Do the Gospels belong in a "GENRE" of literature which makes them necessarily "FICTION"?
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The obsession with "direct speech" text in the Gospels
I'm not impressed by Lumpenproletariat's spews. I haven't seen in them anything close to a discussion of modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels.
Discussing such a large volume of literature as "modern scholarship concerning the origin of the Gospels" would require extensive Walls of Text beyond these, but the following and earlier spews on the lpetrich links will hopefully approach closer to such a discussion.
To not lose sight -- the fundamental question here is
whether the Jesus miracle acts actually did happen as real historical events, i.e., whether there is reason, or evidence, for believing these events really happened, similarly as we believe other reported facts of history for which there is no proof today other than the ancient documents which say the events happened, and for some of which events there is limited evidence, like only one source.
Here are some links on what the Gospels have in common with various works from antiquity nowadays considered fictional.
Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament | Κέλσος . . .
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[14] In fact, Richard Pervo in “Direct Speech in Acts and the Question of Genre” has found that Acts of the Apostles contains more direct speech than virtually any piece of historiography or historical biography from the same period.
What is the importance of "direct speech" vs. "indirect speech"? Why does this matter? Is this supposed to put
Acts into a "genre" which rules it out as having credibility for historical events? No, an honest approach to
Acts would just address the legitimate doubts about the miracle claims in it, rather than obsessing on the number of "direct speech" quotes. But Ferguson doesn't want to do that legitimate questioning, because it leads to the conclusion that the miracle acts described in the Gospel accounts are credible, while those in
Acts are suspicious.
What makes the Jesus miracle acts more credible is that they are reported in
4 sources rather than only one, they are unrelated or dissimilar to anything earlier, fitting into no pattern of miracle stories from earlier Jewish or Greek-Roman traditions, and it's impossible to explain them as a result of mythologizing, as virtually all ancient miracle claims can be explained.
But the obsession with "direct speech" vs. "indirect speech" does nothing to resolve the credibility question. There's no connection between "direct speech" quotes and Ferguson's artificial fiction "genre" into which he wants to discard the Gospel accounts, claiming they are "fiction" because they don't fit into the strict "historical" and "biographical" categories.
"Direct speech" is the norm even for the "historical" writings.
Ferguson misuses the "direct speech" term, because ALL the ancient writings, including the "historical" ones, rely mainly on "direct speech" for their quotes.
When the "historical" writings quote someone, it's almost always "direct speech" rather than "indirect" which is used. (Possible exceptions like Thucydides are not the norm.) So the extra "direct speech" in
Acts means only that this document contains more quotes than the "historical" works. So, Josephus and Herodotus also use "direct speech" for their quotes, virtually always, whereas it's the
frequency of the quotes that's different, being much less than with
Acts or the Gospel accounts, where quotes occur frequently.
So it's only the extra amount of quotes in
Acts and the Gospels which Ferguson imagines is significant, not whether it's "direct speech" being used. Whatever the reasons for the more numerous quotes in these documents, it's not any indication of a higher or lower likelihood of fiction vs. factual subject matter.
There is nothing about a narrative style of writing, and containing numerous quotes, which makes the document less reliable or less credible as a source for the reported events. Yet Ferguson gleefully seizes on the frequent occurrence of quotes in the Gospels as a reason to then consign them to the "fiction" genre.
How do "direct speech" quotations in the text make the reported events to be fictional?
Of course the accuracy of quotes is problematic -- any fool can see that -- from an author 50 years later who is quoting a historical character. Such quotes, in the Gospels and in
Acts, can be understood as rough paraphrase and also as partly fictional, though such quotes do communicate some true facts about the events, despite the fictional element.
It's understood that probably the historical character quoted did not speak those exact words, and in some cases said no such thing, whether it's the Gospels/
Acts, or Herodotus or other historian. Even if Thucydides was a bit more accurate -- or 2 or 3 other "historians" were more meticulous in their quotes -- yet this doesn't put all the other writings into Ferguson's phony "fiction" category.
Almost all the "historians" used "direct speech" quotes.
Most of them were not meticulous but committed the same imprecision in quoting characters as the Gospels and
Acts. This does not undermine the general credibility of the accounts, other than just the wording of the quotes being in doubt.
The reported miracle acts of Jesus are not refuted by the fact that the Gospels include numerous quotes which are dubious. Anymore than dubious quotes in Herodotus refute his reported events. The quotes have a legitimate place in the accounts, even if they are imprecise, and they even contribute to increasing our knowledge of the events.
