The church has always taken for granted that the primary reason that the four Gospels were written was to preserve the memory of the story of Jesus of Nazareth lest it be forgotten. While it is not known with certainty exactly when any of the Gospels were written, based upon internal evidence in the Gospels correlated with external evidence such as the date of references to Gospels in early Christian documents, it is generally thought that they were all written by the end of the first century with a scholarly consensus that Mark may have been written around A.D. 65, Matthew and Luke around A.D. 75-85, and John around A.D. 90-100. The sources of oral and perhaps some written tradition which the Gospels contain are much earlier than the date of their composition. For example, the Q source of Matthew and Luke is believed to an oral or written tradition of mostly sayings of Jesus which was formed perhaps as early as A.D. 40. The timing of the writing of the Gospels coincides with the time when the apostles and other disciples of Jesus were dying, and therefore it is assumed that the Gospels were published to provide written accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus so that the original disciples’ memories would not be lost. If this is so, then the primary purpose of the writing of the Gospels was to preserve the testimony of the original eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life.


It is easy to forget this fundamental purpose for the writings of the Gospels whenever one studies contemporary scholarship of the New Testament.


Contemporary scholarship employs critical analysis in the study of this distinctive literature known as “Gospels.” Until relatively recently, scholars considered the Gospels to be sui generis, i.e. a unique genre of literature that constitutes a class of its own. Today it is recognized that the Gospels belong to the genre of ancient biography, and that the writers of the Gospels were, at least to some extent, influenced by the best practices of ancient biographers and historians of the Greco-Roman world. The development of various methods of critical analysis of the Gospels, beginning in earnest in the eighteenth century, was motivated by the attempt to solve the literary problems which are presented by the Gospels themselves.

 

One of the problems is the so-called “Synoptic problem” that emerges in the recognition that the texts of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so similar that there must be some direct relationship among them. Source criticism was developed for the purpose of explaining the literary relationship among the Synoptic Gospels. The dominant theory of source criticism is the “two source hypothesis” that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a primary source and added to Mark material from Q as well as their own distinctive traditions (M or L). The “Griesbach hypothesis” that Mark is a conflation of Matthew and Luke with additional detail from Mark’s own source (traditionally the preaching of Peter in Rome) is held by a minority of scholars.


Source criticism uncovers another literary problem that is addressed by redaction criticism. Scholars seek to understand why Matthew and Luke made changes in Mark or, alternatively, why Mark conflated Matthew and Luke. The study of redaction or editorial work by the writers of the Gospels led to greater interest in the distinctive literary and theological aims of these writers. Out of redaction criticism emerged literary criticism, which is a study of a writer’s own work as a literary whole. Thus literary critics have produced a greater awareness of the creative artistry and distinctive theological viewpoint of each of the writers of the Gospels. As a result of literary criticism students of the Gospels obtain a clearer view of the Matthean, Markan, Lukan, and Johannine understandings of the gospel of Jesus Christ (consistent with the meaning of the early titles of the Gospels as “the gospel according to ____”).


A new kind of critical analysis was developed in the early twentieth century by German scholars, predominantly Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann, to address another literary problem, which is how to explain the fact that most of the sayings and stories of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels have a particular “form.” For the first time in the history of critical analysis of the Synoptic Gospels, scholars addressed the literary problem that the stories and sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels exist as distinct literary units (“pericopes”), and they were able to categorize these pericopes according to the “form,” or particular structure or pattern, which they possess. For example, all of the stories of Jesus’ marvelous works of healing have the same basic structure and can be identified by their form as “miracle stories.”


The aim of form criticism is not only to categorize and analyze the “forms” of the sayings and stories of Jesus, but also to address the problem of explaining why the sayings and stories exist as distinct literary units or “forms.” The explanation requires proposing a theory of the history of the development of the Synoptic tradition. In fact, Formgeschichte, normally translated as “form criticism,” literally means “form history,” indicating that the form critics’ primary interest in the pericopes is the history of their development before they were included in the written Gospels. The form critics propose that during the period of “oral tradition” before the writing of the Gospels the sayings and stories of Jesus in the Gospels were formed as they were used in the preaching and teaching of the early Christian communities in order to meet the needs of those communities. The development of the “forms” can be explained by identifying the Sitz im Leben (“setting in life”) of the early Christian communities. Moreover, according to the form critics, it was possible for the early Christian communities to creatively adapt the sayings and stories of Jesus to their own needs because they did not distinguish between the sayings and stories of the historical Jesus and the oracles of the Christian prophets who had received a “word” or revelation from the risen Jesus. Accordingly, the form critics propose that the history of the development of the tradition about Jesus can be understood as a creative process by which the early Christian communities adapted the stories and sayings of Jesus to meet their own needs during the period of “oral tradition” (quotation marks indicate the form critics’ ideological conception of the oral transmission of Gospel traditions).The end result of form criticism is that it engenders a high degree of skepticism about the authenticity of the stories and sayings in the Gospels as being from the historical Jesus . For example, the “controversy stories” about Jesus’ controversies with the Pharisees are viewed by form critics as reflecting the tension between the early church and the Jewish synagogues rather than the historical Jesus’ disputes with the Pharisees of his day. Form critics think that the way to identify the authentic sayings and stories of Jesus which are buried in the “forms” of the pericopes is by developing certain criteria, such as the criterion of “dissimilarity” (a saying or story of Jesus that is dissimilar to anything known from rabbinic Judaism or early Christianity), the criterion of “coherence” (the similarity of material to that which is identified by the criterion of “dissimilarity”), and the criterion of “multiple attestation” (the appearance of a saying or story of Jesus in multiple forms in the Synoptic Gospels). A reliance upon the criterion of “dissimilarity” necessarily will result in an extreme reduction of the “authentic” Jesus tradition since it eliminates teaching which Jesus shared with the rabbis and that is consistent with the doctrine of the early church--hence abstracting Jesus from his Jewish context and portraying him as an idiosyncratic figure unlike any human being who has ever existed. Form criticism constitutes the kind of critical analysis of the Synoptic Gospels that is essential to the task of critical historians in reconstructing a portrait of the “historical Jesus” as someone who is different from the Jesus of the Gospels (a controversial presupposition typical of nearly all historical reconstructions of the life of Jesus).


How then do the results of critical analysis of the Gospels compare to the idea that the Gospels were written in order to preserve the testimony of the original eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life?


Source criticism challenges the naive view that each Gospel is simply each evangelist’s own account of the testimony of the original eyewitnesses, for it recognizes the high probability that Matthew and Luke depended upon Mark as a primary source (or, alternatively, that Mark depended upon Matthew and Luke as sources). As a consequence of the findings of source criticism, the four Gospels are no longer viewed as four independent accounts of the testimony of original eyewitnesses. Instead, according to the dominant scholarly consensus, Mark is viewed as a primary source which is used by Matthew and Luke along with Q and their own distinctive sources (M and L), and John is a different kind of Gospel with its own distinctive tradition. Yet source criticism does not entail the premise that the Gospels are not based upon original eyewitness testimony, especially if the primary source of Mark’s Gospel is itself grounded in the eyewitness testimony of Peter as the leader of the apostles which both Matthew and Luke accept as fundamental and which even John may also implicitly acknowledge and respect.


Redaction criticism and literary criticism challenge the notion that the writers of the Gospels were mere compilers of traditions because they disclose the authors’ own literary devices and aims, which involve distinctive theological perspectives on the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ. Yet they do not necessarily contradict the fundamental premise that the Gospels consist of traditions of original eyewitness testimony to Jesus’ life. Indeed, redaction and literary criticism are useful in discerning the distinctive way in which the writers employed these traditions and were able to make their own witness to the church. Matthew presents Jesus as the new teacher of the Torah; Mark, as the suffering servant; Luke, as the friend of women, the poor, and the lost; and John, as the incarnate Son of the Father who dies in fulfillment of the Passover as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”


The case is different with form criticism. At its most elementary level, form criticism introduces the new problem of explaining how the sayings and stories of Jesus developed as distinct literary forms in the oral tradition before the writing of the Gospels. Bringing an awareness to the fact that the pericopes of the Synoptic Gospels exist in stylized “forms” is an important contribution to the study of the texts of the Gospels. However, the proposal of form critics that the forms are the result of a history of “oral tradition” in which there was a creative adaptation of the original eyewitness testimony to Jesus by the early Christian communities in order to meet their own needs constitutes a radical rejection of the idea that the Gospels essentially consist of the preservation of the testimony of the original eyewitnesses of Jesus.


Clergy who were educated in mainline Protestant seminaries and in many Catholic seminaries in the twentieth century were very influenced by form criticism. Laity were also influenced by the ideas of the form critics through their use of church educational materials which reflected the results of form critical scholarship. Because of its widespread influence, many Christians have gotten the impression that the Gospels cannot be taken seriously as testimony of the original witnesses of the life of Jesus and that the Gospels contain material that tells us more about the early Christian communities than about Jesus of Nazareth.


Beginning at the end of the twentieth century, an increasing number of scholars have begun to challenge the concepts of the form critics and to offer a different understanding of the development of the tradition that preceded the writing of the Gospels. Richard Bauckham, a fellow of Cambridge University, has written a very influential book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses:  The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2006, 538 pages), which both summarizes the contemporary case against form criticism and provides an alternative to the form critics’ understanding of the relationship between the oral tradition and the Gospels. Bauckham accepts the “two source hypothesis” of source criticism, and he acknowledges the necessity and value of redaction criticism and literary criticism, but he proposes an entirely different perspective from form criticism. Bauckham’s professional expertise is that of a historian. He became a scholar of the New Testament by applying the methodology and knowledge of a historian to the ancient documents of the New Testament written in the Greco-Roman culture of the first century. Bauckham is not only a historian and New Testament scholar, but also a theologian whose published work focuses on the theology of Juergen Moltmann and the relationship of Christian theology and ecology. It is Bauckham’s expertise in three disciplines--historiography, New Testament scholarship, and theology--which enables him to provide a new perspective on the meaning of testimony in the Gospels, which is both a historiographical and a philosophical/theological concept.


The rest of this essay is a summary of the main themes in Bauckham’s book. The purpose of this essay will be to identify Bauckham’s major arguments and insights. Many of his detailed analyses as well as his tables of empirical data will not be presented in the interest of focusing upon his primary ideas. Some chapters will be summarized more fully than others as necessary to provide the key concepts which Bauckham develops through the course of the whole book. The late German scholar, Martin Hengel, a pioneer of new research in the origins of the early church and its relationship to second Temple Judaism, says that this book “ought to be read by all theologians and historians working in the field of early Christianity” and that “Bauckham’s convincing historical method and broad learning will also help pastors and students to overcome widespread modern Jesus fantasies.”


What follows is the written record of one reader’s second close reading of Bauckham’s book. It is simply a personal exercise in a study of Bauckham’s ideas. Absolutely it is not for distribution in respect for copyright protections. There is no substitute for reading Bauckham’s own book with its full text, footnotes, and tables of data.


A summary of Bauckham’s arguments will be presented under the heading of each chapter of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses:  The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Material in brackets [ ] is added by this writer and is not material from Bauckham.


1.  From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony


For two centuries scholars have been in quest of the historical Jesus, and interest in this quest has not abated in the twenty-first century.


It is necessary to acknowledge that the full reality of Jesus as he historically was is not accessible to us. We could, therefore, use the phrase “the historical Jesus” to mean, not all that Jesus was, but Jesus insofar as his historical reality is accessible to us. But here we reach the crucial methodological problem. For Christian faith, the earthly Jesus as we can know him, is the Jesus of the canonical Gospels. From the beginning, the church has trusted in the texts of the Gospels.


Yet everything changes when historians suspect that these texts may be hiding the real Jesus from us, at best because they give us the historical Jesus filtered through the spectacles of early Christian faith, at worst because much of what they tell us is a Jesus constructed by the needs and interests of various groups in the early church. Then that phrase “the historical Jesus” comes to mean, not the Jesus of the Gospels, but the allegedly real Jesus behind the Gospels, the Jesus the historian must reconstruct by subjecting the Gospels in ruthlessly objective (so it is claimed) scrutiny. It is essential to realize that this is not just treating the Gospels as historical evidence. It is the application of a methodological skepticism that must test every aspect of the evidence so that what the historian establishes is not believable because the Gospels tell us it is. The result of such work is inevitably not one historical Jesus, but the many portraits of Jesus of the many historians. In other words, the quest of the historical Jesus ends up being an attempt, in effect, to provide an alternative to the Gospels’ construction of Jesus with many alternatives on offer by the historians.


There is a serious problem here that is obscured by the naive historical positivism which popular media presentations of these matters promote--namely, that all history is an inextricable combination of fact and interpretation. The Gospels constitute a combination of both fact and interpretation, and it is this that motivates the quest for a Jesus one might find if one could leave aside all the meaning that inheres in each Gospel’s story of Jesus. The Jesus who is reconstructed by the historians is no less a construction than the Jesus of each of Gospels, but this Jesus of the historians is proposed as a rival of the Jesus of the Gospels.


From the perspective of Christian faith, the question must be asked if the enterprise of reconstructing a historical Jesus behind the Gospels can ever substitute for the Gospels themselves as a way of access to the reality of Jesus the man. Of course, it cannot be said that historical study of Jesus and the Gospels is illegitimate since that would be tantamount to denying that Jesus really lived in history which must be accessible to historical study. What is in question is whether the reconstruction of a Jesus other than the Jesus of the Gospels--to do all over again what the evangelists did, though with different methods--can ever provide the kind of access to the reality of Jesus the Christian faith has always trusted we have in the Gospels.


Here is the dilemma that has always faced Christian theology in the light of the quest of the historical Jesus. Must history and theology part company? Must we settle for trusting the Gospels for our access to the Jesus in whom Christians believe, while leaving the historians to construct a historical Jesus based only on what they can verify for themselves by critical historical methods?


There is a better way forward in which theology and history may meet in the historical Jesus instead of parting company. This book is an attempt to lay out some of the evidence and methods for this way, and its key category is testimony.


We need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimony. This does not mean that they are testimony rather than history. It means that the kind of historiography they are is testimony. It is a rather neglected fact that all history, like all knowledge, relies on testimony. Testimony is a unique and uniquely valuable means of access to historical reality.


Testimony provides 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. Theologically speaking, the category of testimony enables us to read the Gospels as precisely the kind of text we need in order to recognize the disclosure of God in the history of Jesus. Understanding the Gospels as testimony, we can recognize this theological meaning of the history not as an arbitrary imposition on the objective facts, but as the way the witnesses perceived the history, in an inextricable coinherence of observable event and perceptible meaning. Testimony is the category that enables us to read the Gospels in a properly historical way and a properly theological way. It is where history and theology meet. In the twenty-first century, most scholars of the New Testament have rejected the basic radical claims of the form critics such as Dibelius and Bultmann. However, it is likely that many clergy and laity are not aware of the scholarly shift away from the theories of the form critics of the twentieth century.

In order to pursue this agenda, we need to give fresh attention to the eyewitnesses of the history of Jesus and their relationship to the Gospel tradition. In general, the argument of this book is that the Gospel texts are much closer to the form in which the eyewitnesses told their story or passed on their traditions than is commonly envisioned in contemporary scholarship. What gives the Gospels their character as testimony is that they embody the testimony of the eyewitnesses, not without editing and interpretation, but in a way that is substantially faithful to how the eyewitnesses themselves told it. The evangelists were in more or less direct contact with eyewitnesses rather than removed from them by a long process of anonymous transmission of the traditions.


 If it can be demonstrated from an analysis of studies of eyewitness testimony, such as those from the new discipline of oral history, that the “forms” of the sayings and stories of Jesus in the Gospels are characteristic of the usual way eyewitnesses tell what they witnessed, then the category of eyewitness testimony can be proposed as the alternative to the theory of the form critics that these “forms” were produced by the creative adaptation of the Jesus tradition by the church during a long period of “oral tradition” when the sayings and stories of Jesus were changed to meet the needs of the Christian communities.


The directness of the relationship between the eyewitnesses and the Gospel texts requires a quite different picture of the way the Gospel traditions were transmitted than that which is presented in form criticism. Although the methods of form criticism are no longer at the center of the way most scholars approach the issue of the historical Jesus, it has bequeathed one enormously influential legacy--the assumption that the traditions about Jesus, his acts and his words, passed through a long process of “oral tradition” in the early Christian communities and reached the writers of the Gospels only at a late stage of this process. According to the form critics, the Gospels embody the testimony of the eyewitnesses only in a rather remote way. Of course, some scholars stress the conservatism of the process of oral tradition more than others, but however conservative or creative the tradition may have been, the form critics assume that the eyewitnesses from whom the tradition originated had nothing significant to do with it once they set it going.


There is a simple and obvious objection to the picture of the development of the “oral tradition” provided by the form critics. As Vincent Taylor (who introduced German form criticism to English scholars) said, “if the Form Critics are right, the disciples must have been translated to heaven immediately after the Resurrection.” Taylor went on to point out that many eyewitness participants in the events of the Gospel narratives “did not go into permanent retreat; for at least a generation they moved among the young Palestinian communities, and through preaching and fellowship their recollections were at the disposal of those who sought information.” Part of the intention of this book is to present evidence that the eyewitnesses were involved throughout the period of the transmission of the tradition down to the writing of the Gospels.


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. This is a very significant fact. One lasting effect of form criticism, with its model of anonymous community transmission, has been to give most Gospels scholars an unexamined impression of the period between the events of the Gospel story and the writing of the Gospels as much longer than it realistically was. We have become accustomed to working with models of “oral tradition” as it is passed down through the generations through many minds and mouths before they reached the writers of the Gospels, but the period in question is actually that of relatively (for that period) long lifetime. Also, in the New Testament period the church was not nearly as widespread or as large in numbers as we usually imagine, and so scholars have stretched out the geographical dimension of the formation of the early Christian traditions as well as the chronological dimension in an unreasonable manner. The period between the “historical” Jesus and the Gospels was actually spanned, not by anonymous community transmission, but by the continuing presence and testimony of the eyewitnesses who remained as the authoritative sources of their traditions until their deaths. So in imagining how the traditions reached the Gospel writers, eyewitness testimony rather than “oral tradition” should be our principal model.


An important contribution to putting the eyewitnesses back into our understanding of the transmission of Gospel traditions is Story as History--History as Story:  The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Tuebingen:  Mohr, 2000; reprinted Leiden:  Brill, 2002) by the Swedish scholar, Samuel Byrskog.  Byrskog compares the practice of Greco-Roman historians with the fairly recent discipline of “oral history” and finds the role of eyewitness informants very similar in both. The ancient historians such as Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, and Tacitus, were convinced that true history could only be written while events were still within the living memory of eyewitnesses, and they valued the oral reports of the events by involved participants. They also believed that ideally the historian himself should have been a participant in the events about which he writes. The coinherence of fact and meaning, empirical report and engaged interpretation, was not a problem for these historians. So then, their approach to writing history bears close comparison with modern “oral history.” Like ancient historiography, the new discipline of oral history recognizes that bare facts do not make history and the subjective aspects of an eyewitness’ experience and memory are themselves evidence that the historian should not discard. Having established the key role of eyewitness testimony in ancient historiography, Byrskog argues that a similar role must have been played in the formation of the Gospel traditions and the Gospels themselves by individuals who were qualified to be both eyewitnesses and informants about the history of Jesus. He says, “The gospel narratives...are thus syntheses of history and story, of the oral history of an eyewitness and the interpretation and narrativizing procedures of an author.”


The ancient historians’ approach to doing history is different from that of modern historians who think that reliance on eyewitnesses compromises “objectivity.” The Gospels are closer to the methods and aims of ancient historiography. We may also learn keen insights from the new discipline of oral history in understanding the perspective and experience of oral informants. Byrskog’s work is a major contribution to the study of the Gospels, but it requires further testing and development in the course of this book.


2. Papias on the Eyewitnesses


A place to begin the study of the relationship between the Gospels and the eyewitnesses is to look at the writings of Papias, who describes his own research into the authentic sayings and stories of Jesus when he was a young man living at the very time when the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were also being written. Papias’ method of seeking eyewitness testimony in order to know what Jesus actually said and did may indicate that the writers of the Gospels operated with a similar approach.


Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, a city in the Lycus valley in the Roman province of Asia, not far from Laodicea and Colossae. He completed his major work, Exposition of the Logia of the Lord, in five books, sometime near the beginning of the second century. Sadly, this work has not survived; it is one of those books that historians of early Christianity could most wish to see recovered from a forgotten library or the sands of Egypt. As it is, we have no more than two dozen fragments surviving as quotations in later writers. The most important of these fragments appear in the writing of Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century. Eusebius thought Papias stupid because he was a millenarian and probably because Eusebius did not agree with some of what Papias wrote. Yet there is no good reason to accept Eusebius’ opinion of Papias since he was in a good position to know some interesting facts about the origins of the Gospels.


Papias belonged, roughly, to the third Christian generation, a generation that had been in touch with the first Christian generation. He was personally acquainted with the daughters of Philip the Evangelist. Philip spent his last years in Hierapolis, and two of his daughters, who were well known as prophets (Acts 21:8-9), also lived the rest of their lives in Hierapolis, unmarried. Perhaps in his childhood Papias knew Philip himself, but it was from Philip’s daughters that he learned some of the stories about the apostles.


We do not know when Papias wrote his book. Many scholars today date his work around A.D. 110 or perhaps even earlier; earlier scholars dated his work around A.D. 130. What is more important is that Papias writes about an earlier period in his life, the time when he was collecting oral reports of the words and deeds of Jesus, i.e. around A.D. 80. It is the period when the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were being written. This makes his observations about the writing of the Gospels very important. Papias’ information has often been ignored because scholars have not taken seriously the difference between the time when Papias began to write and the time about which he reminisces. It is worth mentioning that Hierapolis was at the meeting point of two great roads running east and west and north and south and so was a place where one could encounter itinerant early Christian leaders, and it was also a place where some Palestinian Christians settled after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.


In the prologue of his book, Papias spoke of “everything I learned from the elders and noted down well,” and he said, “And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders--[that is] what [according to the elders] Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.”


This particular extract from Papias is illuminating for our understanding of how traditions about Jesus were handed down in the early church.


It is necessary to recognize that there are four categories of people Papias mentions: 1) those who “had been in attendance on the elders,” i.e. the people who had been present at their teaching; 2) the elders; 3) the Lord’s disciples (Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the Lord’s disciples); and 4) Aristion and John the Elder, who are also called “the Lord’s disciples.” It is important to be aware that Papias does not suggest that the elders are all dead at the time about which he was writing. He means that the elders themselves were still alive and still teaching when Papias spoke to these people who had recently heard the elders and could report their teaching to him. The elders are the senior Christian teachers in various cities of Asia at the time to which Papias refers in this passage. Papias himself did not normally have the time to hear these elders himself, but whenever any of their hearers or disciples came to his city, Papias inquired about what the elders were saying. The elders knew the disciples of Jesus, and they reported what the disciples said.


There is a key distinction between groups 3 and 4. Those in group 3 (Andrew, Peter, Philip, James, John, Matthew, or any other of the Lord’s disciples) had died during the time Papias was inquiring about what the elders had reported what the disciples of Jesus had said, but Aristion and John in group 4 were still alive. Elsewhere in his writing, Papias distinguishes John in group 4 as “the Elder” to distinguish him from the John he mentions in group 3 (John, the son of Zebedee, and a member of the Twelve). So then, at the time when Papias was making his inquiries, he was able to discover what Jesus had said and done from the hearers of the elders who themselves had talked with disciples of Jesus and who were still in conversation with Aristion and John the Elder, who had also been personal disciples of Jesus even though they were not a part of the Twelve. It is probably not necessary to pay overmuch attention to the list of names in group 3; the listing of the names of seven disciples indicates completeness, and so these names are intended to represent all of the Twelve (as Papias makes clear by his general allusion to “any other of the Lord’s disciples”). It is interesting that the order of the names of the disciples of the Lord in this list is Johannine (John 1:40-44 and 21:2), except that Papias excludes Nathanael and adds Matthew, probably because Matthew is known to Papias as a well-known source of Gospel traditions. There is also other Johannine language in Papias’ extant writings, which is an indication that the Gospel of John and the letters of John were produced in the province of Asia where Papias lived. [Later in this book there will be a discussion of the evidence that these books of the New Testament were written by John the Elder.]


Of particular importance in this passage is Papias’ comment on “a living and surviving voice.” This comment is the clue to the method Papias used in his attempt to compile a record of the authentic sayings and stories of Jesus. Papias’ preference for a “living voice” was an ancient topos or commonplace. For example, it is found in the writings of Galen, Quintilian and Pliny. Papias is alluding to a proverb that means that it is better to learn a craft by oral instruction from a practitioner than from a book. The proverb refers to the firsthand experience of a speaker, whether an instructor or an orator, not to transmission of tradition from a chain of traditioners across generations. Yet it was probably in the context of ancient historiography that Papias’ speech of a “living voice” belongs. Papias is alluding to the best practice of ancient historians when he thinks it is better to have eyewitness testimony rather than written accounts in finding out what happened in the past. So then, Papias makes it clear that when he was engaged in a process of writing down what Jesus said and did, he preferred to rely on the eyewitness testimony he obtained via the hearers of the elders who themselves had heard the disciples of the Lord and who were still learning from Aristion and John the Elder. In the few fragments of Papias’ work that survives, there are some sayings of Jesus which are not in the canonical Gospels, but it is likely that the majority of them were simply versions of stories and sayings to be found in the Gospels. Papias knew of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. Nevertheless, it is a shame that most of Papias’ Exposition of the Logia of the Lord has been lost.


It is useful to compare Papias’ comments with the prologue of Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s role is comparable to that of the “elders” in Papias’ passage (although the terminology of “elders” was probably confined to Asia at that time):  Luke received traditions directly from the eyewitnesses. In his prologue in Luke 1:1-4, Luke says that “many” have written “an orderly account of the events that have been handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” In other words, between the earliest literary writings about Jesus and Jesus himself stands only those who had been direct eyewitnesses of the activity of Jesus from the beginning. Luke himself was an author at the end of the second generation of Christians and so he was composing his Gospel somewhat earlier than the time when Papias was making notes on what the hearers of the elders said about what the elders had learned from the disciples of the Lord. It is particularly noteworthy that Luke describes these eyewitnesses as being both eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (Luke is describing one group, not two). The informants were also prominent teachers in the early Christian movement:  they did not merely start the traditions going and then withdrew but remained for many years the known sources and guarantors of the traditions of the words and deeds of Jesus.


In his authoritative study of oral tradition as historical resource, Oral Tradition as History (Madison:  University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), Jan Vansina distinguishes between “oral tradition” and “oral history.” The distinguishing characteristic of the former is “its transmission by word of mouth over a period longer than the contemporary generation.” “Oral history,” by contrast, consists of “reminiscences, hearsay, or eyewitness accounts about events and situations which are contemporary, that is, which occurred in the lifetime of the informants.” Oral historians use “oral history” rather than “oral tradition” as their sources. The preference of oral historians for “oral history” represents the way ancient historians did their work of writing history, and the evangelists who were writing at about the same time that Papias was beginning to collect his eyewitness testimony to the words and deeds of Jesus were probably in a  better position than Papias to practice what Vansina defines as “oral history.” Papias is speaking of the period when oral history was becoming no longer possible whereas the evangelists were probably still able to practice oral history. The two living eyewitnesses to whom he had access--Aristion and John the Elder--were very old. All the more famous disciples of Jesus were already dead. So the traditions which came to Papias (except for the reports about what Aristion and John the Elder were saying) had become “oral tradition” in the sense that they had been transmitted beyond the lifetime of the original informants.


With his desire to follow the best practices of ancient historians, we can be sure that Papias would have valued particularly the traditions that the elders had received directly from named disciples of Jesus. The elders were the leaders of Asiatic Christianity and lived in major cities on the routes of travel. It is not at all unlikely that disciples of Jesus had passed through their cities and taught, especially since we are aware of the general mobility of early Christian teachers. It is also likely that before A.D. 70 Jewish Christian leaders in Asia would have gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and met the remaining disciples of Jesus in the Jerusalem church. These perfectly real possibilities of personal contact rarely make an appearance in scholarly discussion of the transmission of Gospel traditions because the latter are dominated by a model of “oral tradition” that thinks of collective rather than individual transmission and presupposes that the origins of the traditions were far removed, by many stages of transmission, from the form the traditions took by the later first century. But this model neglects--while Papias takes for granted--the importance of individual leaders, often very mobile, whose careers in Christian leadership often spanned decades and among whom the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry had a special position.


It is clear that Papias did not think of traditions as belonging merely to the collectivity of a Christian community and passed down collectively and anonymously. The elders were prominent leaders. In addition to Aristion and John the Elder, whose names he gives because they were personal disciples of Jesus, the names of the other elders would have been well known to Papias as well as the names of the hearers or disciples of the elders with whom Papias became acquainted when they passed through Hierapolis. He would not have valued what the elders said that Andrew or Peter or Thomas had said if these traditions were merely part of the collective memory of the churches to which the elders belonged. “Oral tradition” is typically collective. There certainly was collective tradition in early Christian communities, but its existence as a collective memory produced by frequent recitation of traditions in a communal context does not at all exclude the role of particular individuals who are especially competent to perform the tradition. Here we must challenge the assumption that collective memory excluded or took the place of individual named informants and guarantors of tradition about Jesus.


Papias was clearly not interested in tapping the collective memory as such. He did not think of recording the Gospel traditions as they were recited regularly in his own church. What mattered to Papias was that there were eyewitnesses, some still around, and access to them through brief and verifiable channels of named informants. It is natural to suppose that those who were writing the canonical Gospels at the time of which Papias speaks would have gone about their work similarly, as indeed the preface to Luke’s Gospel confirms.


Irenaeus, writing at the end of the second century, recalled Papias’ contemporary, Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna (who died at age eighty-six around the middle of the second century), and Polycarp’s transmission of the Gospel tradition. Irenaeus recalled where Polycarp used to sit as he discoursed, how he would tell of his conversations with John [in Bauckham’s opinion, John the Elder] and with others who had seen the Lord, how he would relate their words from memory, and what he had learned from them concerning the Lord, his mighty works and his teaching. Irenaeus adds, “Polycarp, as having received them from the eyewitnesses of the life of the Logos, would declare in accordance with the scriptures.” What concerns us here is the model of transmission of Gospel traditions from the eyewitnesses, which Irenaeus makes so plain.


Some scholars are suspicious of Papias’ model because it is so similar to the late second century model expressed by Irenaeus. But why should this late second century model not be the appropriate one for the early period? There is no reason to assume that second-century writers got it wrong. The reason this model (of transmission of tradition by eyewitnesses) was abandoned by twentieth century scholarship in favor of collective and anonymous tradition is that the form critics applied the model (of collective and anonymous transmission of tradition) to the Gospels in ways that confirmed it. The question is, Are the conclusions we have draw from Papias really applicable to the Gospels? We might well ask why, if Gospel traditions were known as the traditions told by specific named eyewitnesses these traditions are not attached to such names in the Gospels themselves. Perhaps we need to look at the names in the Gospels more carefully with fresh questions--which we shall do in the next chapters.


Finally, we must comment on the distinction between “oral tradition” and “oral history” discussed earlier. As far as “tradition” is concerned, this terminological distinction is a modern one used by those who research oral tradition and oral history. It does not correspond to the ancient use of the word “tradition” or paradosis. In Contra Apionem, Josephus describes his written record of the siege of Jerusalem as “tradition.” Here the word had no implication of transmission through many intermediaries. It refers rather to Josephus’ largely firsthand testimony to what happened, well within memory of those whose to whom he gave presentation copies of the book. (Josephus had extensive personal participation in the Jewish resistance.) Thus when the New Testament uses the stereotypical language of “tradition,” we should resist the influence of preconceptions about the collective and cross-generational nature of “oral tradition.” Paul, for example, constituted the single intermediary between the eyewitnesses (especially Peter:  cf. Galatians 1:18) and the Corinthians when he “handed on to you...what I first received” (I Corinthians 15:3), and even when he, just like Josephus, appeals to the confirmation of the account that could be given by many other eyewitnesses (“five hundred brothers and sisters..., many of whom are still alive, though some have died”:  I Corinthians 15:6), since the events were well within the living memory of people to whom easy access was possible. As we also learn from Josephus, the language of “tradition” does not require an account be handed on orally; it can refer to the writing of recollections. So, when Luke claims that “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word handed on (paredosan) to us [the tradition of the events]” (Luke 1:2), the reference could be to or include written accounts by the eyewitnesses. The language of tradition, as used in the New Testament and related literature, entails neither cross-generational distance nor even orality to the exclusion of written records. [For this reason, Matthew and Luke could use Mark as a written source of the eyewitness testimony of Peter, which is the basis of Mark’s Gospel, as well as Q, if it were a written collection of mainly sayings of Jesus. Also, John could imply that he respects the authority of Mark as containing the official testimony of the Twelve while offering the distinctive eyewitness testimony of someone who was not one of the Twelve, the Beloved Disciple--if the Beloved Disciple was John the Elder rather than John, the son of Zebedee.]


3. Names in the Gospel Traditions


There is one phenomenon in the Gospels that has never been satisfactorily explained--the appearance of names in the texts. Many characters in the story of Jesus are unnamed, but some of them are named. One possible explanation is 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 their stories as authoritative guarantors of their traditions. In some cases, the evangelists may have known them.


Bauckham compiles five tables of names--a table of anonymous and named persons in each of the four Gospels and a table of the named persons in all four Gospels. This classification of empirical data is an important contribution to the study of the Gospels. In all of the Gospels the number of named persons is more or less equal.


Some general observations about the lists of names in the Gospels can be made. Public persons who would be known apart from the story of Jesus are usually named, e.g. John the Baptist, Herod, and Pilate. The beneficiaries of the healings and exorcisms of Jesus are usually unnamed. Persons who encounter Jesus on only one occasion and do not usually become his disciples are usually unnamed. Some of the unnamed persons are so insignificant that we would not normally expect them to be named, e.g. luke 12:13 (“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”). Disciples of Jesus, including the Twelve, are usually named. These categories are quite intelligible. We would expect that public persons would be named and that the disciples of Jesus would be named. The names of persons who encountered Jesus for the first time and those who were healed by Jesus might not have been known to those who told their stories.


So it is especially noteworthy when there are exceptions to the rule. While Matthew and John record the name of the high priest Caiaphas, Mark and Luke do not give his name. While the disciples are usually named, sometimes they are not; why should one of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus be named (Cleopas), but the other one is not named? While most beneficiaries of Jesus’ healings are usually unnamed, some of them are--Jairus (whose daughter was raised) in Mark and Luke, Bartimaeus in Mark, Lazarus in John. While most who encountered Jesus on one occasion are unnamed, why is the Pharisee (Simon) in Luke 7 named? Why should Simon of Cyrene be named? There are also cases where a person who is anonymous in one Gospel is named in another, e.g. John alone names the woman who anoints Jesus (Mary of Bethany), the man who cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave (Peter), and the slave himself (Malchus).


Some of these exceptions to the rule will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but here we shall discuss the names in the fifth table, the list of the names in all four Gospels.


Most of the scholarly discussion of the names in the Gospels heretofore has presumed the principle of “increasing detail” as a law of “oral tradition.” For instance, Bultmann considered the addition of personal names as a secondary addition to the tradition--an example of adding “novelistic interest.” However, a careful examination of the evidence in the Synoptic Gospels shows an unambiguous tendency to eliminate names rather than to add them. According to the presupposition that Mark is the earliest Gospel and that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a primary source, the fact is that Matthew and Luke retain the names in Mark in four cases (Simon of Cyrene, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses), Luke retains the name in one case where Matthew drops it (Levi), and Matthew and Luke drop the name in four cases (Bartimaeus, Alexander, Rufus, and Salome). In no case does a character unnamed in Mark gain a new name in Matthew and Luke. (Luke 22:8 does name Peter and John who are unnamed in Mark 14:13, but this is a case of identifying unnamed persons in Mark with persons already known from Mark--something different from giving characters anonymous in Mark new names not found in Mark’s Gospel.)


Q material contains no names, a not surprising fact since Q is mainly a collection of sayings. M contains no new names except Joseph who is also independently named in Luke and John. But L does supply eleven new names, two of whom (Martha and Mary) occur also in John.  This evidence does not contradict the tendency toward the elimination of names since there is no reason to think that Luke has added them to the tradition in which they occur (L, Luke’s special tradition).


Finally, John names four characters who do not appear at all in the Synoptic Gospels (Nathaniel, Nicodemus, Lazarus, and Mary of Clopas) and also gives a name to one character who is anonymous in the other Gospels (Malchus, the high priest’s slave). Even if we add that John identifies Peter as the one who cut off Malchus’ ear and Mary of Bethany as the one who anointed Jesus, this does not provide evidence of a tendency to name names for characters who had been anonymous at earlier stages of tradition. After all, John has quite a number of unnamed characters. Why should he have been influenced by a “novelistic tendency” to name unnamed characters in the episode concerning Malchus, but not in the case of the Samaritan woman, the paralyzed man, or the man born blind, all of whom are much more prominent characters than Malchus?


The tendency to add names is more prominent in the extracanonical Gospels and traditions. The evidence is that giving invented names to characters did become increasingly popular from the fourth century on, but it remarkable how few earlier examples are known.


It was a common Jewish practice to give names to characters in scripture. So then, it would be expected that the early Christians would add names of characters in the Gospel narratives, but the evidence indicates that this did not happen. For example, the man with the withered hand and the woman with a hemorrhage are both unnamed in the noncanonical Epistle of the Apostles as are the wise men in the Protoevangelium of James. If there was no general tendency to add names in the period after the publication of the Gospels, then it is not likely that this tendency was operative when the Gospels were being written.


The conclusion is that most of the names in the fifth table--the list of the names in all four Gospels--belonged originally to the Gospel traditions in which they were found. Indeed, it is quite possible that originally there were some names in the traditions that were dropped by the Gospel writers, i.e. there may have been names which Mark did not include in his Gospel and names which Matthew and Luke omitted from their own special traditions (M and L).


What we do need to explain is why some Gospel characters bear names while others in the same category do not. The best explanation that accounts for all of the names (except for Jesus’ father Joseph and the names in Luke’s infancy narrative) is that all these people joined the early Christian community and were well known at least in the circles in which these traditions were first circulated.


In fact, these named characters comprise just the range of people we should expect to have formed the earliest Christian groups:  some who had been healed by Jesus (Bartimaeus, the women in Luke 8:2-3), some who had joined Jesus in his itinerant ministry (a larger group than the Twelve, including the named women disciples, Levi, Nathanael, and Cleopas), some of Jesus’ relatives (his mother and brothers, his uncle Cleopas/Clopas and aunt Mary), residents of Jerusalem and its environs who had been supporters of, or sympathetic to, Jesus’ movement (Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Simon the leper, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha). It is striking how many of these people can be localized in or near Jerusalem (including Jericho):  in addition to the six named, this would also be true of Bartimaeus, Simon of Cyrene and his sons, Zacchaeus, and (after the resurrection) Jesus’ brother James and his other relatives. They would have been known in the Jerusalem church where stories in which they are named were first told.


The tendency of Matthew and Luke to omit some of the names would be explained if these people had become, by the time these evangelists’ wrote, too obscure for them to wish to retain their names when they were abbreviating Mark’s Gospel. Besides, personal names are usually the least well remembered features of remembered events (based on scientific studies of memory retention), and so we would not be surprised to find names dropping out. If the names in the Gospels are due to real memories, then we should expect there to be a reason why they are retained, and at least part of the explanation would be that they were persons known in the early Christian communities.


