1. Gospels and Communities

Since 1998, NT critics have debated whether the gospels were written for specific communities,Footnote ¹ ‘all Christians’,Footnote ² or a little of both.Footnote ³ Given the impact any solution would have on scholarly conceptions of unity and diversity in the early Jesus movement, it comes as no surprise that the debate launched by R. Bauckham continues to garner much interest. The discussion has taken place on familiar grounds since its inception; for insights into the breadth of intended gospel audiences, Bauckham and others turn to questions of communication and travel among early Christ-groups,Footnote ⁴ intended audiences of biographical literature,Footnote ⁵ and patristic understandings of initial gospel audiences.Footnote ⁶ Peculiarly, none of these topics relate to communal practices of writing in antiquity. This is odd because the majority of critics agree that gospels were composed and read within group settings.Footnote ⁷ The present study re-directs our attention to the heart of the issue: How did ancient communities produce and use their writings?

Recently, several scholars of Christian origins have compared the practices and language of Christ-groups with Greco-Roman and Judean associations.Footnote ⁸ They find associations to be analogous to early churches in many ways, including conflict management strategies,Footnote ⁹ postures towards the polis,Footnote ¹⁰ trans-local relationships,Footnote ¹¹ and recruitment techniques.Footnote ¹² In this study, another comparator is added: communal writing habits. Analysing the writing practices of associations provides a much-needed framework for understanding how and for whom gospels might have been composed within analogous Christ-groups.Footnote ¹³ This study finds Bauckham's ‘all Christians’ theory inconsistent with ancient communal writing practices on two levels. First, associations wrote out of self-interest. Their narratives reflect their communal histories and their other writings, such as bylaws and honorary decrees, were composed for the collective good of the community. This finding challenges proponents of the ‘all Christians’ theory to explain why we should believe that Christ-groups wrote narratives for a uniquely broad audience and for especially altruistic purposes in comparison with practices in communal analogues. Second, association writings were proudly produced by all members, not just single authors who may or may not have represented the collective values and history of the community. Such a finding again isolates the manner with which gospels were produced on the ‘all Christians’ theory.Footnote ¹⁴ Since this article marks the first contribution to the gospel communities debate that considers analogous communities, the following section is devoted to a discussion of how association writings are applicable to the gospel communities debate, outlining both their limits and potential. This section is followed by a presentation of the association data, a brief investigation of communal practices of writing in early Christ-groups that uses the scant available data, and, finally, a tentative suggestion for how and why the gospels eventually achieved broad readership even though they were meant for specific congregations.

2. Evidence from Associations

The traditional function-based typology of associations distinguishes between occupational, cultic, and funerary guilds.Footnote ¹⁵ Recent work by F. Ausbüttel and J. S. Kloppenborg has convincingly challenged this typology by demonstrating that collegia funeraticia did not exist until well after the first century CE.Footnote ¹⁶ Kloppenborg has also shown that all types of associations took part in a variety of activities, which further damages the value of a function-based typology. He proposes a classificatory system based on membership profiles. On the basis of membership profiles, we can distinguish between five types of associations: household or familial, ethnic, neighborhood, occupational, and cultic or temple.Footnote ¹⁷ The data used in this study come from all types of associations since the cultic aspect of associative life (that aspect most commonly linked to group life in the Jesus movement) transcends the categories.Footnote ¹⁸ To name some examples: IDelos 1520 (153/2 BCE) is from a group that was a professional, ethnic, and cultic association all at once; an association of gladiators honored their priest for making reliefs to the gods (Philippi II 142/G562; II-III CE); a banqueting association in first-century Thessalonica had cultic connections (IG X/2.1 70; 66–67 CE), as did a guild of purple-dyers in second-century Macedonia (IG X/2.1 291; late II CE); and Luke references a guild of silversmiths in Asia Minor that worshipped Artemis (Acts 19.23–27). Much recent scholarship on synagogues now maintains that these groups were types of associationsFootnote ¹⁹ and thus synagogue writings are also represented in this study.

The comparative methodology proposed in this article is not without problems and limitations. The most restrictive limitation is that we do not know enough about the Christ-groups responsible for the gospels to label them definitively as associations. Of the first-century congregations about which we know something, we are most informed about Paul's Corinthian congregation. Several critics have drawn comparisons between the Corinthians and associations.Footnote ²⁰ The Corinthians met regularly for social activities of dining and worshipping,Footnote ²¹ adhered to group regulations that limited conflict between affiliates,Footnote ²² and were the beneficiaries of resourceful members such as Gaius, Chloe, and Stephanas. All of these practices resemble associative life.

