The What It Is

This is the philosophy behind a person’s essence, that is, one’s temperament, which can be described by higher-order traits or dimensions that are further divided into sub-traits or facets.  Some of these tendencies are driven by our physiology, some just hint at it, while others correlate with other facets, giving clues that one is tangled with the other, and some may bear no such relationship.

In philosophy, essence makes the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing [3].  The concept can be seen in the works of Aristotle and Plato, who used the Greek expression to ti esti, meaning “the what it is“.  [4]

To be sure, it’s a tough task to etch out a particular tendency such that it has a stable and definable input response, say stimulating an infant with a light shined to its eyes (the input) to measure a response (the output), since the outputs will change when the situation changes.  But we can still capture a definable quality as described by the behavior we observe, and the idea that it’s impossible to get at the “essence” of these observations has been wrongly expressed throughout our philosophical history.

Niels Bohr was skeptical about our ability to grasp whatever “hidden whole” (the physiological process) lay behind what was observed (the trait’s behavior), even though he agreed it was necessary to use words as conceptual aids to describe the invisible processes. But these words were conjectures to help understanding. [1]

The Essence of a Behavior

To locate the essence of a behavior means to get as close as possible to the physiological response that is shaped by genetics and unique to a class of people.  For example, the temperament – a genetically influenced trait – called inhibition to the unfamiliar, changes over the situation, say shy when with people, say timid when in unfamiliar territory, and finicky when with unfamiliar food.  Inhibition (the “hidden whole”) is the essence of the traits labeled as shy, timid, and finicky since it’s closest to one’s physiology.

To side with Einstein, however, is to commit the error of awarding a trait [my insertion] a Platonic reality—a thing in itself—that is a fiction.  Hilary Putnam (1995) argues that when we talk of “ding an sich” [a thing as it is in itself, not understood through human perception]” we do not know what we are talking about. [1]

The trait is not a Platonic reality because it only exists as a phenomenon perceived.  Here, it’s the physiological response to a stimulus applied to infants to see how “reactive” they are.  Developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan found that 20% of infants, always in that proportion if sample size large, “showed limbic activity combined with distress to visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli” [1].

“EEG activation on the right frontal area under resting conditions while most infants show activation in the left frontal area” [1].  The right frontal area in the brain is where negative “affect” occurs.  Affect is either how pleasant or unpleasant (valence) we feel or how agitated or calm (arousal) we feel.  Infants that show negative affect are more likely to test high for the trait of neuroticism as adults.

The Essence as Elusiveness 

The trait of inhibitedness, however, may not be the fundamental trait since “high sensory-processing sensitivity” of brain regions and the nervous system exist in individuals that are labeled as “high-reactive”, which results in sensitivity to subtle stimuli, cues, and novelty, as well as being easily overstimulated.  And people with this trait can appear to be shy because they often hesitate.

This hesitation has been described by Dr. Aron as “geared to pause, inspect and reflect” [1].  An analogy may be helpful here to illustrate why “sensitivity” is a better descriptor than “inhibitedness” just as “skin-cancer-proneness” is not as generally useful a descriptor of a blonde, blue-eyed person’s major physical traits as “fair” or “fair-complexioned” would be” [1].

The importance of sensitivity or inhibitedness (which can result in fearfulness, shyness, and anxiety) will be obvious in a future post where the psychopath, not all but a vast majority, scores low in inhibitedness and therefore expresses what is known as boldness and fearless dominance, which, some argue, coupled with other traits, make the trait pathological in nature [2].

References

[1] Extreme Fear, Shyness, and Social Phobia (Series in Affective Science).

[2] Handbook of Psychopathy, Second Edition. Guilford Publications.

[3] Lakoff, George. Moral Politics. University of Chicago Press.

[4] Wikipedia contributors. “Essence.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 Feb. 2020. Web. 26 Apr. 2020.

Nuts and Bolts and Ego

If some of this comes across as excessive, there is actually a healthy reason behind it.  Because I am fortunately not fueled by resentments but rather by fascination, and a bit of obsession, with how each and every one of us manages to maintain positive feelings towards ourselves in the face of unfavorable self-comparisons, failures, or even abuse.

How this system works and self-regulates, to me, is a marvel of evolution, even if it is comparatively much simpler than many other systems its effects have enormous consequences to our happiness.  So this is not only about educating others on the perils of dominating and abusive people but also is self-serving because I too can learn from it.

Nuts and Bolts of NPD

What I just mentioned above—self-esteem regulation—actually is the dysfunction behind someone with narcissism.  It’s not so much about the addiction to wanting to feel more important than the rest or the romanticizing about how everyone will envy you when you have that perfect beach-front property and so forth.  It’s about the need to suppress feelings of shame and inferiority that theoretically drive a narcissist to behave the way they do.

