Brant Pitre's The Case For Jesus: A running review

 

Brant Pitre's The Case For Jesus seems to be one of those books that well-meaning Catholic relatives produce when they learn that you're an atheist. Somehow things went badly wrong, and this little book is just the thing to get you back on track. Said relatives have no idea that godless you has a passable grasp of basic New Testament scholarship, and that your Catholic NT scholars are more credentialed and esteemed than theirs. Which makes things very, very interesting. Or it would if they could grasp what's going on, but inevitably they can't.

No doubt a reader who hasn't engaged in basic study of the New Testament could find Pitre's book persuasive. By "basic study" I mean spending time with a well regarded textbook, such as Bart Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Ehrman's book, now in its seventh edition, has long been the most widely used text for introductory coursework in colleges and universities—including dozens of Catholic ones. Pitre, by the way, reliably uses Ehrman as a foil.

As often happens, a book like Pitre's suggests, or should suggest, larger and more general questions than just whether or not the case was made. It invites us, if our minds are engaged, to ask how we can know if the case was made, which is itself part of a larger category of meaning involving how we discern what's real. In other words, by what standard do we evaluate the persuasiveness of Pitre's book, or any other claim about reality? For many, the standard is nothing more than whether they're being told what they want to hear. And anyway, most readers, not having prior exposure to actual scholarship on the subject, are simply not equipped  to critique Pitre's claims objectively. It's an interesting problem that's far from unique.

I began reading The Case For Jesus as time permitted, noncommittally. I took the time to write down some observations as I went along, and emailed them to a couple of family members who had recommended the book. Having gone to that trouble, it occurred to me that what I'd produced so far, and what I might yet produce if I continued through the book, could constitute a "running review" in which I dealt with individual chapters, sections, and claims as I encountered them, rather than waiting until the end and trying to produce a summary review.

I think I rather like the as-you-go approach, and it seems to make a lot of sense in the context of this particular book. That's because Pitre builds his case as a succession of arguments; engaging with them in situ feels natural, and provides an analytical framework that keeps the focus on the thing that's presently before us. Such sequencing is relevant, too: If Pitre's earlier claims don't hold up, his later ones that build on them are suspect.

Such a running review is what you now have before you. It goes as far as I have into the book, so might be updated as I progress farther. Each section of the review is headed by the date at which it's rendered. As I write these words, I've only gotten a few chapters into the book. Obviously, what I say now might have to be revised later, as more material is digested. Let's see how it goes.

April 25, 2022

Brant Pitre begins his Case by arguing against the scholarly consensus that the Gospels were written anonymously. Even early in the book, such contrarianism is a recurring pattern; one that ought give the reader pause.

No less an authority than Raymond Brown wrote: "None of the Gospels mentions an author's name, and it is quite possible that none was actually written by the one whose name was attached to it at the end of the 2d century." (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction To The New Testament, 1997, p. 6)

Brown's Introduction (almost 900 pages) is a weighty tome worthy of a place on your bookshelf beside Ehrman's textbook. Brown himself was one of the most important New Testament scholars of the second half of the 20th century, and was a noteworthy proponent of the historical-critical method of biblical criticism. He also happened to be a Catholic priest, and was twice appointed to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. That's a Vatican thing. All of Brown's many books bear the imprimatur, and Brown himself was the nihil obstat expert reviewer (pursuant to granting the imprimatur) for numerous works by other authors. Pretty decent bona fides, all in all. I belabor this for my Catholic friends who are always suspicious of non-Catholic sources. (They shouldn't be, but good luck explaining to them why.)

A large majority of New Testament scholars agree that the Gospels were written anonymously, and that, as Raymond Brown says, the titles identifying individual authors were added in the latter part of the second century. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the Gospel titles, "however ancient, do not go back to the respective authors of those sacred writings." That the titles now attached "do not go back to the first century of the Christian era, or at least that they are not original, is a position generally held at the present day." The Encyclopedia concludes that "the present titles of the Gospels are not traceable to the Evangelists themselves."

Pitre rejects this scholarly consensus, complaining that "in the last century or so, a new theory came onto the scene. According to this theory, the traditional Christian ideas about who wrote the Gospels are not in fact true. Instead, scholars began to propose that the four Gospels were originally anonymous." (p. 13) Notice the particular vacuity in complaining that modern scholarship, for decidedly sound reasons, is superseding "traditional Christian ideas."

