Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Richard Bauckham)

The point of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses "is to show that Jesus' teaching was not only transmitted by anonymous masses, but also and very significantly by particular individuals." - Simon Gathercole

A summary follows; any quotes below are from the book.

Summary

The Christian faith trusts that we "encounter the real Jesus" in the Bible (most obviously in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). How did the Gospels come to be? Some have argued that they were collectively transmitted orally by a community, obscuring the historical Jesus behind decades of anonymous alterations before they were put to paper. In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, however, scholar Richard Bauckham argues that "the Gospel texts are much closer to the form in which the eyewitnesses told their stories or passed on their traditions than is commonly envisaged in current scholarship. This is what gives the Gospels their character as testimony. They embody the testimony of the eyewitnesses, not of course without editing and interpretation, but in a way that is substantially faithful to how the eyewitnesses themselves told it, since the Evangelists were in more or less direct contact with eyewitnesses, not removed from them by a long process of anonymous transmission of the traditions."

"The Gospels were written within living memory of the events they recount. Mark's Gospel was written well within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses, while the other three canonical Gospels were written in the period when living eyewitnesses were becoming scarce, exactly at the point in time when their testimony would perish with them were it not put in writing." Thus, to Bauckham, "Gospel traditions did not, for the most part, circulate anonymously but in the name of the eyewitnesses to whom they were due."

To support his argument, Bauckham looks at many things, to include:

• Early church father Papias (who wrote ~110-130 CE) and other ancient writers on their views of the importance of eyewitnesses as the best way to record history (very relevant to the formation of the Gospels).
• A study of names in the Gospels.
• "Many characters in the Gospels are unnamed, but others are named. I want to suggest now the possibility that many of these named characters were eyewitnesses who not only originated the traditions to which their names are attached but also continued to tell these stories as auhoritative guarantors of their traditions."
• Israeli scholar Tal Ilan's study of Palestinian Jewish names in the period of Jesus and the early church.
• This is "a significant resource for assessing the origin of Gospel traditions," as the study then compared with the Gospels reveals evidence that goes against those claiming names in the Gospel accounts were added much later.
• The significance of the Twelve Apostles and their role as "official eyewitnesses and guarantors of the core of the gospel traditions."
• "The idea that a Gospel, since it tells the whole story of Jesus, must embody the testimony of witnesses who were participants in the story from beginning to end- from the time of John the Baptist's ministry to the time of the resurrection appearances."
• This was true of more than just the Twelve Apostles, as the Scriptures themselves attest.
• The literary device called inclusio and how the Gospels use it to show Peter as the primary source of Mark and Luke and to show John (not necessarily the Apostle) as the primary source of John.
• "Mark's Gospel not only, by its use of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony, claims Peter as its main eyewitness source; it also tells the story predominantly (though by not means exclusively) from Peter's perspective."
• Anonymous persons in Marks' Passion narrative and the reason behind it 
• Bauckham argues that the omitted names are for 'protective anonymity,' as Mark's Gospel is the earliest account, written while many were still alive and could be considered seditious figures by the ruling powers for being with Jesus during that time; John's account (written much later, after these would likely be dead) then names them.
• Papias' thoughts on the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. He felt that, in short,
• "Peter, an eyewitness, related logia about Jesus orally in Aramaic but not in literary order. Mark, not an eyewitness, translated Peter's teachings [into Greek] and put them in writing accurately and omitting nothing." [Meaning they remained out of chronological order.] 
• Bauckham shows later how "Peter is Mark's principal eyewitness, but that, since he drops out of the narrative after his denials of Jesus, the three named women function as Mark's principal eyewitnesses for the remainder of the narrative. They are his witnesses to the crucifixion and death of Jesus, to his burial, and to the empty tomb." 
• "Matthew, an eyewitness, put the logia about Jesus in writing in Aramaic/Hebrew in literary order . . . [others], not an eyewitness, translated Matthew's written logia [into Greek] as well as they were able." [and Papias thought that translation put things out of order]
• "John, an eyewitness, put the logia about Jesus in writing in Greek in literary order."
• Models of oral tradition (looking at "the nature of the [oral] transmission of Jesus traditions in the early church" and how cultures carefully controlled oral traditions, to include use of memorization and authorized tradents to pass on knowledge).
• Among other things, Bauckham argues "Paul provides ample evidence of the formal transmission of traditions within the early Christian movement . . .[to include] the words and deeds of Jesus."
• Anonymous tradition vs. eyewitness testimony
• Arguing against the movement called form criticism, which "saw the Gospels as folk literature more or less continuous with the oral traditions as formed and transmitted anonymously by the communities." His "argument is rather that the continuity of the Gospels is with the testimony of the eyewitnesses, not via a long period of community transmission but through, in many cases, immediate access to the eyewitnesses or, in other cases, probably no more than one intermediary."
• "In their close relationship to eyewitness testimony, the Gospels conform to the best practice of ancient historiography."
• What about some of the differences between th Gospel accounts? ". . . [M]inor verbal and narrative differences among the Synoptics . . . may be better seen as the kind of performative variations normal in oral tradition, not necessarily emobodying higly nuanced ideological divergences."
• Eyewitness memory, looking at the science behind the confidence (or lack thereof) that we can have in the mind's recollective abilities, to include "the objectivity of the event and the rememberer's insight into its meaning."
• The Gospel of John as eyewitness testimony, the only Gospel which "claims not only to be based on eyewitness accounts but to have been actually written by an eyewitness."
• The witness of the Beloved Disciple, whom Bauckham argues is the author of John (and not one of the Twelve, but a lesser-known disciple who also had been with Jesus since the beginning). 
• He also argues that John claims Peter's role is leading the whole church, while the Beloved Disciple's role is "witnessing to the truth of Jesus" [by writing the eyewitness account].
• Papias, Polycrates, and Irenaeus on the Gospel of John
• John's Gospel differs markedly from the other three 'Synoptic' Gospels.
• Though popular scholarly consensus is that this Gospel's author was John the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve, Bauckham believes John the Elder is the Beloved Disciple mentioned (and hence author of the Gospel). Further, that "the distinctive narratives of the Gospel of John derive not simply from the Beloved Disciple himself, but from a particular circle of disciples of Jesus in which the Beloved Disciple moved." That he ran in different disciple 'circles' as evidenced by his focus on "disciples not prominent in the Synoptics." This John lived much longer than most of the other eyewitnesses as well, making sense of the Gospel's later dating.  
• The Jesus of testimony, looking at the trustiworthiness of testimonies in general, their value, and their inescapability.
• Some believe historians can piece together the past independent of testimony. Impossible. "Testimony is as basic a form of knowledge as perception, memory, and inference." "All knowledge relies on testimony." It's okay to doubt- if there are valid reasons for doing so- but an inherent distrust of what everyone says is an unsustainable way to live (and practice history). We all believe some and disbelieve others. "The witness says not only "I was there" but also "believe me."
• "In everyday life, we do not systematically mistrust everything anyone tells us. When someone who is in a position to know what they tell us does so, we normally believe them. But we keep our critical faculties alert and raise questions if there is specific reason to doubt. There is no reason why historical work should be substantially different in its dialectic of trust and critical assessment."
• "Trusting testimony is indispensable to historiography. This trust need not be blind faith. In the "critical realist" historian's reception and use of testimony there is a dialectic of trust and critical assessment. But the assessment is precisely an assessment of the testimony as trustworthy or not. What is not possible is independent verification or falsification of everything the testimony relates such that reliance on testimony would no longer be needed." There "is truth that only testimony can give us," whether we like it or not. It "offers us insider knowledge from involved participants. It also offers us engaged interpretation, for in testimony fact and meaning coinhere . . ."
• We cannot be certain. "In history, we only deal in probabilities (as is also the case in much human knowledge). Historians are in the business of constantly making reasonable judgments of probabilities. To believe testimony, to trust it when we have no means of verifying its content in detail, is a risk, but it is the kind of risk we are constantly taking when we trust testimony in ordinary life."
• The second edition adds material on eyewitnesses in Mark (to include a discussion on who Mark was), the identity of the Beloved Disciple, and thoughts on the end of form criticism.

