Gospels before the Book

by Matthew Larsen

What does it look like to read the texts we now call the gospels like first- and second-century readers? There is no evidence of anyone regarding the gospel as a book published by an author until the end of the second century. So, put differently, what does it mean to read the gospels "before the book"? For centuries, the ways people discuss the gospels have been shaped by later ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than ancient writing and reading practices. In Gospels before the Book , Matthew D. C. Larsen challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. He then explores a host of under-appreciated elements of ancient textual culture such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, post-publication revision, and the existence of multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues that the earliest readers and users of the
text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author, but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes ( hypomnmata ). In such a scenario, the Gospel according to Matthew would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author, but as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark, one is "right" and the others are "wrong." Rather each represents its own effort to fill a perceived deficiency in the gospel. Larsen offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion

248 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2018

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought provoking enquiry that is centered on the Gospel of Mark but also gives several interesting readings of other texts throughout antiquity. I recommend reading this alongside with Sean Alexander Gurd's "Work in Progress", which focusses on rhetorics.
They help establishing a new point of view on "unfinished texts" not as deficient steps which are but a means to acquire a complete work in the end. These unfinished texts are rather an end in themselves and enable many cultural processes through discussion, rereading and revision. I can't exactly judge how well argued and innovative it is in total, but even if it has its flaws I'm sure there will be lots of new and interesting studies coming up, which will be enabled by this newly established way of thinking about texts and their "finishedness".

[Ben - the Amateur Exegete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larsen argues that the Gospel of Mark is best understood as a collection of notes, not a sustained biography of Jesus. Later authors (Matthew and Luke, for example) made use of this collection of notes, with Matthew essentially turning into a book the notes from "Mark." In the course of making his case, Larsen surveys Greco-Roman texts in which authors write and make use of notes either for personal use or in preparation for something more. Some authors even recognized that other authors were using notes and, in a bid to update them for a wider audience, provided context, etc.

This was an eye-opening book and has huge implications for thinking about not only Mark's Gospel but also the Synoptic Problem, redaction criticism, textual criticism, and more. If the origins of the canonical Gospels is your thing, you shouldn't miss this book.

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a bit of an iconoclast, so I love books that challenge old ideas. Just this year I read books by Matthew Bates, Haley Goranson Jacob, and Jonathan Pennington that challenge the status quo on important issues, and I've largely agreed with their conclusions. Therefore, as an early career Gospels scholar, I was excited to read this book, since the hype surrounding its paradigm shifting claims has been so enthusiastic. The book is a mixed bag.

I agree with Larsen's point that the writer(s) of Matthew saw Mark as an unfinished or inadequate work, and sought to improve upon it. This may have been due to overall inadequacies, or literary ones, or simply that Mark might not have explained ideas well enough for Matthew's intended audience. Matthew clearly sought to "finish" and improve upon Mark in many ways, while still holding that Mark was a good and valuable source. There is also a comment many years ago from Ed Sanders that Mark may have originated as a collection of "tract-like" notes and assembled by Mark's author(s) into a narrative framework. Larsen never mentions this possibility, but it is similar to what Larsen claims, and has some merit. On the whole, Larsen's collection of data regarding unfinished texts in the ancient world, accidental publication, and other such ideas all made for helpful and compelling reading.

However, there are some problems. For example, Larsen argues, over and over again, that the concepts of "book," "author," and "publication" are anachronisms, and that our modern conceptions of such things are based after the invention of the printing press and not appropriate to the first two centuries of the ancient world. Larsen does not at all effectively argue this fact. He shows that MANY texts in the ancient world do not have authors or finishedness, and demonstrates that "notes" circulated in ways that might be analogous to Mark, but MORE texts than not still had "authors," and were circulated as "finished," and Larsen frequently is aware of this fact. What's more, while he is right that SOME aspects of these conceptions changed with the advent of the printing press, many did not, and Larsen never demonstrates that the situation was demonstrably different enough to completely rule out conceptions of book, author, and publication for Mark. In other words, "finished books" did exist in the first two centuries of the common era, Larsen seems aware of this, but at many points he insists that it's all anachronism, without demonstrating this well enough. In other words, he tries to prove all of our ideas regarding authorship for all of literature in the first two centuries of the common era are false, and therefore our ideas of redaction and literary criticism are all in error. This might be true for SOME texts - this he demonstrates - but he massively overstates his case.

