Nicholas Elder: Reading and Circulating the Canonical Gospels

Nicholas A. Elder, Gospel Media: Reading, Writing, and Circulating Jesus Traditions (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2024), 271-272.

The ways that the canonical gospels were read and composed dovetail with their circulation and materiality. Mark, as a text composed from antecedent oral events to be reactivated in subsequent events, was not a text composed “for publication.” It was written for limited circulation. This impacted its style, which was oral, and its material form, which was the codex. The later Synoptics, in contrast, were created “for publication.” This is indicated by the ways that they redact their predecessor, how they composed their own materials, and the media designations they append to themselves. Their style reflects written psychodynamics, and their native material form was the bookroll. The Fourth Gospel betrays knowledge of the Synoptics and their media diversity. It bears marks of being circulated in stages, first to a limited audience and then a wider one. It is the most likely of the four gospels to have circulated in multiple technologies, both codex and bookroll.