Moreover, it is also likely that some of these persons were themselves the eyewitnesses who first told and doubtless continued to tell the stories in which they appear and to which their names are attached. A good example is Cleopas (Luke 24:18). The story does not require that he be named, and in fact his companion is unnamed. He is probably the same person as Clopas, whose wife Mary appears among the women at the cross in John 19:25. Clopas is a very rare Semitic form of the Greek name Cleopas, so rare that we can be certain that this is the Clopas who, according to Hegesippus, was the brother of Jesus’ father Joseph and the father of Simon, who succeeded his cousin James as the leader of the Jerusalem church. Cleopas/Clopas was doubtless one of those relatives of Jesus who played a prominent role in the Palestinian Jewish Christian movement, and the story Luke tells would have been essentially the story Cleopas himself told about his encounter with the risen Jesus. Probably it was one of many traditions of the Jerusalem church Luke incorporated into his Gospel.


The other cases are also instructive:  the women at the cross and the tomb, Simon of Cyrene and his sons, and recipients of Jesus’ healings.


In the Synoptic Gospels the role of the women as eyewitnesses is crucial: they see Jesus die, they see his body being buried, and they find the tomb empty. The Synoptic Gospels makes the women subjects of verbs of seeing:  they “saw” the events as Jesus died; they “saw” where he was laid in the tomb; and they went on the first day of the week to “see” the tomb, etc. It could hardly be clearer that the Gospels are appealing to their role as eyewitnesses.


This is not an anonymous group. All the Gospels name some of them and state or imply that there were others. The significance of this naming and the variations in the lists seems never to have been properly appreciated.


Bauckham makes a list of the names of the women at the cross, the burial, and the empty tomb as they appear, respectively, in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.


The appearance of at least two names may be related to the teaching of the Torah (Deuteronomy 19:15) that there should be two or three witnesses. But this cannot explain the divergences of the names in the Gospels.


The divergences demonstrate the scrupulous care with which the Gospels present the women as witnesses. Mark names three women at the cross and the same three at the tomb, but only two of the three observe the burial. The explanation must be in the known testimony that the two Marys witnessed the burial, but Salome did not. For Matthew, Salome was evidently not a well-known witness, and he omits her from the lists. At the cross he substitutes the mother of the sons of Zebedee who had appeared earlier (Matthew 20:20) and who is unique to his Gospel. He does not add her, however, to the two Marys at the burial or the empty tomb, surely because she was not known as an eyewitness of these events. Matthew could have used her to make up the number at the tomb, but he is scrupulously content with only the two names who are known to be witnesses. Luke names the women only at the end of the account of their visit to the empty tomb. He lists, besides the indispensable Mary Magdalene, Joanna (who is peculiar to his Gospel and had appeared in 8:3) and Mary the mother of James. This third name may be Luke’s only borrowing from Mark. Like Matthew, he omits Salome, but he does not simply reproduce the list of women followers of Jesus he has employed earlier in his Gospel (8:2-3:  Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna). Mary Magdalene and Joanna he knew to be witnesses of the empty tomb, Susanna he did not. In this way Bauckham’s proposal that the evangelists were careful to name precisely the women who were known to them as witnesses to these crucial events in the origins of the Christian movement explains the variations among their lists of women as no other proposal has succeeded in doing.


It is natural to suppose that these women were well-known, not only for having told their stories but also as those who remained accessible as authoritative sources of these traditions as long as they lived. Which women were well-known to each evangelist may have depended on the circles in which that evangelist collected traditions and the circle in which each woman moved during her lifetime. The differences among the Gospels of the women’s visit to the tomb may well reflect the different ways in which the story was told by the different women. Those women were not at all obscure figures by the time the evangelists wrote the Synoptic Gospels. The omission of Salome by both Matthew and Luke shows the evangelists did not retain the names of women who had become obscure.


The second example is Simon of Cyrene and his sons. Mark is the only evangelist who mentions the two sons, Alexander and Rufus. Readers of Mark would suppose that Mark derived most of his narrative from the Twelve, who are almost the only disciples mentioned by Mark before the women appear in 15:40 and who participate in most of the events until all but Peter leave the narrative, never to reappear in person, at 14:50. Mark carefully portrays the women as eyewitnesses in the crucial events from which Peter and the Twelve are absent. But another plausible eyewitness, Simon of Cyrene, appears in 15:21 before we hear about the women in 15:40.


The way Mark describes him--”Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus”--requires some explanation. Simon is already distinguished from any other Simon by his native place of Cyrene. Matthew and Luke acknowledge this by omitting his sons’ names. Yet the mention of the sons does presuppose that Mark expected many of his readers to know them in person or by reputation. The likelihood is that Mark is appealing to Simon’s eyewitness testimony, known in the early Christian community not from Simon but through his sons. Simon may not have become a disciple like his sons or perhaps he died early, while his sons remained well-known figures. That they were not still so well-known when Matthew and Luke were writing later may be the reason they omitted their names.


The third example of the naming of persons in the Gospels is the names of recipients of healing (“recipient” being a broad term to include the name of Jairus, whose daughter was raised). There are only three stories of healing, exorcism, or resuscitation in which the recipient is named:  Jairus, Bartimaeus, and Lazarus. In Luke 8:2-3, there are the names of three women who were “cured of evil spirits and infirmities”--Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. It is also possible that Simon the leper may have been healed by Jesus, but we are not informed that Jesus did heal him. At any rate, these four persons’ stories are not told. Since the names of beneficiaries of Jesus’ miracles are usually not named, there must be some explanation why Jairus, Bartimaeus, and Lazarus are named.


In the case of Jairus and Bartimaeus, their names in Mark were dropped by one or both of the other evangelists:  Matthew and Luke drop Bartimaeus’ name, and Matthew drops Jairus’ name while Luke retains it. Most likely, these persons were well-known when Mark wrote, but they were not so well-known by the time Matthew and Luke wrote. Bartimaeus was well-known to the communities with which Mark was in contact, but after the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of Bartimaeus, his name would not be as prominent in the communities with which Matthew and Luke were in contact. The early second century Christian Quadratus, probably a contemporary of Papias, said those who were healed or raised from the dead by Jesus “were always present, not merely when the Savior was living on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure, so that some of them survived even to our own times.” While Quadratus was writing around A.D. 117, he was referring to a time near toward end of the first century. What is significant about his statement is not that the recipients of Jesus’ miracles survived for a long time, but that they functioned as eyewitnesses. They belonged not only to the origins of the Gospel traditions, but they also belonged to the ongoing process of tradition in the early Christian communities. The paucity of names in healing stories even in Mark suggests that fewer of the recipients of Jesus’ healings fulfilled the function of being eyewitnesses than Quadratus implies, but Quadratus’ view does offer an explanation of the occurrence of the few names that are in the four Gospels.


As shall be demonstrated later, vivid detail tends to disappear in eyewitness testimony. Nevertheless, it is interesting that some of the stories which probably come from eyewitnesses are among the most vividly told. This is most likely true of Bartimaeus, Jairus’ daughter, Zacchaeus, and Cleopas and his companion. At least, it is likely that all of these stories come from the persons who are named except perhaps for Jairus, whose story could be either Jairus’ or that of Peter, James, and John.


4. Palestinian Jewish Names


A new resource for the study of the Gospels is the database of all of the recorded names of Jews who lived in Palestine in the period 330 B.C.- A.D. 200, which was compiled by Israeli scholar Tal Ilan in Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity:  Part I:  Palestine 330 BCE-200 CE (Tuebingen:  Mohr:  2002). These names were compiled from literary sources, burial inscriptions, and papyri such as legal documents. This database has the characteristics of a modern telephone book. While this database contains names from a long period of time, the practice of giving names seems to have remained fairly constant during the whole period and a large portion of the names come from the first century A.D.  


It may be surprising to many that we have the names of as many as three thousand Jews who lived during the period researched by Ilan.


One of the results of her study is that there was a small number of very popular names. The most popular male names were Simon (Simeon), Joseph (Joses), Eleazar (Lazarus), Judah (Judas), Yohanan (John), Joshua (Jesus), Hananiah (Ananias), Jonathan, Mattathias (Matthew/Matthias), Menahem (Manaen), and Jacob (James). The most popular female names were Mariam (Mary), Salome, Shelamzion, Martha, Joanna, Shiphra (Sapphira), Bernice, Imma, Mara, Cyprus, and Sarah.


The percentages of male names in the New Testament correlate closely with the percentages of male names in the population, but the percentages of female names in the New Testament do not match those for the population. The lack of correlation of female names is most likely due to the fact that the database for women’s names is considerably smaller for women, both in the New Testament and in Ilan’s research.


We do not have a broad database of Jewish names in the Diaspora, but we have enough information to know that the names in the Diaspora differ from those in Palestine. The names of Palestinian Jews in the Gospels and Acts coincide very closely with the names in the general population of Jewish Palestine in this period, but not with the names of Jews in the Diaspora. So then, it is unlikely that the names in the Gospels are late accretions to the traditions. Specifically, there are certain names which earlier scholars speculated were later accretions to the Gospel traditions, but the new research demonstrates that these names were common during the period--names like Zacchaeus, Nathanael, Malchus, Cleopas, and Nicodemus.


The reason for the popularity of certain names must be patriotism. Six of the nine most popular male names are those of the Hasmonean family, Mattathias and his five sons (John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan), and the three most popular female names (Mary or Mariam, Salome, and Shelamzion, the longer form of Salome) were also members of the Hasmonean ruling family. The Hasmoneans won Jewish independence in the second century B.C., and they were the last Jewish rulers of an independent Jewish state. Therefore, the use of biblical names during this period was not for the purpose of recalling the biblical characters, but for identifying with the Hasmonean family. There are some exceptions, including Joseph, Joshua (Jesus), and Jacob (James), although Ilan suggests that Joseph was the name of a fifth son of Mattathias.


The fact that so many persons had the exact same name meant that Palestinian Jews had to have ways to distinguish individuals from one another. There were eleven ways this was done. 1)Variant forms of a name, e.g. Jesus’ brother Joseph was known by the abbreviation Yoses (Joses) to distinguish him from his father. 2) Patronymic added, e.g. John son of Zechariah (the addition of a reference to the father’s name). 3) Patronymic substituted, e.g. Bartimaeus= son of Timaeus. 4) Names of husband or sons added, e.g. Mary of Clopas (probably Mary of her husband Clopas) and Mary of James (Mary the mother of James). 5) Nickname added, e.g. James the little (or James the less--meaning “short”), Simon the leper, John the baptizer. 6) Nickname substituted, e.g. Simon is called Cephas (Aramaic) or Peter (Greek), meaning “Rock.” 7) Place of origin or dwelling added, e.g. Mary Magdalene (Mary of Magdala), Simon the Cyrenian (of Cyrene), Joseph of Arimathea, and Nathanael of Cana. This is used only when the persons reside elsewhere than their place of origin, e.g. Joseph of Arimathea lived in Jerusalem, but he had estates near a place called Ramathaim. 8) Place of origin or dwelling substituted, e.g. the prophet known only as “the Egyptian” (Acts 21:38 and Josephus)--a very rare way of distinguishing someone. 9) Family name, e.g. Caiaphas (the high priest whose first name was Joseph)--probably a nickname of an ancestor (which literally means “jelly sediment of boiled meat”). 10) Two names in two languages, e.g. Silas and Silvanus (Latin). The Greek name Andrew (Andreas) was very rare, and the bearer no doubt also had a Semitic name but for pragmatic reasons chose to be known by his Greek name. 11) Occupation, e.g. Simon the tanner.


The conclusion of the study of names is that all of the evidence indicates the general authenticity of the personal names in the Gospels. This supports the suggestion that the significance of many of the names in the Gospels is that they indicate the eyewitness sources of the individual stories in which these names occur.


Bauckham has four tables of names from the study of Palestinian names by Tal Ilan.


5. The Twelve


Jesus chose twelve men to travel with him as his closest companions. They symbolized the twelve princes of the tribes of Israel and therefore their appointment by Jesus symbolized his claim that in his own ministry the messianic restoration of Israel had already begun. Of course, these men were not literally from the twelve tribes of Israel (two pairs of them were brothers), but their number served a symbolic purpose.


Bauckham proposes that the Twelve constituted an official body of eyewitnesses who played the role of an authoritative collegium in Jerusalem at the beginning of the church’s history.


There are lists of the Twelve in the Synoptic Gospels but not in John (which has its own significance as we shall see later in the book). There is a fourth list in Acts.


If the lists were merely introducing the characters in the Gospel narratives, it is remarkable that no less than seven of them never are mentioned again or appear as individuals in Mark and Luke, while the same is true for six of them in Matthew. It is probable that the Twelve are named, not as the authorities for this or that specific tradition, e.g. a story of an incident, but as responsible for the overall shape of the story of Jesus and much of its content. They are credited as a group rather than as individuals.


It is often noticed that there are differences in the lists in Matthew 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:13-16 and Acts 1:13. The differences are not great. Bauckham lists the names in all sources in three groups of four names. The first name in each group is the same in all the lists:  Simon Peter heads the first group, Philip the second, and James the son of Alphaeus the third. The order of the other three names in each group varies with no agreement except that Judas Iscariot takes the last place in all lists that name him (he is not named in Acts). It is quite intelligible that a list of this kind should be remembered as consisting of three groups, with the first name in each group a fixed point in the memory, but with the order of the other three names in each group variable.


In the first group of four names it may be that the order in Matthew and Luke is the standard order which keeps the two pairs of brothers together (Peter and Andrew, James and John). Mark may have varied his order for his own reasons:  he places together the three disciples to whom Jesus gave nicknames (Simon whom he calls Peter and the sons of Zebedee whom he calls Boanerges), and this group of three are also the three who feature as the inner circle of the Twelve elsewhere in Mark. As for Acts, the variation is explained by the fact that Peter and John appear as the leading members of the Twelve in the early chapters of Acts. In other words, Mark and Acts vary the order of the names in the first group according to the prominence of the three in their narratives.


Another variation in the list is that Matthew is the only Gospel to call Matthew “the tax collector.” This is to call attention to the account of Matthew’s call in 9:9, where the tax collector is called Levi in Mark and Luke.


So far we have found no differences among the lists that require of us to think of more than one traditional list of the Twelve, but one remaining difference probably does require this. In the last group of four names, Mark and Matthew have Thaddaeus but Luke and Acts have Judas (son) of James. It has often been taken to indicate that the lists are unreliable.


There two possible explanations of the variation between Thaddaeus and Judas of James. One is that Thaddaeus was a member of the Twelve replaced by Judas during the time of Jesus’ ministry, but it is unlikely that Mark would not have recorded this change.


Another possibility is that Thaddaeus and Judas of James are the same person. This is supported by what we know of names in Jewish Palestine at this period. Thaddaeus (Greek Thaddaios) is an example of a Greek name (it could be Theodosius, Theodotos, or Theodoros) which has been turned into a Semitic shortened version (Taddai) and then has been Graecized again (Thaddaios). In addition to this New Testament name, there are seven other individuals of this period  who are known to have borne the name in this Semitic shortened form. The Greek names were popular because of their theophoric character (they incorporate the Greek name for God) Also, it was popular for Jews to bear two names, often Greek and Aramaic. It is not at all improbable that the same man could have been called both Judas (Yehudah) and Thaddeus (Taddai). The two names may well have been treated as sound equivalents just as Joseph (or Jesus) and Justus, Reuben and Rufus, Jesus and Jason, Saul and Paul evidently were.


A member of the Twelve named Judas would certainly need to be distinguished in some way from the other member of the Twelve, Judas Iscariot. In John 14:22 he is called rather awkwardly “Judas, not Iscariot,” but this could hardly have been usual. This Judas could have been called by his patronymic, Judas son of James, or he could have been known by his Greek name Thaddaeus (Taddai). Both alternatives could have used, and the two versions of the list, the one preserved by Mark and Matthew and the one preserved by Luke in his Gospel and Acts have adopted different alternatives. Possibly, after the defection of Judas Iscariot, it would seem preferable to call his namesake Thaddaeus rather than Judas. Luke’s usage, Judas son of James, was perhaps how he was styled in an official, written list of the Twelve whereas Thaddaeus was how he was more commonly known.


All the epithets attached to names are designed to distinguish one member of the Twelve from another and must have originated from the Twelve themselves. Thus the two named Simon, the two named James, and the two named Judas (according to Luke’s list) needed to be distinguished from each other.


Some  of the ways Jews distinguished individuals occurs in the list of the Twelve. 2) Patronymic added, e.g. James son of Zebedee, James son of Alphaeus, Judas son of James. 3) Patronymic substituted, e. g. Bartholomew (Bartholomaios) means the son of Talmai (a biblical name) or Ptolemaios (a Greek name, Ptolemy), the biblical and Greek names being treated as equivalents at the time. It is possible that his first name was shared by another member of the Twelve and therefore he was called by his father’s name. The Gospels do not translate Bar (“son”) but simply transliterate it as part of his name in the same way that occurs in the name of Bartimaeus or Barabbas. 5) Nickname added, e.g. Simon Peter and Simon the Cananaen/zealot. Simon Peter had been distinguished by his patronymic, Bar-Jonah, but he acquired the nickname of the Rock which Jesus gave him. Mark and Matthew give the other Simon the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic term (qan’ana’) whereas Luke translates it as “zealot.” Luke usually does not prefer to use Aramaic expressions but translates them into Greek. Since the term “Zealot” does not appear in Jewish sources until the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt in A.D. 66, the application of “zealot” to Simon probably means “zealot for the law” (as is the case in the nickname given to Aaron’s grandson Phinehas, who is called “the Zealot Phinehas” in 4 Maccabees 18:12). Simon may have had this nickname before he became a disciple of Jesus. 6) Nickname substituted, e.g. probably Thomas, the Aramaic word for “twin.” His twin brother is unknown and may not have been a disciple, but the fact that the disciple of Jesus was a twin was enough for him to be called by his nickname--Thomas. In the East Syrian tradition, Thomas is called Judas Thomas. Judas may have been his real name, but it it were, then there was every reason for the disciples to call him Thomas to distinguish him from the others named Judas. 7) Place of origin or dwelling added, and 9) Family name, e.g. Judas Iscariot. The best explanation is that Iscariot is from the Hebrew for “man of Kerioth.” John calls him “Judas son of Simon Iscariot,” suggesting that Judas carried the place name of his father. The data of Jewish names indicates a practice followed in John’s description--that Simon and his son Judas no longer lived in Kerioth but still carried the identification of their family with a certain place. This may be significant in that it means that Judas may not have come from outside Galilee despite his second name of Iscariot. 10) Two names in two languages, e.g. Thaddaeus and Judas son of James. There are two Greek names in the list of the Twelve--Philip and Andrew. Philip is rather uncommon (sixty-first in order of popularity and only six occurrences in the database), and Andrew is very uncommon (three occurrences only). 11) Occupation, e.g. Matthew the tax collector (only in Matthew’s Gospel). There is no reason to distinguish Matthew from the others except when Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot. Yet even then there may not have been a problem of distinguishing the two; Matthias is the most common version (thirty two occurrences) and Matthew is relatively rare (seven occurrences out of a total of sixty two versions of the same name). Still, it is possible that Matthew’s occupation helped to distinguish him and avoid possible confusion in the early church.


The conclusion from an examination of the epithets of the Twelve is that the lists of the Twelve have preserved not only the names, but also the epithets that were used to distinguish members of the Twelve among themselves in their circle. Great care was taken to preserve precisely the way that they were known during the ministry of Jesus and in the early Jerusalem church. It is difficult to account for this phenomenon except by the hypothesis that the Twelve were the official eyewitnesses and guarantors of the core of the Gospel traditions. It is not true that many of them were forgotten; as essential members of the official group all twelve were remembered.


