Abstract
This valuable, but highly readable, book focuses on the process of the writing of the Gospels. Building on his earlier work on the material behind the written texts (Behind the Gospels, 2013), Eric Eve here looks at the issue of how and why the Gospels came to be written down. An initial chapter discusses issues about literacy levels, and reading and writing in general in antiquity. Given the general low levels of literacy, it is not at all clear why anyone thought it worthwhile to write down the Gospel stories as written texts. Nevertheless, they were written down; Eve suggests a number of reasons (a desire to fix the tradition, to propagate the message through space and time, and to use the prestige of written texts to promote their own concerns), though wisely claims no certainty and also notes that the four Gospels may differ from each other in this respect. A third chapter outlines the possible sources, or ‘raw materials’, used by the evangelists and Eve argues here, very plausibly, for the importance of memory as a key resource. He then discusses different possible models of composition, and he argues persuasively that the evangelists may have been not so much literary ‘authors’ (like the literary elite of the Greco-Roman world), or creating ‘oral’ compositions, but more ‘scribal’ preservers of memory (though he rightly notes that the role of the ‘scribe’ was very varied, and the evangelists may differ from each other in this respect).
To highlight the importance of memory in the process of the production of the Gospels, Eve provides discussions of the nature of memory, both at the individual and the social/collective levels. The treatment here is particularly valuable for those who do not know their way round some of the scholarly literature on these topics and Eve provides a very readable, but well-informed guide through the various issues. In a final chapter, Eve addresses the question of how a general theory that the evangelists worked from memory would affect theories about the Synoptic Problem and the way in which one evangelist may have accessed the work of another. Eve argues that the Griesbach/Two Gospel hypothesis encounters difficulties on such a model (as it seems to require Mark operating with two written texts in front of him), but that the Farrer hypothesis and the Two Document hypothesis, with one evangelist reproducing materials from a source via memory, might fare equally well. Eve does not argue that memory will necessarily explain all the evidence but it is a vitally important factor which should not be ignored.
This book is a real gem, providing readers with a highly accessible, but thoroughly researched and deeply informed, treatment of the important topic of memory as a key factor in the process of Gospel writing by early Christians. It should be essential reading for students starting on Gospel studies, and will also be of value for all those interested in the nature of the Gospels, their sources, their aims and their authors.