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Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite

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As a long-time reader of scholarly literature about the historical Jesus, I highly recommend Professor L.M. White's new book, "Scripting Jesus". Especially for the educated lay reader who may feel overwhelmed by the vast ocean of books on this topic, not knowing where to begin; THIS is the place to begin. Professor White expertly summarizes two hundred years of New Testament and Gospel scholarship to tell us what scholars are now thinking about the Gospel, with a specific focus upon the three Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Learn the identities, similarities and many differences between these Gospels in Dr. White's lesson in history that will awaken the Biblical scholar in you.

This is not a book for the beginner. Without some background in biblical history and criticism a reader will be at sea. Even with this background the reader is challenged. The challenge does not come from the writing style but from the general idea of the book. I plan to read it again, for it is an entirely different approach than I have seen.

White presents both the canonical and non-canonical gospels as dramatic scripts of the life of the Christ. The scripts vary according to those who are telling the story and their purposes in telling the story. To set the stage, White gives four versions of Hamlet's famous soliloquy. Which one is by Shakespeare? All four had been published under Shakespeare's name so they are all authentic though different in wording. The differences were caused by changes made by actors in their desire to tell the story within a particular setting and their version is the one published. This same idea applied to the Gospels accounts for differences and apparent discrepancies in their stories.

Also interesting and helpful is White's putting the gospels in the context of other first century literature. Many of the same dramatic personas found in pagan literature are also found in gospel literature. White does not enter into to any arguments about inspiration of biblical literature and his purpose is not to make biblical literature no more or less significant than pagan literature. Instead, he helps the reader to understand that the gospels were definitely a product of their times and has language and thought patterns that were common in all literature. Our concerns for consistency, source material, and historicity were of no concern to first century writers, pagan or Christian. That is just the way it was and that should inform our understanding.

By comparing similar passages in various gospels White helps the reader follow his argument. Of particular help to me was the full text of the Q document and material from non-canonical gospels. Helpful also is comparisons like the Gospel of John with the Gospel of Thomas. The idea being it was the same story but a different script.The thought occurred to me that those of us who preach script Jesus every time we speak. Jesus becomes a character on a stage that we present in a particular context. White helped me come to a better understanding of the gospel material. It was worth the challenge.

Scripting Jesus has got to be one of the best books about the gospels and the truth that lies behind why there are so many contradictions between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul. L Michael White truly delivers an onslaught of information that would make alot of fundamentalists squirm in their seats. For example he pulls no punches about not believing in the virgin birth sequence, stating that december 25th was the persian mythological god Mithra's birthday, that Luke's passion scene borrows heavily from Psalms, and that the Gospels borrowed heavily from Greco-Roman religions of its time.
The Gospels, White explains, were oral traditions. Not written ones. Each gospel was an act and each act was performed with a certain audience in mind.
Buy this book, get it from your library, or get it on your ebooks. This is truly excellent for those interested in the story behind the Gospels.

Dr. White focuses on the historical challenge of getting information from ancient documents and manages to wring every last drop out of current scholarship. He uses a disciplined historical method with a fantastic array of other contemporary writings to get you into the minds of the time. This perspective shift is key to prevent putting current cultural assumptions and interpretations into ancient documents like the gospels. The 40 or so pages of footnotes are a testament to the vast quantity of sources drawn upon and the care Dr. White put into every word of this valuable book.

I appreciated the dedication to a facts first approach with occasional carefully expressed opinion based on these facts. This is the kind of objective approach I find most useful and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions since opinion is separated from fact and facts are communicated with different levels of certainty based on the available evidence. I think this is a perfect overview for someone who wants a detailed overview of the history and context of the gospels and the footnotes allow the reader to dig further into anything not detailed in the book.

I was fortunate enough to attend Dr. White's book celebration at UT Austin where he teaches and listen to his overview of the book and thank him personally for his hard work and careful approach to this book. I think anyone interested in the historicity and context of the gospels will find this an invaluable resource and guide to further ongoing study.

I read this work over the Easter holidays - an appropriate time for reflection on the "Jesus story": a story which still resonates with importance today. The thoroughness of Dr White's history; its rigour in analysis; honest coverage of points of contention; clarity of argument; open source referencing all make it very accessible and readable to the non-specialist (like myself) - what I would call the educated reader. I have read a number of key writers on the subject but this work jumps out from the rest. Certainly, a solid piece of scholarship.

I find myself deeply into "Scripting Jesus", and expect to learn much from it. However, there is no convenient way to follow the footnotes (which are not linked), and the several text tables have to be read with a great deal of imagination in order to profit from them. I have just given in and ordered a paper copy so that I can read this book as it deserves to be read.

Scripting Jesus is a remarkable body of work. The writing reflects that the author is a top scholar. It helps me greatly to appreciate and enjoy Scripting Jesus that I've read some other works, which were a bit more accessible, about the life of the historical Jesus and the process of analyzing what has been written about Jesus. Scripting Jesus may not be the best choice to introduce one to the subject but it does an outstanding job of pulling it all together.

This outstanding book is far and away the single best book I've read on the beginnings of Christianity and the historical Jesus. I'm not a Christian but I'm quite interested in biblical history and archaeology and I really can't recommend this book highly enough. Just buy it!