The most concise way I’ve seen the causes of narcissism put is as seen below taken from “The Self-Conscious Emotions”.  This means that narcissists—we can all do this but again it’s a matter of degree—over time have become very good at getting defensive and inflating themselves when they feel threatened so much so that it becomes a feature of their personality.

Chronic experiences with certain self-conscious emotions can, in turn, shape people’s explicit self-esteem such that it differs in valence from their implicit selfesteem. In the context of the resulting fragile self system, narcissistic—that is, defensively self-aggrandizing—personality tendencies take root.  [6]

To illustrate the unstable self-esteem, with one possible scenario, the narcissist could sense a “put down”, priming the mind to send a burst of shame as a warning to take heed that their sense of ‘self’ is in jeopardy of being tarnished.  The defensive system then becomes engaged, and the narcissist focuses on the potential “threat to self” by getting defensive, angry, and even inflating with hubris, anything but to feel the shame.  And they have lots of practice at doing this because most theories posit that this starts in early childhood.

Shame, the output of a much larger self-esteem system, is what’s known as a ‘self-conscious’ emotion in that it works when you perceive that you are unattractive and undesired to others.  To get perspective, imagine self-esteem as being something that encourages us to strive for status and acceptance by rewarding us with positive feelings (pride) upon meeting standards.  But can, arguably even more so, motivate us towards self-improvement, or conversely to conceal defects and not compete, by the prospect of being punished with aversive feelings (shame) if we fall short of standards.  But shame’s role only works well when we “care what others think”.

Shame emerges from our complex evolved abilities to be aware of “how we exist for others,” and make predictions of what they think and feel about us. [6]

The Ego in NPD

And it pays to “care what others think” at least it did for our ancestors in our distant past which aided them in figuring out how to be valued by others and to compete for resources and mates.  For those that did not have this quality of insight may have been destined to becoming “not enough” and at risk of being exploited or even ousted by their tribe.

But this facet of us, the ego, has a dark side too since the very act of imagining “not being enough” is quite taxing to the mind and body.  As much effort now a day is spent practicing how to quiet that nagging voice through mindfulness meditation and being more aware.

Ego is the one affliction we all have in common. Because of our understandable efforts to be bigger, better, smarter, stronger, richer, or more attractive, we are shadowed by a nagging sense of weariness and self-doubt.[1]

This ego, which is colloquial for us for describing the turmoil of the self-conscious emotions, the yin and yang of struggles—to be dismissed or to be recognized or be laughed at or to be taken seriously—must be ubiquitous.  In fact, I imagine the ego plays a bigger role than we admit to since our daily battles with it make us feel small if others knew that we were driven by such petty stuff, so its effects remain largely hidden.

In fact, self-conscious emotions play a central role in motivating and regulating almost all of people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Most people spend a great deal of time avoiding social approbation, a strong elicitor of shame and embarrassment. We worry about losing social status in the eyes of others and, as Goffman noted, our every social act is influenced by even the slight chance of public shame or loss of “face.” In fact, according to the “Cooley–Scheff conjecture,” we are “virtually always in a state of either pride or shame”. [6]

And so the ego is quite vexing, but the narcissist, the disorder not the person, has a simple solution to this problem which is to block the part that hurts and which keeps us humble but at the cost of others witnessing it grow without bound.

References

[1] Epstein, Mark. Advice Not Given. Penguin Publishing Group.

[2] Gilbert, Paul. Genes on the Couch. Taylor and Francis.

[3] Leary, Mark. The Curse of the Self: Self-Awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life.

[4] Leary, Mark.  Interpersonal Rejection. Kindle Edition.

[5] Quartz, Steven. Cool. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

[6] Tracy, Jessica. The Self-Conscious Emotions . Guilford Publications.

On Diagnoses of NPD

Background

In the previous submission, we learned that a person has to have impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) as well as have pathological personality traits (erratic traits that society rejects that aren’t optimal to functioning) present in order for us to use the “disorder” label.  These impairments in personality are at the ‘self’ level affecting identity and self-direction as well as the ‘interpersonal’ level where empathy and intimacy play a role (see Table 2).  Here we will use the diagnostic criteria we see in DSM 5 part II (see Table 1) to point towards diagnoses based on the trait model but will also integrate section III’s model since it is much more insightful.

I’m sure I can read on the practice of how to diagnose and assess until I turn blue in the face but to truly be a good clinician takes actual experience, which I don’t have.  But I’d argue that in some sense I’m actually in a much better position to making an accurate diagnosis than a practitioner is as I have observations that stretch over ten years, which exclude the narcissist’s confessions to a therapist which are often contrived and of little value.  In fact, I am providing a very rare opportunity at looking at how a narcissist thinks because NPD is the least studied of personality disorders and many variations exist making it confusing and difficult to diagnose.