The author's INTERPRETATION of the events is communicated by the quotes and is important for understanding the historical facts and does not make the related events fiction. His interpretation contains a factual element, even though it's not literal historical fact, or is only opinion. It does not discredit the reported facts, which have to be judged separately from the quotes or the author's interpretation.
The author's interpretation is helpful in better understanding the facts or the reported events, and is a legitimate part of the account, not undermining the reported events.
One can be careful or skeptical in reading the document without dismissing the narrative as "fiction" simply because it contains a large number of "direct speech" quotes. Rather, it's the element of discrepancies or contradiction to other sources which undermines the credibility.
It's curious that Ferguson gets bogged down on this "direct speech" vs. "indirect speech" hair-splitting, as though this somehow is a "smoking gun" for refuting the miracle claims. It's only an out-of-control zeal to relegate the Gospels to the "fiction" genre which produces this arbitrary rule, i.e., that documents with more quotations in them belong in the "fiction" genre. It's not true that extra occurrence of quotes makes the document into a fiction piece.
Rather, dubious claims in any writings always need to be checked, regardless whether there are many quotes or few, or none at all.
Acts consists of 51% direct speech, which is on par with Jewish novels (e.g., Judith: 50%; Susanna 46%), and even . . .
No,
Acts is not "on par" with these writings but is a totally different type of writing.
Instead of bean-counting the number of "direct speech" occurrences, which says nothing of relevance about the fact-or-fiction question, we should note the huge difference between the New Testament accounts (the Gospels and
Acts) vs. these Jewish "novels" from the OT Apocrypha: The latter are stories with a historical setting 400-500 years earlier than the date of the writings, whereas the Gospels and
Acts are about events 30-70 years earlier than these were written.
This period of 30-70 years is a normal time span between the historical events and the writings about them which we use for most of the historical record for ancient history. Though in some cases a written source can be 100-200 years later than the reported events, this is not the norm, and it's really ludicrous and irresponsible for a scholar to compare something 400 years late to a 1st-century document reporting on 1st-century events.
By continuing to compare the NT accounts to these ancient "novels" which are dated centuries after the reported events, Ferguson is only demonstrating his incompetence to offer anything for comparison to the Gospel accounts, for judging the fact/fiction claims about the historical Jesus.
The date of the document is vastly more important than obsessing on the number of "direct speech" quotes in the document.
. . . and even greater than the proportion of direct speech in Hellenistic novels (e.g., Ephesian Tale: 38.9%; Alexander Romance: 34.4%).
Further irrelevant comparisons and pointless bean-counting. The "Ephesian Tale" has no historical setting and makes no claims about actual historical persons, and obviously is intended as fiction only. You can't compare the Gospels to anything having no connection to historical events in it, not placed into a particular time in history, as the Gospel accounts are connected to actual historical events. Something totally non-historical is simply a different category of literature than the Gospels or
Acts, containing reported events tied into actual recorded history.
And the
Alexander Romance is ludicrous for comparison, especially as an example of "fictional" vs. "historical," because this narrative actually contains more fact than fiction, despite its romantic heroism and adventurism -- most of the events in it are actually in agreement with the known history of Alexander (or don't contradict it). But further, it cannot be compared to the Gospels because almost all its content dates from several centuries after the reported events.
If this
Alexander Romance had been written about 250-300 BC, Ferguson would have no business condemning it as "fiction" as he does here. It's precisely because it's dated 500+ years later that it's useless as a credible source for Alexander, and only a pseudo-scholar would ignore the date of the document and instead obsess on how many "direct speech" quotes are in it in order to discard it into the "fiction" category.
Obviously all these documents contain some fact and some fiction. That one document has more "direct speech" than another tells us nothing about how much of it is fact and how much fiction.
So then ALL documents having quotations are in the "fiction" genre?
How many extra quotes turn it into a "fiction" document?
The term "direct speech" only means quotations, in these examples. It only means that the document contains much quoting of the historical characters, i.e., a higher amount of this as a percent of the total text. Usually these are speeches or sermons or announcements to a crowd or to someone in power.
This has nothing to do with whether the document is fact or fiction, other than the reported speaking event per se, which is not itself the real subject matter of the narrative. The document could be 99% quotations, and this does not make it any more fictional, except to assume that such quotes are not precisely accurate, or might be false attributions in some cases. But that still does not make the reported events fictional.