Gospel communities, as well as Pauline congregations, shared enough commonalities with collegia for ancient and modern writers to make the link. D. Duling proposes that ‘[t]he Matthean ekklesia can be described as a fictive kinship group or fictive brotherhood association’.Footnote ²³ Likewise, W. Carter, after suggesting several parallels between the Matthean community and associations, argues that outsiders and members would have perceived the Matthean community as an association.Footnote ²⁴ Several other scholars arrive at the same conclusion.Footnote ²⁵ These portrayals are consistent with Pliny's depiction of Christian groups as hetaeriae, a term regularly employed to describe associations (Ep. 10.96; cf. 10.34); Lucian's depiction of Christianity as a ‘new mystery’ (καινὴ τελετή) and of leaders within the movement as θιασάρχης, προστάτης and other association titles (Peregr. 11); Celsus' statement that Christians established ‘secret societies’ (συνθήκας κρύβδην) (Origen Cels. 1.1); and Eusebius' description of Christians as θιασῶται (Hist. eccl. 1.3.12).Footnote ²⁶ The notion that early Christ-groups resembled the practices of associations has solid grounding.

A second potential methodological problem is the fact that association writings are not generically analogous to the gospels, though thiasoi and collegia produced more narrative material than is sometimes acknowledged. In addition to narratives, associations commonly wrote group bylaws and honorary decrees.Footnote ²⁷ What do these kinds of writings have to do with gospel audiences? The significance of bylaws, decrees, and association narratives is that they were written by communities analogous to (or the same as) Christ-groups and therefore inform us of the ways and reasons that these communities took part in writing.Footnote ²⁸

In addition to the potential fruits of a community-based approach to investigating the scope of intended gospel audiences, another reason for shifting our efforts away from genre and towards community is that the genre of the gospels (biography) tells us little about their intended audiences. At most, critics are left with claims by Philostratus who states that his Apollonius of Tyana was written for Empress Julia Domna and her circle, Plutarch's dedication of the Lives to the Roman Q. Sosius Senecio, and Luke's dedication of his gospel and Acts to Theophilus. Such dedications do not reveal much about actual intended audiences.Footnote ²⁹ Since ancient biographers tell us next to nothing about the intended scope of their audiences, it makes little sense to measure gospel audiences against the audiences of biographies.Footnote ³⁰

Another problem with anchoring a study of gospel audiences on genre is that the intended audience of communal writings was not determined solely (or at all) by genre. As will hopefully be demonstrated in this article, the scope of audiences for association writings was affected by broader trends: communities wrote everything, regardless of genre, in the interest of their group's preservation and values. Associations also required approval of their general membership before a piece of writing could become authoritative within the communities. These practices led to narrow audiences.

In its present form, the approach from genre is incompatible with the approach employed in this study. R. Burridge maintains that gospels, like biographies, do not reflect the attitudes and opinions of the communities from which they were written. Rather, the gospels were composed by individuals (within communities) who wrote without significant regard for communal concerns. According to Burridge, communal writings are different from texts written by individuals. Communal writings are ‘turgid committee reports or community minutes’.Footnote ³¹ This argument fails to convince. First, this understanding of communal writing is misinformed: the thousands of extant association papyri and epigraphy cannot all be categorized as ‘turgid committee reports or community minutes’. Furthermore, the assumption that perspectives of group members do not impact the writing of co-members is puzzling. Burridge's reason for making this leap is the narrative-critical work on the gospels demonstrating that each evangelist wrote coherent stories about Jesus. He posits: ‘These four individual accounts, each concerned with the resolution of their particular themes, suggest that they have been composed, not by communities, but by four single writers each of whom wants to portray a particular view of Jesus in his Gospel in the manner of ancient biography’.Footnote ³² The logic here obviously does not follow; there is nothing to suggest that coherent stories about Jesus could not reflect communal beliefs and values. As will be demonstrated below, communal writings do reflect the values and beliefs of their communities, not just individual authors. In fact, it is unrealistic to think of any ancient narrative as having been written exclusively by one author without input from others.