A final note on Matthew and Levi. In Mark and Luke, there is a story of the calling of a tax collector by Jesus, and his name is Levi. In Matthew’s Gospel, the same story is told, but the name Levi is changed to Matthew. Bauckham believes that Mark and Luke preserve the original story. Why then did Matthew’s Gospel change the name of the tax collector? It is probable that the author of the Gospel of Matthew, knowing that Matthew was a tax collector and wishing to narrate the call of Matthew by Jesus, transferred Mark’s story from Levi to Matthew. The story is so brief and general that it could be thought as appropriate to any tax collector called by Jesus to be his disciple. In Mark, the story of the call is followed by a scene in which Jesus dines with tax collectors, and Mark sets this scene in “his house,” i.e. Levi’s house. In Matthew’s Gospel, the same scene follows the narrative of the call of Matthew, but the scene is set in “the house,” indicating that the author of the Gospel of Matthew has appropriated Mark’s story of the call of Levi, making it a story of Matthew’s call instead, but has not continued the appropriation by setting the following scene in Matthew’s house. He has appropriated only as much as Mark’s story of Levi as he needed. If this is the case, then it has a significant implication, which is that the author of the Gospel of Matthew intended to associate his Gospel with the apostle Matthew but was not himself Matthew. Matthew himself could have described his own call without adapting the story of the call of Levi in Mark.


[Bauckham spends little time in this book discussing the origin of the Gospel of Matthew. There is a widespread tradition in the church beginning in the early second century that the apostle Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew which was later translated into Greek. The problem is that no scholar finds internal evidence that our Gospel of Matthew is a translation rather than an original compilation in Greek. Moreover, the references to a “Hebrew Gospel” in the tradition are very confusing since sometimes the document which is cited by a writer is the Gospel according to the Hebrews, sometimes the Gospel of the Ebionites, and sometimes the Gospel of the Nazarenes, with scholars divided over whether the last two are really two different books! All we have are fragments of these books in citations from later church leaders who had these Gospels in their libraries. It is plausible that the early tradition is correct in preserving a memory that the apostle Matthew did compose a written document in Hebrew, but it was likely not a real Gospel but only a compilation of sayings of Jesus. This may well have been the special M material so rich in teaching material by Jesus that is employed by the real author of the Gospel of Matthew, whose Gospel is called the Gospel of Matthew because it has an association with the special testimony of the apostle Matthew. This would mean that the Gospel of Matthew does preserve eyewitness testimony which may have come from the apostle for which it is named early. Bauckham devotes his attention to the other three Gospels, and he will show that Mark is based upon Peter’s preaching in Rome, that John is written by the Beloved Disciple of Jesus who was not a member of the Twelve, and that Luke gathered eyewitness testimony especially from Jesus’ women disciples and used the best practices of ancient historiography as he states in the prologue of his Gospel.]


6. Eyewitnesses “from the Beginning”


If the Gospels embody eyewitness testimony, then some of the witnesses must have been able to testify the whole course of Jesus’ story from John the Baptist to the resurrection. (The infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke are prologues to the story as is John’s poem on the Logos.)


There is an important reference to the scope of the story of Jesus In Acts 1:21-22, which discusses the replacement of Judas Iscariot to make up the number of the Twelve and which states that a candidate must have accompanied the Twelve “during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us--one of these must become a witness with us  to his resurrection.” This qualification was necessary for the role of the Twelve to be eyewitnesses and guarantors of the Jesus tradition. Two names were proposed, but there were more disciples who met this qualification.


Later in Acts 10:36-42, Peter preaches a summary of the gospel story with the same parameters, saying “That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced....” Significantly “beginning” occurs again, here referring to the message of Jesus. Luke uses the same word to draw attention to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (3:23; 23:5; Acts 1:1).


There is a parallel to this Lukan usage in John 15:26-27, when Jesus promises to send the Advocate, for “you are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” Both Luke and John agree that the qualification to be witnesses to Jesus is to have been with Jesus “from the beginning.” In John, “witness’ is not the calling of all Christian believers, but the specific task of the personal disciples of Jesus. This statement in John may refer back to John 2:11, which speaks of Jesus’ first miracle at Cana of Galilee, “the first of his signs” being literally “beginning of signs” in Greek.


The question is whether the Gospels themselves show indications of embodying the testimony of disciples who fulfilled this maximum qualification of being with Jesus from the beginning.


In Luke’s preface (1:1-4), he speaks of writing down an orderly account of the events “just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” The word “eyewitnesses” (autoptai) does not have a forensic meaning as English readers might expect, but it means the firsthand observers of the events.


Based on studies of Greco-Roman sources (which Bauckham discusses in detail but is omitted here), the phrase “from the beginning” carries the historiographic meaning of people who witnessed firsthand the events of Luke’s gospel story. This does not apply to the infancy narratives in Luke, which set the stage for the gospel story, and so Luke is not claiming that the eyewitnesses include the characters in his infancy narratives.


Luke’s full phrase, “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” almost certainly refers to one group, not two groups. It is assumed that the eyewitnesses became ministers at a later stage. This corresponds to Acts 1:21-22, i.e. eyewitnesses were qualified to be servants of the word (terminology Luke applies to the Twelve in Acts 6:4). Luke does not limit this group to the Twelve although he includes them prominently within it.


When Luke speaks of “after investigating everything carefully from the very first” (NRSV), he uses a verb that does not mean here “investigate,” but “to follow with the mind.” So Luke is saying that he has thoroughly understood everything that the eyewitnesses have passed on to him.


In the rest of this chapter, Bauckham discusses how Mark, John, and Luke employ a literary device called the inclusio (hereafter not italicized) in order to indicate the qualification of their eyewitness sources to provide testimony about the story of Jesus from the beginning.


The inclusio of eyewitness testimony in Mark.


The first disciple named in Mark is Peter (or Simon as he called until Jesus nicknames him in 3:16). See Mark 1:16-18. Notice the emphasis on Simon’s name:  he could be called “Simon and his brother Andrew,” but Mark says Jesus “saw Simon and Simon’s brother Andrew.” Mark does say “James and John the brother of James” later on. Mark does use repetition of the first brother’s name in other places, but it is possible that here he is giving emphasis to Simon Peter.


Since in Mark all the male disciples abandon Jesus at Gethsemane except for Peter who goes on to deny Jesus, none of the male disciples are witnesses after Jesus is taken to Pilate. Nevertheless, Peter’s name is stated again right at the end of the Gospel when the women at the empty tomb are told to go tell Jesus’ “disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” The surprising mention of Peter, who is after all one of the “disciples,” points ahead to a resurrection appearance to Peter personally (attested in I Corinthians 15:3 and Luke 24:34). In other words, the naming of Peter here is to place him at the end of the story just as he is placed at the beginning. This indicates that the naming of Peter at the beginning and the end of Mark is an inclusio that suggests that Peter is the witness whose testimony includes the whole of Mark’s gospel tradition.


That there is such an inclusio is coherent with the the evidence (produced in a table) of the remarkable frequency with which Peter’s name occurs in Mark. It is higher proportionately in Mark than in Matthew or Luke. Counting Simon, Peter’s name appears twenty six times in Mark compared to twenty nine times in the much longer Gospel of Matthew and thirty times in the much longer Gospel of Luke. John has Simon twenty four times and Peter thirty four times, but he uses “Simon Peter” seventeen times which are counted in the number of uses of Simon and Peter in John’s Gospel (Mark never uses “Simon Peter” and Matthew and Luke use it once each). Counting Simon Peter only once, John has the highest frequency of references to Peter (once for each 393 words) and Mark the second highest (once for each 423 words) with Matthew in third place (once for each 654 words) and Luke last (once for each 670 words). Nevertheless, if one takes into account the brevity of Mark’s Gospel, the overall conclusion is that, as a particular text, Mark’s Gospel has the highest frequency of reference to Peter among all the Gospels. What is noteworthy is that Mark mentions Peter by name proportionately more frequently than Matthew, who shows a special interest in Peter. Peter is actually present through a large proportion of Mark’s narrative from 1:16 to 14:72 (the exceptions being 6:14-29, 10:35-40, 14:1-2, 10-11, 55-65).


Confirmation that the name of Peter is used as an inclusio in Mark is confirmed by Luke. Luke, in his use of Mark, has not preserved the two Markan references to Peter in their Markan location. He narrates Peter’s call later in his Gospel (Luke 5:1-11) after Peter has already appeared in his narrative (Luke 4:38). Nevertheless, Luke insures that Peter is the first disciple to be individually named. Likewise, he follows Mark’s emphatic reiteration of Peter’s name. Moreover, near the end of his Gospel, Luke describes the two disciples return from Emmaus to Jerusalem where the others tell them, “The Lord is risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” This reference makes Simon the last personal name other than Jesus and Moses to appear in Luke’s Gospel. In imitating Mark’s inclusio, Luke has acknowledged the extent to which his own Gospel is indebted to the Petrine testimony he recognized in Mark.


The inclusio of eyewitness testimony in John.


In Bauckham’s opinion, John knew Mark’s Gospel and expected many of his readers to know it ( a subject Bauckham explores in an essay published elsewhere). But this is not the same as claiming Mark as a source.


It is intriguing to observe what in John corresponds to Mark’s references to Peter at the beginning and the end of Mark’s Gospel. In John, the first disciples of Jesus are two who remain anonymous until one of them is named Andrew (1:40). But Andrew’s companion is not, as we might expect, his brother Peter, for Andrew subsequently goes to find his brother and introduces him to Jesus. For readers of Mark, it seems that John displaces Peter from the priority he has in Mark, not only by Andrew but also by the other unnamed disciple. This unnamed disciple has often been thought to be the disciple John elsewhere calls “the disciple Jesus loved.” That disciple is never named in John, and he could not yet be described as “the disciple Jesus loved” on first acquaintance with Jesus. There is an argument for identifying this anonymous disciple in chapter one with the Beloved Disciple (a modern moniker to paraphrase “the disciple Jesus loved”). The Beloved Disciple is portrayed as the ideal witness to Jesus, but, if that is so, then he must embody the qualification of a disciple who has been with Jesus “from the beginning” (John 15:27). In line with this principle, this disciple does indeed appear at the beginning, modestly in that he is hardly noticed but rather immodestly in that he replaces Peter from absolute priority.


Also notice that of the two disciples at the beginning, the narrative states, “Jesus turned and saw them following.” At the end of the Gospel of John, the Beloved Disciple’s presence is indicated thus:  “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following” (21:20). In both cases the “following” of Jesus is literal but also symbolic. Moreover, the first words spoken to Jesus by the two disciples are, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” At the end of the Gospel, in reply to Peter’s question about the Beloved Disciple, Jesus says, “if I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you?” (21:22). This saying is repeated in the next verse as the last words of Jesus in the Gospel. It is the same Greek word group for “staying” and “remaining” at the beginning and the end of the Gospel.


There is a kind of rivalry between Peter and the Beloved Disciple after the Beloved Disciple reappears in 13:23. For example, the two race to the tomb of Jesus; the Beloved Disciple arrives first, but he does not go into the tomb. Peter is the first to enter the tomb, but it is the Beloved Disciple who understands the significance of what they saw. He, not Peter, “saw and believed” (20:3-8). This is a friendly rivalry not designed to denigrate Peter but to single out the Beloved Disciple as especially qualified to be a witness to Jesus. In John’s Gospel, Peter is to be the chief shepherd of Jesus’ sheep and even to lay down his life for Jesus, but the Beloved Disciple has a different role, for he is to be the ideal witness, the especially perceptive witness. This is the claim to be heard when Mark’s Gospel was known to embody the witness of Peter as the leader of the Twelve. But, John’s Gospel implies that Peter has not said the last word about Jesus or the most perceptive word. The Beloved Disciple, relatively unknown as he was in the church at large, has his own witness to bear. His association with Jesus should require a hearing for this witness. So, he appears, not only rather unobtrusively ahead of Peter at the beginning of the story, but also with Peter at the end, and is the one about whom Jesus speaks his last words in the Gospel. He is not in fact to remain until the parousia; he is, it seems, to survive Peter because his role is that of the witness who remains and bears his witness after Peter. From the unobtrusiveness of the beginning, he emerges at the end as “the disciple who is witnessing to these things has written them” (21:24). The identity of this author (as John the Elder) is discussed in a later chapter.


John’s Gospel uses the inclusio of eyewitness testimony in order to privilege the witness of the Beloved Disciple, which this Gospel embodies. It does so, however, not by ignoring the Petrine inclusion of Mark’s Gospel, but by enclosing a Petrine inclusio within its inclusio of the Beloved Disciple. Peter’s importance is stressed at the beginning by Jesus’ bestowal of his nickname, and it is highly stressed at the end by Jesus’ designating him as the leader of the church and a martyr. This reinforces the significance of the Petrine inclusio. The proximity of end of the inclusio of the Beloved Disciple to the end of the Petrine inclusio functions to indicate that this Gospel’s distinctive contribution derives not from Peter’s testimony but from the Beloved Disciple’s witness. But, at the same time, it acknowledges the importance of Peter’s testimony as it appears in Mark’s Gospel.


Luke’s inclusio of the women.


A distinctive feature of Luke’s Gospel is his emphasis on a much wider group of itinerant disciples than the Twelve (:17; 8:1-3; 10:1-20; 19:37; 23:49; 24:9, 33; Acts 1:15, 21-23). Luke rarely refers to the Twelve in material not in Mark. This is remarkable in light of Luke’s strong emphasis on the role of the Twelve in the early chapters of Acts. Most striking is Luke’s introduction of three women along with many unnamed women disciples at an early point of the Galilean ministry (8:2-3). Mark 15:40 indicates that the women at the cross had followed Jesus in Galilee, and Matthew 27: 55-5 says they followed Jesus to Jerusalem from Galilee. But Luke is unique in referring to the women already in his account of the Galilean ministry. Luke gives the names of two who appear only in his Gospel--Joanna and Susanna. His account of the empty tomb has two angels telling the women “remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee...,” taking for granted that the women had been in the audience of Jesus’ private teaching to his disciples (9:18, 43).


The full significance of these ways Luke has made the women a part of his whole story of Jesus emerges from one further feature. Luke first refers to the women at 8:2-3. He does not name them when he refers to their presence at the cross. Instead, he reserves that information until the end of his story of the women’s visit to the empty tomb (24:10). These two passages (8:1-3 and 24:10) form a literary inclusio bracketing all but the earliest part of Jesus’ ministry. In Luke, the women may not quite match the qualification of male disciples who had followed Jesus from the time of John the Baptist and who witnessed the resurrection, but they come close to doing so. As already said, Luke follows Mark by making an inclusio of the Petrine testimony but he has also placed another inclusio, namely that of the women. This indicates that Luke owed some of his special tradition to one (most likely Joanna) or more than one of the women. [Bauckham explores this more in his book Gospel Women:  Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).]


So three of the Gospels work deliberately with 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. These three Gospels all use the literary device of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony in order to indicate the main eyewitness source of their story. This does not exclude appropriation of material from other sources from other eyewitnesses. Matthew’s Gospel differs and is not concerned to claim the authority of any specific eyewitnesses.


The rest of this chapter is an intensive explication of the use of the inclusio device in Greco-Roman literature, particularly Lucian’s Alexander, or the False Prophet and Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus. The latter is interesting since it has an inclusio within an inclusio similar to John’s Gospel. It is possible that Porphyry, a neo-Platonic philosopher who was very knowledgeable about Christianity, modeled his work on John’s literary technique, which would mean that he recognized this feature in John’s Gospel. At any rate, these two works confirm the inclusio as a biographical literary device.


Scholars have often supposed that the Gospel writers cannot have attached much importance to eyewitness testimony since they do not indicate the sources of the traditions they use. However, the appearance of names in the Gospels are likely indications of the eyewitnesses to the stories in which their names appear. The list of the Twelve indicates that there was an official body of witnesses from the beginning who were guarantors of the whole story. And, three of the Gospels employ the literary device of the inclusio. The Gospels have their own literary ways of indicating their eyewitness sources. If it is asked why these are not more obvious, we should note that ancient readers would have expected them to have eyewitness sources, and those readers would have been alert to the indications that the Gospels actually provide.


7. The Petrine Perspective in the Gospel of Mark


We have already observed that, as a brief text with many references to Peter, Mark has a higher frequency of reference to Peter than the other Gospels and that Mark uses the literary device of the inclusio to indicate that Peter is the primary source of Mark’s traditions about Jesus. In this chapter, we shall explore further internal evidence in Mark that Peter has a special connection to this Gospel.


There are twenty-one passages in Mark in which a plural verb (or more than one plural verb), without an explicit subject, is used to describe the movement of Jesus and his disciples, followed by a singular verb or pronoun referring to Jesus alone. We may call this “the plural-to-singular narrative device.”  Bauckham provides a table of occurrences of this device. An example is 5:1-2, “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat....”


Usually the verbs in these passages are verbs of movement to describe the movement of Jesus and his disciples from place to place.


In some cases, Matthew and Luke have no parallel to the Markan practice. In cases where there is a parallel, Matthew retains the plural in nine instances and Luke retains it only two instances. On six occasions Matthew has a singular verb referring to Jesus alone where Mark has the plural, and Luke has a singular verb on six occasions (but not all the same as those in Matthew). Thus Matthew and Luke have a clear tendency to prefer a singular verb to Mark’s plurals encompassing both Jesus and the disciples. Also, it is striking that no less than eleven of Mark’s twenty one instances of this narrative feature there is a variant reading in manuscripts that offers a singular verb in place of the plural; the plural verbs are more likely original to Mark since they are the hardest reading and they are consistent with the Markan style throughout the Gospel. Also, there are three cases where Matthew contains Mark’s plural and two in Luke where there are variant readings in Matthew and Luke offering the singular. (Luke does have two instances of the plural-to-singular narrative device in passages where there is no Markan parallel, bringing the total instances of the device in Luke from two to four. In one of these cases, there is a variant reading as singular. Interesting as these independent Lukan instances of the feature are, they do not alter the overall picture of the plural-to-singular narrative device as overwhelmingly Markan.)


The “they” are discerned by the context of Mark. In all cases, it is clear that “they” comprise Jesus along with some of his disciples. In a few cases, the disciples are named, usually the inner circle of Peter, James, and John (and sometimes also Andrew). In other cases, it is clear that “they” include the Twelve. In the remaining cases, it is likely that “they” means the Twelve on the supposition that Mark tends to focus exclusively on the Twelve although occasionally elsewhere in his Gospel he does allude to other disciples of Jesus.


The plural-to-singular device does not appear in all Markan passages that describe Jesus’ movement. There are two broad categories. One is when the disciples are mentioned as accompanying Jesus but not included in the generalized way that the plural-to-singular device enables. The other is when Jesus alone is mentioned as moving. There are about twelve instances of both categories compared to twenty-one in which the device is employed. In most cases, it is possible to discern why Mark uses the device, e.g. to distinguish the disciples from the crowd while indicating that both the disciples and the crowd were with Jesus.


The plural-to-singular narrative device is the characteristically Markan way of describing Jesus’ arrival to a new place--a way of speaking that the other two Synoptic evangelists and also the scribes who copied the Gospels did not find natural in many cases.


The most obvious explanation for these passages in which there is the plural-to-singular narrative device is that we have before us the experience of a disciple who tells the story from the point of view of an eyewitness and a companion, who puts himself in the same group as the Master. It would be natural to read Mark 5:1-2 as follows:  “We came to the other side of the seas, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat....”


It is also relevant to observe that Mark uses this device on the first and the last occasions Jesus goes anywhere with a group of disciples (1:21; 14:32). Though used sporadically in the intervening narrative rather than at every point, the device seems to be used very deliberately by Mark to make the perspective it gives to his readers the predominant, if not the only, one throughout the Gospel’s story of Jesus’ ministry. This is similar to the inclusio design formed by the references to Peter at the beginning and the end of the Gospel. The first reference to Peter (1:16) is followed very soon by the first use of the device (1:21), and the next pair of references to Peter coincide with the second occurrence of the device (1:29-30). The last use of the device is the last time the Twelve are together and with Jesus (14:32), but references to Peter follow thick and fast for a while (14:33, 37, 54, 66, 67, 70, 72). In the story of Peter’s denials (14:66-72), the perspective among the Twelve can be understood as having narrowed to Peter’s sole perspective. Bauckham produces a table to show how there is special emphasis on Peter in the earliest uses of the device and the final uses of it. Uses of the device also cluster around the mid-point in the narrative (8:22-9:33). It is likely that these two features of the device (at the beginning and end, and at the mid-point) are closely related, suggesting that the perspective is not simply from within the company of Jesus’ disciples, but more precisely from within the inner group of Jesus’ closest disciples. In other words, the references to Peter in these passages is more explicable if these represent the perspective of the inner group.


