Third Sunday of Year A
January 2008
This is the third and last talk on understanding the Gospels.
These three talks are broadly based on the instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Catholics.
The process began with Jesus public life. During this period Jesus preached and healed. His many followers, especially those who later came to be known as Apostles, heard and saw what he said and did. It is important to understand that Jesus was born and grew up as a Galilean Jew of that time and everything that he said and did related to that particular time and circumstances - religious, political and social.
When He was arrested and executed his followers fearing repercussions from the authorities, scattered back to their home areas or hid as best they could. They were quite convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was just another of the prophets who had come to a sticky end.
Then came the Resurrection experience. Some of His followers ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ the Risen Lord. This experience came as a complete surprise to them. They were not expecting anything like this to happen. This was the experience which impelled those who had personally known Jesus of Nazareth to stand up and preach about Jesus - crucified and risen from the dead. Their only concern was to pass on their ‘faith’ - a faith brought into being by their ‘Resurrection experience.’ In proclaiming the Risen Lord they made no attempt to recount what Jesus said and did with simple factuality or in any chronological order. In other words they had no interest or intention of producing a biography of Jesus of Nazareth. Everything they remembered him doing and saying was now influenced, understood and illumined by their newfound faith in the ‘Risen Lord.’
Others who had not actually heard or seen Jesus joind the original witnesses in spreading the good news about the Risen Lord. Their witness was of course dependent on what they received from the original witnesses. So the preaching gradually became a combination of eye-witness and non-eyewitness narration until we reach the stage when none of the eye-witnesses were still alive.
Another noteworthy development was the movement of the preachers, both eye-witness and non-eyewitness to other areas and countries outside Palestine. Here the preaching was mostly in towns and cities, to not only Jews but also to non-jews or gentiles. The preaching had now to be adapted to people of different cultures and translated into different languages especially greek and later, latin.
This brings us to about 70-100 ad. This is the period when the Gospels, as we know them today were written. It is safe to say that none of the Evangelists (those who wrote the Gospels as we have them today) were eye-witnesses of the ministry of Jesus.
They were second generation Christians. They had heard about Jesus from others and had received their faith from others. Drawing on what they had received from others and on bits and pieces about Jesus that had been written down, and on stories about the doings and sayings of Jesus which were circulating within the christian communities at that time, they separately put together four accounts of what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth meant to them and to their christian community at that time.
Therefore while most of what the gospels tell us about the acts and words of Jesus would have a strong historical basis, we must always remember that they are also instruments used by the evangelist to get his message across.