The stakes in this debate are perhaps particularly high for Burridge. As is well known, before the articulation of the ‘all Christians’ theory, Burridge's excellent 1992 monograph had shaped the communis opinio regarding gospel genre.Footnote ³³ However, when in 1998 he extended this theory into the study of intended gospel audiences, he encountered a methodological problem posed by the fact that biographies were not written in communities like early churches or associations. Burridge admits, for example, that Tacitus's Agricola was written among ‘Tacitus and his family’.Footnote ³⁴ The Agricola was thus written ‘among the educated upper classes of Roman public life’.Footnote ³⁵ In fact, as P. Esler has pointed out, all ten of the biographies studied at length by Burridge in his monograph were composed by members of the ruling elite, whom S. Friesen supposes to have constituted approximately three percent of ancient urban populations in the Second Temple and early Roman periods.Footnote ³⁶ Burridge is obliged to downplay the impact of early churches on gospels because if communities influenced the writing of gospels and biographies, then the two sets of literature might differ significantly due to their different environments of production. Thus, for Burridge, Tacitus's elite household did not affect the Agricola while Mark's community did not impact the writing of Mark's gospel. This discrepancy is not reason to abandon the biography theory, but it is reason to recognize the limitation of the analogy. A problem with the argument from genre in support of the ‘all Christians’ theory is that the discrepancy between settings of production is not appreciated, and, moreover, the impact of communities on communal writings is ignored.

There exists much potential in studying communal practices of writing for insights into the breadth of intended gospel audiences. The communal settings in which gospels were written, and the cultural norms therein, would have governed how and why Christ-groups wrote. It is worth considering what association writings tell us about compositional practices within ancient communal settings. The next two sections of this article provide an analysis of writing patterns within associations. I wish to draw attention to two customs in the production of communal writings within the following pages. First, associations wrote out of collective self-interest. This practice is discernible from the content of association narratives and the motivations behind composing honorific material and decrees. Second, since approval from the general membership was needed before association writings were deemed authoritative by the group, the content of association writings reflects the communal histories (narratives) and values (bylaws and decrees) of the group as a whole, not just the viewpoints of selected representatives.

3. Association Narratives: Writings About and For Specific Communities

Associations composed narratives out of an interest to document their collective history. An association devoted to Sarapis at Delos, for example, narrates several pivotal details in their group's origin and identity. The beginning of the Delian aretalogy of Sarapis reads as follows:

The Delian story, like other association narratives, has a dual concern for community and god. It speaks of events and tribulations in the history of the community, including their founder's travels from Egypt to Delos, the association's purchase of land, and some form of persecution that led to involvement with public courts. It also credits the association's god for inspiring the recording of these communal events, and for playing an instrumental role in all of the major events retold. The self-reflexive subject matter (i.e., their god, their community, and the intersection between the two) is typical of association narratives.

Syll ³ 985 (I BCE) documents the beginnings of an association's history, describes the household where they held their meetings, and records some information about their identity—an inclusive group that consisted of male, female, freeborn, and slave members. The inscription, produced by a household association in Philadelphia (Lydia), begins as follows:

Writing a narrative to document the details of the group's collective history was a common practice among associations. The details varied based on the context and concerns of the community. One association, a cult of Poseidon in Tralles, mentions their city's experience of an earthquake and credits their patron deity, Poseidon the ‘earth-shaker’, for their fortune (ITralleis 1; II or III CE). Another describes how their founder and first priest was chosen (αἱρετίσαντος) by their deity (IG II² 1366; II or III CE). Divine dreams, oracles, and visions are regularly recorded as pivotal events in the history of associations.Footnote ³⁸

There exists one (and only one, to my knowledge) instance of an association's narrative being found on the premises of another association's property.Footnote ³⁹ The narrative of a Sarapis association from Opus (IG X/2 255; I BCE) was discovered at the Sarapeion at Thessalonica.Footnote ⁴⁰ Both cities are Achaean and in close proximity to one another. Admittedly, this finding indicates that a story produced by one group was used by another neighbouring community. But the narrative remains explicitly and exclusively about the foundation of the association from Opus. Its usage by an outside group does not indicate that it speaks for all who read it. Rather, the story attends only to the history and concerns of the group that produced it. It is true that most association writings were written for the community that produced them, which confirms their narrow audience. But IG X/2 255 shows that a text could be primarily about one community and used by another.Footnote ⁴¹

