David WENHAM. From Good News to Gospels. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2018. pp. 124. $16.00 pb. ISBN: 078-0-8028-7368-2. Reviewed by Dolores L. CHRISTIE, Shaker Heights, OH 44122.

Years ago the sacristan at my parish left Mass in anger, claiming that the lector (moi) “changed the words of sacred scripture.” His pique had to do with the substitution of “Adam” for “man,” in the first creation story. Somehow the sacred words of the Missalette were the only accurate translation.

As true people of the book—any book or text or tweet—we are exquisitely comfortable with the written word as a method of memory and communication. Our world knows little of the recollection keys built into the Psalms, the importance of storytelling stained glass windows in the medieval cathedrals, or the repetitious refrains of slaves singing songs of hope. We cannot conceive of a cultural reality where few are literate.

Well beyond the first century, when the bulk of Christian scriptures were written, the Jesus tradition was passed on orally. Most people could not read. Stories were retold, albeit embellished and tailored to the unique audience, and repeated by the succeeding generations. Authentic stories continued to carry the important data of the original spoken narrative.

Wenham contends that the disciples functioned as “informed witnesses,” telling the Jesus story accurately in thick description. His thesis is that this orally-transmitted corpus was the authentic antecedent to the gospels. He calls this the “default position” for thinking about the written Christian scriptures.

A well-respected and prolific scripture scholar, he argues that the oral tradition is the seminal source of the written text. He suggests that we need to pay more attention to the core message of Jesus—his life and his teachings—rather than limit our scholarly inquiry to the texts themselves. Past scriptural studies have often struggled to excavate, even invent, lost written sources considered the origin of the written Acts, gospels, and Pauline corpus. Wenham’s painstaking examination of parallel pieces of written biblical material demonstrates the likelihood of a strong and consistent oral tradition. He notes that it “makes more sense” of material in the gospels than does dependence only on older literary traditions. It is an interesting irony that he uses surviving written word to prove his point about the oral tradition.

The book traces the path, as the first chapter notes, from “Good News to Gospel.” The author examines the teaching of Jesus and the history recorded in Acts. He considers the connections between certain stories and/or fragments in Mark, Matthew, and John. Finally, he looks at Paul’s teachings in his several letters. What did Paul, who never knew Jesus personally, teach about this possible Messiah? Wenham finds his message congruent with his thesis of oral tradition.

The work of each gospel writer and of those who constructed the epistles shaped the stories for each target audience and their peculiar needs. As the written word in the late first century—the gospel of John is a good example—moves farther and farther from the life and death of Jesus and the oral message that followed; the text moves away from the synoptics. It is written for “those who have not seen and have believed,” that is the community that was removed from both Jesus and his eyewitnesses. Same content, but John’s message is massaged to fit the experience and—one might add—the anxieties of the Johannine community.

If I had to pick any quarrel with the author, I wish he had considered the other epistles not attributed to Paul and perhaps the non-canonical works. Certainly, when he affirms Paul’s personal eye witness experience of Jesus’ resurrection, a reference to the Johannine epistles would add support to his claim about the importance of personal experience based in non-written tradition. Does not this much later Johannine community claim to have touched, heard, seen the Lord? Their witness, like Paul’s, is not based only in written work but in what was passed on by word of mouth. That is precisely what they say.

The author’s precision, clarity, extensive sources and notes are mercifully free of that esoteric odor that sometimes accompanies scriptural commentaries. This makes the book very readable. It would be fun to have students, schooled in the traditional methodology that includes such sources as Q, which Wenham calls “highly hypothetical, read his commentary. It could be a refreshing new avenue of understanding and research for a new generation of scholars. In any case it is an important contribution to a church that claims consistency and a living tradition.