s particular attention to the life of an individual and the interest in the genuine past that it shares with historiography.
More generally, first-century historiography often focused on notable individuals. 87 This approach eventually moved historiography in a more biographic direction; thus “the Greco-Romans of the first century, chiefly prompted by the Roman habit of thinking in terms of models, . . . extended the definition of history by adding the life and character of famous men to speeches and deeds as the proper subject of history.”88 Some distinguish this approach from pure biography in terms of their distinct purposes.89 As we have noted, the primary distinction is not biographic focus but whether the work is limited to a single character.90 Such histories often tended to be “encomiastic,” magnifying heroes,91 but as we shall note in a subsequent chapter, such an emphasis does not make them fictitious.
The central difference between biography and history in this matter was that the former focused on a single character whereas the latter included a broader range of events.92 Classicists often note that history thus contained many biographic elements, but normally lacked the sustained focus on a single person and emphasis on characterization.93 Biographies were less exhaustive, focusing more on the models of character they provided.94 Structured by the reigns of emperors, Roman historiography included increasing elements of “imperial autobiography” by the end of the first century.95
Biographies were normally essentially historical works (provided we allow for the differences between the ancient genres and their modern successors, noted below); thus the gospels would have an essentially historical as well as propagandistic function. To quote more fully the words of David Aune used above,
. . . while biography tended to emphasize encomium, or the one-sided praise of the subject, it was still firmly rooted in historical fact rather than literary fiction. Thus while the Evangelists clearly had an important theological agenda, the very fact that they chose to adapt Greco-Roman biographical conventions to tell the story of Jesus indicates that they were centrally concerned to communicate what they thought really happened.96
Our most obvious and abundant examples of biography from the early empire are in Plutarch and Suetonius.97 To what extent does their genre tether them to facts about the past? Plutarch does often work from memory but his notes are taken from a wide range of sources, and are usually even arranged fairly chronologically. 98 Plutarch sometimes takes liberties with his material, though elsewhere proves very accurate.99 Suetonius took notes from official “libraries and archives,” arranged his notes topically, but proved less critically discerning about his material than Plutarch. He includes various and sometimes varying accounts, but modern historians appreciate “his hesitation to impose his own judgments.”100 As we have noted, Suetonius seems to straddle the genres of biography and history.101 While some mythical elements appear in both these writers (particularly when writing about the distant past), clearly both are biographies just as the Gospels are.102
Naturally we have a range of works sometimes classified as biography.103 Yet where these biographies’ information is inaccurate, they do not thereby become novels. As some literary critics have pointed out, even when historical works have incorrect facts they do not become fiction, and a novel that depends on historical information does not become history. Nevertheless, some scholars have argued that while many ancient biographers were mostly accurate, some were quite unreliable. While it is true that some biographers were less accurate than others, frequently cited examples like Ps.-Callisthenes’ Alexander Romance104 do not make the case; this work does not belong to the main biographic genre (especially as it existed in this period).105 When biography involved deliberate falsification of events (as opposed to creative retelling of sources), it departed from the expected conventions of its genre.
Ancient biographies and histories were different genres, yet (as the contemporary debate over the genre of Luke-Acts shows) the former can draw on the principles of the latter enough to allow considerable overlap (hence I offer examples from ancient histories as well as biographies). While taken by itself Luke’s Gospel is biography, as part of Luke’s two-volume work the Gospel becomes a biographic component in a larger history, just as authors of multivolume histories could devote an entire volume or section to a particularly prominent character.106 Luke’s biography of Jesus is thus inseparable from his larger historical work.
Yet claiming a basically historical function by ancient standards does not mean that the gospel writers wrote history the way modern historians would; ancient historiography itself proceeded on different principles than modern historiography does, as we shall emphasize in a later chapter. This was also true of ancient biographers; thus Plutarch opines that some ancient writers added some missing details about Alexander’s manner of death, inventing tragic scenes appropriate to the topic.107 Naturally, over the centuries (as in the span of time between Alexander and Plutarch), such adaptations by less conservative writers would multiply. We would expect fewer such divergences from the eyewitness sources in the briefer span of time between Jesus’ death and the appearance of first-century Gospels.