a number of you have asked me to respond to lydia mcgrew's lengthy critique of my book
why are there differences in the gospels now that i've been able to complete some of my projects
i've had some time to read mcgrew's book and will now respond to begin i want to explain what led me
to the approach to gospel differences i've adopted in the latter half of the 20th century several
scholars proposed that the gospels belong to the genre of ancient biography richard burridge's 1992
book what are the gospels ended up moving the world of new testament scholars to think that
at minimum most if not all of the gospels share much in common with the genre of ancient biography
even before burridge's book classicists had been writing on ancient biography and how it differed
in some respects from modern biography ancient biography had different objectives and allowed
more flexibility in the way the past was reported than how modern historians write a question that
remains to be answered is how might this impact the way we should read the gospels new testament
scholar craig keener began research on the gospels to see how their biographical nature plays out
several of his doctoral students have conducted focused research in this area as well
i focused on it too the first step i took was to make a list of all the extant biographies written
within around 150 years of jesus before and after about 300 years in all biographies were called
lives at that time the english word biography did not come along until the 17th century
i began reading those biographies starting with plutarch's lives many classicists
assessed plutarch to be the greatest biographer in antiquity plutarch began writing his lives at
the end of the first century and continued writing them until sometime shortly after the year 120. he
wrote more than 60 lives of which 48 have survived nine of the 48 feature main characters who were
romans most of whom knew one another with many of them participating in some of the same events
so i read through those nine lives three times making a list of all the events reported in
them then i made a list of all the events that appear in two or more of those lives
for example the assassination of julius caesar is mentioned in plutarch's lives of caesar cicero
brutus and antony so we can compare how bluetark reports the same story in all four accounts this
is a unique opportunity and differs from comparing how the story of caesar's assassination is told by
several different authors by focusing on plutarch i could assess how the same author very often
using the same sources and writing at the same time reported the same stories i found three dozen
stories plutarch told two or more times in the nine lives on which i was focusing my thinking was
i could go through these stories with a fine toothed comb and observe whether plutarch copies
and pastes the same stories or whether there are differences if there are differences i could see
what kind of differences there are and see if they shed some light on the differences in the
gospels at this point i recognized that this was a substantial project and would take a lot of time
so prior to proceeding further i wondered if someone else had already completed what i was
planning to do surely a classicist had done so i contacted my friend john ramsey who at the
time was teaching classics at the university of illinois in chicago i asked john if he was
aware of anyone who had already completed such a project with plutarch professor ramsey referred
me to his friend christopher pelling who he said is the foremost authority on plutarch
pelling was teaching at christchurch oxford at the time and is the former tutor of richard burrich
whose book i mentioned earlier has been a game changer in the discipline of new testament studies
i contacted professor pelling and he informed me that a few others had indeed conducted the
type of type of work about which i was inquiring however the most comprehensive of that work is a
journal article he had written and republished it in 2002 as a single chapter in his book
plutarch in history he added that his research involved comparing seven lives rather than nine
and it only took a handful of stories into consideration rather than every story that
had appeared more than once so nothing had yet been completed that had the scope i was proposing
so i embarked on my research i placed limits on it in order to avoid embarking on countless rabbit
trails and never completed it i also set limits by proceeding with certain assumptions i began with
the assumption that at minimum the gospel share much in common with the genre of ancient biography
this is the position of a large majority of new testament scholars including evangelical new
testament scholars the literature i had read on the subject convinced me of the gospel's
biographical genre after all if you were going to write about the life of an important person
what genre would you use poetry horror fiction or biography and let's say you're a biographer
in the first century writing for readers living in the first century about a person who had lived
in the first century would you use the literary conventions in play in the first
century or those that would not come into play until more than fifteen hundred years later
the answers to these questions are obvious now some have claimed that
the gospels are a unique genre and belong in a category shared with no other literature
this seems odd to me every other bit of literature in the bible fits into a genre that's shared with
other literature outside the bible so why why must the gospels be the only exception
especially when they share so much in common with ancient biography
so i began with the assumption that the gospel share much in common with ancient biography
i also assume that many new testament scholars over the years have been correct that the authors
of the gospels used compositional devices such as telescoping spotlighting and other devices
although they rarely ever provided evidence to support their contention that these were
standard devices used by the ancients their proposals seemed quite plausible to me in fact
more plausible than viewing the gospel differences as errors or by engaging in strained harmonization
efforts especially since we use many of these devices even today in our ordinary communications
i read literature written by classicists and i discovered that they also spoke of
the same literary devices as new testament scholars along with a few additional ones
classicist jl moles commented that a number of these literary devices are practically universal
in ancient historiography since professor pelling refers to them as compositional devices
i adopted that term the scope of my project would be largely limited to examining
stories told in two or more of plutarch's lives identifying differences in details and looking for
occasions where compositional devices might be in play now if the majority of new testament scholars
and classicists are mistaken about the existence of these devices then i am too since i'm largely
standing on the shoulders of richard burridge christopher pelling j moles craig keener and many
other scholars when launching into this expanded research on research that breaks some new ground
the entire project took around eight years during my research i was quite surprised to observe
how often plutarch appears to have used the compositional devices identified by classicists i
also read through the gospels eight times in greek and made a list of all the differences i observed
i then read those stories in view of the compositional devices posited by scholars
and was surprised by how often the gospel authors appear to have used them oxford university
press published my research in 2017 in a book titled why are there differences in the gospels
what we can learn from ancient biography the book received praise from professor pelling who called
it an exemplary crossover of classical and new testament studies richard balcom called it an
illuminating fresh approach to understanding how the gospel authors used their sources
dale allison referred to it as a significant volume while scott mcknight said it's the most
important book he's ever read on the literary techniques of the evangelists all of these are
highly respected scholars in the relevant fields the esteemed evangelical theologian j.i packer
referred to my book as an accomplished piece of work which it is a pleasure to commend however
the book has received some criticism the sharpest of which has come from lydia mcgrew a christian
philosopher she began to post lengthy criticisms of my book on her blog what's wrong with the world
she then published two articles in evangelical journals one of which she sells as a pdf on amazon
then in november 2019 she published her book the mirror or the mask liberating the
gospels from literary devices a 560 page volume that's largely a negative criticism of my book
more recently she and her husband tim have contacted a number of people asking them to
stop promoting my work asserting that it has been thoroughly refuted by her book friends
of the mcgrews are contending vigorously in their favor on social media platforms
unfortunately some division in the body of christ has resulted and this concerns me that plus the
many requests i've received to reply to her is what has motivated me to offer one so here's
how i'm going to proceed this is the first in a series of eight videos that will be approximately
15 to 30 minutes each in the seven videos that follow i'll reiterate the steps i take in my book
and assess how magru has replied in her book i will not be responding to everything she says that
would require far more time than i can devote to the matter but i am responding to the major points
i intend to do this in a collegial manner mcgrew will no doubt reply at length however i want to
be clear about something here at the outset these videos are my response to lydia's book
at this point i have no intention of being involved any further in the disputes many of you
are having i have other projects that require my undivided attention and i'll be moving on to those
so as you review my assessments judge for yourself whether you think compositional devices provide a
proper understanding of many of the differences we observe in the gospels if it helps you
great if you don't like it that's fine whether you agree or disagree i hope you will conduct
your investigation and the dialogues that follow in a manner that builds up the body of christ
rather than one that tears it down there's room for disagreement
be a peacemaker with this said i will be posting the remaining seven videos in this
series throughout the month of june let me know your thoughts in the comments section
you