The reasons for that scholarly consensus (such as how in the earliest Gospel references Christian writers didn't refer to them by the later-added titles) are beyond the scope of this review. Suffice to say that it is strongly held. It strikes me as wise for a lay reader with no scholarly expertise himself to defer to such expert consensus when it exists. On what basis would you not?

Pitre's thesis, then, is that contrary to scholarly consensus, the Gospels were not written anonymously, and that their titles accurately indicate their authors, who were well-known well-connected figures (Mark and Luke) and even apostles (Matthew and John). Pitre's basic argument for this position makes you want to bang your forehead on the table in exasperation. It is this:

"First, there is a striking absence of any anonymous Gospel manuscripts. That is because they don't exist. Not even one. The reason this is so significant is that one of the most basic rules in the study of New Testament manuscripts (a practice known as textual criticism) is that you go back to the earliest and best Greek copies to see what they actually say. Not what you wish they said, but what they actually say. When it comes to the titles of the Gospels, not only the earliest and best manuscripts, but all of the ancient manuscripts—without exception, in every language—attribute the four Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John." (p. 17)

To prove his point, Pitre provides a table naming and dating our 27 "earliest and best" Gospel codices. (p. 16) I reproduce it here.

"Earliest and best" Gospel codices

Pitre's problem is that although they may be our earliest and best copies, they are not at all early. In particular, they date to, and in most cases they date far after—centuries after—when scholars say the titles were added. That being so, we would trivially expect them all to have titles, because they are so late. Their lateness would also account for the uniformity of the titles.

Yet Pitre belabors how "the titles are present in the most ancient copies of each Gospel we possess, including the earliest fragments...." How ancient? Only 3 of the 27 codices date to the 2nd century. The overwhelming majority, 22 in all, date to the 4th and 5th centuries! That's multiple centuries after the titles were added, and 300 to 400 years after the Gospels were written. Heck, at least 10 of the codices date to after the New Testament canon was formally ratified at the end of the 4th century!

Here's a breakdown of Pitre's table, by century:

  3 codices - 2nd century
  2 codices - 2nd to 3rd centuries
  8 codices - 4th century
  4 codices - 4th to 5th centuries
10 codices - 5th century

I mentioned above the sudden impulse for forehead banging. We are off to an inauspicious start. Persons who value intellectual abilities, and their time, might well judge this book to be unworthy of any additional attention. An immediate bailout would be entirely justifiable. Indeed, by complete coincidence, and unknown to me, a friend came across Pitre's Case in a used bookstore and bought it. He quickly abandoned it because of the sophomoric reasoning.

For reasons I don't entirely understand, I seem to be a glutton for punishment. So we will continue.

May 26, 2022

 

In the first chapters of The Case For Jesus, Brant Pitre argues weakly against the overwhelming scholarly consensus that the gospels were written anonymously. As we've seen, the gospel authors don't identify themselves, and scholars the likes of Raymond Brown agree the titles were added late in the 2nd century. Pitre tries to make much out of very little: that our "earliest and best" manuscripts contain the titles. Earliest and best though they may be, we have seen that they are not at all early. Observing that 2nd to 5th century copies have titles is completely consistent with the scholarly consensus that they were added late in the 2nd century.

 

Which is pretty much how this book underwhelmingly unfolds. In the third chapter Pitre begins to grapple with who the Gospel writers were, in order to align them with the titles, but his arguments remain disappointingly weak, and proceed as a wearying example of endless motivated reasoning that's at odds with the large majority of NT scholarship, and which is, indeed, embarrassing.

The author of the Gospel According to Matthew must be the apostle of that name, Pitre writes, because ... well, because. Because the name in the late-added title matches the name of an apostle, a tax collector who Jesus calls to be his follower. So you see? And because if it had been deemed necessary for one of the Twelve to take notes and write for posterity, Matthew would be the obvious guy for the job. The only guy, actually. All the others were illiterate fishermen, but Matthew, the tax collector, could presumably read and write.

Which doesn't at all address the question of whether one of the Twelve did take notes and write for posterity. We can chortle at the image of the apostles picking Matthew to be their diarist, since they surely knew there would be a New Testament to write some day. But as we will see, poor Matthew didn't do a very good job of taking notes. The resulting Gospel doesn't look anything like what an eyewitness would have produced. Rather, the Gospel depends almost entirely on external sources, and there's no indication of anybody with firsthand knowledge writing down notes or remembrances, certainly not as the events that were depicted later were unfolding.

