Book Review: Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels

Review: Dunn, James D.G. (2011). Jesus, Paul , and the Gospels. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Promoted as a ‘compact theological primer’, James Dunn’s 200-page introduction to Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels is a publication of three sets of lectures given to Catholic and Jewish audiences in 2009. Although it struggles at points to make the transition to a book for a more general audience, it is a helpful introduction to some key issues in the development of the four canonical Gospels and the nature and content of the Christian faith. Part one deals with the process by which the four Gospels came into being. In chapter one, Dunn takes a line which will challenge both ends of the spectrum, arguing that the process was far less clear-cut than conservatives might like to think, but nowhere near as unreliable as is often maintained by others. He begins as a sceptic, cautiously challenging every assumption, step-by-step showing how the evidence supports the reliability of the Gospel traditions. Although his conclusions fall a little short of where I might like – concluding that the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels ‘was much more fact than fiction’ (p. 21) – his approach would work well for the original target audience of his lectures. For this very reason it is less helpful for those from a more conservative starting point, as Dunn is not consciously trying to bring such an audience with him; most notably he does not address issues relating to inerrancy which his conclusions raise. He also (rightly) chastises others for their a priori assumption that the Gospels could not be historical (p. 7), but Dunn also makes a similar assumption that the Gospels could only contain the Jesus tradition (p. 13) rather than admitting the possibility that they could indeed be an accurate record of it. The Synoptic problem is the subject of chapter two, in which Dunn brings an overdue challenge to the various documentary hypotheses by pointing out the strong evidence for divergent oral traditions as a contributing factor. Disappointingly for someone wanting to challenge the prevailing consensus, he still assumes a form of Q without much in the way of rationale, and does not even engage with how his findings might fit with other theories such as Farrer’s. Probably his most helpful point in this chapter was the distinction he makes between the original event or saying in the life of Jesus and the idea of an original tradition, arguing that there may well be no such thing. That is, there is no single ‘original’ form, as different witnesses to the saying or event may have told their own versions right from the beginning (p. 39-40). Chapter three dives into the issue of what a ‘Gospel’ is, both in terms of genre and content. He presents a persuasive argument for the Gospel to be seen holistically: it is both the proclamation of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection and all of his life and teaching. Neither can be understood apart from the other (p. 56). Dunn begins his chapter on John’s Gospel by looking at how Jesus’ style of speaking is so vastly different from that found in the Synoptics. He counters the widely-held view that the differences are simply the result of John’s giving us the ‘private Jesus’, pointing to the times in John’s Gospel where Jesus speaks publicly in much the same way. (He seems to ignore other explanations for this, such as Jesus’ private explanations to his disciples, as evidenced in John 13-17, being appended to the sign narratives and public sayings of Jesus; so Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 1995, p. 37.) This conclusion has a negative impact on his evaluation of John’s Gospel as an historical source, preferring to see the discourses as ‘the fruit of lengthy meditation on particular sayings of Jesus or of characteristic features of what he said and of how he acted’ (p. 79). The end result of this is that his whole presentation of the historical Jesus throughout the book relies far more on the Synoptics than on John. Parts two and three trace the line of development from Jesus to Paul, and suffer less from a priori assumptions about tradition and redactional motivation. Chapter five is a highlight, giving a compelling argument for the continuity of Paul’s teaching with that of Jesus, written against those who would see Paul as a distortion of Jesus’ message, or even a radical departure from it. To do this, Dunn explores three key themes found in both Jesus and Paul: the openness of grace (for the ungodly, the Gentile, and the poor), the tension between the already and not yet of the Gospel, and their attitude to Torah. Chapters six and seven look at Paul’s historical significance for the development of Christianity from being a Jewish messianic sect to an international religion. Dunn also spends considerable time looking at the paradox of Paul’s self-identity as a Jew, yet also apostle to the Gentiles, and how he at some level ‘treats “Jew” almost as a role which he might assume or discard’ according to circumstances (p. 126). Whilst it might have been helpful to include an exploration of a dyadic understanding of personality in ancient cultures and how it might impact this discussion, Dunn correctly concludes that Paul’s overarching source of identity is that he is ‘in Christ’. He then issues a challenge not to ignore or soften Paul, charging some denominations with reading the Paul through the eyes of Acts and the Pastorals to the exclusion of his earlier epistles (p. 147). Again, this grows out of his original lecture audience, and quite possibly the opposite charge could be levelled against some in Protestant Evangelical traditions. Dunn’s final two chapters look at Paul’s teaching on the inclusiveness of the Gospel, and on the nature of the church. He then discusses implications of the former for Jewish-Christian dialogue and ecumenism. Dunn rightly argues that ‘to require anything more than faith, some legal requirement or ritual obligation or claim of tradition, is to undermine the gospel, to destroy what Paul calls “the truth of the gospel”’ (p. 164). This, however, is not applied equally in the other direction as a caution against unity with those who distort the gospel in such a way, and as such is a little one-sided. At times the writing can be a little dense and assume too much in the way of terminology and prior knowledge. However, the book does provide the student with a concise introduction both to Dunn’s body of work and to the study of the origins of Christianity generally. For the scholar wanting more detailed argument, there are footnotes referring to Dunn’s larger works. A helpful addition might have been a specially-written chapter integrating his conclusions with a theology of Scripture. Tim MacBride Lecturer in New Testament Morling College, Sydney