Literary-critical analysis of Mark as a narrative indicates that the author has an “omniscient” viewpoint by which the author provides the overall ideological perspective on the whole story. However, there is also a place for “internal focalization” within the narrative by which readers are able to view the scene from the vantage point of a character within the story. The plural-to-singular narrative device meets the test for “internal focalization” so that it is possible to rewrite the relevant passages, substituting first-person forms for the third-person references.


It might be possible to explain these passages as relics of the way Peter told his stories orally. However, it is not necessary to posit an oral background for this device. Given that Mark uses the inclusio, it is likely that the device is a deliberate literary way for Mark to indicate that Peter is a source for his Gospel. It enables readers to share the eyewitness perspective on events that Peter’s testimony embodied. The omniscient role of the author means that the perspective of Peter and the inner circle is not the only perspective in the Gospel, but it is the dominant internal focalization within the Gospel. The device enables Mark to give to the readers of his Gospel as a literary text the “we perspective” from which Peter normally told his stories.


There are four pericopes introduced by the narrative device in which Peter appears as a character (1:29-31; 11:19-25; 14:26-31, 32-42). There are eight other pericopes in which the narrative device is not used but Peter appears (1:16-20, 35-39: 5:35-37; 8:27-30, 31-33; 9:2-8; 10:23-31; 14:[54], 66-72). (In 16:1-8 Peter is named but does not appear.) Do these other pericopes also give us a Petrine perspective on events?


Most studies of Mark state that Peter appears, not in his own right, but as a representative of the disciples. However, it would be more accurate to say that, within the narrative world of the Gospel, Peter intentionally acts as a spokesman for the other disciples, and, that in relation to the reader of the Gospel, Peter represents the disciples. In the latter sense, Peter is merely the typical disciple whom the evangelist chooses to name, e.g. 14:37-38, where Jesus first addresses Peter but continues with a plural address to all three of the inner circle in Gethsemane.


The notion that Peter also functions as the spokesman for the disciples deserves more careful scrutiny. Peter is usually understood to be the spokesman for the group at Caesarea Philippi in 8:27-33, but his role is probably better described as that of “opinion leader.” Likewise, Peter’s role is more that of an “opinion former” than spokesman in 14:27-31, where Peter reacts to Jesus’ prediction of his disciples’ desertion. There is just one case where it is clear that Peter acts as a spokesman for the group:  in 10:28 he speaks in first person plural representing all of the disciples. Upon careful examination, we would have to conclude that most of the times when Peter is said to act as the “spokesman” for the disciples are really instances when he is distinguished as an individual disciple.


Certainly Peter is indeed portrayed as a typical disciple. Indeed, once once is Peter addressed by Jesus as purely an individual (the prediction of his denials, 14:30).


The conclusion of a careful examination of the pericopes involving Peter is that Peter is always aligned with the other disciples, whether as giving a lead or being typical. Peter does have much more individuality than any of the other disciples, but it is an individuality that always emerges within the context of the group of disciples.


This is a significant conclusion because it coheres with the plural-to-singular narrative device. That device functions to give readers a perspective on events from within the circle of the disciples, sometimes from that of the Twelve and sometimes that of the inner circle. It is Peter’s “we” perspective rather than Peter’s “I” perspective. In Mark, Peter is distinguished from the other disciples only at the same time he is identified with them.


Moreover, in the pericopes in which the plural-to-singular narrative device is not used, but Peter appears, the character of Peter functions narratologically as a further means of focalization for the reader of the Gospel. The device gives readers a perspective on events from within the group of disciples. But when Peter takes a role as an individual in a scene, readers are given more specifically Peter’s perspective on events:  they see not only Jesus but also the other disciples from Peter’s point of view.


The portrayal of the male disciples in Mark’s Gospel revolves around two themes--understanding/misunderstanding and loyalty/apostasy. In 8:27-9:13, Peter surpasses the disciples in both understanding and misunderstanding. From the last supper to Peter’s denials, Peter is typical of the disciples in his failure, but he surpasses the others in the manner of his failure. The message at the empty tomb (16;7) points to a reunion of the disciples with Jesus when they will discover Jesus’ true identity and be forgiven, but none needs forgiveness more than Peter and so he is singled out by name. Peter is the first and last of the disciples, not only as the one named first and last in the Gospel, but also in being foremost in understanding and loyalty while failing the most miserably and blatantly in both. The main roles Peter plays in the narrative are integral to the two main interrelated concerns of the Gospel of Mark:  the nature of Jesus’ identity and the nature of discipleship.


So then, what accounts for Peter’s prominence in Mark--the way in which the narrator gives to the readers either Peter’s “we perspective” or Peter’s “I perspective” when he acts as an individual in the story? The internal evidence of the Gospel is that it is at least consistent with the hypothesis that Mark’s main source was the body of traditions first formulated in Jerusalem by the Twelve, but that he knew this body of traditions in the form in which Peter related them.


The objection that we would have more personal reminiscences by Peter if Peter were the main source of Mark’s Gospel is not as strong as it seems:  we should not expect an aged apostle reminiscing expansively in autobiographical mode, but an apostle fulfilling his commission to preach the gospel and to teach believers, relating the traditions he has been recounting throughout his life as an apostle in the forms in which he had cast the memories of the Twelve and himself for ease of teaching and communication. Moreover, we cannot neglect the role of Mark’s own composition. Mark has been very selective in choosing material for his short Gospel. It is hardly conceivable that Mark knew no traditions of the sayings of Jesus except those he includes, especially when he emphasizes how Jesus was a teacher. We cannot know what interesting memories of Peter Mark has left aside in a narrative that is so strongly focused on certain definite concepts.


How is Peter portrayed in the Gospels?


Ancient Mediterranean society was more group-oriented than individualistic. Naturally, Jesus’ disciples would have understood themselves and were understood as members of a group. Yet Peter does stand out as an individual within the group. In ancient literature, most individuals are distinguished by their actions, and this is true of the Gospel’s portrayal of Peter. He is portrayed by his actions as being a man of initiative and self-confidence who speaks out when others do not, sometimes impulsively although he means well. He shows courage in his loyalty to Jesus, but his fear and loyalty are at odds in his motivation. At the end, his loyalty and love for Jesus are regained as he expresses emotional remorse. Peter is not a static character, but one who acquires fresh perspective in a life-changing experience.


Readers of the Gospel might be repulsed by Peter’s negative attitudes and actions, but this repulsion is forestalled by the steps Mark takes to reestablish their sympathy for Peter. This nuanced approach enables readers to sympathize with Peter and to identify with him.


A remarkable feature of this characterization of Peter is that it remains constant through all four Gospels. Petrine material in the other Gospels that is not parallel to Mark’s displays the same character traits. Is this to be explained by the impact of the historical Peter preserved in various traditions independently? Or by the influence of Mark’s portrayal of Peter?


It has long been debated whether Mark’s predominantly negative portrayal of Peter could plausibly derive from Peter’s own self-depiction. In other words, Peter could have ill-afforded to weaken his position by passing on stories that put him in such a bad light. But there are three comments to be made. First, Peter seems to be a figure held in respect across all the various currents in the life of the church. Galatians 2:11-14 depicts a single instance in which Paul thought Peter acted in an unprincipled way, but elsewhere Paul speaks of Peter only with respect. Second, if the story of Peter’s denials has a historical basis, then Peter must be the one who told it. Third, that this Markan narrative of Peter’s denials is a rare case of a story that all four Gospels include suggests that it could not have been generally viewed as merely denigrating Peter. The scholarly debate has focused too much on the negative aspects without attending to the transformative character of Peter’s experience. Peter’s extreme remorse would be understood as a purgation and way toward a more adequate faith. Only by failing as a disciple could Peter come to understand the necessity of the Messiah to take the way of the cross. Peter’s story is somewhat comparable to Paul’s own story of having persecuted the church before he was called to be an apostle.


The conclusion is that Mark’s Gospel--not only by its use of the inclusio--tells the story predominantly from Peter’s perspective. Mark’s telling is no mere transcript of Peter’s teaching or an undesigned survival of the way Peter told his stories. Yet Mark has designed his Gospel in a way that incorporates and conveys the Petrine perspective.


8. Anonymous Persons in Mark’s Passion Narrative


It is assumed that Mark’s passion narrative is based upon an already existing telling of a sequence of events preserved in either an oral or written form, especially chapters 11 and 14-16.


Gerd Theissen argues that various features of Mark’s passion narrative reflect the situation of the Jerusalem church in or around the decade of A.D. 40-50. Some of these features concern named and unnamed persons in the narrative. We shall focus on his argument about anonymous persons.


The assumption of this book is that the presence of anonymous characters is quite normal in the Gospels. However, there are characters, especially in Mark 14, whose anonymity is a little strange.


Theissen focuses on two anonymous characters in Mark 14--the one who cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave and the young man who fled naked. It is not clear whether either of these is a disciple of Jesus.


It would seem that the one who cut off the slave’s ear was a disciple; it is hardly likely that a member of the arresting party would attack one in his own group! Yet Mark’s description is very odd--”one of those who stood near.” Matthew and Luke try to clarify it:  Matthew says, “one of those with Jesus,” and Luke says, “one of them,” meaning the disciples.


Matthew and Luke entirely omit the other anonymous person--the young man who flees naked. This story in Mark is not only generally puzzling, but it also does not make clear whether or not this young man was a follower of Jesus.


Theissen proposes a solution according to the principle of “protective anonymity.” Both of these anonymous characters has run afoul of the “police.” Cutting off someone’s ear is no minor offense and could have resulted in a fatality. The anonymous young man was also guilty of offering resistance:  in the struggle his clothes are torn off, and he has to flee naked. Both of these were in danger for a good while. As long as the high priest’s slave was alive, it would be inopportune to mention the name of the one who cut him. Moreover, the young man would have been in danger as one resisting capture by the guard. Only in Jerusalem was there a reason to draw a cloak of anonymity over followers of Jesus who had endangered themselves by their actions. This means that the passion narrative would have been composed within the generation of the eyewitnesses and their contemporaries, sometime between A.D. 30 and 60.


Also, it is interesting that Mark does not give the name of the high priest--Caiaphas. All the other Gospels (except Luke) name him. Caiaphas was son-in-law of Annas, whose family held the office almost continuously down to A.D. 42. It was this family that followed up its action against Jesus by persecuting Jesus’ followers. Annas’ son Ananus II was responsible for the execution of James, Jesus’ brother, in A.D. 62. The power of this family and their hostility to Christians would have made it diplomatic for traditions formed in Jerusalem in that period not to refer explicitly to the name of Caiaphas in the account of the death of Jesus. Pilate, on the other hand, lost office in A.D. 37, and there was no reason not to name him as the official blamed for Jesus’ death.


Now we shall take Theissen’s suggestions for anonymity further than he did.


Note the two strange stories in Mark’s passion narrative in which Jesus sends disciples to fetch a colt and to prepare a Passover meal. Obviously, Jesus had prearranged for these things. But there needs to be an explanation for “bystanders” (14:47) allowing two perfect strangers to walk off with a colt simply on the words of Jesus that tells them to say. These words must be a kind of “password” that Jesus has already arranged. How do the “bystanders” know the password? Matthew abbreviates drastically, adapting Jesus’ words and recording no detail of the way the disciples carried them out. Luke substitutes “owners” of the colt for Mark’s “some of the bystanders.” This is what we would expect Mark to have said.


While Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a colt is less explicitly messianic in Mark than in the other Gospels, it is still clear Mark presents this as Jesus’ public proclamation of his messiahship. The owners of the cold could be seen as complicit in a politically subversive act. Mark protects the owners by speaking of “bystanders” since he recognized that from this point on Jesus enters a danger zone in which he must employ caution and subterfuge.


The other story is equally strange. The man with a water jar is a prearranged sign since usually women carry water jars. But why doesn’t Jesus just tell the disciples to go to the house of a named person and to go there secretly? This is more or less the way Matthew tells it:  “Go into the city of a certain man (“so-and-so”) and say to him, ‘The Teacher says....’ “ Jesus names somebody, but Matthew does not tell the name because he did not know it. In Matthew, Jesus behaves as we would have expected. Why the more roundabout way of Mark? Probably because Jesus knows what the disciples do not know, that Judas is going to betray him to the high priests, and to keep the place secret from Judas he must keep it secret from the others. So the two disciples do not know the location until they get to it with Jesus and the others. Jesus knows he will be arrested, but he wants to make sure he can celebrate the last meal with the Twelve.


In accordance with the general anonymity of people in the Gospels, it is not necessary that all these persons be named. However, it is a possibility that they are unnamed in these cases to protect their identities during the time when the tradition was formulated in Jerusalem.


A more important example is the woman who anoints Jesus. She is not specified by Mark even though what she has done is going to be told in remembrance of her wherever the gospel is preached! The solution is “protective anonymity.” At the time this tradition was formulated in Jerusalem, this woman would have been in danger as having been complicit in Jesus’ politically subversive claim to messianic kingship. Her danger was the greatest because she had anointed Jesus as Messiah. It is possible she planned this act with others to encourage Jesus to take the messianic role. It would be unusual for a woman to do the anointing unless she was seen in the role of a prophet.


Also, the downplaying of the explicit messianic claims of Jesus in Mark is possibly a means of protecting the whole community in Jerusalem in the time this narrative was being formed. The atmosphere of danger and precaution that pervades Mark 11 and 14 characterized both the situation of Jesus and that of his followers in Jerusalem afterwards.


Several anonymous characters in Mark are named in John’s Gospel. The man who wields the sword is Peter, the slave is Malchus, and the woman who anoints is Mary, sister of Martha and brother of Lazarus.


The naming of these characters serves specific purposes in John.


Naming Peter fits John’s characterization of Peter as impetuous.


The slave is called “the servant of the high priest” in all four Gospels; this may mean either that he was in charge of the arresting party or that he was an influential person who carried a grudge for the unsolved crime against him. John’s Gospel was written after Peter was dead, and so Peter no longer needed the cloak of anonymity. Moreover, uniquely in John, this servant is named again when Peter denies Jesus a third time--no doubt to underscore that Peter is afraid of not only being a disciple but also of being identified as the one who cut off Malchus’ ear. Note that it was not possible for Mark to mention the connection between the slave and Peter’s denial without blowing Peter’s cover. John is free to mention Malchus’ name at a later time in order to highlight the danger that Peter was in because of his assault on a well-known and probably influential person.


John identifies the woman who anoints Jesus as Mary, the sister of Martha and the brother of Lazarus. If John’s identification is correct, it has an important possible consequence for the writing of Mark’s Gospel. The person in Mark’s Gospel who would have needed “protective anonymity” even more than Mary was her brother Lazarus. John says the chief priests wanted to put Lazarus to death as well (John 12:10). Lazarus could be protected in the early Jerusalem church by not being mentioned in any public telling of the story of Jesus. The strongest objection to the historicity of John’s story of Jesus raising Lazarus is that it does not appear in the Synoptics. If John is correct that the raising of Lazarus was a key event leading to Jesus’ death, the absence of this story in Mark could be part of the strategy of providing “protective anonymity” by the Jerusalem church. Moreover, John’s chronology of the events of the passion is historically plausible, and he narrates the anointing before Jesus enters Jerusalem, which makes more sense since Jesus would announce his messiahship after being anointed. John’s overall chronology indicates that he had independent access to the facts of all these politically charged events, and generally his reliability would sustain his account of the story of Lazarus, whose absence in Mark could be explained by the motive of “protective anonymity” at the time his narrative was shaped in the Jerusalem church.


Once again we may look at the story of the young man fleeing naked. The story can only have come from the young man himself. First of all, it should be noted that ancient cloaks were sleeveless rectangles of cloth draped around the body without any belt. Any sudden violent action would almost guarantee that the cloak would be thrown off. So there is no need for symbolic explanation for the story that the young man lost his cloak.


Modern scholars often think that the young man is John Mark, who paints a small picture of himself in the corner of his work or is like the fleeting image of Alfred Hitchcock in some of his films.


But if “protective anonymity” is the reason for not naming this man, it seems quite redundant to suppose that he is John Mark’s anonymous presentation of himself. Besides, Papias claims Mark was not a disciple of Jesus. Some scholars think the young man was Lazarus; the story fits the assertion of John’s Gospel that Lazarus was a wanted man, although the speculation that he was wearing his “shroud” is unnecessary speculation. But it is possible that the pre-Markan narrative, unable to tell the story of Lazarus in order to protect him, acknowledges his importance by giving him this brief, anonymous appearance in Gethsemane. Unfortunately, there is no way to know for sure who he was.


Barbara Saunderson says the young man is the eyewitness source of both his flight and of the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, only a wooden interpretation of Mark’s Gospel would say that the disciples were not awake enough in the garden to overhear the general tenor of Jesus’ prayers. Her suggestion could be correct, but it is impossible to be very confident about it.



9. Papias on Mark and Matthew


Previously we examined an excerpt from the prologue of Papias’ Exposition of the Logia of the Lord in order to show how he relied on eyewitness testimony in order to obtain knowledge of the sayings and stories of Jesus. Since the time when he was obtaining eyewitness testimony was about the time that Matthew, Mark, and John were written, Papias’ method probably was similar to the method used by the evangelists in their research on the sayings and stories of Jesus. Now we shall examine other excerpts in the same prologue of Papias’ book in which he comments about the written Gospels he knew, specifically Mark and Matthew. Papias attributes his information to “the Elder,” probably John the Elder, the long-lived disciple of Jesus to whom Papias refers in the excerpt previously examined. It is not clear if Papias’ comment about Matthew is from John the Elder, but the way in which Eusebius (the fourth century church historian who quotes Papias) introduces Papias’ comment on Matthew suggests that Papias’ view of Matthew is derived from the Elder just as his comment on Mark is derived from the Elder.


Eusebius’ introduction and Papias’ comments are as follows.


We must now add to his [Papias’] statements quoted above a tradition about Mark, who wrote the Gospel, which has been set forth in these words:  “The Elder used to say:  Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he [Peter] recalled from memory--though not in an ordered form--of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he [Mark] neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him, but later, as I said, [he heard and accompanied] Peter, who used to give his teachings in the form of chreiai, but had no intention of providing an ordered arrangement of the logia of the Lord. Consequently Mark did nothing wrong when he wrote down some individual items just he [Peter] related them from memory. For he made it his one concern not to omit anything he had heard or to falsify anything.”


This, then, is the account given by Papias about Mark. But about Matthew, the following was said:  “Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.”


Papias claims to offer, not his own opinion about the origin of Mark, but what “the Elder used to say.” This could hardly be later than A.D. 100, and so this is evidence from a relatively early date from someone who was in a good position to know how Mark was related to the oral teaching of Peter. Of course, we cannot suppose that Papias quotes the Elder verbatim; indeed, he remarks that this is what the Elder “used to say,” and so it is likely that Papias offers a paraphrase of what he remembered the Elder to have said. Since Papias elsewhere quotes I Peter 5:13 in support of the idea that Mark based his Gospel on Peter’s testimony, many scholars have questioned the value of Papias’ claims about the origin of Mark. But it is more likely that Papias only cites I Peter in corroboration of what he had learned from the Elder. If Papias had really based his theory of the origin of Mark on I Peter rather than on the Elder’s statements, he would have ascribed his information to the esteemed apostle Peter himself rather than to a comparatively superfluous middleman like John the Elder.


There are questions about what Papias really meant. First, what does it mean to say that Mark was “Peter’s interpreter?” Does he mean that Mark translated Peter’s words from one language to another or that he made an explanation and exposition of what Peter said? Peter was likely bilingual; yet he may have preferred to teach in Aramaic and have his words translated into Greek by someone who spoke Greek more fluently. It is not likely Mark translated Peter’s words in Latin since Greek was widely spoken in Rome. Most likely Papias means that Mark translated Peter when he put Peter’s words in writing. Peter may have spoken either in Aramaic or in his rough Greek, but, even if he had communicated orally in Greek, he would want and need Mark to be his interpreter in Greek when his testimony was written down. If this is Papias’ meaning, then we should not assume that Mark acted as Peter’s translator when Peter was preaching and then later, on his own, recalled as best he could what Peter had said; rather, we may envision Peter and Mark sitting down together to make a written record of the tradition about Jesus as Peter was in the habit of reciting. There must have been several occasions when this was done, and Mark, not Peter, was responsible for the order of the compilation.


