Bill Craig Keener published a book called Crystal Biography, Memory History and the reliability of the Gospels in 2019.

It's 743 pages, so we're not going to be able to cover all of it in this podcast, but I'd like to look at an excerpt from the introduction.

And you know Greg Keener, have you interacted with his work?

Yes, I have.

I've found Keener's massive five-volume commentary on the Book of Acts to be very helpful,

as well as his two-volume commentary on the Gospel of John.

Keener is renowned for his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient sources, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

He has an amazing knowledge of ancient history and literature, and he brings that to bear in all of his biblical

commentaries. You know I was going to tackle this book and I was looking at the

introduction I think what he says in the

introduction could begin to answer some questions that listeners may have on

ancient Roman history especially.

And by the way,

Keener says what you say, that the Gospels are best

categorized as ancient biography.

Isn't that pretty much the consensus, Bill?

I think so.

As a result of the work of Richard Burrage, most New Testament scholars who study the

Gospels have come to see them as a form of ancient

biography for example similar to Plutarch's lives of famous Greeks and Romans.

Burrage was able to catalog a list of what he called family

resemblances of ancient biographies and then he looked at the Gospels and lo and behold the Gospels

...