Another difficulty I have is in regards to the narrative structure of Mark. Larsen simply does not deal enough with all of the necessary data to convince narrative critics. For example, Larsen mentions Mark's elaborate "bracketing," or, "sandwiching" technique. Rather than seeing this as a narrative stroke of literary intention, he sees this as a "super organized" method of structuring and organizing "notes." But, Larsen does not take into account many of the most important features of this technique. For example, the fig tree/temple example is not two separate stories bracketing other stories with similar themes, but, it's the division of a single story to bracket another for the purpose of using the outside story to explain the inside one. This seems clear to me, and is a method of literary creativity to provide meaning, not just to structure notes or help the reader remember. There are other examples besides, but the point is, there were too many points at which I read one of Larsen's points and thought "Ok, maybe, but I don't think his point squares well with such and such." He just left too many issues of literary creativity in Mark unaddressed to convince me that the text had no "author," or that it was just "notes" and not something more polished.

In the end, this was a book that was equally enjoyable and at times frustrating. It's a creative piece of scholarship, and I think it will create a lot of conversation. On some aspects, I'm convinced, but only in places in which I'd already had similar ideas of my own (as with Mark being a collection of previously unattached written material). At other places, quite a bit of further work will need to be done to convince me of some of Larsen's central ideas.

[Isaac Soon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Larsen’s book is a game changer when it comes to thinking about the Gospel of Mark. I recommend reading it and here write only in response to a previous review which gives the idea that the argument is not superbly argued and overstated (ironically I think the review itself lacks a good argument and itself overstates).

What previous reviews of this book fail to mention or understand about Larsen’s book is that a large portion of it is talking about the way the Gospel according to Mark was characterised by its earliest readers (Papias, Irenaeus, Clement). Larsen demonstrates well, hardly overstating his case, that the language used to describe what we call Mark by no means classifies it as any kind of finished literary product. Additionally, Larsen addresses two of the many nagging but unaddressed problems by those wanting to arguing for the completeness and autonomy of each individual gospel: why did other Gospel writers feel the need to not only use Mark but improve on it (i.e. Matthew) and why in the world did so many endings of Mark appear?

A previous review of this monograph said, “finished books did exist in the first two centuries of the common era, Larsen seems aware of this, but at many points he insists it’s all anachronism, without demonstrating well enough.” Yet, this is precisely what Larsen does. He shows the numerous examples of texts that are finished and the language used to describe them and also the textualisations which are in flux and the language used to describe them (namely hypomnema, etc.). The language of the latter is precisely what the earliest patristic evidence uses to describe Mark, not as a published book like Matthew or John, not as a book like Luke, but as translations, notes, textualisations or speech processes.

Additionally, Larsen never says that the text has no author (here previous reviewers clearly show that they misunderstand the concepts of differentiating between writer as creator/adaptator/modifier and author as attributed figure). What Larsen is saying (at least what I think the AUTHOR Larsen is saying in his BOOK) is that thinking about the Gospel according to Mark as “Mark” anachronistically seals off and completes the text as though it were published in a book. But, from a new philological point of view it’s not a book, it’s a codex. It has variations, different endings, modulations, and is structured around verbal and thematic ties. Additionally, it’s earliest readers didn’t classify it as “biblion” or anything like that, merely as notes.

[Brian LePort · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re interested in the Gospels, their composition, and their reception-history, this is a must-read in my opinion. Very thought-provoking and one of the few books out there that I would say has shifted how most scholars will write about the Gospels for the foreseeable future. In other words, it’s a ‘game-changer’.

For a fuller review, see here: https://readingthebiblewithigen.home....

[Kristoffer Kruse · Rating 1 out of 5]

Læst ifbm. speciale. Jeg var ret skuffet over bogen. Jeg synes, at Larsen fordrejer de samtidige kilder, og jeg synes ikke, at han tager nok højde for bios genren.