The exact words of a particular character, or the exact sentiments expressed in the quotes, usually are not essential to the facts/events presented in the document. A higher precision of the words or thoughts attributed to the speaker might be desirable, but usually is not possible, or necessary, and the basic facts being reported are just as true anyway, regardless whether the quotations are accurate. These quotes are not the evidence for believing the claimed events, though they contribute legitimately to clarify the facts or claimed events, or to interpret them.
More quotations do not increase or decrease the credibility.
What matters is whether the related events really happened, i.e., what the evidence shows about the claimed events, not how many quotes appear in the text.
The quotes are used as a literary tool to convey the general events and can serve this role truthfully regardless of the accuracy of the words as quoted or attributed to a certain character.
There is no evidence that documents containing extra quotations are less accurate as to the general facts being reported. The general facts or events reported are not discredited just because of an excess of quotations, including if the quotes are inaccurate and not to be taken strictly. Nothing of the fact-vs.-fiction element is resolved by citing the greater or lesser amount of quotations in the document.
And quotations per se is all Ferguson is talking about here with his point about "direct speech" in some of the literature. If any of this literature is more fictional, it's not because of the greater amount of quotations in it, but other reasons which can be given concerning particular claims in the text, and also consideration of the date of writing, or the closeness of the writer to the events.
In contrast, both historiography (e.g., Josephus’ Jewish War I: 8.8%) and historical biography (e.g., Plutarch’s Alexander: 12.1%; Tacitus’ Agricola: 11.5%) have a much lower proportion of direct speech.
I.e., lower proportion of quotations in the text. But so what? How many quotes are allowed before it becomes "fictional"?
The quotes are irrelevant to whether these writings, or reported events, are fact or fiction. Even if the above "historical" writings are more factual than some other documents, it's not because they contain fewer quotations, as Ferguson imagines. Having a greater or lesser number of quotations is irrelevant to whether certain claims are fact or fiction.
It's fine to doubt that the particular character really spoke those words, but the truth of the general events reported is unchanged by such doubtfulness of the quotes, which in some cases are likely words put falsely into the character's mouth, but which still help to truthfully communicate the related historical events which happened, just as Herodotus and Josephus and others communicated the events by that means.
The only piece of historiography to even come close to the frequency of direct speech in ancient novels is Sallust’s Catiline (28.3%), which is a text that contains a large number of Roman Senate orations, and even this text has only about half the amount of direct speech in Acts.
Ferguson keeps repeating "direct speech" when all he means is quotations in the text. And more quotations is supposed to be some kind of give-away that the document belongs in the "fiction" genre? How is this a way to judge if a reported event is true or false? How is a reported claim refuted by the fact that there are "direct speech" quotes in the written account?
Of course such quotes are poor evidence to prove something happened. But that doesn't turn the quotes into some kind of evidence that the claims are fictional. They are not evidence either to verify or refute the claimed events.
Sallust may be more credible for the respective historical events than
Acts is. But this has nothing to do with the number of quotes. There are other indicators of the credibility as to the reported events. The number of quotes is no indicator at all. Regardless how many more quotes there are, it does not make the document more fictional.
You can psychologize about the writer's motive for using frequent quotations, like how this technique of writing is a more clever way to communicate to certain readers, or even manipulate them. But it does not make the literature into fiction. How does the persuasive art of the writer turn the claims into "fiction"? or disprove certain alleged events? Rather, if we're supposed to dismiss certain claims as fiction, this has to be shown by looking at the related facts that are known, not by counting the number of quotations in the text.
Perhaps the quotes are deceptive, used cleverly by the writer to stir the reader's emotions. Much could be said about not letting oneself be misled by them, and following only where the evidence leads. But simplistically condemning the source as "fiction" for its extra use of quotations is itself a deceptive manipulation of readers trying to find the truth. Yes, maybe there's some fiction here, but what part is NOT fiction? How do we distinguish the factual part from the fiction? A legitimate scholar trying to make a case should rise above such pettiness as simply counting the number of quotations and blurting out: "See, it must be in the fiction genre!"
Is all drama text "fiction" because it's "direct speech"?
As the quotes increase in frequency, the document becomes more like a drama or play, rather than a narrative of events. So, does that make drama text more fictional, because of the extra quoted matter? No, we can recognize what's fictional, or the truth of the related events, regardless of the extensive quotes. These don't make it fictional. Except that we assume the dialogues don't accurately reproduce words spoken by the real historical characters. But even so, the related events may be factual regardless of the excess quotes.
