What Did Jesus Really Say?: Five Questions Scholars Ask When Reading the Gospels

For everyday Christians, the teachings of Jesus are foundational. His words center theology, shape worship, and set the standard for ethics. The story of Jesus as both a teacher and a savior has shaped Christian communities for nearly 2,000 years. However, when Jesus is approached strictly on a historical basis, the most significant question is, what did Jesus really say? The answer involves far more complication than opening a Bible and reading words attributed to him.

Scholars who study the historical Jesus ask questions about the origins, context, and transmission of sayings attributed to Jesus found both inside and outside the Christian gospels. The point of scholarship is to understand these ancient sources carefully and to determine the best way to answer questions about the real Jesus.

Here are five questions that scholars consider when asking what did Jesus really say?

1. When were the gospels written?

This question involves the historical-critical method in which the origin of the gospel text is investigated. The Christian gospels were not written during Jesus' lifetime. They emerged decades after his death within communities that preserved and interpreted stories about him. The texts were handed down through generations of copying with many variations entering the written tradition.

While the gospels are invaluable ancient sources about Jesus and the rise of Christianity, they are neither biographies of Jesus nor histories of the church. They do not record exactly what Jesus said, and they reflect early community concerns more than facts about events.

Understanding when a text was written, how it was transmitted, and for whom it was written helps scholars separate what Jesus might have said historically from folkloric tales about him that arose from later perspectives and address later concerns.

2. Do multiple sources preserve the same teaching?

Comparing a similar saying preserved in independent texts means that the saying has multiple attestation. With multiple attestation, two or more independent texts attest to the saying surviving in the context of diverse communities. For example, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mark have the saying, “What goes in cannot defile us but only what comes out.” Neither Thomas nor Mark know each other; one did not copy from the other, but both have the saying. This gives evidence that the saying persisted in oral tradition before either of the two texts were written. A saying that persisted in oral tradition is a saying from the earliest tradition and likely closer to the time of the historical Jesus.

Multiple attestation does not automatically prove that Jesus said something. Historical research rarely provides that kind of certainty. Instead, it indicates that a saying or a story was known in unique communities through earlier oral or “word of mouth” tradition.

3. Does the teaching fit the historical context?

This question is another aspect of the historical-critical method in which the context of the life of Jesus must be imagined through the study of ancient history. Jesus lived as a Jew in first-century Roman-occupied Palestine. This is a fact of history. To understand Jesus deeply means to enter, as best we can, the setting in which he lived.

Words and ideas can mean something different from one historical context to another. Scholars indicate that when Jesus was called “Son of God” in the context of the Roman Empire, the emperors used the same title. Jesus, in context, is seen as an alternative to the Roman Empire.

Therefore, the original designation of Jesus as the Son of God was not a doctrinal statement about the Trinity. The Christian Trinity arose centuries later when the “Son of God” title referred to Jesus as the second Person of the Trinity—not something the historical Jesus would have known about.

Jesus lived in the Roman world among the social values and norms of the empire. This knowledge makes it possible to distinguish traditions or sayings in the gospels that are likely close to the time of Jesus from traditions or sayings that are likely later. In Mark, for example, Jesus knows that the Jerusalem temple has been destroyed (13:2), but that event happened decades after his life. We know that the sayings about the temple were written by Mark. They indicate the experience of the later Marcan community. They are not something Jesus said.

Historical context can help us ask not only, “What does this passage mean to me?” but also, “What might these words have meant in their originating context?”

4. Why do the gospels sometimes tell the same story differently?

Readers sometimes encounter differences between stories that the gospels share and wonder which account is “correct.” When scholars ask this question, they usually use redaction criticism to find the answer.

Rather than trying to harmonize different versions of the same story, scholars seek to identify how each writer of the gospels adapts or changes the common story to address their environment. When a gospel writer adapts a common story to a new environment, the gospel writer is said to “redact” the story. Examining these redactions is redaction criticism.

The gospel writers of Luke and Matthew copy from the Gospel of Mark. They tell the same story as Mark, but Matthew and Luke redact Mark. They may add to the story or edit it to fit a different circumstance or carry a different message. An example is the Parable of the Sower. The yield of the crop in Mark is thirty, sixty, and one hundredfold, but in Matthew the numbers are given in reverse, one hundred, sixty, and thirty. In Luke, only a yield of one hundredfold is reported. There are other differences in the parable in each gospel, but these differences show how Matthew and Luke, who copy from Mark, redact the parable to create distinctive emphases.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are written from different perspectives addressing different audiences with different redactional interests. The differences can provide insight into how early Christians understood what Jesus meant to their communities.

5. What can we reasonably conclude about what Jesus said?

Perhaps the most important question is, what did Jesus really say? This is also the hardest question to answer. Scholars mostly use what is traditionally called form criticism to address the question. Form criticism, in this case, attempts to use the voiceprint or rhetorical style of Jesus to judge the authenticity of the sayings attributed to him. The Jesus Seminar concluded that parables and aphorisms are the style or form of speech that Jesus most often used.

Another way to understand form criticism is to ask whether a saying “sounds like Jesus.” Does the saying use irony? Does it employ hyperbole? Does the saying include references to what would be common experiences during the life of Jesus?

An example of an aphorism is “do not criticize the sawdust in your neighbor’s eye when there is a plank of wood in your own eye” (Luke 6:41). This is a saying of pure hyperbole, typical of aphorisms attributed to Jesus. In terms of form criticism, this “sounds like Jesus.”

Historical Jesus scholarship cannot provide a biography of Jesus. The surviving sources have limitations, and the gospels, in any case, are Christian proclamations not historical writings.

Historical-critical study, however, can help distinguish between what is reasonably supported by ancient evidence and what is later interpretation. The study of the historical Jesus remains important because, for people today, determining what is reasonably possible to conclude historically about Jesus is extremely relevant for what one is willing to believe.

Why Does This Matter?

Asking what Jesus really said isn't an attempt to reduce Jesus strictly to historical questions. Trying to determine what Jesus really said is an invitation to becoming more informed about the Christian gospels and the rise of Christianity in the first two centuries of the Common Era.

Religious literacy means being able to recognize the difference between an ancient text and a later interpretation, between historical evidence and theological belief, and between what scholars can establish with confidence and what remains uncertain.

The sayings of Jesus have inspired generations of people. Studying their historical context or determining their authenticity doesn't make them less relevant. Rather, critical study helps us understand more clearly the world from which they emerged and the relevance they can still carry today.

For Westar, asking good questions, examining evidence, and creating space for thoughtful conversations is the heart of religious literacy. Religious literacy matters not only for understanding religious traditions but also for understanding our human future with religion.

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Thumbnail Image: Photo by Kolby Milton on Unsplash

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