We may as well stay with Raymond Brown, since he was a world class NT scholar of considerable repute, and can't get any complaint from the Catholics in my audience.

In his own An Introduction To The New Testament, Brown says that Mark, which was the earliest of the Gospels, was Matthew's "principal source." Matthew incorporated around 80 percent of Mark into his own Gospel. Matthew "had a written form of Mark before him," and copied extensively from it, "almost as a scribe copying his source," Brown says. (p. 204)

The second most important source for Matthew was what scholars call the "Q" source, which was a collection of Jesus sayings that was extant in the 1st century but which has been subsequently lost. Luke's Gospel also makes use of Q, but Mark's doesn't.

 

That Mark came first, and that Matthew and Luke both relied on it, as well as on the "Q" source, is New Testament 101. Consult any introductory NT textbook for an explanation of why.

Beyond that, scholars debate about other "special Matthean material," sometimes called "M." Brown says Matthew "does seem to have had other sources that he followed." (pp. 205-6) For example, "a body of special material about Peter." The uncertain nature of these other sources gives rise to scholarly speculation. Brown says that in his own opinion Matthew "had a popular, perhaps oral, source consisting of folk traditions about Jesus." Doesn't sound very eyewittnessy, does it? "In a pericope taken over from Mark," Brown writes, "a key to the preMatthean existence of oral tradition could be the independent presence in Matt and Luke of what is lacking in Mark." In other words, because Matthew and Luke were written independently of each other, accounts they have in common that aren't in Mark indicate another tradition that was circulating at the time. Neither Matthew nor Luke had exclusive access to that tradition, and they each came upon it independently. All of which means the account didn't derive from Matthew's own personal experiences.

So Matthew copies extensively from Mark, and incorporates Q as his second most important source. The writer of Mark is understood by all to have not been an eyewitness. No worries, Pitre says, because Mark was a disciple of Peter, and would have written down things that Peter told him. There's no scholarly agreement on that, or even who Mark actually is. There may well have been multiple "Marks." That discussion will have to wait for later.

I should point out that in this Pitre argues somewhat humorously against himself. On the one hand he makes much of Matthew being the obvious note taker. He then proceeds to say at length that it's quite understandable that Matthew would copy voluminously from Mark (not to mention the Q material). What we end up with is a Gospel that evinces no note taking, kind of defeating the purpose of selecting Matthew as the apostles' scribe, and undermining Pitre's own argument.

What we see developing, then, is Pitre making his "case" through the accumulation of weak reasonings and fringe speculations that deviate time and again from mainstream of NT scholarship. And dare I say it, that's exactly what you'd expect from an apologetical point of view, which is what seems to be shaping up.

To reiterate, such extensive use of external sources such as Mark doesn't support the notion of Matthew's own role as a supposed eyewitness telling us what he saw. And indeed, nowhere in his Gospel do we see him telling the story as he himself experienced it. Ironically, Pitre quotes Matt 9:9: "[He] saw a man called Matthew at the tax office; and he said to him, 'Follow me.'" You'd think the Gospel's author would have found a way to indicate that he himself was the tax collector in question. But no.

That such heavy reliance upon external sources is an obvious problem for Pitre's thesis ought to be apparent to anybody, even a non-expert. Brown puts it starkly: "If canonical Matt drew on canonical Mark, the idea that Matthew, an eyewitness member of the Twelve, would have used as a major source a noneyewitness, Greek account (Mark) is implausible." (p. 210) Quite so.

Thus Brown's conclusion: "By way of overall judgement it is best to accept the common position that canonical Matt was originally written in Greek by a noneyewitness whose name is unknown to us and who depended on Mark and Q." Brown adds: "Whether somewhere in the history of Matt's sources something written in Semitic by Matthew, one of the Twelve, played a role we cannot know." (pp. 210-11)

 

As for when Matthew was written, Brown says "The majority view dates Matt to the period 70-100, but some significant conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 dating." (p. 216) "There are weighty arguments, however, against positing such an early composition." (p. 217) Brown concludes that "AD 80-90 [is] the most plausible dating; but the arguments are not precise, and so at least a decade in either direction must be allowed." (p. 217)  So even if we apply that decade fudge factor and date Matthew as early as 70, that still means he didn't write until 40 years after the death of Jesus. Which seems strange for an eyewitness member of the Twelve whose job was to take notes and write an account of what he saw. As a general matter, the late appearance of the Gospels has implications for what assumptions we can make about the historicity of the Jesus story.