E.g., Shakespeare is not fiction just because his plays are mostly "direct speech" text. Some is fiction and some is fact. The exact words spoken are those of the author, but the events related by the dialogue are historical and factual in some cases, and we usually know when they're not, detecting the difference regardless of the large amount of quotation text. The quotes serve a legitimate role, such as to dramatize what's going on, but they don't prove or disprove the reported events.
Most literature cannot be neatly divided into "fact" vs. "fiction" categories.
There are historical facts contained in some "fiction" writings, even closely involved with the main plot. For much of the literature we don't know if the reported events are fact or fiction. Or, we can assume it's a combination of both, but the greater or lesser amount of quotations is not what tells us when it's fact or fiction.
The
Alexander Romance might reasonably be classified as historical fact, with some fiction mixed in with it, because of the high percent of historical fact in it.
We can judge if a certain part is fiction or fact, or we can take a guess, or we can just say we don't know. What does counting the number of quotes have to do with it?
We do have reason to doubt the miracle stories in
Acts, but not because of the extended quotes. Rather, there seems to be a borrowing from the Gospel accounts, or expansion on those earlier accounts of the Jesus miracles (e.g., Acts 9:36-41 compared to Luke 9:49-55). Whereas the Jesus miracle acts cannot be explained this way, having no possible derivation from earlier stories. So the Gospels and
Acts are not in the same category as to whether the reported miracle events are fact or fiction. And this is determined regardless how many quotes there are in the text.
Although Pervo’s study is focused on Acts and not the NT Gospels, the Gospels have a similarly high proportion of direct speech, which . . .
I.e., quotations. If we're going to obsess so much on this "direct speech" or quotations in the Gospels, shouldn't we also be asking WHY they are there?
Why do the Gospels contain so many quotations? Does this abundance of quotes indicate something fictional going on? What's the reason for it? Did the writer think "I'm making up stories, so I must add lots of quotes."?
No, it's obvious what happened: Almost all the quotes are attributed to Jesus -- how accurately or inaccurately we cannot determine -- and the writer did this in order to give authority to the quoted words, because if Jesus said it, readers would believe it and attach greater importance to it.
So then we have to ask: Why were so many people ready to believe anything Jesus might say? Why was it such an effective tool for influencing people to attribute the words to Jesus? Whether he really said it or not -- either way, the writer is using those words to influence people. But why? How? How did it happen that this one speaker only, and no one else, was so widely trusted as an Authority to be cited by anyone crusading for a cause or philosophy?
Who else was such an Authority to whom teachings were attributed? Who else was being quoted over and over, even sometimes representing conflicting philosophies or schools of thought?
Why don't we have a similar phenomenon regarding John the Baptist? or Hillel? and many others? Why did the Gospel of Thomas writer attribute his sayings to Jesus and not to some other Authority or Teacher or Prophet, or a Platonist mystic?
(answer: Unlike the others, Jesus was a reputed miracle-worker, based on numerous oral and written reports.)
If we have to accept Ferguson's "direct speech" rule -- "direct speech" indicates the fiction genre -- then the Gospel of Thomas must be fiction, because it's nothing but "direct speech" throughout.
So, what is the "fiction" of this Gospel?
E.g., it quotes Jesus saying:
(1) “The one who seeks should not cease seeking until he finds.
(2) And when he finds, he will be dismayed.
(3) And when he is dismayed, he will be astonished.
(4) And he will be king over the All.”
Do these words make any sense? Are they "fiction"? Are they psycho-babble?
If Ferguson is correct, this must be "fiction" because it's "direct speech" like this, throughout all 114 sayings. What is fiction about these sayings?
This document (Coptic language) is probably not Jewish, but some kind of Egyptian-Greek-Gnostic writing by someone who chose Jesus as his mouthpiece. Why did he choose this foreign Jesus to be his Prophet/Teacher, rather than a Greek or Egyptian teacher?
Even this document in itself contains contradictory teachings, all attributed to this one speaker. So the sayings probably come from different original authors rather than only one. Why did different ideas from different teachers all get put into the mouth of Jesus? attributed to him only and to no one else?