Method Used

Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of rigor and protocol to diagnosing that confirms my overall impression that I have had on the profession, and I say this in the most respectful way because I know it’s a social and behavioral science making variables more difficult to capture and measure.  But look at the first criterion (Table 1) and notice that there’s nothing to distinguish between how strong (severity or magnitude) or how often (frequency) the effect is.  So this makes me concerned about conflating the disorder with just having the trait.

And besides, there is no attempt on capturing how often these nine tendencies show up over time, there’s also no way of characterizing the quality of how the traits are expressed under certain conditions which may be important.  I did, however, find a questioner that puts it in on a five-point scale ranging from very often to never, which I decided to use.  But we don’t have access to the person’s personal thoughts and feelings, and she is socially skilled enough to know how to hide her unattractive ego with others.  So what are we relying on as data?

What I did was estimated an answer shown in the criteria scale below under Table 1 based on the degree and frequency of her demonstrating these traits as seen in her actual behavior and in odd things that she’s uttered.  These utterances were in unique contexts that when extracted, I would argue, give lots of information about her inner workings.  She also had a very well hidden but highly developed ego, which could be quite disturbing, often coming across as if that were her authentic-self making all other sides to her seem but a facade.  

It was in these moments of egotistical truth, however, that revealed a highly insecure person that was very much attuned to my place, your place, and her place in the social hierarchy so as she can best strategize her moves in her limitless quest for power and attention.

Table 1. Trait Model (DSM 5 section II)

  1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance. (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).
  2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love.  
  3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
  4. Requires excessive admiration.
  5. Is interpersonally exploitative. (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends)
  6. Has a sense of entitlement.  (i.e., unreasonable expectation of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations)
  7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
  8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.  
  9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes.

Explanation of Traits

The essence of grandiosity I take as to be the desire to feel “important” which can easily fall into a feeling of superiority.  The emotions involved here are those of the self-conscious type—namely pride and shame—which help us to function in social situations by making us aware of how we come across to others.  So important only makes sense in social contexts because it has to do with how we rank relative to one another.  And one of the reinforcers of feeling important—making you want to do it—is to feel the emotion of pride, but once you start comparing yourself in a superior way, then you will feel the inflated pride of a narcissist known as hubris.

The next trait is having the tendency of idealizing, fantasizing, or romanticizing.  The kernel in these activities has to do once again with feeling important, special, and powerful.  What happens is that we fantasize how perfection would be in the future – say the ownership of many houses or to be in the presence of a perfect lover—and we relish those feelings of pride and feelings of being special through our imaginations.

The third trait has to do with how important it is to associate with high-status others to affect your self-esteem.  This is where the trait model found in section II shows its limitations, so I will mention section III, the hybrid model, shown in Table 2 below, that works with dimensions instead of traits that could be integrated into this analysis for more insight.

Table 2. Hybrid Model (DSM 5 section III)

A. Moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning, manifested by characteristic difficulties in two or more of the following four areas:

1. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal inflated or deflated, or vacillating between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.
2. Self-direction: Goal-setting based on gaining approval from others; personal standards unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.
3. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over-or underestimate of own effect on others.
4. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others’ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain.

B. Both of the following pathological personality traits:

1. Grandiosity (an aspect of Antagonism): Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescension toward others.
2. Attention seeking (an aspect of Antagonism): Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.

To shed light on the need to feel ‘special’ to the point of exclusively associating only with other high-status individuals, we need to see how we manage our self-definition and self-esteem.  If we rely too heavily on our associations to define ourselves or to manage our self-esteem, this can become maladaptive and is listed as an impairment in personality (Table 2, A, 1).  We will discuss why this is maladaptive in the post that focuses on the causes and consequences of NPD.

The trait of excessive admiration is something that can be hard to see since it’s often a hidden requirement in narcissists, but it seems to be an important need to be not necessarily well-liked but more importantly well respected and looked up to by others.  And jumping to the last two traits from Table 1, we can see that they will feel envious often or believe others are envious of them, which captures feelings of resentment and discontent over others’ achievements or possessions.  The ninth trait of arrogance is related to trait one of grandiosity but the focus seems to be on displaying it where you exaggerate your significance (inflate yourself) and importance by posturing around others and can even show attitudes of disdain toward those that don’t meet your standards.

The last three traits to discuss are impairments in empathy, exploitation of others and a sense of entitlement.  These in my view are the consequences of having narcissism as they affect those around you.  It’s not that they don’t have the ability to be empathetic and often do but more often than not it’s in a self-serving way.  The exploitation of others then comes naturally with low empathy, and people often become objectified and used as a means to accomplishing their goals.  And, lastly, a sense of entitlement means I deserve it because I’m important not because I earned it.

References

[1] Buss, David M.. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex. Free Press.

[2] Dziegielewski, Sophia . DSM-5 in Action 3rd Edition. SAM Ficher.

[3] Gilbert, Paul. Genes on the Couch (p. 181). Taylor and Francis.

