The Spectator’s Notes | 17 April 2019

This week, the Wolfson History Prize announced its shortlist. It is always worth drawing attention to, precisely because it is not attention-seeking. Neither ‘woke’ nor stuffy, the prize is simply interested in serious history. This year’s list of six ranges in terms of subject from birds in the ancient world and building Anglo-Saxon England, through maritime London in the age of Cook and Nelson, to Queen Victoria and India (a love affair in which the two never met), Oscar Wilde, and the quest for justice after Nazi persecutions. It being Holy Week, I am wondering what would happen if all the four Gospels were on the Wolfson shortlist. Obviously they would be attacked for their lack of ‘diversity’, and Momentum would no doubt point out that at least three of the authors were ‘Zionists’, given privileged access to a prize endowed by a philanthropist who was famously proud of being the first Jew since St John to have a college named after him at both Oxford and Cambridge. The judges, however, would rise above such points, form no view on the credal claims of the books, and consider them as history — making allowances, as any historian should, for the time and circumstances in which they were composed.

The plain reader might tend to think that Mark, which has the least adorned language, is the most factual, but actually he is weak chronologically and his post-Crucifixion account peters out. His purpose seems more apocalyptic than historical. Matthew has a tremendous Passion account — and good witnesses to the Resurrection — but is generally more sermonic and churchy (the only Gospel to use the word ‘church’). John has his head more in the clouds of theology. He places the Crucifixion on the same day (14 Nisan) as the Passover sacrifice, whereas the other three put it the day after.