The comment that Mark did not omit or falsify anything Peter said is a stock phrase from ancient literature, especially historiography. The cliche is used by Papias to underscore his intention to portray Mark as a writer who puts his readers directly in touch with Peter’s oral teaching.


The verb apomnemoneuo is “to recall from memory,” and it is used to describe how “[Peter] recalled from memory” (Peter’s name does not appear in the text, but it is the implied subject). This is the verb form of a noun which means “memoirs” or “reminiscences.” This noun was often in titles of works, such as Xenophon’s “Memoirs” of Socrates. Justin Martyr describes the Gospel of Mark as the “memoirs” of Peter. It is likely that in Papias’ time the term was already in use to describe Mark as Peter’s recollections of Jesus, and Papias’ expression probably influenced Justin when he was writing in the middle of the second century (although Justin did not agree with Papias that Mark did not put these “memoirs” in order).


In the translation above, Bauckham preserved the Greek term logia in the quotation from Papias about both Mark and Matthew. The context of Papias’ comment about Mark suggests that logia does not mean “sayings” of the Lord, but something like “short reports” of what the Lord said and did, i.e. logia is parallel to the earlier phrase, “”the things either said or done by the Lord.”


The word chreiai to describe the form of Peter’s teaching used to be translated as “according to needs” so that what Papias means is that Peter “adapted his teaching as needed.” This translation would be in accord with the hypothesis of form criticism that Gospel traditions were transmitted orally in contexts (Sitze im Leben) in the life of the church in which they were put to use and were shaped or even created to meet the needs of such contexts. But this old translation has now been largely abandoned in favor of the view that Papias used chreiai as a rhetorical term to describe the form in which Peter delivered his teaching about Jesus. The term comes from ancient handbooks of rhetoric. Since Papias uses rhetorical terms elsewhere in his writing, it seems likely that chreiai here represents another technical term. One famous handbook defines a chreiai as “a concise and pointed account of something said or done, attributed to some particular person.” This definition does indeed correspond to the short units of which Mark’s narrative is composed. Perhaps the English term “anecdote” is a reasonable equivalent of chreiai. It is most likely that Peter delivered many of the chreiai in a form developed by his oral rehearsing of the words and deeds of Jesus, and that Mark preserved Peter’s forms in his Gospel.


Papias claims that Mark did not set down Peter’s teaching in order (taxis). Papias’ opinion is that Mark faithfully recorded everything Peter related, but he did not write a real history; instead, Mark produced a haphazard collection of chreiai comparable to the notes from which historians proceeded to do their real work. As Papias says, Mark “had no intention of providing an ordered arrangement of the logia of the Lord.” The Greek for “ordered arrangement” is syntaxis. Bauckham discusses how taxis and syntaxis were rhetorical terms, and what they meant during Papias’ era, citing examples from Greco-Roman literature. The conclusion is that Papias’ comments on Mark do not refer to chronological sequence as such, but to the orderly arrangement of material in a literary composition. However, this conclusion does not mean that Papias thought that Mark’s material may have been in proper chronological order; since he states Mark was not a disciple, clearly he is suggesting that Mark’s record of Peter’s memoirs were not set down in chronological order. Nevertheless, the main point that Papias is making is that he thought that Mark’s Gospel lacked the kind of aesthetic arrangement (taxis, syntaxis) characteristic of best practices in historiography. Papias thought that an evangelist who was an eyewitness would have put his account in chronological order in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement, but, since Mark himself was not an eyewitness, he failed to provide the best one could expect but nevertheless his Gospel has great value because at least it was a faithful record of Peter’s eyewitness testimony.


Papias also has a comment on Matthew. Unfortunately, Eusebius evidently omits Papias’ comments between what he quotes about Mark and what he quotes about Matthew since the sentence about Matthew begins with the word “therefore.”


Bauckham discusses a novel interpretation by Kuerzinger of this quotation from Papias about Matthew. Kuerzinger renders it as follows:  “Now Matthew put the logia into literary form in a Hebrew style. Each of them [i.e. Mark and Matthew] conveyed the logia as he was in a position to do.” According to this interpretation, Papias is not claiming that Matthew was originally a Hebrew text subsequently translated into Greek, but it was a Greek text written in a style characteristic of Jewish literature; and also Papias is not claiming that various people translated a Hebrew text of Matthew as best they could, but Papias is summing up his whole discussion of both Mark and Matthew by saying that both Mark and Matthew conveyed the logia of Jesus as each was in a position to do. Kuerzinger’s interpretation is quite appealing as it fits contemporary assessments of Matthew as a Gospel that was originally composed in Greek for a Jewish Christian audience. Unfortunately, Bauckham cannot agree with Kuerzinger’s interpretation because he concludes that Papias really does mean that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew and that others translated it into Greek. Bauckham thinks Papias is claiming that Matthew was the apostle who was an eyewitness and therefore able to provide a chronological arrangement of the sayings and deeds of Jesus, but his translators spoiled his work when they translated it into Greek.


Apparently Papias thought that there had been more than one translation of Matthew’s original work, and that these translations exhibited major divergences from the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Quite possibly, Papias continued to say more explicitly (in a section omitted by Eusebius) that the work by the eyewitness Matthew had suffered in translation (but Eusebius did not agree with Papias and therefore excised this statement from his quotation from Papias). Of course, such a view given by Papias means that a “translated” work was no mere translation, but a heavy editing of the text of the original Hebrew text of Matthew. The notion of a flexible “translation” was common in the ancient world, e. g. Josephus’ “translation” of the Hebrew scriptures he gives in his Antiquities of the Jews involved extensively rewriting, rearranging, omissions, and additions. It is Bauckham’s opinion that Papias is referring to our canonical Gospel of Matthew in Greek as one of the Greek translations of an original Hebrew text (others could be the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazarenes or Gospel of the Ebionites), and that the reason he thinks our Matthew lacked proper order is because it is composed of the same kinds of chreiai or short units found in the Gospel of Mark. Even though our Matthew has birth stories and therefore is more like an ancient biography, it still is mainly a compilation of sayings of Jesus and therefore it did not measure up to Papias’ expectation of real history just as Mark’s Gospel did not measure up to a real history.


[Bauckham does not accept the view that the original Hebrew version of Matthew was a version of Q since Q was merely a collection of sayings and Bauckham has already interpreted logia as being both sayings and stories about Jesus. Even if Bauckham is correct in his interpretation of Papias (meaning that Papias thought that the original Hebrew Gospel was a proper chronology of Jesus’ life), then, apart from Papias’ opinion that the original Hebrew Gospel was a proper chronology of Jesus’ life, there is the still the question of the identity of the so-called original Hebrew Gospel of the apostle Matthew--an issue Bauckham does not address; it may be that there was a Hebrew “Gospel” composed by the apostle, but that it mainly consisted of sayings of Jesus which are used by the author of our canonical Gospel of Matthew as his special source (M). The idea that there was a “Gospel” composed in Hebrew by the apostle Matthew is firmly fixed in ancient Christian tradition, and it is asserted by Jerome (an erudite scholar of the fourth century who was proficient in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and who had an extensive library). Whether or not there was such a thing or whether the purported Hebrew version of a “Gospel” by Matthew was really one of the apocryphal Gospels we know only by fragmentary excerpts is a conundrum for contemporary scholars. If there were such a Hebrew “Gospel” that did come from Matthew either it is entirely lost or, more likely, it was not a true “Gospel” but a compilation of sayings which very well could be the M source for our Gospel according to Matthew. When Papias says that the original Gospel of Matthew was in chronological order, he is definitely talking about more than a compilation of sayings, but had Papias actually seen this Gospel or is he just citing a tradition about the origin of the Gospel of Matthew and he himself was familiar only with our canonical Greek Gospel of Matthew and probably the apocryphal Gospels we know by the excerpts quoted by ancient Christian writers? it could be that Papias had not seen the so-called original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, but he only knows of the tradition (presumably from the Elder) that it had existed. What is important to Bauckham is that Bauckham is assuming that Papias’ criticism of the Greek “translations” of the Gospel of Matthew includes our canonical Gospel, which Papias thinks is similar to the Gospel of Mark in that it is not in the chronological order Papias expects of a real history of Jesus’ life. In other words, what interests Bauckham is not so much the issue of whether or not there was an original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, but the criticism that Papias makes of the Greek versions of the Gospel of Matthew, which would include our canonical Gospel according to Matthew.]


It is Bauckham’s judgment that the point Papias is really making in his comments about Mark and Matthew is that both of these Gospels are lacking in “order” in comparison to the Gospel of John. There is no doubt that Papias knew the Gospel of John since his list of the disciples is Johannine and he uses Johannine language elsewhere in the excerpts from his writing. Also, Irenaeus likely is quoting from Papias when Irenaeus includes a sentence from the Gospel of John. As we shall explain later in the book, Papias believes that the Gospel of John was written by John the Elder, the disciple of Jesus who was not a member of the Twelve and who was a primary source for Papias’ collection of the logia of the Lord. The reason that there is no reference to the Gospel of John in the statements of Papias which are quoted by Eusebius is because Eusebius omitted Papias’ references to John in his carefully selected excerpts from Papias because Eusebius does not like Papias’ view that the Gospel of John was written by John the Elder; instead, Eusebius’ own purpose was to claim that the four Gospels were all written by apostles and therefore he proposes that the Gospel of John came from the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, rather than from the lesser known disciple, John the Elder. [Bauckham discusses the issue of Eusebius’ handling of Papias’ material concerning the Gospel of John in an appendix to chapter 16 of this book.] According to Bauckham, the only reason that Papias thought that the Gospels of Mark and Matthew both lacked the kind of order to be expected of a work deriving from an eyewitness is because he knew another Gospel, whose chronological sequence differed significantly from Mark’s and Matthew’s and whose “order” Papia preferred.


The Gospel of John does offer a far more precise chronological structure than any of the Synoptic Gospels, never leaving the reader in serious doubt as to the period of Jesus’ carefully dated ministry in which a particular event occurred. It lacks the disjointed structure characteristic of the Synoptics, which consist of the accumulation of short units. The Gospel of John is much closer to the ideal of good historiography that Papias preferred and that he found in secular histories and biographies. Moreover, the Gospel of John was written by an actual eyewitness, John the Elder, “the disciple of the Lord.”


Since Papias’ comments about the Gospels of Mark and Matthew are attributed by him to “the Elder,” it is likely that these comments are basically a paraphrase of the explanation by John the Elder about how his Gospel, the Gospel of John, differs from the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, i.e. his Gospel is directly eyewitness testimony and is written in an orderly chronological and literary form.


Is Mark’s Gospel really not in order, as Papias claims? It is certainly true that the Gospel is largely composed of discrete narrative units which are often linked by no more than the conjunction “and’ (kai). Nevertheless, there are topical collections and elements of plot development with references back and forth within the narrative and occasional uses of time and place to structure the narrative, not to mention the use of the literary device of the inclusio and the famous “sandwich” technique by which Mark encloses one episode within two parts of another episode. The conclusion is that Papias is mistaken in his judgment that Mark did no more than to record the chreia as Peter related them. If Mark is compared with Greek and Roman biographies he is about midway between those (like Plutarch’s Lives) which flow as elegant and continuous wholes and those (like Lucian’s Demonax) which consist of a collection of anecdotes strung together with no biographical structure. What is most important is that Mark does structure his narrative in a way that is characteristic of oral composition. Mark works well as oral literature, which consists of happenings that can be easily visualized and remembered. It consists of short episodes that accumulate rather than follow a climatic linear plot. Rather than linear plot development, the structure consists of repetitive patterns, series of three parallel episodes, concentric structures, and chiastic structures--all characteristic of oral literature, helping the performer and the audience to remember and transmit the material. Indeed, there is no reason why Mark could not have been composed and transmitted in oral form. [Bauckham acknowledges that the passion narrative in Mark was most likely based upon an early formulation in the church of Jerusalem, but it may be Peter’s version of the official eyewitness testimony of the Twelve.]


The reason why Papias does not appreciate Mark’s “order” is because Papias has literary preoccupations, and he would not have recognized the oral methods of structuring a narrative as really being an “order.” So, Papias exaggerates Mark’s lack of order. However, Papias may have felt another concern. Papias was explaining the differences between John’s Gospel and Mark’s Gospel in a way that favored John’s “order’ without denigrating Mark’s Gospel (which he valued for its collection of Peter’s eyewitness memory). But if Papias recognized Mark’s structured narrative, he would either have to attribute the “order” in Mark to Peter (and thus acknowledge a serious conflict between two eyewitnesses, John the Elder and Peter) or he would have to blame Mark for providing an order he was not qualified to construct since he was not an eyewitness (as John the Elder was). Papias’ solution to the problem of the differences between Mark (and the Greek version of Matthew) and John was based on his own view of the historian’s task (which we examined in an earlier chapter). On the one hand, Papias held that the best sources of a historian were oral, but, on the other hand, Papias held that gathering these oral sources was no more than the historian’s first step in writing history. Mark was right to limit himself to gathering the eyewitness testimony of Peter since Mark himself was not qualified to go beyond this task. Mark’s Gospel has great value because it preserves the Petrine testimony. But John was competent to put the material in proper order because he was an eyewitness, and he has done so in a way that conforms to the best historiographical practices by shaping his material into a continuous literary whole with precise chronological and geographical precision and a developing plot that builds to a climax.


[Papias’ comments extracted by Eusebius preserve an important early perspective on the origin of the Gospel of Mark. He has little to say about the Gospel of Matthew except that he views the Greek versions of Matthew, including the canonical Gospel, as sharing the same literary characteristic of Mark of being deficient in “order” according to Papias’ literary presuppositions. His claim that Matthew was originally composed in the Hebrew language presents the tradition also repeated by other ancient Christian writers, but contemporary scholarship lacks enough documentary sources to evaluate this tradition since there is no extant Hebrew version of Matthew nor anything other than fragments of noncanonical Greek Gospels that are similar to texts in the canonical Greek Gospel of Matthew. It seems that the full text of Papias’ work from which Eusebius makes judicious extracts most likely was a discussion of the comparison of Mark and Matthew (perhaps along with other “Matthews”) with the Gospel of John. Papias’ own views of historiography compelled him to evaluate Mark and Matthew less highly than the Gospel of John. Moreover, Papias would have had a preference for the Gospel of John since  most likely it was written by John the Elder who resided in the same region (the province of Asia) where Papias lived and who was highly esteemed by Papias and others in that region as a disciple of Jesus and eyewitness as well as an authoritative teacher in that region of the church. Yet in making this comparison, Papias does preserve for us a tradition that is attributed to John the Elder that the Gospel of Mark is based upon the preaching of Peter in Rome--a tradition that is consistent with internal evidence in the Gospel of Mark itself. John the Elder’s evaluation of Mark’s Gospel as the testimony of Peter is also consistent with the inclusio of Peter’s testimony within the inclusio of the Beloved Disciple’s testimony in the Gospel of John on the assumption that the Gospel of John was written with Mark’s Gospel in view as the embodiment of the Petrine version of the official testimony of the Twelve.]


10. Models of Oral Tradition


The thesis of this book--that the texts of the Gospels are close to the eyewitness reports of the words and deeds of Jesus--runs counter to almost all recent New Testament scholarship. Support for our case requires us to range widely. We shall restrict our discussion to the Synoptic Gospels since John is a special case to be studied in chapters 14-16. Chapters 10-13 will discuss studies which can support the thesis of this book. This chapter focuses on three main models of oral tradition associated with the names of Rudolf Bultmann, Birger Gerhardsson, and Kenneth Bailey.


The dominant scholarly picture of the transmission of the Jesus tradition is Formgeschichte, usually translated as “form criticism.” [See the discussion of form criticism at the beginning of this essay.]


Virtually every element of the conception of transmission of the Jesus tradition by form criticism has been questioned and rejected by some or even most scholars today. Most of these criticisms are based upon much better and fuller information that is now available about the way traditions operate in predominantly oral societies.


Bultmann assumed that the traditions originated in pure form, but there is no reason why they should not have existed from the beginning in modified or mixed forms. The fact that so few of the pericopes actually conform to the ideal types indicates that a more nuanced approach to form is required.


More importantly, there is no strict correlation between a form and a Sitz im Leben. The same traditions often perform several different functions in different contexts, while a variety of forms can be utilized in the same context.


More generally, the assumption of perfect correspondence between traditions and their use to the society that transmits them was exaggerated by the form critics. Historical information can be preserved even when it corresponds to no clear function in the community.


There are no laws of tradition operating consistently throughout the gospel traditions.


[Bauckham’s citations of the scholarly analyses for the above four critiques of form criticism are important, but they are not included here.]


These four points effectively demolish the whole edifice of tradition history erected on the basis of form criticism. Form criticism, it turns out, can only deal with matters of form and cannot function to determine the origins or relative ages of traditions. But there is more.


The assumption of form critics that gospel traditions can be compared to folklore--freely altered and created in transmission--can be questioned. The time span between Jesus and the Gospels is much shorter than the periods of time spanned by the traditions studied by folklorists. Moreover, the nature of the traditions is very different.


Folklorists themselves have abandoned the “romantic” idea of the folk as collectively the creator of folk traditions in favor of recognizing the roles of authoritative individuals in interaction with the community.


The form critics worked with a preconceived notion of the development of early Christianity, for example, Bultmann’s emphasis on the sharp differences between Palestinian and Hellenistic communities.


That the gospel traditions were transmitted purely orally for several decades was assumed by the form critics rather than demonstrated. The world of early Christian communities was predominantly oral, but one in which written texts had a place--an issue to be explored briefly in the next chapter.


Bultmann has been criticized for using a literary model for understanding the process of oral transmission, e.g. Bultmann’s notion that the tradition about Jesus is composed of a series of “layers” so that he could strip off the Hellenistic layers to expose the earlier Palestinian layers. This whole image is drawn from the literary process of editing, but is not appropriate to a process of oral retellings of traditional material. We should think of each performance of an oral tradition as differing from others, but not in a way that “builds on” others. With oral tradition there is no linear development, layer on layer. The kind of tradition history Bultmann thought could be reconstructed did not exist.


There is no reason to believe that the oral transmission of Jesus traditions in the early church was at all as Bultmann and the form critics envisioned. Nevertheless, there is a hangover from form criticism in that it has bequeathed an unexamined impression that many scholars and even more students still entertain, namely that there was a long period of creative development of the traditions before they attained written form in the Gospels. The retention of this impression is not defensible, for the arguments of the form critics no longer hold water.


The Swedish scholar Birger Gerhardsson proposed a radical alternative to form criticism in the early 1960’s. He provided a major study of oral transmission in rabbinic Judaism and argued that early Christianity adopted the same methods and practices. The disciples of the rabbis were expected to memorize their masters’ teaching and to preserve their exact words. The Twelve would have functioned as a kind of rabbinate formulating, controlling, and passing on the Jesus tradition.


Gerhardsson allowed for some development and changes, such as can be seen in rabbinic literature, but the changes were made by the authorized controllers of the tradition and therefore was relatively restricted. Quite apart from their use, the traditions were handed down in a channel of transmission that was independent of other practices and functions.


Gerhardsson published his work at a time when New Testament scholars were becoming aware of the pitfalls of using rabbinic traditions as evidence for Judaism prior to A.D. 70, and so he was accused of anachronism in taking the practices of later rabbinic tradition as a model for understanding early Christianity.


Most scholars were not convinced by his work mainly because the model of memorization and transmission of exact words is too rigid to explain the actual extent of variation in the Jesus traditions we observe in the Gospels and because there is insufficient evidence to support his view that he apostolic college in Jerusalem functioned to control the tradition in such an extensive manner.