[4] Leary, Mark. The Curse of the Self: Self-Awareness, Egotism, and the Quality of Human Life.

[5] Quartz, Steven. Cool (p. 134). Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

[6] Ronningstam, Elsa. Ph.D. Dimensional Conceptualization and Diagnosis of NPD.  Harvard University.

[7] Tracy, Jessica. The Self-Conscious Emotions . Guilford Publications.

[8] Treatment in Psychiatry.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Diagnostic and Clinical Challenges.  Eve Caligor, M.D., Kenneth N. Levy, Ph.D., Frank E. Yeomans, M.D., Ph.D.

Personality Disorders

Definition

The American Psychiatric Association provides a concise definition of personality disorder, but they are explicitly measuring the defect if you will against culture’s standards.

A personality disorder is a way of thinking, feeling and behaving that deviates from the expectations of the culture, causes distress or problems functioning, and lasts over time.

The DSM-5, which is a reference for psychologists and psychiatrists for diagnosing disorders, organizes it in terms of personality functioning and the presence of pathological traits and defines it as follows.

The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose a personality disorder, the following criteria must be met:

  • Significant impairments in self (identity or self-direction) and interpersonal (empathy or intimacy) functioning.
  • One or more pathological personality trait domains or trait facets.
  • The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.
  • The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual‟s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.
  • The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).

Pathology

So it’s best and most accurate to say that a personality disorder is one that has the features of impairments in personality as well as having the presence of pathological personality traits.  Well, I usually think of the word pathological as meaning something that just doesn’t work for the situation at hand and is often extreme.  Let’s see what the DSM says about this.

characterized by adaptive inflexibility, vicious cycles of maladaptive behavior, and emotional instability under stress.

To define pathological correctly, it looks like it must have the features of not being able to be appropriate or adequate for the situation along with possessing an unstable pattern of it, especially when under stressors.

DSM-5 and Clusters

If you look at how the DSM organizes the ten personality disorders, then you’ll notice that they use key features to put them in groups called clusters.  The group that is of interest to us is cluster B, Figure 1 below, which uses the characterization of dramatic and erratic behavior to describe the four disorders: BPD, HPD, ASPD, and NPD.

This behavior described seems to be similar to impulsiveness which means having little control over behavior and emotions, but phrasing the behavior as dramatic and erratic seems to add nuances while avoiding unwanted connotations.

Those that show subclinical symptoms of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy may also benefit from reading this cluster, see the text in bold since it describes the bold element to their behavior remarkably well.

The “Cluster B” personality disorders are characterized by dramatic or erratic behavior. People who have a personality disorder from this cluster tend to either experience very intense emotions or engage in extremely impulsive, theatrical, promiscuous, or law-breaking behaviors.

  • Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by emotional instability, intense interpersonal relationships, and impulsive behaviors.
  • Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) features a need to always be the center of attention that often leads to socially inappropriate behavior in order to get attention. People with this disorder may have frequent mood swings as well.
  • Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) tends to show up in childhood, unlike most other personality disorders that don’t appear until adolescence or young adulthood. Symptoms include a disregard for rules and social norms and a lack of empathy for other people.  [This “umbrella” term of Antisocial Personality Disorder includes the traits of sociopathy and psychopathy.]
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is associated with self-centeredness, exaggerated self-image, and lack of empathy for others.
Figure 1: Cluster B

References:

[1] Salters-Pedneault, Kristalyn, Ph.D.  Introduction to the DSM Personality Disorders.  https://www.verywellmind.com/personality-disorders-a2-425427

Gaslighting

What would you do if your significant other told you one day out of the blue in a very earnest way that you were living a double life?  Yes, you were living a double life and they were so convincing that you believed that you actually did something wrong for a moment – even though as you quickly jogged your memory for bad behavior nothing surfaced*.

That is the power of influence from someone that is determined to get their way at any cost.  That is a person that shows signs of the dark triad by using a technique of deception known as gaslighting.  And this is my story on how I was manipulated by my significant other in order for her to live her “double life” that she ever so thought she was justified in living.

Before jumping to conclusions of weak-mindedness, at least I did, as an explanation for being gaslighted, let’s define it and then look at why it’s more complicated than that.

Gaslighting is a malicious and hidden form of mental and emotional abuse, designed to plant seeds of self-doubt and alter your perception of reality.  In other words, the perpetrator destabilizes you by delegitimizing your beliefs.

The term gaslighting comes from the film “Gaslight” released in 1944 played by Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer where the husband (Boyer) is trying to convince the spouse (Bergman) that she is mentally ill and that everything she perceives is not really true.  The husband has plans on committing her to a mental institution to gain power of attorney.  It turns out that the husband had murdered someone and was trying to keep her silenced.

The above story is my story in a nutshell with one minor difference: my significant other was hiding her infidelities and not concealing a murder.  But it was even worse than the film’s scenario as I actually have clinical depression which is a mental illness, making it a plausible tactic at least at face value.  And in a similar way, she was also trying to commit me to a rehabilitation center in order to avoid confrontation as well as make a smoke-screen that would serve to protect her image in front of family and friends.