The usage of IG X/2 255 in Thessalonica should probably be explained by the fact that the Thessalonian Sarapeion is involved in the formation of the Opus association. The narrative reads as follows:

A fragmentary account consisting of twenty-three extant lines, IG X/2 255 tells the story of a certain Xenainetos who travelled from Opus to the Thessalonian Sarapeion in order to consult the god. While sleeping (presumably in the Sarapeion), the god appeared to him twice to inform him that he must deliver to Eurynomos, his rival, the message that he is to establish a Sarapis cult in Opus. Eurynomos follows this instruction and establishes a cult in Opus. Like other association narratives, this story is at once about god and community.

Before reaching Thessalonica, this narrative was inscribed at Opus for its own community. It was later copied, possibly on papyrus, and brought to the Sarapis association in Thessalonica.Footnote ⁴³ In Thessalonica, members of the association re-inscribed the story in the first or second century, and it is now extant in IG X/2 255.Footnote ⁴⁴ The sharing of narratives among associations is possible but rare. Sharing narratives does not function, and is not intended, to halt the production of similar material by either association.

There are several extant narratives about founders that were seemingly written within Judean associations and directed towards narrow audiences—though they offer less information about communal writing practices than the previous examples. H. Najman shows that Judean groups began to write new stories about Moses in the Second Temple period as a result of rivalry among these communities for the correct interpretation of authoritative literature.Footnote ⁴⁵Jubilees is one example. This text was perhaps written by an Essene community in second-century BCE Palestine.Footnote ⁴⁶ It reworks the narratives of Genesis and part of Exodus in order to insert legal significance into these stories, an addition that reflects some of the values of this community. The text records Moses to have transcribed from angelic dictation material that mirrored the legal and calendric beliefs of the community, as well as their visions concerning the present-time and future.Footnote ⁴⁷

Another narrative about a founder that was written within a Judean group is Joseph and Aseneth. G. Bohak has made a convincing case that Joseph and Aseneth was composed by a Judean community in Heliopolis sometime shortly after 145 BCE out of an interest to document the origins and legitimacy of their Egyptian landholding. Chapters 14–17 allegorically depict the founding of the Heliopolis temple, the cultic center of this association.Footnote ⁴⁸ In a recent study, I have tried to show in some detail that a landholding controversy surrounding this community is further attested by Josephus and that Bohak's reconstruction is consistent with external data concerning the occupation of ownerless (ἀδέσποτος, see Ant. 13.62–73) land in the Hellenistic period.Footnote ⁴⁹ This text was likely composed by the Judean community in Heliopolis and served the interests and values of the group that produced it.Footnote ⁵⁰

Whether it was an earthquake, legal issue, persecution, or revelation, association narratives were constructed to reflect these important events in the history of the community. Gospels, on the other hand, according to the ‘all Christians’ theory, cannot be read for social-historical information regarding the communities that produced and used them.Footnote ⁵¹ But if we situate the writing of the gospels within the context of associative practices of writing narratives in antiquity, then it is actually the rule rather than the exception that narratives should reflect the identity of the communities that produced them—regardless of how difficult it is to retrieve this information. Even if the gospels were meant to be biographies, their production in a community that mirrored social aspects of associative life would have affected the way that the Markan community, for example, intuitively thought of what they were doing while composing a narrative. Esler, who describes ancient society as ‘group-oriented’, interprets the data that redaction critics use for reconstructing gospel communities as examples of ‘how effortlessly…a bios can be shaped in community-oriented ways’.Footnote ⁵² It is conceivable that Christ-groups composed customized narratives about Jesus that fit their own collective histories and identities. To speak of gospels as straightforward stories about Jesus requires an explanation that takes into account the significant level of interaction between Christ-groups and pagan forms of community.Footnote ⁵³

4. Bylaws and Honorary Decrees

In this section, two arguments will be put forward. First, the argument from the previous section that associations wrote out of self-interest will be continued. Despite the difference in content between bylaws and decrees on the one hand, and gospels on the other hand, what we are investigating is why communities took the time and incurred the expense to write. The hypothesis from the previous section that associations were primarily interested in themselves while writing is supported by the very nature of the non-narrative material that they wrote. Rather than documenting their collective histories, concerns, and identity as they did with narratives, when associations wrote bylaws and decrees they wrote for the betterment of the community. The common denominator is that when associations wrote they had themselves in mind, regardless of what type of document they were creating. Second, an analysis of the communal process behind making bylaws and decrees authoritative within communities shows that associations wrote as groups rather than delegating the job to individuals who may or may not have represented the values and identity of the community as a whole.

