The Social Relationships of Gospel Writers: New Insights from Inscriptions Commending Greek Historiographers

Abstract

Scholarship traditionally situates the social lives of NT gospel writers exclusively within the Jesus movement and local Christ groups, showing inadequate consideration for how the literary abilities of gospel writers might have provided the basis for social interaction and group formation with Greeks, Romans and Judeans of common occupations and/or cultural interests. In order to provide a fuller portrait of the social and historical setting of gospel literature, this article explores the ranges of social activities practiced, and networks developed, by comparable writers—broadly, Greek historiographers. Data from the epigraphy about the social practices of historiographers help to provide controls for speculations about the setting of NT gospel composition, and raise new questions about this literature possibly emerging from networks and guilds forged between people of similar scribal professions and/or cultural interests that cut through ancient Christianity rather than originating from within the Jesus movement exclusively. Scholarship on the social setting of the Q Gospel (i.e., scribal networks) and the Gospel of Thomas (i.e., philosophical formations) has made arguments in this direction on the basis of other evidence, and that model appears most historically plausible for the narrative gospels, as well.