The gospels belong to the ancient genre of biography. These ancient biographies were concerned with providing examples for readers to emulate, while preserving and promoting the subject’s reputation and memory. Thus, they were about kerygma or preaching. They were not biographies in the modern sense. The biographies of Jesus are more like apocalyptic history, depicting Jesus as caught up in events near the end of time. Despite this, scholars are confident that the gospels do provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus. There is no guarantee that the gospels are precisely historical in our modern sense of history. These are faith documents, not eyewitness accounts. Modern scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless they do provide a good idea of the public life of Jesus.
examples
Blessing for Egypt and Assyria (Isa 19:24-19:25)
“On that day,
Israel will be the third
With Egypt and Assyria.
Israel will be
A blessing
In the midst of the earth
That Yahweh of hosts has blessed,
Saying.
‘Blessed be Egypt
My people.
Blessed be Assyria
The work of my hands.
Blessed be Israel
My heritage.’”
This oracle of Yahweh, via Isaiah, is one of the few examples of ecumenical universalism. On that special day to come, Israel with be 3rd behind Egypt and Assyria, as a blessing or mediator for the whole earth. Yahweh would bless all three, not just Israel. He wanted Egypt, his own people, and Assyria, with the work of his hands, also blessed. However, Israel was blessed as his heritage. Thus we have a blessing for everybody, not just the Israelites.
Job calls out his friends for lying (Job 21:27-21:34)
“O, I know your thoughts.
I know your schemes to wrong me.
For you say.
‘Where is the house of the prince?
Where is the tent in which the wicked live?’
Have you not asked those who travel the roads?
Do you not accept their testimony?
The wicked are spared in the day of calamity.
The wicked are rescued in the day of wrath.
Who declares their way to their face?
Who repays them for what they have done?
When are they carried to the grave?
A watch is kept over their tomb.
The clods of the valley are sweet to them.
Everyone will follow after.
Those who went before are innumerable.
How then will you comfort me with empty nothings?
There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”
Job continued to respond to his detractors. In the end he called them liars. They were trying to wrong him. Where was the house of the wicked? Where were their tents? Ask anyone you meet on the roads. The wicked will be rescued and spared from disaster on the day of wrath. Who got in their face? Who repaid them for what they did? The wicked dead ones have a grave, a tomb, and someone to watch over them. There were many examples of this. He did not want them to try to comfort him with empty sayings. They were answering falsely.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 