5. Summary of Association Data

Our investigation of association writings has betrayed two mannerisms that should affect the way we conceive how and to whom Christ-groups wrote gospels. First, the community's self-interest transcends generic boundaries and motivates the writing process. Narratives were written about the group and other material was written for the sake of the group. Second, communal writing, like gospel and biographical productions, was a collaborative project that, in the case of associations, reflected the identity, history, and values of the entire group. It would be irresponsible to suggest that gospel writers were somehow isolated from the input and collective interests of the group.

6. Gospel Narratives Reflecting Gospel Communities

The communal writing habits of associations are also discernible within Christ-groups. With regards to the practice of self-interested writing, several scholars have already argued that the gospels are about both Jesus and community, and that the evangelists' redactions reflect communal concerns.Footnote ⁷² R. Ascough's reading of Matthew fits particularly well with ancient conventions of communal composition for self-serving purposes. He argues that Matthew presents Peter as the Matthean community's founder and Christ as their divine hero who had given directives to their founder through divine revelation (16.17–19). Such a formula resembles that of the association narratives.Footnote ⁷³ Other readings tend to note that the gospels focus particularly on the early history of their communities, which is a practice also found in association narratives. For example, J. Marcus believes that the Markan community had been persecuted and that they wrote this reality into their story of Jesus. Marcus cites Mark 10.30, noting that Mark adds ‘with persecution’ into a saying that previously did not include it.Footnote ⁷⁴ This and other passagesFootnote ⁷⁵ indicate, for Marcus, that the community had experienced afflictions in their early history.Footnote ⁷⁶ R. Brown suggests that before the Fourth Gospel was composed its community was expelled from Judean synagogues, an event that they wrote into their Jesus story (see 9.22; 16.2).Footnote ⁷⁷ These are just two of several examples.Footnote ⁷⁸

Collaborative decision-making and composition are also identifiable within early Christ-groups. For example, Acts records the ruling on circumcision as a boundary-marker for the Jesus movement to have been a collaborative decision in the Jerusalem church. In Antioch, the issue was debated between Paul, Barnabas, and affiliates from the Judean association (15.1–2). Paul, Barnabas, and others (τινας ἄλλους ἐξ αὐτῶν) were then summoned to Jerusalem where they had further discussions with apostles and elders (15.2). There, they reported their successes to the general membership (15.4, 12) and were challenged by Pharisaic affiliates of the group (15.5).

Luke records James to have made the final decision, but his decision came after lengthy debate and was in agreement with Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and, presumably, everyone in the church except for the Pharisees. Such a democratic procedure resembles the decision-making process in IG II² 1368. In the letter delivered from Jerusalem to Antioch, the ruling is said to have been communal, which is consistent with the collaborative effort thus far articulated in this story (15.23–29). The collaborative nature of decision-making in the Judean Christ-group is affirmed when certain individuals were chosen ‘with the consent of the whole church’ to relay the news to Antioch (15.22).Footnote ⁷⁹

The Pauline letters, like the association writings, were also collaborative efforts, despite the fact that commentators commonly assume that Paul wrote his letters without much help.Footnote ⁸⁰ We do not need to resort to inferences (such as the ‘we’ statements in some of his letters) to challenge such a notion. First Thessalonians begins as follows: ‘Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians’ (1.1). It is unlikely that Silvanus and Timothy were included in the greeting as a matter of courtesy, as is commonly assumed, since there is no evidence that awarding authorship to non-authors was done out of courtesy by ancient letter writers. Moreover, in Philemon Paul and Timothy are listed as authors (v. 1), but Paul's several other companions at the time (vv. 23–24) are not. If co-authors were listed by Paul out of courtesy, one would expect his other companions to be the beneficiaries of Paul's courtesy, as well.Footnote ⁸¹ The co-authored Pauline epistles are quite extraordinary in that co-authored letters are so rare in antiquity.Footnote ⁸²

Paul also betrays his usage of secretaries in four of his letters (1 Cor 16.21; Gal 6.11; Phlm 19; Rom 16.22). The involvement of a secretary in the final copy of a private letter ranged from transcription to full composition.Footnote ⁸³ E. R. Richards argues that Paul's secretaries were somewhere in between:

7. Eventual Distribution of Gospel Texts

If communal documents were composed by and for specific communities, how and why were the gospels accepted as authoritative in churches that did not compose them? There are very few data available to answer such questions. But, the gospels provide a few hints.

