Michael Crosby Thoughts on Biblical Criticism
I was truly disappointed to read Barton Swaim’s review of Jay Parini’s Jesus: The Human Face of God
(Wall Street Journal 12.24.13). His dismissive “either/or” approach to such a serious book can be
summarized in his own words: “Either the New Testament Gospels are true or they are collections of
precious fables. There is no third option.” Only someone interpreting the Gospels literally would proffer
such a simplistic, dichotomous conclusion to a complex issue that demands the kind of literary criticism
that he seems to eschew and which Parini attempts (with varying degrees of success).
Mr. Swaim appears to be seriously ill-informed about mainline historical-critical approaches to the study
of the four gospels. This method has been taught for decades in all the major Protestant denominations
and my own Roman Catholicism’s seminaries as well as its official documents on biblical interpretation.
This lack of awareness is evident in his seeming lack of knowledge of the “two-source” theory. On the
one hand he rightly recognizes that Matthew and Luke shared a Markan source but then seems unaware
of the other source (often called “Q”) that was shared by them. This is evident in the rhetorical remark
he makes in trying to debunk Parini’s probing: “Why do Luke and Matthew frequently use identical
phrasing that Mark doesn’t use?” Because these shared scriptural passage are attributed by scholars to
what is called the “Q Source [coming from the German word Quelle].” An example of this are the
beatitudes which are found in Matthew and Luke (with variant wording) but are absent in Mark.
More critically, returning to my opening remarks, Swaim’s comments seem to misunderstand the notion
of “truth” itself when it comes to interpreting the Gospels. For him “truth” seems equated with
historical facts making the Gospels literal narratives rather than faith statements. That they are
predominantly the latter is attested for me in the first of the two endings found in the Fourth Gospel
(which Swaim seems to interpret historically, when most Johannine scholars consider the brunt of the
fourth gospel to be more mystical than literal). There the author called John writes that “these [words]
are written so that you [the reader] may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that through believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31). Earlier Jesus is quoted as praying not
only for those with him at what we Christians call “The Last Supper,” but also for “those who will believe
in me through their word” (Jn. 17:20).
I can’t prove a thing about Jesus as revealed in the gospels by any source outside of them except the
one (somewhat contested) statement from Flavius Josephus that he existed, did good and had followers
and that, upon his execution by the Romans was believed to be risen by those followers who believed in
him. Christians of the first and twenty-first century remain such believers, as our later Creeds make
clear. Anytime we conflate belief with absolute facts we make a caricature of our faith; in the process
we also make ourselves increasingly irrelevant to serious scholarship and seekers.
The gospels, like all the scriptures, are dominantly faith statements. As such, they are precisely the
“third option” between fables and factoids that Swaim rejects as impossible. Facts are provable; fables
reveal myths. Faith serves as a bridge between what can be proven by observable facts and myths that
reflect the attempt of people to make sense of things that can’t be proven but offer believability. When
reviewers or religion(s) insist that everything found in faith-documents like the gospels are actual facts
they not only reflect an unfortunate fundamentalism; they often undermine their very believability.