We probably can identify traits that make someone more prone to being manipulated, but I’m not convinced it is as simple as gullibility because we are also very cynical.  When you have deep affection and admiration for someone, on the other hand, then you eventually open your inner-world to them, insecurities and all, and become vulnerable.  This means to give them the benefit of the doubt and to have faith that they consider you when making choices, even when you are not around.  It’s beautiful but also tragic.

But perhaps for me, there wasn’t love, only an unhealthy attachment, which would explain a lot.  I never did, however, give her the benefit of the doubt as some may have, but I stored that tactic that I know now as gaslighting in my mind until I gathered more evidence to support my intuition.  At that time I chose not to leave the relationship because of fear and a low opinion of myself.  Yes, indeed, I would have been in the category of high risk not just because of a tendency to undervalue myself but because of the disparaging messages that I was receiving from this person that I let into my inner-world.

Notes

*This took some deep reflection as far as figuring out what exactly I felt when I was confronted for the first time with someone trying to dismantle my reality before my very own eyes.  My initial thoughts and feelings were as if I was sucker punched, stunned and confused.  So it worked for a minute but then immediately my analytical part took hold and said why would anyone have a need to exert energy to say such a crazy thing if they weren’t trying to hide something.  So I was angry and resentful and went on the offense immediately to attack her intentions.  But then afterward I was saddened and having thoughts of how could someone that I loved be so malice and deceptive.

References

[1]  Buss, David M.. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex. Free Press.

[2] Kole, Pamela. The Psychology of Abusive Relationships: How to Understand Your Abuser, Empower Yourself, and Take Your Life Back.

[3]. Lancer, Darlene.  “Beware of the Malevolent Dark Triad.” Psychologytoday.com.

[4]. Lancer, Darlene.  “How to know if you are a victim of gaslighting.” Psychologytoday.com.

[5] Marmot, Michael. The Status Syndrome. Henry Holt and Co.

[6] McBride, Karyl. “How does a narcissist think.” Psychologytoday.com.

[7] The Self-Conscious Emotions. Guilford Publications.

[8] Subordination and Defeat: An Evolutionary Approach To Mood Disorders and Their Therapy. Taylor and Francis.

Gospels as Literary Creations

The Gospels are, it must be said with gratitude, works of art, the supreme fictions in our culture, narratives produced by enormously influential literary artists who put their art in the service of a theological vision. It is, of course, not uncommon to recognize literary artistry in the Gospels; there is perhaps no more beautiful short story than “The Prodigal Son,” no more moving sentence in all world literature than “I am with you always, until the end of time” (Matt. 28:20) – Randel Helms

A previous post argued that the gospels should have a qualifier to the consensus genre classification of Greco-roman biography, namely that they should be legendary biographies and not historical biographies.  The genre gives an indication of what to expect, so we should see a lot of legendary and mythological embellishment in the biography.  But this does not necessarily imply that all is fiction since there could be some historical content embedded in the narratives.  There are criteria that historians use to determine if the content is historical or not, but I don’t have much confidence in the results, as Richard Carrier has outlined that many arguments can be fallacious.  Besides, I tend to think that the Gospels are more literary than anything else, as this post will illustrate by drawing chiefly on Bart Ehrman’s analysis.

To put it plainly, the Gospel stories should be viewed as pieces of theological literature with little historical value.  What undermines their historicity is not so much the miracle stories and mythology—as most biographies of their time period contain—nor their favorable bias towards the subject matter, but rather their direct use of literary devices and editing to make theological and idiosyncratic points.  After all, if you start with one thing (Gospel of Mark) and change it to another thing (the other Gospels), how do you know which is correct?  This post will focus on how each author borrowed and changed content from the Gospel of Mark (or from oral tradition) to construct their own ideas and implications of the life and death of Jesus Christ, while a later post will explore the different literary devices used to craft such stories.

The Gospels are filled with symbolism—things that mean something beyond their literal meaning. If you miss this, then you miss the best parts of the story.  Metaphor is a type of symbolism that equates one thing to another, not using like or as.  Most pervasively though, the stories use allusion, which makes references to people or events outside of the Gospels, most commonly from the Old Testament.  Just as heavily, the Gospels are filled with allegory, which makes references to other stories outside of the Gospels by subtly recasting characters or retelling events.  Parables are the most common form of allegory found in the Gospels, and they teach moral or spiritual lessons.  Lastly, rhetorical devices that are meant to persuade are quite common, consisting of hyperbole, chreia, personification, amplification, irony, and incomplete syllogisms [3].