Ultimately, the book "is an attempt to validate the Gospels themselves as sources that are historically trustworthy at the same time as being testimonies of faith. They give us Jesus interpreted- interpreted from the perspectives of the eyewitnesses and the Gospel writers. They give us representations of Jesus but representations whose historical basis can be tested. My claim is that they transcend the dichotomy between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. They give us the Jesus of testimony."

"Testimony offers us, I wish to suggest, both a reputable historiographic category for reading the Gospels as history, and also a theological model for understanding the Gospels as the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus . . .[this] enables us to read the Gospels as precisely the kind of text we need in order to recognize the disloruse of God in the history of Jesus."

"In summary, if the interests of Christian faith and theology in the Jesus who really lived are to recognize the disclosure of God in this history of Jesus, then testimony is the theologically appropriate, indeed the theologically appropriate, indeed the theologically necessary way of access to the history of Jesus, just as testimony is also the historically appropriate, indeed the historically  necessary way of access to this "uniquely unique" historical event. It is in the Jesus of testimony that history and theology meet."

Review

Fascinating. Intriguing. Scholarly. Compelling. This book enthralled me. Dense in places but largely accessible, I learned a tremendous amount about not only the Gospel formation but historiography and the various disciplines relating to the study of memory, testimony, and even names. My summary above only scratches the surface. Bauckham is clearly a scholar (with hundreds of footnotes and a 30-page bibliography to accompany his 600-page account), writes well, and makes a compelling argument. I look forward to re-reading the Gospels with an eye towards the topics discussed in this book. I started today.

Rating: A