Moreover, like the form critics, Gerhardsson assumed the Jesus tradition was purely oral and made no use of writing. For example, Qumran was a highly literary community. However, Gerhardsson did postulate that, just as private notebooks were used by rabbis and their pupils as aids to memory, small collections of sayings and stories of Jesus could have been made in notebooks, preparing the way for fuller collections in the Gospels.


In the early 1990’s Kenneth Bailey, a New Testament scholar who has worked for more than thirty years in the Middle East, published an important article, “Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels” (Asia Journal of Theology 5, 1991, 34-51). Bailey drew on his own experience of living in villages in the Middle East.


Bailey defines three types of oral transmission:  informal uncontrolled tradition; informal controlled tradition; and formal controlled tradition.


The first is the model Bultmann and the form critics used:  there is a tradition stemming from Jesus, but it faded out and the community was not interested in preserving it, and it was developed informally with no identifiable teacher or structure in place for handing it on. This kind of informal uncontrolled tradition does exist today in the Middle East as rumour transmission, e.g. a story of three people killed in a bread line in front of a bakery by a random shell quickly becomes a story of 300 massacred in cold blood as it is told by angry compatriots of the victims. This is the model modern western people envisage when they assume oral tradition must be highly unreliable.


The third type is the kind of model Gerhardsson envisioned. His view is formal in that there is a clearly identified teacher, Jesus, and a clearly identified block of traditional material. It is controlled in that the material is memorized and identified as “tradition” and preserved intact. This type also still exists in the Middle East, e.g. the memorization of the entire Qur’an by Muslim sheiks and the memorization of liturgies by Eastern Orthodox Christians.


The second type--informal controlled tradition--still exists in the Middle East. Villagers gather in the evening for the tellling of stories and recitation of poetry (haflat samar is the name of these gatherings and samar means “to preserve”). The community is preserving its store of tradition. The older men tend to do the reciting. There is no official storyteller and many can participate, but there are limits on who can do so:  a storyteller must have grown up in the village and known the village’s traditions all his life. In this model it is the community that exercises control. Proverbs and poems are reproduced verbatim, but some flexibility is allowed for parables and historical accounts. What is important is that, while there is a balance of continuity and flexibility, the story cannot change into another story, but its basic features are fixed.


James Dunn has adopted Bailey’s second model as the most appropriate for understanding the gospel tradition in the early church. It provides a middle way between Bultmann and Gerhardsson. Neither a totally uncontrolled nor a totally rigid process of transmission explains the evidence for the gospel traditions as we have them. However there is a serious problem with Dunn’s adoption of Bailey’s model of informal controlled traditions. Dunn assumes the balance between stability and flexibility is a function of the informality of this traditioning process, that is, the fact that it is the community that exercises control rather than official storytellers. However, there are two different questions: who does the controlling, and how is the control exercised? There is no reason why Bailey’s account of the balance of stability and flexibility should not be applicable to a formal controlled tradition as well as to an informal controlled tradition. In many oral societies, the control of the tradition is not left informally to the community, but is entrusted to particular individuals charged with the responsibility for guarding the tradition. One does not have to adopt Gerhardsson’s very rigid conception of a formal controlled tradition in perceiving how the early church had a formal way of controlling the transmission of the traditions of the whole community by granting an important role to the eyewitnesses.


Bailey’s own view is that up until the upheaval of the Jewish-Roman war, an informal controlled oral tradition was able to function in the villages of Palestine where those who accepted the new rabbi as the expected Messiah would record and transmit data concerning him. Then in A.D. 70 many villages were destroyed and the people dispersed. However, thinks Bailey, it appears that the early church revised its methodology and required after A.D. 70 that only an eyewitness to Jesus could be qualified to be a teacher of the word so that not anyone who had just grown up hearing the tradition could be a teacher. So then, at least from A.D. 70 to the end of the first century, the tradition was guarded by eyewitnesses in a more formally controlled process.


Bailey’s account does fit with the theme of this book that some stories in the Gospels represent the eyewitness accounts of individuals who were involved in them. But Bailey does not distinguish between these minor witnesses and the eyewitnesses who were present “from the beginning” who could tell the whole story of Jesus. Moreover, his picture does not take into account the special authority of the mother church in Jerusalem, which included Peter and the Twelve as leaders and eyewitnesses “from the beginning.” They would have played an important role as authoritative guarantors of the tradition in ways that Bailey’s model does not recognize. Also, Bailey proposes that the war marked the end of the informal controlled tradition and the beginning of a time of more formal control by eyewitnesses. But this seems very late for the community to recognize the necessity and importance of eyewitnesses to transmit the authentic traditions about Jesus. It is much more plausible that eyewitnesses had exercised a controlling function in relation to the traditions from the start.


11. Transmitting the Jesus Traditions


This chapter explores the character of the transmission process of the Jesus traditions as a formal controlled tradition in which the eyewitnesses played an important part. Not only does it seem plausible that eyewitnesses played an important role in transmitting and guarding the traditions about Jesus, but also there is hard evidence that they did.


There is unequivocal evidence in the letters of Paul that the early church did practice the formal transmission of the traditions about Jesus. By “formal” we mean that there were specific practices employed to ensure that tradition was faithfully handed on from a qualified traditioner to others. In his letters written in the A.D. 50’s Paul uses technical terms that are characteristic of Hellenistic schools for handing on a tradition (paradidomi in I Corinthians 11:2, 23) and receiving a tradition (paralambano in I Corinthians 15:1,3; Galatians 1:9; Colossians 2:6; I Thessalonians 2:13, 4:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:6). Not only were these technical terms for the transmission of tradition employed in the Hellenistic schools, but also they correspond to Hebrew terms found in later rabbinic literature in Judaism. Paul also speaks of faithfully retaining or observing a tradition (katecho in I Corinthians 11:2; krateo in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, which is used of Jewish tradition in Mark 7:3, 4, 8), and also, of course, the term “tradition” itself (paradosis in I Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6 which is used of Jewish tradition in Matthew 15:2; Mark 7:5; Galatians 1:14; and Josephus, Antiquities 13. 297).


Paul uses this terminology to refer to a variety of traditions. These certainly include the tradition of the apostolic kerygma or message (I Corinthians 15:1-8), but they also include ethical instruction, instruction for the organization of the community and its worship, and Jesus traditions (I Corinthians 11:23-25). It is obvious Paul took over the technical terminology for tradition with which he was familiar as a Pharisaic teacher. There is also evidence of this terminology outside the Pauline letters to show that it was not peculiar to Paul (Jude 1:3; Luke 1:2; Acts 16:4; Didache 4:13; Barnabas 19:11). The terminology is of considerable importance, for to “hand on” a tradition is not just to tell it and to “receive” a tradition is not just to hear it; rather, handing on a tradition means that one hands over something to somebody so that the latter possesses it while receiving a tradition means that one receives something so that one possesses it. While this does not require verbatim memorization, it does entail some process of teaching and learning so that what is communicated will be retained. Moreover, it is also clear that the traditions Paul envisages require an authorized tradent to teach them, such as he considered himself to be. In one case, Paul makes clear his authority for transmitting at least some of the traditions was not his apostolic status as such, but the fact that he himself had received them from competent authorities (I Corinthians 15:3), and thus he places himself in a chain of transmission.


From whom did Paul receive traditions? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul alludes to his being traditioned by the Jerusalem apostles. In Galatians 1:18, he specifically says he visited Jerusalem following his call to be an apostle and spent two weeks with Peter, and he admits this even as he is trying to emphasize his independence as an apostle. Two weeks of conversation is a lot of conversation. As C.H. Dodd put it, “we may presume they did not spend all the time talking about the weather.” We should rather presume that Paul was becoming thoroughly informed of the Jesus traditions formulated by the Twelve by learning them from the leader of the Twelve (Paul also met James, the brother of Jesus, during this time). This is not inconsistent with Paul’s insistence that he did not receive the gospel from humans but through revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12). While he had already proclaimed the gospel, he lacked detail about the words and deeds of Jesus, and he may have come to realize this when he had preached in Nabatea (Arabia, 1:17). Allusions to the Jesus traditions in Paul’s letters are more numerous than some earlier scholars recognized.


The only time Paul cites a Jesus tradition at length is when he speaks of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in I Corinthians 11. His version is close to Luke’s, and it varies from Mark’s and Matthew’s generally in the same way that Luke’s varies from theirs. The closeness of Paul’s and Luke’s version indicates that Paul had a written version of the tradition Luke uses or that it was an oral version which Paul had carefully memorized. It is important to note that Paul cites the Jesus tradition, not a liturgical text, and in doing so provides our earliest evidence of narratives about Jesus transmitted in a way that involved, not wholly verbatim reproduction, but a considerable degree of precise memorization.


Paul’s claim to have received this tradition “from the Lord” should be compared with his allusions to specific saying of “the Lord” in I Corinthians 7:10-16 and 9:14. The former text is very illuminating because it shows that Paul gives his own instruction as having apostolic authority, but he clearly distinguishes what he says from the words of Jesus. This contradicts the idea of the form critics that new sayings of Jesus were created and attributed to him in the churches by prophets inspired by the risen Lord. [Bruce M. Metzger, a leading authority on the texts of the scriptures, observes that Paul’s letters, which were written at the time when many of the Gospel traditions were taking shape, abound in pithy sentences and spiritual insights that could easily have been transferred to Jesus and presented as oracles of the Lord. If it be asked how many times this has happened, the answer must be Not once!] Paul envisages a chain of transmission that begins from Jesus himself and passes through intermediaries to Paul himself, who passed them on to the Corinthians when he founded their church; and the intermediaries are surely the Jerusalem apostles whose tradition Paul received during his two weeks of conversation with Peter. It is inconceivable that Paul would have relied upon less direct access to the traditions.


We have considered from whom Paul received his traditions, but to whom did he hand them on? He never speaks of transmitting them to individuals who would then serve as guardians, but he speaks of handing them on to the whole community. So then, we may suppose that from then on it was the community as a whole that controlled the traditions perhaps in a way similar to the way Bailey describes the traditioning process in Palestinian villages. However, there were persons expressly designated as teachers in the Pauline churches (Romans 12:7; I Corinthians 12:28-29; Galatians 6:6; Ephesians 4:11) as in other parts of the early church (Acts 13:1; Hebrews 5:12; James 3:1; Didache 15:1-2). While in one sense Paul did transmit the traditions to each Christian community as a whole, in another sense he also transmitted them to a few designated persons in each community, persons with the gifts and skills necessary for preserving the traditions. So then we should probably envision a more formal process of preservation and transmission than Bailey’s model proposes. There were only two links in the chain of transmission between these teachers and Jesus himself--Paul and the Jerusalem apostles.


Paul provides ample evidence of the formal transmission of traditions within the early Christian movement and good evidence specifically for the formal transmission of traditions of the words and deeds of Jesus. Also we should remember that Paul did not work alone but with colleagues, some of whom had been prominent members of the Jerusalem church--Barnabas, Mark, and Silvanus (or Silas, as he is named in Acts). It may be that these colleagues took part in the traditioning of the churches founded by Paul (except in Corinth). Barnabas in particular may have helped Paul to enrich Paul’s own knowledge of Jesus’ life and ministry.


Whether a particular oral society actually takes the trouble to preserve particular traditions from major alterations depends on its attitude toward those traditions. Jan Vansina, in his authoritative study of oral tradition, says that there are no general rules; whether a society intends to preserve a tradition requires an investigation into each type of tradition it has and how it preserves it. Vansina says also that oral societies often distinguish between tales and historical accounts. Tales are viewed as fiction, and they change as they are incorporated, but historical accounts change less and more slowly than tales. In the case of historical accounts, Vansina says there is “substantial commonality in plot, setting, personages, and even succession of episodes,” and that “the time span of a tradition is important,” for if the time span is small, then “we can come close to the message told by contemporaries after eyewitness accounts have been conflated with rumor.” Here Vansina is describing the time of “oral history,” not that of “oral tradition,” according to his terminology, for “oral history” occurs when eyewitnesses are still available whereas “oral tradition” develops beyond the span of living memory. Yet we must note that even in the time of “oral history” as Vansina describes it, he is talking about a longer time span than that which existed between the events of Jesus’ history and Gospel accounts. Nevertheless, the important point for our discussion is that oral societies treat tales and historical accounts differently in that the latter are more faithfully preserved. This distinction between tales and historical accounts refutes all claims, from the form critics since, that early Christians would not have made a distinction between the past time of the history of Jesus and their own present because oral societies and their traditions do not make such distinctions. This is untrue. Moreover Vansina disputes the notion of some anthropologists that traditions change in correspondence to society and cannot correspond to a past reality. This is proved by the existence of archaisms, i.e. features of historical accounts that have been simply preserved and not adjusted to conform to present circumstances.


This knowledge about oral societies and the way they transmit their traditions is very important in studying the early church’s handling of the Jesus traditions. But, of course, the question is whether the early Christian communities did in fact distinguish between their needs and the historical traditions about Jesus. We need to establish the Christian movement’s attitude toward the past, especially the history of Jesus, and why it mattered to the early Christians. Vansina generalizes that “traditions about events are only kept because the events were thought to be important or significant,” and “a selection process is already underway, starting in fact with the eyewitnesses or contemporary reports.” This generalization only takes us so far. Beyond that it is a matter of the cultural particularities of a society, and this is especially the case when we are dealing with communities, like the early Christian movement, formed in the context of a culturally sophisticated society--one that has a written body of authoritative scripture and a rich heritage of traditions from the past as well as a tradition of serious historiography. It is when past history matters in a particular cultural context that historical accounts are preserved with a real intention and effort to ensure an important degree of stability and continuity.


The early Christians in fact had a genuine sense of the past as past and were concerned to preserve memories of the past history of Jesus. The Gospel writers were careful to make a distinction between Jesus’ past from their own present. This is evident from the way they were careful to not to use terminology appropriate to the Christian era to describe events that occurred beforehand so that idiom suits the time. Kerygmatic expressions of “faith” found outside of the Gospels were not projected back onto the narrative. A simple illustration is that the way in which the pre-Easter Jesus refers to himself as “Son of Man” in the Gospel narratives does not correspond to the ways in which the early Christians referred to him. Jesus calls himself “Son of Man” in Gospel stories, but this title is never used in the rest of the New Testament except once in Acts 7:56. [Bauckham cites scholarly works that demonstrate the evidence that the Gospels preserve a distinction between the past of Jesus and the time of the church when the Gospel writers lived.]


The early Christian movement was interested in the genuinely past history of Jesus because they regarded it as religiously relevant. Dunn suggests a sociological explanation:  the early Christians distinguished themselves from other groups by using terms to describe themselves in ways that referred to Jesus, e.g. Nazarenes or Christians, and therefore they needed a “foundation story” to explain to themselves and to others who they were. However, the early Christian were less concerned with self identity than with salvation even though the two are interrelated. Jesus was more than the founder of their movement; he was the source of salvation. Moreover, this salvation was understood within the thoroughly Jewish context as a fulfillment of the promises made by the God of Israel to his people Israel in the past. Jesus’ story was the decisive, eschatological chapter of this whole history, and the events of Jesus’ history were charged with all the history-making significance of the activity of Israel’s God. So then, it was at the deepest possible level that the early Christians were concerned with faithful preservation and transmission of the really past story of Jesus.


The simplest and most essential way the early Christian movement strove to preserve the traditions about Jesus was by transmitting the traditions for their own sake and in their own right, not as part of something else. The assumption of the form critics was that the church’s preaching and instruction of believers were contexts in which the Jesus traditions were passed on and provided the Sitz im Leben for which the “forms” were intended so that the constant development and expansion of the tradition were due to the fact that it was transmitted by means of its use. Gerhardsson argued, to the contrary, that the Jesus tradition was transmitted independently of its use as what he called an “isolated” tradition. The primary Sitz im Leben of the tradition was this transmission process itself. The evidence for this “isolated” tradition is in the passages in Paul’s letters in which he clearly distinguishes between Jesus’ teaching, e.g. his saying against divorce, and Paul’s own teaching. Besides, in early Christian instruction (in the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers), it is rare when any saying of Jesus is cited at all. Often allusions are made to the spirit of Jesus’ sayings. Obviously, there is no way that instruction of this kind could have preserved the Jesus tradition at all. Usually, readers are reminded of what they already know, signifying that there was a distinctive instruction in the words and deeds of Jesus that was distinguished from the preaching and instruction of believers in the early church. This is does not mean there was no adaptations of Jesus tradition to the early Christian communities, but whenever they occur they are moderate and do not reflect radical reshaping of the tradition.


The Gospels would be hard to explain unless the oral Jesus traditions before them were transmitted for their own sake. The Gospels themselves are “isolated.” They alone of early Christian literary productions transmit the traditions about Jesus, and they transmit exclusively traditions about Jesus. No other teachers (except John the Baptist) play any role. This is appropriate to their genre as (ancient) biographies, but biographies would hardly have been possible had the oral traditions not already had an existence independent of other forms of early Christian tradition.


Memorization was universal in education in the ancient world. It is often said also that in predominantly oral societies that the faculty of memory is better developed than in ours, but it would be better to say that people in oral societies take the trouble to remember and use techniques of memorization. Memory was not just a faculty; it was a skill.


It has often been observed that Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic forms has many features that facilitate remembering--terse aphorisms, a clear plotline in narrative parables, poetic parallelism, and even alliteration in Aramaic. Jesus did not formulate his teaching ad hoc, but it was carefully crafted so that people could remember and ponder it. Jesus must have taught more discursively, but offered these aphorisms and parables as brief, thought-provoking summaries that survived. It was these memorable summations that survived, and when the Gospel writers wanted to represent the discursive teaching of Jesus they mostly had to use collections of these sayings, e.g. the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. This kind of teaching was the teaching style of the Jewish wisdom teachers. To suppose that memorable sayings merely happened to stick in the memory, like politicians’ “sound bites,” is to mistake the undisciplined way oral dimensions of our culture are remembered for the cultural context of Jesus.


We should expect that Jesus’ aphorisms would be memorized word-for-word. But narrative parables would be memorized as a narrative pattern with just key words learned exactly. Exact wording would have been preserved more in the case of Jesus’ sayings than in the case of stories about him.


If it be objected that Jesus would have mentioned that his sayings should be memorized, but we have no report of this in the Gospels (unless Luke 9:44a applies--”Let these words sink into your ears...”), then we should understand that memorization was expected in Jesus’ culture. Moreover, Jesus sent out his disciples with the saying that “he who receives you receives me,” indicating that a formal transmission of Jesus’ teaching had already begun during Jesus’ ministry. Only after the resurrection, however, would the narrative traditions about Jesus have become more formal.


As noted in the criticism of Gerhardsson’s concept of the formal control of transmission of Jesus traditions by scrupulous memorization, there has to be an account for the actual variation that exist in the Jesus traditions as we have them in the Gospels. But, since the theory of the form critics do not hold water, there is no reason to postulate that the oral traditions once varied to a much greater extent than they do in the extant versions in the Gospels. There is no need to postulate extensive development of the traditions prior to the versions we have in the Gospels. The versions we have vary--no greater or no less--than the extent to which the traditions vary in oral performance. With this presupposition, we can explain the variability by five main factors. 1) Jesus himself used varying version of his own sayings on different occasions and sometimes the traditions have preserved these. 2) Some verbal differences will result from translation from Aramaic to Greek. 3) Many differences, especially in narrative, will be due to the variability normal in oral performance and to the degree considered appropriate for the type of material being transmitted. 4) Many differences, especially in the sayings, must be deliberate interpretative adaptations or additions by which a tradent sought to explain or adapt the teaching when the post-Easter situation seemed to require it. Such changes are compatible with a formal transmission process since it would be authorized tradents who would do this. Most of the redactional changes made by Gospel writers would represent this formal process. 5) There are changes the Gospel writers have made in order to integrate the traditions into the connective narrative of their Gospels, perhaps a continuation of what had been done in the making of earlier small collections of sayings or narratives.


