6 March, 2011

Which Came First: Epistle or Gospel?

There seems to be an unnecessary division between those who claim to follow Paul and

those who claim to follow Jesus, which, I believe, fails to appreciate the

historical interaction between the material included in the teachings of Jesus and

the material contained in the writings of the Apostles. It is a little like the

argument over which came first in creation: The chicken or the egg? However, the

implications of the answer to this more theological question have farther-reaching

effects.

The general impression one gets from so much that is taught in the churches today is

that the Apostle Paul (and perhaps some other New Testament writers) were

attempting, in their epistles, to correct or moderate the extremes of the teachings

of Jesus in the Gospels. As the New Testament is laid out (and as the incidents

occurred historically), it is easy to make such an assumption. After all, the four

gospels come first in the layout of the New Testament, and then we read what Paul

had to say to the early followers of Jesus. The idea that Paul is challenging what

we have just read in the gospels is an easy one to accept. Added to that, we also

know that Paul came AFTER Jesus historically, persecuting Christians after the

resurrection, and then converting to Christianity himself, before rising to a

position of high esteem amongst the Christians, and writing his many letters.

But in reality, most experts agree that the Gospels were not written until AFTER the

epistles. When the two classes of New Testament scripture are seen as having been

written in that order, it could be argued more easily that the Gospels were compiled

as an attempt to alter misconceptions associated with the writings of the apostles,

rather than the other way around.

Even though the gospels were written after the epistles, there is compelling

evidence that there was a deep interest in the teachings of Jesus before and during

the time that the epistles were being written. I would like to consider the

implications of this with regard to things Paul and others wrote in those epistles.

Word for word similarities in the various gospels are taken as strong evidence that

early Christians memorised literally hundreds of the sayings of Jesus and regularly

tested themselves on their knowledge of these teachings. It was only possible,

decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, for people to record with such

accuracy what Jesus had taught, because they had, through all those decades, been

diligently repeating those same teachings and incidents over and over again. Just

as we might read the Bible as part of our religious discipline, they would recite

passages from the Bible that had not yet been written down, with those recitations

serving as the repository for the construction of the gospels when the decision was

later made to put them into writing.

If that was the case, then it would not only help to explain the incredible

consistency in what the first three gospel writers in particular had to say about

the life and teachings of Jesus, but it would also explain why the writers of the

epistles did not take the time to reiterate what it was that Jesus taught. With the

exception of James, who addressed his epistle to those who had been "scattered

abroad"... possibly so much so that they had not received the oral traditions of the

other more established local churches, the other epistle writers were more inclined

to make general theological statements with regard to what those memorised teachings

of Jesus meant for us as believers. They would remind us about such things as

forgiveness and eternal life, adding that the sacrificial death and resurrection of

Jesus served as further evidence of his authority to make the demands that are

contained in his teachings.

When it became clear that the original eye witnesses were dying out, and that Jesus

was not likely to be returning in the immediate future, THEN the early Christians

started to compile (in written form) narratives incorporating the teachings of Jesus

as well as important incidents in his life. It may even be possible that they were

motivated to correct distortions that had come in from things that people had heard

Paul saying. Peter commented that there were many who had twisted the things Paul

had said, to their own destruction. (It sounds so much like what we see being done

with some of the teachings of Paul today.) The appearance of not just one, but FOUR

versions of the life and teachings of Jesus, steered the early Christian communities

back to a greater emphasis on the Cornerstone, which Peter had noticed many builders

foolishly setting aside.

Some epistles dealt with specific pastoral problems as well, suggesting that they

were not written with the same sense of eternal and universal authority that went

into the writing of the gospels. When Paul says something like, "Don't forget to

bring the cloak that I left there when you come," he was writing very much like we

ourselves would write to one another (or even to a group of people) today. If such

a letter was lost or destroyed, it would not represent anywhere near the disaster

that would have happened if they had lost their official record of what it was that

Jesus taught and, by implication, what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. One was

just some very powerful (albeit "inspired") comments from a great religious leader,

while the other were the words of eternal life, spoken by the only begotten Son of

God.

With this concept of the relationship between the two classes of biblical writings,

it makes perfect sense that Paul would say, as he did in the opening chapter of his

letter to the Galatians, "If I, or an angel from heaven should teach you contrary to

the gospel which I [previously] delivered to you, let them be accursed." That

"gospel" which he had previously delivered to them was not the epistle that he was

only just starting to write at the time, nor was it the four gospels exactly as we

have them in writing today. However it would probably have been an oral tradition

which was very similar to those four gospels, given that the teachings of Jesus

(when transcribed onto parchments) were referred to as "the gospel" by the leaders

of those same early churches.

So, in answer to the question about which came first: The epistles seem to have

been the first bits of the New Testament to have appeared in writing; but the

gospels apparently preceded the epistles in oral tradition, and, in addition, they

followed the epistles in official writing. This before-and-after emphasis on the

teachings of Jesus is, in my opinion, vital to our understanding of the subordinate

role that Paul's comments would have played, sandwiched as they were, between the

teachings of Jesus as studied both before and after Paul wrote his epistles.