I was listening to an interview with new testament scholar John Dominic Crossan (titled The Other Gospels) on how it is that we understand the nature of the four Gospels and their adoption as liturgy in the life of the early church given that they emerged in a world where there were many gospels in existence.
He notes that it would be a mistake to simply discard and ignore the other Gospels using blanket terms like gnostic, for example. It would be much better to recognize that these gospels emerge in a world shared by the synoptics and John, they have a history, a theology and a polemic that can help us understand that world,.and they can point to the larger conversation that did exist at the time.
He also talks about how understanding the nature of the four gospels adopted into the NT can allow us to see how they don’t function apart from that larger conversation. For example, if, as it is often suggested, Mark was written first, and if, as is often suggested, Matthew and Luke (and even John) borrowed from Mark, what this then tells us about tradition of Matthew, Luke and John is that they had some of these other gospels and in fact incorporated them into their own retellings of Mark with intention. Crossan makes the interesting observation that the gospel (or gospels) they incorporate are in fact apocalyptic traditions, whereas something like the gospel according to Thomas is functioning as a polemic against the apocalyptic tradition. This suggests a shared world with two different viewpoints, likely determined by context.
Perhaps the most important point comes from his assessment of the 4 gospels shared genre/tradition being one of the primary reasons they got primacy- they are narrative gospels, or belong to the narrative tradition/genre. Meaning, for these gospel writers, telling the story was necessary. In fact, it is this narrative function and characteristic that binds them more directly and intentionally than any other known gospels to Judaism.
I was then listening to a podcast episode from the historical Jesus. It was titled Interpreting the Visitation. In it the host leans into the necessary place of the theophany in Jewish and Christian history. Meaning, telling the story of God. He cites Ezekiel as an example, noting how in Ezekiel 34 it begins with the promise to send a shepherd, followed by the statement that “I will be your shepherd”. Eveything that follows the proclamation of what this shepherd will do is defined as Gods work. So when we get to the story of Jesus and Jesus is applying the words of the shepherd to Himself, the story comes alive as theophany. Same with the way John the Baptist is depicted as leaping in the womb when he encounters the infant Jesus in Mary, langauge that is pulled directly from David dancing (leaping) before the ark. The theophany comes alive.
A reminder of how the Christain Tradition is anchored in the art of storytelling. This is how we encounter God, through the shared story. Crossan calls this the art of gospeling. News is information, but good is an act of interpretation. And the good news becomes the gospel according to you and me when we tell the story within our own contexts.
The Stories of my Life 