To explain the tools of analysis, redaction is the process of editing, and redaction criticism is the study of how authors have created a story by editing another story.  As Bart Ehrman says, “If enough changes point in the same direction, we may be able to uncover the redactor’s principal concerns and emphases.”  Redaction criticism is very important to the study of the Gospels since both Matthew and Luke relied on the Gospel of Mark to create their story.  In fact, 80% of Mark is contained in the Gospel of Matthew. Remember that the Gospel of Mark was written first, roughly around 70 CE. The Gospel of John’s story uses sources that are more controversial; he may or may not have relied directly on Mark, Matthew, or Luke and instead may have used a mixture of oral tradition and written. As a side, the authors of the Gospels are all anonymous, and for brevity’s sake, I’ll be referring to them by their traditional names assigned to them by the Church.

As the first example of editing, in Mark, it starts out by having the heavens open up and a voice from above says, “You are my beloved Son”, while in Matthew it says “This is my beloved Son.”  The change may be grammatically slight, but it’s significant in meaning.  Matthew is trying to show that his identity of being the Son of God is not hidden to everyone as it is in the Gospel of Mark.  By saying this is my beloved Son, you know you have an audience (Pharisees and Sadducees).  As another example of this difference, there is the walking on water narrative.  In the Gospel of Mark, people do not understand the implications when Jesus walks on water and “their hearts were hardened”, while in Matthew, they react by falling down in worship, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God”.  Matthew deliberately made a change to Mark to make a different point.  Why did Matthew make this change? Matthew probably made this change to emphasize the culpability of the Jews, which works more dramatically in Matthew than in Mark since they were conscious of his identity all along.  Moreover, “in John, for example, as in Luke, three times Pilate tries to release Jesus by declaring him innocent (unlike in Mark).  And at the end, so, too, does the centurion (Roman soldier).  The Romans all agree on Jesus’ innocence.  Who then is guilty for his death? Not the Romans, but the Jewish authorities, or the Jewish people themselves” [1].

To mix things up, we can go to the end of the story of Mark, the crucifixion narrative. His dying words on the cross were “My God My God why hast thou forsaken me.”  This is a direct quote from Psalm 22 of the Hebrew scriptures.  This passage and others (35 and 69) were known as the Psalms of Lament (22, 35 and 69) – speaks of a righteous man who suffers at the hands of God’s enemies and becomes vindicated by God in the end [1].  Knowing that the author had in their hands a copy of the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), it’s hard to not think that the passion-crucifixion narrative was influenced by these passages, including Isaiah 52, the Songs of The Suffering Servant.  After all, there’s a direct quotation, and the beginning of the story says this is to follow in accordance with Scripture.  Whether or not the author wanted people to know that this was allegorical or something that Jesus actually said, we’ll never know for sure.  Now Luke changes the words completely by appealing to Psalms 31, “Into your hands I will commit my spirit.”  Again, this is a direct quotation out of the Septuagint in order to fulfill scripture.  Luke’s Jesus accepts his death and willingly gives himself over during the crucifixion.  By contrast, Mark’s Jesus is in agony and seems to be completely unaware of his purpose, which is an atonement for our sins.  Luke changes this to fit his formulation of Jesus.  Luke’s Jesus is a prophet that was rejected by God’s people; he preaches as a prophet, heals as a prophet and also dies as a prophet.  The greatest prophets from scripture, e.g., Elijah, Amos, Ezekiel, all were persecuted and sometimes even martyred by their own people [1].  Luke has placed his Jesus alongside these great prophets. “Luke emphasizes that Jesus dies as a righteous, blameless martyr of God.  As a prophet he knew that this had to happen” [1].  Right, prophets are visionaries, they can foresee the future. This explains why Jesus has complete confidence that his death will bring him in God’s special care as his final words were a prayer not a plea.

Towards the end of both Mark and Luke, the curtain in the holy Temple gets torn in half. The curtain tearing, however, happens at different times and for different reasons.  The Temple is where sacrifices were offered up to God, and the most sacred place in the Temple was the square room, “in whose darkness God’s presence was thought to dwell.” No one could enter this room unless it was the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) when the high priest would go behind the curtain into the presence of God to perform a sacrifice to atone the sins of the people [1].  Mark indicates that when Jesus died, the curtain separating the holiest of places from the outside world was torn in half [1].  This is symbolic in that the tear has opened up the holiest of places to the rest of the world; God is no longer separated by the curtain and all have access to him now.  The ultimate sacrifice has been made, voiding the necessity of all others. Jesus, the Son of God, has “given his life as a ransom for many” (Mark).  People now have direct access to God, who comes to them in the death of Jesus [1].  On the other hand, In Luke, the curtain is torn when Jesus was on the cross and when darkness comes upon the land.  The torn curtain is symbolic of the people rejecting God’s gift (Jesus) and shows God’s judgment upon them. The torn curtain accompanies the eerie darkness over the land as a sign of God’s judgment upon his people who have rejected his gift of “light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke).  What underscores this point of God’s wrath is when Jesus says to his enemies (Jewish authorities) that “this is your hour and the power of darkness” (Luke).

