Conclusion
Conclusion
The Gospels are premeditated foundation documents. While foundation stories about the distant, legendary past were inevitably mythical, schools tended to preserve information about more recent founders, a more appropriate comparison for first-century Gospels about the recent figure Jesus. Scholars have proposed various genre forms for the Gospels; some (like “unique” or “folk literature”) are not very helpful. Others, like “memoirs,” are on the right track (even if “memoirs” underestimates the literary cohesiveness of Matthew, Luke and John). Clearly the Gospels are not mythography, novels, or pure drama. As works focused on a single, historical character, drawing on significant amounts of historical tradition, the Gospels are most readily recognized as ancient biography.
Although ancient biography differed from its modern heir and namesake, it was supposed to deal in historical information rather than the fanciful creation of events. Some biographies were more historically reliable than others (typically, those about recent generations were much more reliable than those about the distant past). We must examine the Gospels in greater detail to see where on this spectrum they lie.
Before turning to material about Jesus in the Gospels, however, we must address two issues. First, one of the Gospels shows a particularly clear overlap with the larger genre of history. Second, we must address an objection that some modern writers raise: did ancients even care about genuine historical information?