Introduction to the Gospels & Acts | 1603
found useful this bound version, called a codex, because it allowed for more material to be included in one volume without making it too cumbersome.
Writing material was expensive; for example, a copy of the Gospel of Mark may have required the equivalent early twenty-first-century buying power of $ 1000 – $ 2000 U. S. Most people thus could not own their own copies of books. In fact, most would not have needed these copies anyway, since most people were either illiterate or only semiliterate. Although inscriptions were posted in cities with the assumption that many people could understand at least some writing, illiteracy was high. It was highest among women( due to the practices of ancient education) and in rural areas, but even many urban-dwelling men could not read, especially a work as long and detailed as a Gospel.
Most people thus heard the Gospels rather than read them for themselves.( That is why this study Bible’ s notes usually speak of the Gospels’ first audience or hearers rather than their first readers.) They might hear an entire Gospel read during a church meeting, which was typically an intimate gathering in the home of one of the believers. Because many were accustomed to listening intently to stories or speeches, they would be able to follow the stories carefully. Hearing the accounts over and over, they would quickly learn much of the material by heart. Additionally, most people could not unroll multiple scrolls trying to find related passages; rather, they often quoted from memory from many different Biblical books.
Some books in antiquity were sold in book markets, but books achieved their greatest circulation when given public readings or especially when read at banquets. Persons of means who liked a book they heard could have a scribe write out a new copy for them. Because early Christians met around the Lord’ s Supper, they also had a banquet setting for the reading of the Gospels. The most familiar form of public reading for them, however, would have been the use of Scripture in the synagogues. Already in the second century, Christians read apostolic works as Scripture alongside the Old Testament.
Authorship of the Gospels
By the standards used to evaluate ancient works’ authorship, the traditions of the Gospels’ authorship are very early. This is not surprising, given the amount of work represented by each of the Gospels. Works such as the Gospels normally would require careful writing and revision, then oral presentation and further revision based on feedback.
Works as large as these were major literary undertakings, requiring so much papyrus that in terms of early twenty-first-century buying power the larger Gospels may have been worth thousands of U. S. dollars, as suggested earlier. They were not as large as elite, multivolume historical works, but were nevertheless larger works than the vast majority of people could hope to afford.
Normally in antiquity readers knew who produced such major works, whether by information on the outside of the scroll or by knowledge circulated only by word of mouth. In a work this size, authorship would be one of the last details forgotten.
Moreover, had the church in fact forgotten the authorship of the Gospels, the traditions about their authorship would likely look very different. Second-century churches in different parts of the Roman Empire would likely have come up with different speculations about authorship, probably often preferring the names of apostles favored by their own locales. Instead, the early churches throughout the Empire settled on the same authors for the Gospels( Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). Moreover, if the church were inventing names for authors, non-apostles such as Mark and Luke make little sense.
These observations suggest that the traditions about the different Gospels’ authorship are very early, as Martin Hengel argued. These traditions may offer more compelling evidence for some Gospels( such as Luke) than for others( such as Matthew), but on the whole they are stronger than many critics recognize. For Christians, of course, what matters most is not the tradition of human authorship, but our confidence that God speaks to us through these texts, and that they preserve the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ. ◆