We can start with the ‘how’ question. The gospels, like association writings, were authored without attribution to their writer(s). Such a practice seems out of line with a goal of wide readership. Writings that were meant for, and obtained, fairly broad readership compensated their authors with ‘a certain amount of literary reputation’ (Pliny Ep. 7.20 [Radice, LCL]) and thus ‘a great reward’ (Ep. 2.10 [Radice, LCL]). With this objective in mind, writers intending to publish would want to ensure that their names were firmly associated with their works. Authors in Christ-groups and associations who intended the relevance of their work to be mostly limited to their own specific communities might not think realistic the possibility that these works would secure them a ‘literary reputation’. If biographies were written with extensive feedback from the community and were meant specifically for that same community, there might be even less reason to tag them with authorship credits. So, how did anonymous texts meant for specific communities find readers beyond their churches? Their anonymity rules out the likelihood that they were distributed by their authors. The ancient publication process might be helpful for determining alternative methods of distribution.

Greek authors use ἔκδοσις for what we call publication. It literally means ‘that which is given away’. In the ancient world, publication was ‘a risky endeavour’ given the lack of copyright regulations.Footnote ⁸⁵ As mentioned above, a work was commonly put through a pre-publication stage that involved sending copies to friends or publicly performing a draft in front of a small crowd for feedback. The author would then revise the draft based on the feedback provided and later publish it. Sometimes texts would become available without the consent of their authors. Tertullian comments on pre-publication drafts of his own work leaking before its official release to the public (Marc. 1.1). Drafts written on wax or wooden tablets, or even on papyrus (P. Mich. XII 634) could be ‘released’ from their author's control by people who were within the author's trusted circle of collaborators. Considering (1) the imperfections of the ancient publication process; (2) the self-interested and collaborative practices of writing in associations and Christ-groups; and (3) the anonymity of the gospel literature and association writings, it is likely that the gospels, like association writings, were intended to remain at pre-publication status. Their authors (or their authors' co-workers) read them to fellow community affiliates, revised them according to the suggestions of the general membership, and then publicly performed them within the community as necessary. The gospels, like IG X/2 255, were not originally meant to be released from their community's control, or, in other words, published.Footnote ⁸⁶

Why one gospel would be accepted into an outside community is even more difficult to answer. But the phenomenon does not confirm the ‘all Christians’ theory. IG X/2 255 has already demonstrated that a communal document composed within and for one association could be accepted as authoritative within another. The difference between this case of cross-usage and that of the gospels is that the latter were not necessarily regarded favorably by the initial outside communities to come across them.

D. Sim has shown that Matthew and Luke were likely meant as rival gospels to Mark's narrative. Although Matthew uses 90% of Mark, the 10% deemed omissible made Mark non-authoritative and unnecessary in a Matthean community. Had the document been composed within Matthew's community, this 10% would never have made it to the final version of the text. Matthew's community regarded Mark's gospel as a failure due to its ‘crude language, short length, offensive features and the fact that Mark was simply inadequate to meet the very needs of Matthew's own Jewish Christian community’.Footnote ⁸⁷ Sim also argues that Matthew had reservations concerning Mark's ‘patently Pauline perspective’ in Mark's portrayal of Jesus' mission.Footnote ⁸⁸ The result is that Matthew composed a new story of Jesus that ‘corrected, expanded and updated the inadequate and incorrect Marcan account. Once he had done so, the Gospel of Mark simply had no role to play among Matthew's intended readership’.Footnote ⁸⁹ Sim continues by arguing that Luke's and John's more liberal omissions from Mark betray even more serious objections to the text.Footnote ⁹⁰

Outside communities somehow gained access to Mark, but, as we would expect given communal practices of writing, these churches did not accept the foreign document as authoritative.Footnote ⁹¹ Sim's work is helpful for starting to think of the extended eventual readership of the gospels in a more nuanced manner.