When scholars argued in the 1970s and 1980s that the gospels were bioi, they were only advocating a view that had been taken for granted within Christian circles for almost nineteen hundred years. What is more surprising, perhaps, is that anyone should ever have doubted that the gospels were biographies. In this first chapter, we shall look at the debate over the genre of the gospels, noting the way in which various issues have played into the dispute, not least assumptions over the nature and formation of the gospels, the evangelists’ level of education, and often rather rigid conceptions of ancient bioi themselves. We shall pay attention not only to the academic arguments but also to the social contexts in which they were debated, in the conviction that scholars are no more insulated from prevailing cultural trends and attitudes than anyone else.

At first glance, it is rather surprising that no one in the ancient world ever refers to the gospels as bioi. The reason for this, however, may be quite straightforward: almost from the very beginning, these particular “lives” were known as “gospels” (euangelia). The term “gospel” is not, of course, a literary genre. The term, often in the plural, was used in the Greco-Roman world to refer to the proclamation of significant news or imperial proclamations—to announce a military victory, the accession of a new emperor, or an emperor’s benefactions—and would be the occasion for civil rejoicing. On the famous Priene Calendar, for example, Augustus can refer to his own birthday as “the beginning of good news (euangelia) for the world.” When Paul talks about “the gospel” he has in mind Christian preaching concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus. Although his language can vary, he appears to appeal to a body of shared tradition such as we find in 1 Cor 15:3b–5: “that Christ died . . . that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” Although he can sometimes uses the word in a similar way, Mark’s great innovation was to include the life, ministry, and teaching of Jesus within his understanding of “gospel” (1:1, 14, 15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9). Still for him, however, as for Paul, the term referred primarily to oral proclamation.

At some point over the next few decades, however, the term underwent a shift of meaning so that it now referred not only to oral preaching but quite specifically to books about Jesus. Clear evidence for this change does not appear until the midsecond century, when Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria all begin to use the term “gospel” to refer to written lives of Jesus (both those that were later considered canonical and those that were not). There are good reasons, however, to assume that this usage goes back significantly earlier. Marcion seems to have referred to his abridged copy of Luke as a “gospel,” and references in 2 Clement, Ignatius, and the Didache, though not quite as clear as we might like, do nevertheless seem to suggest that their authors now associated the term “gospel” with written books as well as oral proclamation. James Kelhoffer has recently argued—persuasively in my opinion—that the change came about sometime between the writing of Matthew and the composition of the Didache (which appears to describe Matthew’s work as a “gospel”), that is, in the very late first century. Such a usage can be explained quite naturally from Mark’s opening line: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” Whether Mark intended “the beginning” (archē) to include only the prologue or the whole of the book (a point we shall return to in Chapter 3), his opening incipit applied the term “gospel” to a written text, and (whether consciously or not) set in motion a train of thought that would eventually identify the term “gospel” with a particular type of literary work. As it circulated among Christian churches and was read out at gatherings, Mark’s bios would have quite naturally become known as a “gospel,” a term that could equally easily be applied to Matthew, and then by analogy to Luke and John.

This early shift in meaning has important implications for our study. The reason why no one in the early church describes the earliest lives of Jesus as bioi is presumably because from very early on they became known by a term that had quickly acquired theological significance within Christ-following circles—that is, “gospels.”