Note that because Matthew relies on Mark, its dating must be later than Mark's, which most scholars accept is 70-75, but possibly as early as the late 60s. Brown says that most scholars believe Matthew and Luke were written in the 80s or early 90s. Bart Ehrman dates Matthew to 80-85. (The New Testament, 5th ed., p. 132) NT scholar John Dominic Crossan dates Matthew to around 90. (The Historical Jesus, p. 430) The Wikipedia page on the Gospel of Matthew says that "most scholars believe the gospel was composed between AD 80 and 90, with a range of possibility between AD 70 to 110; a pre-70 date remains a minority view. The work does not identify its author, and the early tradition attributing it to the apostle Matthew is rejected by modern scholars."

The most widely held datings get us half a century or more past the death of Jesus before Matthew appears, so whatever other traditions were circulating earlier, Matthew and the canonical Gospels were quite late to the game. Using them to build a historical "case" has obvious perils.

October 15, 2022

The takeaway from the last section is that, according to scholarly consensus, the author of the Gospel According to Matthew was not an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry—in contradiction to Brant Pitre's developing thesis. The Gospel's basic historicity is also open to question.

After arguing weakly that Matthew was an eyewitness, Pitre turns his attention, ever so briefly, to Mark. Mark, he acknowledges, was not an eyewitness. But, according to Pitre, he had close connections to both Peter and Paul. (Of course, Paul was himself not an eyewitness.) In particular, Mark's presumed relationship to Peter, the foremost apostle, would have provided him a unique eyewitness source on which to base his Gospel.

There is no internal identification in the Gospel text of who Mark is, and scholars seem generally far more reticent than Pitre to make too many assumptions. "The reason [for no internal identification] is probably that Mark was a very well known figure in the first-century Church," Pitre suggests, "both in Jerusalem and Rome." (p. 29) Maybe he was so well known because there were so many of him. More on that in a moment.

Indeed, so well known that Mark (whose full name was "John Mark," Pitre says) keeps popping up in references in the New Testament. (Raymond Brown observes that Mark was a very common name at the time.) In the letters of Paul, for example. In Acts of the Apostles. In 1 Peter.

But there are serious scholarly questions about whether these are all the same "Mark," and indeed even about the authorship of both Colossians and 2 Timothy, both referenced by Pitre, in which "Paul" mentions Mark. Mark—some Mark—is also mentioned in Philemon, which is indisputably Pauline.

In The First Paul, NT scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan explain that modern scholarship groups the epistles traditionally attributed to Paul into three categories based on whether they're believed to be authentically Pauline. Colossians is in the "disputed" category, with the preponderance of scholars holding that it was not written by Paul. In The Historical Jesus, Crossan dates Colossians to 60-80, and says it was "written most likely not by Paul himself but posthumously by one of his students in his name (Koester 1982:2.261-267)." (p. 430) Crossan dates 2 Timothy, which scholars overwhelmingly say is not Pauline, to 120-150. (p. 433) Paul was executed in Rome in the 60s.

Raymond Brown suggests there may have been multiple Marks. In his chapter on Philemon he asks "which one?" when discussing Mark references. (p. 508) In his The New Testament (5th ed.) Bart Ehrman doesn't even touch the question—the presumption being we just can't know who Mark is.

Perhaps the strongest case for a connection between Mark and Peter comes from an early 2nd century figure named Papias, by way of the Christian historian Eusebius writing early in the 4th century. Eusebius quotes Papias as saying Mark was "Peter's interpreter," meaning that Mark committed to writing the (often disordered) things he'd heard from Peter. 

Raymond Brown discusses the plausibility of the Papias tradition and reaches no firm conclusion. But, he says, "the internal evidence of the Gospel supplies little to support the Papias picture and much to call it into question." (p. 159)

Brown continues: "That the author of this Greek Gospel was John Mark, a (presumably Aramaic-speaking) Jew of Jerusalem who had early become a Christian, is hard to reconcile with the impression that it does not seem to be a translation from Aramaic, that it seems to depend on traditions (and perhaps already shaped sources) received in Greek, and that it seems confused about Palestinian geography. If those observations do not fit the NT John Mark and one wants to give some credibility to the Papias tradition, one might speculate that earlier tradition attributed the Gospel to an otherwise unknown Christian named Mark, who subsequently was amalgamated with John Mark." (p. 150-60)

Note also that the Papias tradition holds that Matthew's gospel was originally written in a Semitic language, which scholars strongly dispute.

