The Gospels for All Christians

The aim of this book is to challenge and to refute the current consensus in Gospels scholarship which assumes that each of the Gospels was written for a specific church or group of churches: the so-called Matthean community, Markan community, Lukan community, and Johannine community (1).

Bauckham argues that this approach to the Gospels results in a divided Christian community which is not what the Gospels intended. To the contrary, Bauckham goes on to argue that "the Gospels were written with the intention that they should circulate around all the churches (and thence even outside the churches)" (1).

The thesis of the book and its articles is that the earliest Christian community consisted not of "isolated" groups each focusing on a different Gospel, but rather of "a network of communities on constant, close communication with each other" (2).

Bauckham's purpose in presenting such a thesis is not merely to show the closeness of the earliest Christian communities, but more importantly to lead to a dialogue among divided Christian groups today that will result in a more united Christian world as it approaches a new century and millennia.

Bauckham's work is fresh and original in terms of the perspective it offers and the challenge it makes to traditional Gospel scholarship. He justifies his challenge to conventional beliefs about the Gospels on the basi

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on that the four communities ever even existed. Could not the communities have existed even though there was greater communication among them than has been previously acknowledged by the more traditional scholars? Richard A. Burridge's essay is fascinating but does not provide any greater evidence that the four communities did not exist. He argues that the Gospels were biographies more than a unique genre of literature. From this he concludes that they were not aimed at a local and limited audience but at a much wider audience: Like other ancient biographies, the Gospels are written to explain the person of Jesus to individuals and groups in many places, rather than just one specific sectarian community in one city. . . . The Gospels are for all Christians--and even beyond the church for all those who want to know about Jesus of Nazareth (144-145). Of course, Burridge is being somewhat misleading when he says the Gospels are simply biographies telling the story of Jesus's life. They are intended to lead the reader to conclude that Jesus is God, that he was on a mission to save humankind, that he was crucified for their sake, resurrected, and await them in Heaven. This is hardly a traditional biography. Were there events in Jesus
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Approximate Word count = 4039
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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