This is what needs to be asked and needs explaining. That a document contains more "direct speech" quotes like this doesn't tell us what is "fiction" or fact, but it does tell us that we have one person, and ONLY ONE, appearing during these many centuries, with whom all the different schools of thought wanted to identify, to get their teachings into his mouth one way or another.
Why were so many "direct speech" sayings attributed to Jesus?
and to no one else?
So if "direct speech" text is so important, we have to ask this question about the one single person who alone had all these words put into his mouth from so many different directions.
Rather than being mesmerized by the "ancient novel" and "historiography" and "authorial interjection" and "historical biography" jargon in Ferguson's endless parade of nomenclature and titles and expert authority figures dictating what "genre" the Gospels must go into, we should be asking why there was ONLY ONE Teacher or Authority figure to whom all the sayings were attributed -- or, in
Acts, they were attributed to his apostles -- in these "direct speech" quotes Ferguson attaches so much importance to.
If these extensive quotes are supposed to tell us something, what they're telling us is that there was one person only, or one teacher-authority that everyone thought was the source of Truth, and who could give credibility to whatever truth or teaching or philosophy a crusader wanted to promote, and so you had to have your words spoken by this Jesus person of about 30 AD in order to get them out there to your intended audience, to recruit the believers you're seeking.
Why were there no other Messiah cults to choose from?
Why no other to serve as mouthpiece for evangelist-crusaders?
And forget the paranoia about "the Church" persecuting everyone else and burning all the non-Christian books. "The Church" didn't exist before 200 AD, and there's no evidence that anything was "burned" or that other such books existed except those using this same Jesus person as their mouthpiece, in the period before 300 AD, before the Council of Nicaea, before "the Church" had any power to ban anything.
So why did all the crusaders unite around this one person only, with nothing forcing them, most of them hating each other, agreeing only on this one Messiah figure as their "direct speech" Source of Truth? Why did ALL the crusaders choose this same historical figure and no one else as their "Messiah" or "Logos" or "Son of God" or "Prophet" to teach their sayings?
Why did all these different crusaders and ideologues and fanatics come together on this one person only instead of finding many different prophets or teachers to serve as "direct speech" outlets for their many divergent teachings? which would have worked far better for them, so they could distinguish themselves from the others, i.e., from the "false prophets"?
But no, Ferguson obsesses on his "genre" jargon abstractions, and avoids looking for any serious answers about the one to whom the "direct speech" quotes are attributed.
. . . the Gospels have a similarly high proportion of direct speech, which aligns their genre more closely with the ancient novel, than with ancient historiography and historical biography.
No, not if "the ancient novel" is something written several centuries later than the historical period it's about. No, the Gospels are more correctly aligned with other writings dated near to the events they report.
This rhetoric about "the ancient novel" is superficial and pretentious as long as Ferguson refuses to give an example of "the ancient novel" which is comparable to the Gospels or
Acts accounts. These latter are documents reporting recent events, 40-70 years earlier, whereas Ferguson's only "ancient novel" examples are accounts written several centuries later than the reported events, putting them in a different category (or "genre") than the Gospels.
Though they are not "historiography" or "historical biography," they also are not "the ancient novel" if the only examples of this are something written centuries later than the reported events.
And the "ancient novel" Ferguson obsesses on the most, the Alexander romance, is actually more fact than fiction, if we just take its content at face value instead of being mesmerized by Ferguson's continued "genre" and "historiography" and "biography" and "ancient novel" jargon.
How do we know the Alexander Romance is "fiction"?
Cutting to the chase, what's the way to judge if the literature is fact or fiction?
How many historical errors do they contain? Ferguson actually gives us no evidence that this Alexander "ancient novel" is any less factual than most of the "historical" writings. In both these types there is fact and fiction, and he offers no survey of the writings to show a greater number of historical misstatements in the Alexander romance than in Josephus or Tacitus etc.
A real scholar would present us with such data, showing that document A is more "fictional" than document B, instead of running out long lists of authors and titles that mean nothing, and just fixating repeatedly on the number "direct speech" quotes in the text. This shows that he can offer no substance on the guidelines for distinguishing fact from fiction in the ancient literature, on which he pretends to be a scholarly authority.
Rather, he just falls back on the consensus that the "romance literature" is fiction. But he completely ignores WHY it's dismissed as fiction.
And why is it dismissed? How can we be sure the romance literature is fiction? Its unreliability for historical fact is due, more than any other one factor, to the lengthy time separation between the date the stories were written and the time of the reported events.
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