The centurion (commander in a Roman army) at the end of Mark says that “Truly this man was God’s Son.”  The centurion in Luke says, “Certainly this man was innocent.”  These two passages are clearly different.  We can try to reconcile them, but what is more likely the case is that the authors wanted to get across different messages.  Mark is portraying Jesus as the atonement for sin, so his phrase reconfirms that Jesus, the Son of God, had to die for our salvation.  By contrast, Luke wanted to emphasize that Jesus was truly innocent and whose death would not bring, in it of itself, salvation or forgiveness.  Jesus died because he was a prophet rejected by God’s people.  And the people need to repent of their sins and return to God, and then they will be forgiven and granted salvation.  So Mark’s theology regarding salvation (forgiveness for sin) is more of a “get out of jail free card”, while in Luke’s you have to work for it.

Lastly, but certainly not the last of the discrepancies, is the day that Jesus actually died.  This is a contradiction not easily reconciled, despite numerous attempts by apologists.   In the Gospel of Mark, the Passover Meal is the Last Supper.  Passover was the most significant event for Jews during Jesus’ time.  For this year, it started on Thursday evening and continued on to Friday day since Jews viewed the start of the day as the beginning of nightfall.  So Thursday evening was the beginning of Passover.  Thursday day was the Day of Preparation where people brought their lambs to be slaughtered for sacrifice for their sins, and the meal was prepared that afternoon to be eaten that evening, on Passover.  The Last Supper includes the ceremonial wine and bread, where Jesus says after breaking the bread and giving it to his disciples, “This is my body.”  This is symbolic of when his body is broken for the salvation of all.  Jesus then gave the cup of wine to his disciples and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many” (Mark).  And this is symbolic of the blood that will be shed.  After the Last Supper, Jesus is later taken by the authorities and spends the night in jail, while being found guilty by Pontius Pilate the next day.  He dies on Friday at 9 AM on Passover Day.  In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist announces that “Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.”  This is the only Gospel in which a metaphor for a lamb is used for Jesus.  The Passover meal in John takes place on Friday evening.  Jesus’ Last Supper is not a Passover meal; it occurs on a Thursday, the evening before the Passover lambs are slaughtered.  After the meal, Jesus spends the night in jail and then Pontius Pilate announces that he will be crucified on the Day of Preparation at noon – the day the lambs are slaughtered, which is a Thursday [1].  Therefore, in Mark, Jesus dies on Friday Passover Day, and, in John, Jesus dies on the Day of Preparation, which is a Thursday.  So Jesus is the slaughtered lamb in the Gospel of John.

Looking at these differences, and there are a lot more to point out, one can conclude that either the writers based their stories on different sources of information or that they are literary creations.  I believe that since the changes made coincide with an author’s particular vision of Jesus Christ that they are most certainly fabrications, molded to fit a theme or to make a point.  One could argue, as most Christian apologists do, that the differences are historically compatible.  They could argue that using the centurion as an example, he was both innocent and also the Son of God, so there is no contradiction but rather one author chose to emphasize one point over the other.  However, Luke had the centurion say that “certainly this man is innocent” for a reason; Jesus was a prophet in which his people outright rejected him, and it’s structured this way to fit within Luke’s theology of guilt and repentance.  Moreover, it’s a climactic phrase for the centurion to say, and therefore has all the hallmarks of literary creation.  I don’t think anyone was recording what the centurion was saying and passed it on through oral tradition; it’s just part of the story.  This goes for all the modifications aforementioned.  In my view, the editing in it of itself makes it hard to know which is historical and which is not, but an even better argument is that the changes made are too integral to the author’s theme to be anything but literary creations.

Notes:

[1]  Ehrman, Bart D. (2009-02-20). Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

[2]  Helms, Randel. Gospel Fictions. Kindle Edition.

[3]  Witherington III, Ben.  (2009).  New Testament Rhetoric: An Introductory Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament.  Cascade Books.

Gospels as Legendary Biographies

Knowing what type of writings the Gospels are—for example, legendary versus historical—will help us to understand the writer’s intentions and guide our interpretation.  The one method that we have available to assess its type is by looking at its genre, which is an unspoken contract between the writer and the audience on what to expect.

Genre forms a kind of `contract’ or agreement, often unspoken or unwritten, or even unconscious, between an author and a reader, by which the author sets out to write according to a whole set of expectations and conventions, and we agree to read or to interpret the work using the same conventions, giving us an initial idea of what we might expect to find. [2]

This short piece will explain the various attempts at classifying the Gospels and argues that their genre is akin to that of legendary biographies but not historical ones.

From Folk to Greco-Roman 

At one point the Gospels were viewed as being “one of a kind” (sui generis) biographies since the subject lacked personal detail, such as personality, character development, and appearance.  In the 1920s, form criticism came to the forefront, and they saw the Gospels as a series of mini-stories but completely void of biographical and historical content.