The Wikipedia page on the Gospel of Mark references Delbert Burkett's An introduction to the New Testament and the origins of Christianity when it says that most scholars "reject the traditional ascription to Mark the Evangelist, the companion of the Apostle Peter – which probably arose from the desire of early Christians to link the work to an authoritative figure – and believe it to be the work of an author working with various sources including collections of miracle stories, controversy stories, parables, and a passion narrative."

September 10, 2023

We're still in the third chapter, "The Titles of the Gospels," of Pitre's book, in which he argues that the gospels' titles indicate their true authors, known at the time they were written. These authors, Pitre claims, were either actual disciples (Matthew, John), or were well known and well connected figures in early Christianity (Mark, Luke). As we've seen, the scholarly consensus is overwhelmingly that the gospels were written anonymously, and that the titles were added in the latter part of the 2nd century. In our previous installment we saw that Pitre claims Mark was a close associate of both Peter and Paul, but scholars view the evidence for that as weak, and even think there may have been more than one "Mark." Scholars are generally reticent to make any hard claims about who wrote the first gospel.

Now we turn to Pitre's treatment of Luke, which is more of the same sort of name association we saw with Mark. Pitre claims that Luke was a close associate of Paul, and a "beloved physician"—something he emphasizes. His evidence is the mention of "Luke" in three epistles: Philemon, Colossians, and 2 Timothy—the same ones that refer to Mark. The very same problem we saw with Mark holds likewise for Luke: Only one of those three epistles, Philemon, is widely regarded by scholars as authentically Pauline. Colossians might have been written by one of Paul's students shortly after Paul's death, which plausibly at least keeps the Luke reference in play. But the themes treated in 2 Timothy means it was most likely written toward the end of the 1st century or even well into the 2nd. Paul died in the mid-60s.

Much or even most of Pitre's logic is that "Paul" mentions "Luke," and the title of the third gospel contains "Luke," so, ergo, the two persons are the same. That's pretty weak reasoning.

Perhaps Pitre's strongest argument, at least regarding non-anonymity, is that the author of the third gospel (and also Acts of the Apostles) dedicates those two books to a mysterious "Theophilus," a figure about whom there is much scholarly speculation and zero certainty. Pitre, citing Richard Bauckham, claims it would be inconceivable for a work to be dedicated to an individual but written anonymously—an argument which scholarly consensus on the anonymity of the gospels obviously finds unpersuasive. I would add that, even if the author of a work was known to his intended audience (as seems plausible to me), that itself does not mean the author was known more widely or understood to be an authoritative figure with connections to the historical Jesus, or his disciples, or Paul.

In his The New Testament, Bart Ehrman suggests that "Theophilus" may have not been an individual at all, but rather a congregation, which would place the work within the context of "in-house literature"—the most common explanation for all the gospels. Each of the gospels was likely written for a particular community. Adoption of any particular gospel was localized or perhaps regionalized. In a discussion on why there are four gospels, Raymond Brown writes that "before 150 there is no clear example of more than one Gospel being read as publicly authoritative in a given church." (Introduction, p. 13) As for the dedicatee, Ehrman notes that "Theophilus" was a common name in Greek antiquity that translates literally as either "lover of God" or "beloved of God," and that some scholars have argued that the name is code for the Christians to whom Luke wrote. (5th ed., p. 139) How ironically convenient it would have been for Theophilus to have been a Roman official (as some have implausibly posited) whose very name and not just his interest in Jesus identifies him as a lover of God. If Theophilus was a person, he was likely some sort of patron.

Ehrman says flatly that, like Mark and Matthew, Luke's gospel "is anonymous." (5th ed., p. 136) The Wikipedia page on the gospel says: "The author is anonymous; the traditional view that Luke the Evangelist was the companion of Paul is still occasionally put forward, but the scholarly consensus emphasises the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters. The most probable date for its composition is around AD 80–110, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century."