This book along with "From Jesus To Christianity" represent the most thorough examination of how the "historical" Jesus became the fictionalized scripted legend known as Jesus Christ. Extremely detailed and showing no bias at all, Mr. White leaves pretty much no stone unturned. How someone could read these two texts and come away with the belief that Jesus was something other than a mere mortal human being who was later mythologized over the decades is beyond me. This is a bench mark in historical Jesus studies.

What is truly awful about this book is not that White, in effect, calls the gospels a pack of lies invented by con-artists: If that is his honest opinion, then that is what he should say. What is awful is that he tries to sugar-coat such ideas with the most appalling sophistries, and endorses lying in the process. For instance, White reassures us (pp. x-xi & again on p. 405) that the gospels are "faithful" retellings of the story of Jesus. How nice! Then he adds, "By that I mean they were intended to inspire and instill faith in their audience." Oh, THAT kind of faithfulness; the same kind employed by confidence artists! As you read on, it becomes increasingly hard to see any difference. Nowhere in any of White's extensive speculations about the motives of the gospel writers is there any indication that he thinks they believed one word they wrote.

White, too, is a "faithful" historian, in the same sense. The entire book consists of White subtly twisting facts, and sneakily trying to pass off groundless speculation as firmly-grounded truths. But the following example, which is particularly egregious, should allow the reader can judge for himself whether he trusts White enough to bother wading through his tiresome 453-page volume: In an attempt to refute the tradition that Peter first visited Rome in the late 30s or early 40s, White writes (p. 5), "Such an early date is quite impossible, since Paul's own contemporaneous letters indicate that Peter had not left Jerusalem for Antioch prior to the late 40s, after the so-called Jerusalem conference." Again (on p. 264) "The difficulty is that Paul's Galatian letter (2:1-14), which dates from the mid-50s CE clearly places Peter in Jerusalem and Antioch through the late 40s." [Note that he says "THROUGH the late 40s", not "IN the late 40s", a distinction essential to his argument]. The only source cited by White (other than his own earlier book) is Galatians. This letter is readily available online. Is there ANYTHING in this letter, or any of Paul's letters, that shows that Peter never left Jerusalem at any point prior to the late 40s. Decide for yourself. Has White lied to you? Or is he just very sloppy!

He can also be guilty of the most appalling logic. For instance, on p. 429-431, White belatedly acknowledges the existence of synoptic theories other than the one he is promoting, only to summarily dismiss them for arbitrary reasons. His dismissal of the Greisbach hypothesis (which postulates the priority of Matthew) is particularly hilarious: "But what it does not explain is how and why the Markan author would so consistently delete all the additional sayings material found in Matthew and in Luke even to the point of including no sermons ..." But obviously the reason he omits "additional" sayings material "so consistently" is because, if he included it, it would by definition not be "additional sayings material." [As for Mark's lack of "sermons", the need to explain this does not depend on order, and an obvious explanation is available in any event -- we see the same "mystery" in virtually every dramatic adaptation of the Gospels from the last 2000 years].

Imagine some future dark age, where almost all documents from the 20th Century have been lost in the mists of time; and one of the few that survive is a brief biography of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now imagine that some far-future "expert" were to confidently declare that parts of the story are "anachronistic" -- that the real Dr. King could not have had a doctorate because blacks in the 50s were excluded from universities; that he could not have been president of the SCLC in '57 because blacks did not rise to power until the election of Barrack Obama in 2008. Well, the logic in this book often reaches, or even exceeds, that level of arrogance and presumption.

A single example will suffice. On p. 360 and again on p. 407, White complaints that John 9:1-34 (concerning the healing of the blind man) "anachronistically" portrays the Pharisees as "religious authorities who oversee piety compliance." Their "extreme response" (that of expelling the formerly blind man from their synagogue) "could hardly reflect the historical circumstances" of Jesus' day." The Pharisees "had no such role in local synagogues in Jesus' time; they too were a minority sect. They were not some sort of 'piety police' ..." But, in fact, we know very little about the Pharisees of Jesus' day, and what little we do know (outside of the New Testament) comes almost entirely from the writings of Josephus. Is there anything in Josephus, or anywhere else, that suggests that the Pharisees were so completely powerless that they could not even kick someone out of one of their own "local synagogues"? If they were not "religious authorities", what were they? Volunteer firemen? If they did not "oversee piety compliance", what did they do? Clean latrines? It is not even clear that they can be considered a "minority sect" since, according to Josephus, it was they, rather than the elite Sadduccees, who had the backing of the common folk.

SCRIPTING JESUS is similar to White's first book, FROM JESUS TO CHRISTIANITY, but with a shift of focus. His first book dealt with the dating, authorship, and presumed theological motives for all 27 books of the New Testament. This instead focuses on what these writings have to say about Jesus himself -- on the 4 gospels, and upon references to Jesus in Paul's "genuine" letters. Some small attention is also paid to apocryphal gospels (such as Thomas or Peter). It also speculates, in slightly more detail than before, on the theme of supposed pagan influence on the development of the Christian story. As an added bonus an appendix contains White's "reconstructed" text of the hypothetical "Q document".