ancient biography did not aim for modern precision if you were gonna write a book
today about an important person what genre would you use horror fiction poetry or
biography and if you were 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 did not come into play until
more than 1,500 years later the answers to these questions are obvious so what were the literary
conventions for writing ancient biography well to answer I'll begin by asking how many of you
are married lots of you okay then many of you know exactly what I mean when I say there's a
guy version of the story and a girl version now of course I'm generalizing here but for
the most part women like details and lots of them they'll tell you what happened where it
happened when it happened why it happened how it happened who was there what they were doing what
they were wearing what they were saying what they were thinking and how they were feeling
guys are different we like bullet points get the bottom line the game's coming on in five minutes
when we're talking to another guy on the phone we'll often omit details we think are unimportant
we'll even alter a few minor details a little in order to avoid having to give five minutes
of background knowledge for which the other guy couldn't care less no I'm talking about right most
of us guys have had the experience of describing an event on the phone to a friend when our wives
who have been listening in the background say you know it didn't happen that way you forgot
to mention this and that and he didn't say it at that time he said it at this time and
he said it this way and we're thinking oh we're not trying to deceive guys report relevant facts
women report women report everything and they insist on doing so with the precision of a legal
transcript it's not a matter of the right and wrong way of telling a story it's a matter of
having different objectives flexibility well ancient biographers sometimes give us the guy
version of a story and sometimes they give us the girl version I'll give you two examples from
the Gospels number one jesus heals a Centurions servant Luke gives us the girl version Luke tells
us that there was a Centurion who had a servant who was sick he wanted Jesus to ask Jesus to heal
and but for some reason he was afraid to go see that see Jesus so he sent some Jewish elders on
his behalf to make the request they came to Jesus and they said Jesus there's a Centurion and he's
kind to us he's got this servant who's sick please come healing in Jesus all right let's go check it
out and so they head toward the Centurions house the Centurion gets word this and so he sends some
friends to intercept Jesus they come to the Jesus and they say Jesus the Centurion says that he's
unworthy for you to enter his house but he knows you have authority so just give the command and
a servant will be healed Jesus praises the faith of the Centurion and heals his servant
without ever seeing the Centurion that's Luke's version he gives us the girl version Matthew
gives us the guy version Matthew streamlines he simplifies the story for him let's just cut out
these emissaries they were just delivering his message so he airbrushes them out of the story
and has the Centurion himself go to Jesus to make the request in person he streamlines he simplifies
flexibility here's another example Jesus curses a fig tree mark gives us the girl version for mark
he tells us oh yeah it's Palm Sunday Palm Sunday Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem
and then he goes into the temple while he's in the temple mark says he just looked around and then at
the end of the day they leave and they go back to Bethany and they spend the night in Bethany
that's Sunday Palm Sunday triumphal entry visits the temple leaves goes back to Bethany Monday
they get up early they return to Jerusalem and on the way they see a fig tree jesus is hungry
no figs on the tree so he curses it then they go into Jerusalem and they go into the temple
where Jesus cleanses the temple he overturns the tables and he chases away the merchants
and the money changers can you guys hear that out there okay cool okay at the end of the day
they leave the temple they go back to Bethany and they spend the night there in Bethany next
morning Tuesday they get up and they start their trip back to Jeru to Jerusalem there we go and
they come to the fig tree that Jesus had cursed on the previous day and they see that it's dead
okay so that's mark's version he gives us the girl version matthew gives us the guy version
again he's going to streamlined and simplify the story matthew has this the Palm Sunday starts
off the same way Palm Sunday triumphal entry into Jerusalem then they go into the temple
now here's where Matthew changes the story he's going to simplify so what he does is he takes
the temple cleansing which occurred on Monday and he moves it to Sunday and he conflates it
with the first temple visit and narrates both as a single event and so Jesus cleanses that temple
at the end of the day they leave they go back to Bethany and they spend the night this is all
Palm Sunday still Monday they get up early in the morning and they're headed back to Jerusalem and
Jesus is hungry they come to the fig tree no figs he curses it and it withers before their
very eyes Matthew has again streamlined the story he's compressed and conflated two events into one
so that he narrates it as though he curses the tree and it withers on the spot he simplifies
flexibility now I know I can guess what happened later mark came to Matthew and he said you know
it didn't happen that way Matt Jesus all he walked into the temple looked around and said
he didn't cleanse it until Monday but you took it from Monday in your place they don't Sunday
and conflated it with the event made it as one and look what you did with the fig tree you took the
fig tree and instead of the two events you made it one event so that he Kirsten it withers on
the spot Matthew you have deceived your readers and fictionalized the account in Matthew turns
the mark and says come on and you remind me of my wife in these two stories Matthew has simplified
he streamlined by altering some minor details he moves the temple cleansing from Monday to Sunday
a different day he conflates two events into one he compresses events to have occurred over
a shorter period of time and he narrates words spoken by one person as though spoken by another
but Matthew is using compositional devices that were commonly used in ancient biography in that
day in fact many of those we use today even in our present conversations now if you consult
the commentaries by written by New Testament scholars even a majority of evangelical New
Testament scholars will agree with the solutions that I've just provided or something very close
to however a minority of Evan Jellicle 'z take some different approaches one approaches creative
harmonization for example they'll say well the Centurion sent some Jewish elders then sent some
of his friends and then he decided himself to go to Jesus later on it's kind of like that old
transparent overhead transparency and you lay the transparencies on top of one another and all the
details fit together problem with that is it is pure speculation but even worse it doesn't jive
with the biblical texts because Luke not only does it say in Luke's Gospel that he sent others
on his behalf but Luke says after Jesus said the servant would be healed Luke reports when those
who had been sent by the Centurion returned to the house they found the servant well it's those
who had been sent who returned to the house no mention is made of the Centurion going because
according to Luke II didn't go another option is that Matthew made an error now I have yet
to find a skeptic a sceptical scholar who takes that position but it is found I did
Lydia McGrew a Christian apologist takes this approach she thinks Matthew actually believed
that the Centurion himself went sent no emissaries and wasn't aware that the Centurion had actually
stayed and sent the emissaries so she says Matthew was mistaken it was an innocent mistake but it was
an error no less now when compositional devices that were part and parcel of writing ancient
biography in that day when those easily account for a difference I see no reason to prefer an
error moreover McGrew insists that had Matthew known that the Centurion had sent emissaries
and did not go but yet streamlined the story simplified it by omitting the emissaries and
having the Centurion himself go that that would have been to deceive his readers and fictionalized
the account fiction Eliza's a term she likes and uses often but we need not feel captive
to mcruiz black and white thinking it leads to a flat-footed literalism that's out of touch
with how people wrote in antiquity indeed how many of us communicate even today recognizing
that the gospel authors used compositional devices allows us to understand why the
differences are there it assists us in avoiding strained harmonizations which may themselves be
fictional and it provides more plausible reasons for the differences in the Gospels than errors you