Analysis & Research

Biography Sizes: Gospels vs. Plutarch

How do the Gospels compare with other contemporary biographies, relative to size?

Plutarch was the most prolific biographer of the era, writing in Greek around the end of the first century.

The following chart compares the word count of the four Gospels with fifty biographies written by Plutarch. Although Matthew’s Gospel is one of the larger productions, one must recognize that he wrote but one biography, whereas Plutarch authored even more than those listed below. And certainly, if one expands this comparison beyond merely biographies, then Matthew is indeed modest, as we presently have over 400,000 words of Greek text from Philo and a similar volume from Josephus.1

(click on image to enlarge)


  1. For a broader comparison of the volume of Greek and Latin literature produced around the time of the first century, see Daniel B. Moore, A Trustworthy Gospel: Arguments for an Early Date for Matthew’s Gospel (Eugene, OR: Wipf  and Stock, 2024), 8. ↩︎

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