In his Introduction, Raymond Brown writes regarding the "we" passages in Acts, the companion volume to the gospel, that "Scholars are about evenly divided on whether this attribution to Luke should be accepted as historical, so that he would be the author of Luke-Acts." Brown says "it does not make a great deal of difference whether or not the author of the Gospel [Brown's emphasis] was a companion of Paul, for in either case there would be no reason to think of him as a companion of Jesus. Therefore as a second- or third-generation Christian he would have to depend on traditions supplied by others...." (pp. 267-8)

Finally, a note about Pitre's emphatic contention that the author of Luke was a physician. The idea, presumably, is that Colossians identifies its "Luke" as a physician, and the third gospel allegedly contains a whiff of medical terminology, thus supporting the notion that the same Luke was both author of the gospel and companion of Paul. But Brown writes: "There have been several attempts to establish that the evangelist was a physician, as Luke was, by pointing to technical medical language and perceptions introduced into material taken over from Mark. However, in a series of writings H.J. Cadbury won over most scholars to the viewpoint that the Lucan expressions are no more technical than those used by other educated Greek writers who were not physicians." (p. 269)

September 11, 2023

So now we come to the section, in Pitre's third chapter, on John, putative author of the fourth and latest and final of the canonical gospels. Pitre quotes Raymond Brown:

"When all is said and done, the combination of external and internal evidence associating the Fourth Gospel with John son of Zebedee makes this the strongest hypothesis, if one is prepared to give credence to the Gospel's claim of an eyewitness source." [my italics -mb]

That's a very big "if." Allow me to likewise quote Raymond Brown:

"As with the other Gospels it is doubted by most scholars that this Gospel was written by an eyewitness of the public ministry of Jesus." (Introduction, pp. 368-9)

Indeed, because the matter of an eyewitness author is the very thing that's in question, Pitre can't use his Brown quotation in support of his contention (because the reasoning is circular), particularly since Brown states implicitly that one might not accept an eyewitness author, and also states explicitly that most scholars do not accept an eyewitness author. In his own The New Testament textbook, Bart Ehrman writes: "Like Mark, Matthew, Luke, and Acts, the Gospel of John was written anonymously. Since the second century, however, it has been customarily attributed to John the son of Zebedee, commonly thought to be the mysterious 'beloved disciple.'" Ehrman proceeds to discuss arguments for and against that custom, tilting toward against, but concluding that there is much that we simply cannot know. (5th ed., p. 195)

Compared to the first three gospels (called the "Synoptics"), the fourth gospel is complicated by its lateness, by its radically different theology, by its sometimes seeming lack of awareness of the earlier gospels, and by a text that makes abrupt transitions and evinces more than one author, perhaps modified by an overseeing redactor.

Pitre is sure that, consistent with second century tradition and his own unwavering thesis, the author is John, son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles, and the "beloved disciple" described in the gospel's text.

Unlike Pitre, scholars mostly speculate but do not claim to know who the beloved disciple was. Raymond Brown describes some of the options beyond the usual one. One is he was a known New Testament figure but not John, son of Zebedee. Another is that the beloved disciple is a symbolic figure but not an actual person. A third, to which Brown subscribes, is that "the Beloved Disciple was a minor figure during the ministry of Jesus, too unimportant to be remembered in the more official tradition of the Synoptics. But since this figure became important in Johanine community history (perhaps the founder of the community), he became the ideal in its Gospel picture, capable of being contrasted with Peter as closer to Jesus in love." (Introduction, p. 369)

In a footnote, Brown contrasts passages in Mark with related passages in John, where the former make no mention of a "beloved disciple" figure, but the latter does. One example is John 13:23-26, emphasized by Pitre, in which the disciple "whom Jesus loved" is reclining against Jesus' breast at the Last Supper. When Jesus says one of them will betray him, Peter implores that disciple to find out the identity of the betrayer. However, in Mark 14:18-20, we have: "And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, 'Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me — one who is eating with Me.' They began to be grieved and to say to Him one by one, 'Surely not I?' And he said to them, 'It is one of the twelve, one who dips with Me in the bowl.'"

Similarly, the "beloved disciple" is inserted in scenes in John's gospel, but is absent in the same scenes in the Synoptics.

Brown himself had particular scholarly expertise in the so-called "Johanine community," from which the fourth gospel arose. Historical developments and the community's evolving tradition over time could explain why the gospel's theology (particularly on the divinity of Jesus) was so different from the Synoptics.