This led them to conclude that the Gospels were folk literature, that is, pieces of oral tradition passed down and synthesized into narratives.  Ben Witherington, on the other hand, a modern New Testament scholar, saw it as the complete opposite:

The whole form critical approach to these Gospels is deeply flawed, for the Gospels do not amount to boiling up narratives from shards and bits of tradition and sayings of Jesus; on the contrary, Gospel writing was a matter of editing the material down in specific ways. [6]

The modern consensus amongst both secular and non-secular scholars was helped by Richard Burridge, who concludes that the genre of the Gospels should be one of ancient Greco-Roman biography by comparing them to other well established Greco-Roman writings in terms of their form, function, and content.

A prose narrative recounting an individual’s life, often within a chronological framework, employing numerous subgenera (such as sayings, speeches, anecdotes and conflict stories) so as to reflect important aspects of his or her character, principally for purposes of instruction (to inform about what kind of person he or she was), or propaganda (to show his or her superiority to rivals). [4]

At first glance, this seems to be a fit for the Gospels but upon taking a closer look, we will see that it falls short.  The historian Matthew Ferguson, who is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine, reminds us that fitting the Gospels into a genre isn’t as easy as we may think:   

The genre of Graeco-Roman biography was rather diverse in antiquity, with many variations in structure and content depending on the biographical subject being described. As such, the comparison of the NT Gospels with “Graeco-Roman biography” is no simple or straightforward matter, as ancient biographical scholars still debate how the genre can even be defined to begin with.

From Historical to Legendary

Matthew Ferguson concludes that the Gospels are more similar to prose novels and legendary biographies than to historical biographies.  This comes from the inference that historical pieces of work were much more analytically rigorous and the focus wasn’t just on the narration of events.

Ancient historical prose has a very distinct style, in which the historian often would discuss the methodology of his research, the sources he consulted, the differences between multiple traditions about a person or event, and his judgment as an inquirer into past affairs. History, derived from the Greek ἱστορία (“inquiry”), is not merely a narrative about past people, places, and events, but is an investigation that one conducts in the present in order to formulate a hypothesis of what probably took place in the past, based on the available evidence. [5]

In addition, analytical works such as historical biographies, even in times of antiquity, were much more critical towards their subject matter.  Novelistic biographies of antiquity include Homer, Alexander the Great, and Aesop, whereas writings by Plutarch, Arrian, and Suetonius are historical biographies.  The Gospels show resemblance in broad outline to the biographies of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Asclepius, and, the most uncanny, Apollonius of Tyana which were all about miracle-working “divine men”.

Rather than read as the unmitigated praise of a saint who can do no wrong, ancient historical works and historical biographies were far more critical of their subjects, whom they analyzed less one-dimensionally and more as complete persons. Even for a popular and well-liked emperor like Augustus, his biographer Suetonius in his Life of Augustus still did not hold back from describing Augustus’ acts of adultery and lavish behavior. Good historians are concerned with telling the past as it really is rather than just heaping praise upon individuals as propaganda. [5]

Gospels as Hagiographies

The Gospels were also written in the third-person by omniscient authors and did not try to chiefly convince us of the accuracy of their accounts but rather that Jesus was heroic and worthy of being our savior.  Moreover, all of the Gospels are anonymous, don’t cite their sources or methodologies, and utilize much myth-making, which is atypical of historical biographical material.

Two possible exceptions, one being the Gospel of Luke, where an attempt is made to establish legitimacy since sources were claimed to be passed down to the author.  But this passage doesn’t amount to much as it excludes the names of the sources and doesn’t bother to discuss their relevance to the events.  The Gospel of John is the other exception where John claims to have an eyewitness disciple but fails to mention a name.

As Morton Smith puts it, these are known as aretalogies because they are “a miracle story or a collection of miracle stories” whose primary purpose was “praise of and propaganda for the deity supposed to have done the deeds.”  Below Matthew Ferguson succinctly describes the nature of the Gospels quite well.

The Gospels, in contrast, are not historical biographies but hagiographies written in unquestioning praise of their messianic subject. As a good representation of the scholarly consensus about the aims of the Gospels, the Oxford Annotated Bible (pg. 1744) explains, “Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith.” Such works, written for an audience of converts, are not chiefly concerned with being critical or investigative, but rather serve the religious agendas and ideologies of the communities that produced them.  [5]

References

[1] Boyd, Gregory A.; Eddy, Paul Rhodes. The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Book Group – A.

[2] Burridge, Richard A.  Four Gospels, One Jesus?: A Symbolic Reading.

[3] Burridge, Richard A. What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography.

[4] Ehrman, Bart D.  The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

[5] Ferguson, Matthew.  Κέλσος

[6] Witherington, Ben.  New Testament Rhetoric.