Finally, it is possible that written records among Jesus’ disciples could well have circulated already during Jesus’ ministry--something consistent with the widespread presence of writing in Jewish Palestine at the time of Jesus. It was an oral society, but writing existed within it. Such writing would have been an aid to memorization and remembering. As earlier noted in the discussion of Gerhardsson’s theory of traditioning, the rabbis and their disciples used private notebooks to serve as aids to memory. 2 Timothy 4:13 refers to parchment notebooks Paul carried on his travels. The disciples of Jesus were drawn from all classes of people; undoubtedly some of them could write and more could read. Some of them would have been professional scribes and copyists. (Matthew the tax collector is a good candidate, and this may explain his role as one of the sources of the Gospel of Matthew.) We can be fairly confident, at least, that some quite sophisticated scribal activity, in the form of intensive work on expounding the biblical prophecies concerning Jesus, akin to the commentaries produced by the Qumran community, took place at a very early date, presumably in the Jerusalem church, for its influence can be seen throughout the New Testament writings. The first Christians were not all illiterate peasant laborers and craftsmen, as the form critics supposed, but evidently included people who studied the scriptures with exegetical skills and could write works with the literary quality of the letter of James. Leaders who were not literate could employ the skills of those who were. As Martin Hengel has proposed, it would have been in Jerusalem, where Greek-speaking Jews from the Diaspora became prominent in the Christian community, that Jesus traditions were first translated into Greek. In such a context, it seems unlikely that no one would have even noted down Jesus traditions in notebooks for private use of Christian teachers. Such notebooks would not be a wholly new factor in the process of transmission through memorization, but they would simply have reinforced the capacity of oral transmission itself. They should not be seen as proto-Gospels, but they may account for some of the so-called Q passages where Matthew and Luke are in almost entirely verbatim agreement. Whether or not writing served as a control before the writing of the Gospels, there is no doubt that writing came into its own in the composition of the Gospels as a means of ensuring the faithful transmission of the Jesus tradition.


12. Anonymous Tradition or Eyewitness Testimony


The proposal of this book is that there was a particular kind of formal control of tradition in early Christian communities exercised by teachers who were, in the first place, eyewitnesses whose students were community leaders authorized as tradents because they had learned the tradition from the eyewitnesses.


This proposal is contrary to the radical idea of the form critics and also that of more moderate scholars like James Dunn, who considers tradition formation as a relatively informal communal process in which there is a shared memory even though he acknowledges that eyewitnesses did play an important role in beginning stage of the formation of tradition.


The differences in these two proposals are bound up with sociological presuppositions. That is, one’s opinion of how tradition was formed in early Christian communities is influenced by the ideological debate over whether the memory of a community is primarily communal or individual. Scholars like Dunn may be influenced by Durkheimian sociological notions of “collective memory,” and they would view Bauckham’s proposal as individualistic. Bauckham’s reply to this charge is that his model does not reflect modern Western individualism just because a group had a role for designated individual teachers. Neither the early Christian communities in the first century nor Papias or Irenaeus in the second century had an individualistic cultural perspective. All the evidence indicates that the idea of transmission of tradition from a teacher through individually named disciples was commonplace in the second century among Hellenistic philosophical schools, Jewish rabbinic practices, and both orthodox and Gnostic Christian groups. Nowhere in early Christian communities do we find tradition attributed to the community as their source or transmitter; instead the community was the recipient of the tradition. What form criticism represents is a rather strange depersonalization of early Christianity that still exercises an unconscious influence on New Testament scholars.


It is a weakness of Bailey’s and Dunn’s models that they focus on the early transmission of Jesus traditions in Palestinian Jewish villages and ignore the Jerusalem church. Doubtless there were groups of disciples in villages as early as Jesus’ ministry, but after the resurrection the Jerusalem church became the mother church of the whole Christian movement under the leadership of the Twelve and later of James, the Lord’s brother. This was a natural development given the place of Jerusalem as the center of the Jewish world, not to mention the eschatological self-understanding of the Christian community as the place from which the word would go out to the ends of the earth. Even Paul, who was the apostle most independent of the mother church, in his own way recognized the centrality of the Jerusalem church (Galatians 2:1-10; Romans 15:19) as demonstrated in his collection of money for the Jerusalem community. The centrality of Jerusalem was not merely a theological tendency of Luke. Obviously Jerusalem must have played a key place in the formation and transmission of Jesus traditions as the lists of the Twelve as a body of official witnesses indicate. This formation involved not only the testimony of the Twelve but also that of other eyewitnesses whose testimony was approved by the Twelve. As the leader, Peter played an important role as Paul acknowledged by his visit with him in Jerusalem after he had received his call from the risen Jesus and had begun his ministry. There are a number of names of individual members of the Jerusalem church that appear in Acts as eyewitnesses--Peter, James, James and John the sons of Zebedee, the rest of the Twelve, Matthias, James the Lord’s brother and the other brothers of Jesus (Acts 1:14), Mary the mother of Jesus, Barnabas, Joseph Barsabbas, Mnason, and Silas (Silvanus). Others in this church who are not specified as eyewitnesses, but who may have been, are Agabus, Ananias and Sapphira, John Mark, Mary the mother of John Mark, Judas Barsabbas, Stephen, Philip the evangelist and the rest of the Seven, Philip’s daughters, and Rhoda. Paul himself occasionally mentions eyewitnesses from Jerusalem--Peter, John the son of Zebedee, the rest of the Twelve, James the Lord’s brother and the other brothers (I Corinthians 9:5), Barnabas, Andronicus and Junia, Silvanus, and Mark.


Twentieth century scholarship even assumed that the Gospels themselves were anonymous. It is true that the four Gospels are anonymous in that the names of the authors do not appear in the texts, but only in the titles of the Gospels, but this does not mean that they were intentionally anonymous. It was not unusual for ancient works to be anonymous formally as were the Gospels, e.g. Lucian’s Life of Demonax (in which Lucian speaks in first person singular in the text but does not include his own name in the text). Such works circulated first among acquaintances of the author who knew who he was, and then knowledge of authorship was passed on when copies were made with titles on the outside of the scroll or affixed by a label.


In the case of Luke, his Gospel is dedicated to Theophilus, who may have been a patron. It is inconceivable that a work with a named dedicatee would have been anonymous. Luke’s name may have been affixed in an original title, but in any case would have known by the dedicatee and other first readers. Of course, the attribution to Luke could be a mistake, but the point here is that the Gospel was not presented and received as anonymous in the beginning. In the case of John, the Beloved Disciple is presented as the author whose name the first readers must have known. In the case of Matthew the situation is more complex. The small detail that the apostle is called the tax collector cannot be unconnected with the fact that the title of the Gospel associates it with Matthew, indicating that in some way Matthew is viewed as a source. Since the apostle was not likely the author of the Gospel, the attribution to Matthew may be either a pseudepigraphal claim or a reflection that the apostle Matthew may have played a role in the genesis of the Gospel, but in either case the Gospel was not presented as the anonymous product of the community.


Throughout the early manuscript tradition from A.D. 200 on the only titles for the four Gospels are in the form of “Gospel according to _____” with the exception of two which have only “according to_____.” The longer form was likely the original with the meaning that this is the gospel according to ______. Each of these works presume the existence of other Gospel writings (not necessarily the other canonical ones). As churches acquired copies of Gospels, a title was necessary to distinguish one from another as they were placed side-by-side on a shelf. A short title was written on the outside of the scroll or on a tag that hung down from the shelf. A church that received a scroll would have been informed at least orally of the name of the author. No evidence exists that these Gospels were ever known by other names. It is likely that the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were associated with the four Gospels at an early stage since this is the only way they could have been distinguished from one another.


All the evidence suggests that as soon as the Gospels circulated around the churches they had the authors’ names attached to them even if the names were not in the texts. An important question is whether the Gospel writers present the traditions they preserve as derived from named eyewitnesses or as anonymous community tradition? We have already stated that the names of relatively minor characters indicate that traditions are derived from those persons and the carefully constructed lists of the Twelve indicate that they were the official body of eyewitnesses who formulated the whole story of Jesus. Moreover, there is the use of the literary device of the inclusio in Mark, Luke, and John. All this is evidence that the writers did indicate their eyewitness sources.


One argument in favor of the argument that eyewitnesses played a key role in the formation and transmission of tradition is the fact that the early Christian communities had a network of close communication. They constituted a “holy internet.” First or second hand contact would not have been unusual. Many Jewish Christians would have visited Jerusalem, Besides, individual eyewitnesses like Peter or Thomas would have had their own disciples who were familiar with their teacher’s testimony (the very situation described by Papias in his recollections dated around A.D. 80). Paul’s kerygmatic summary in I Corinthians 15:2-8 explicitly takes for granted the continuing accessibility and role of the eyewitnesses.


One reason the Gospels were written was to maintain this accessibility and function of the eyewitnesses beyond their lifetimes. They were circulated so that their testimony would remain permanent. The form critics saw the Gospels as folk literature more or less continuous with “oral tradition” formulated and transmitted anonymously. However, redaction and literary criticism has qualified the form critics’ view of the Gospels by stressing how far the Gospel writers themselves shaped the traditions they received. Redaction criticism was often carried to excess and made too much of the minor verbal and narrative differences among the Synoptics that may be better understood as the kind of variations typical of different oral performances. But it is still true that the Gospel writers were sophisticated authors who shaped their traditions into literary wholes with distinctive understandings of Jesus. It is unlikely that the traditions recounted by the eyewitnesses were able to do this. As Samuel Byrskog noted, the Gospel writers functioned like ancient biographers who acted very much like contemporary oral historians aiming to hear the living voices of those who were present at the events. In following the best practices of ancient historiography, the Gospel writers preserved the testimony of the eyewitnesses, being written over the period from the death of Peter to that of the Beloved Disciple, when the eyewitnesses were ceasing to become available.


We need to examine the notion of “collective memory” invoked by the form critics who were writing at the time when French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs invented the term “collective memory.” Contrary to Halbwachs we should distinguish three categories: 1) the social dimension of individual recollection; 2) the shared recollections of a group; and 3) collective memory so that genuine collective memory (the third category) is not confused with the first two categories.


To begin with, when a large group “commemorates” a notable event of the past, individuals with personal memories may participate in the commemoration and enrich it with their personal testimonies when the event is still within living memory. Unfortunately, most discussions of “collective memory” overlook the role of individuals in the commemoration. These individuals played their part as members of the society, but the social dimension of personal recollection does not at all contradict the individual’s sense of ownership of a recollection of what he or she experienced. This is what is meant by 1) the social dimension of individual recollection. It is important to note the role of individuals in the social commemoration of events which occurred within living memory.


2) The shared recollections of a group is a form of memory in which a group of people who have shared the same experiences share their recollections of those experiences, e.g. a family that shares its own group memories. A fund of memories common to each group develops to some extent out of the merging of individual recollections. Nevertheless, individuals continue to possess their own large memories and their own perspectives on events experienced by the group. It is important to note something usually overlooked in discussion of the shared recollections of a group. There is a difference between personal recollective memory, when the person remembering has the experience of “reliving” the recollected experience, and memory for information. For example, someone may know that she attended a wedding forty years ago but may have no recollection of it (but learns she was present from a diary or others’ memory); this is memory for information. But a personal “reliving” of the experience can only be had by the person who experienced the event that is recalled. When passed on to others, this personal “reliving” of an experience becomes information about what happened to the person who experienced it. Thus individual memory, shared with others, is a prime source of collective memory and can feed into the collective memory at any stage while the individuals in question are still alive and actively remembering their own past. Individual recollection (what Vansina calls a source of “oral history”) has a time limit--the lifetime of the individual-- whereas the genuine collective memory (what Vansina calls “oral tradition”) does not.


3) Collective memory in the proper sense should refer only to the traditions of a group about events not personally recollected by any of the group’s memories.


In the case of Christian traditions about Jesus, the period when the eyewitnesses were alive and accessible would have formed a transition from individual and shared memories to purely collective memory. Groups of Christians who were not eyewitnesses appropriated as their traditions the testimonies of the eyewitnesses, which came to them either as the testimony of the individuals or as the shared memories of a group, notably the Twelve. As this happened, the traditions continued to be ascribed to the eyewitnesses who had formulated these traditions from their own recollections. The communities did not simply take them over as anonymous traditions which could now be ascribed only to the community, but continued to know them as owned by the eyewitnesses who originated them. The term “collective memory” should not be allowed to obscure this. As the written record of the individual and shared memories of the eyewitnesses, the Gospels came to form the church’s collective memory of Jesus thereafter.


The three distinctions we have made should warn us against too unreflectively applying to the Jesus traditions in the New Testament period what sociologists and historians say about “collective memory.” The uses to which scholars in fields such as cultural history put the concept of “collective memory” do not usually make it relevant, or of interest, to consider the personal recollections of individuals for their purposes in their disciplines. In our discussion of the transmission of gospel traditions, we must recognize that the recollections of individuals may help to form collective memory, but they are not the same as collective memory. In the particular case of early Christianity, the recollections of individuals was of decisive importance as the personal recollection of individuals.


We must note that the concept of “collective memory” advocated by Durkheim and Halbwachs has been closely related to the tendency to absorb memory into its present usefulness to the group, e.g. the form critics’ assumption that anonymous early Christian communities changed their Jesus traditions to suit the present needs of those communities. This notion constitutes a “presentist” approach to collective memory by which the past is molded to suit present dominant ideology. But some social scientists now argue for the existence of “popular memory” from below or from the bottom up which can resist the control of the dominant power and ideology. Therefore, it is better to conceive of a “dynamics of memory” in group life whereby there is a limit to the powers of actors in the present to remake the past according to their own interests. In this ongoing process of negotiation with the past, the past has a voice that has to be heard.


One of the roles of eyewitnesses in earliest Christianity was to articulate this voice of the past in a social context in which the group was strongly committed to hearing the past’s own voice, not for the past’s own sake, but in order to understand the relationship of the group’s present to the decisive events that constituted, for this group, not only the basis of its identity, but also God’s acts for the salvation of the world. They preserved the “isolated” nature of gospel tradition that represented a resistance of memory to complete absorption into its present uses.


The Gospels are based, not upon anonymous traditions, but upon eyewitness testimony.


13. Eyewitness Memory


Since we all know from experience that memory is fallible, we wonder if we can any confidence in eyewitness memories.


Psychologists have been studying recollective memory for well over a century, and there is a large body of data and interpretations available that is highly relevant to the question about the reliability of eyewitness memories in the New Testament. New Testament scholars have rarely made use of any of these resources. This chapter represents a first attempt to access the relevant data and theory and relate them to the gospel traditions in a systematic way.


The kind of memory we shall consider is what can be called “recollective memory,” but it is also known by other terms, such as “episodic memory,” “personal memory,” and “autobiographical memory.” Psychologist W.F. Brewer distinguishes four kinds of autobiographical memory:  1) recollective memory, which personal memory (with mental images) of a specific event in one’s life; 2) generic personal memory (with mental images) of repeated occurrences or circumstances but not of any specific instance; 3) autobiographical fact, which is knowing about an event in the past without mental imagery or the phenomenon of “reliving” the experience; and 4) the self-schema, which is the general conception of oneself that one has acquired through many experiences.


Most episodic narratives in the Gospels would come into the first category. There is some generalized material that could be placed in the second category. The sayings of Jesus do not belong to any of these categories since they would have been memorized and reproduced as information. Presumably even the eyewitnesses would not usually have recalled a specific occasion and place at which Jesus pronounced the saying, or even if they did, that memory would be incidental to the procedure of recalling and transmitting the saying. In this chapter, we are concerned only with the psychology of recollected memories of eyewitnesses which would be the sources of episodic narratives in the Gospels.


Among Brewer’s observations about recollective memory:  it is memory for a specific episode from an individual’s past; it appears to be a “reliving” of that experience and thus typically contain information about place, actions, persons, objects, thoughts and affect; they do not contain any direct representation of time; the information is expressed as a mental images which are dim, unclear, sketchy and unsteady compared to visual perception; the image may contain irrelevant detail; recollective memories include propositional information, and they are accompanied by a belief that the remembered episode was personally experienced by the individual in his or her past; recent recollective memories tend to be fairly veridical unless they are influenced by strong schema-based processes; and recollective memories give rise to high confidence in the accuracy of their content and that confidence can frequently predict objective memory accuracy.


An important theoretical issue in the study of memory is whether a particular recollective memory is a copy of the original experience or a reconstruction of the original experience. [Bauckham surveys the theories of psychologists and philosophers.] It seems safe to conclude that recollective memory has a reconstructive element, but the extent to which a copy element is also important, especially in short-term recall, is still very debatable. The memory is capable of very accurate, though inevitably selective, reconstruction. Interpretative elements in the reconstruction of memories (as also in the original perception) are always at work, seeking an account that is meaningful in the context of recall, but such interpretation, while going beyond mere reproduction, by no means necessarily distorts memory. We may think of reconstructed memory perhaps as more like a painting than a photograph.


What sorts of memories are more likely to be reliable? The following factors seem to be important. 1) Unique or unusual event. Research confirms the common notion that such events are more likely to be remembered. A repetition of events tends to lead to the development of generic personal memories. The unexpectedness of an event tends to make it more memorable. 2) Salient or consequential event. What we commonly call a “memorable” event is one that is important for us, and this is confirmed by research. We more easily forget the trivial and unimportant. 3) An event in which a person is emotionally involved. Although some research shows that events that provoked high emotion--positive or negative--are better remembered, this finding is less secure. Such events tend to be unusual or important and therefore it is less clear how important emotion is as a factor. [Bauckham cites results of research.] In general, emotion seems to have a positive effect as an aid to memory, but sometimes emotion can impair memory since it may contain a prominent visual stimulus which may obscure memory of peripheral elements and extremely intense emotion may work against memory perhaps by interrupting biological processes needed for memory consolidation. 4) Vivid imagery. Recollective memories are usually characterized by visual imagery. 5) Irrelevant detail. Recollective memories often include irrelevant detail. However, it is difficult to find data that directly address the hypothesis that occurrence of irrelevant detail is related to memory accuracy. 6) Point of view. There are two points of view that occur in recollective memory. “Field memories” are those in which the scene is recalled from the point of view in which it was originally experience. “Observer memories” are those in which the event is recalled as an external observer might have experienced it. “Field memories” are more likely in the case of recent memories, but it is also true that people can switch their point of view in their recall of these memories. There is no reason to assume that “field memories” are more accurate than “observer memories.” 7) Dating. There is much evidence that recollective memories exclude absolute time information from most events. 8) Gist and detail. The “gist” of a memory is the sequence or structure that makes the event meaningful and recalling the gist is an act of interpretation, although this need not involve inaccuracy. Much of the gist of our memory is accurate even when recall of details is not accurate. 9) Frequent rehearsal. Frequent recall is an important factor in both retaining the memory and retaining it accurately. This may involve constructing the memory in a standard narrative form that is then remembered as a piece of information rather than as a recollective (“relived”) memory.


Studies confirm that events that are unique, salient, surprising, vivid, often rehearsed tend to occur in combination, making it difficult to gauge their relative importance.


There is an interpretative structuring that characterizes all recollective memory as well as other types of memory. We are already structuring events, selecting and ordering, seeking coherence and meaning, when we experience and perceive events. But we do so even more when we recall and recount memories. To understand how we do this, psychologists posit knowledge structures already existing in the memory which function to order and interpret new data as we perceive and recall them. “Schema” is a term used to refer to a mental model, formed by the mind as a kind of distillation of information gained in frequent everyday experience. Related terms describe particular kinds of schemata:  “scripts” are schemata for events and stories and “frames” are schemata  for knowledge about objects and places.


Story schemata are derived not so much from our own direct experience of events as from hearing and reading stories and unconsciously learning the kinds of narrative structures that are commonly employed to tell a meaningful story. Some of these narrative structures are common across cultures, but some are more culture specific. We are constantly narrativizing experience by selection, connection, and explanation of items. But two misunderstandings need to be corrected. One misunderstanding is that this process is a procrustean forcing of all experience into narrowly preconceived patterns. Narrative patterns are infinitely subtle and adaptable. Interesting narratives are often those that feature unique or surprising events that disrupt the schema based expectations of their tellers and hearers. But such surprises are possible because the narrative nevertheless still follows some well-known narrative conventions. We can only contemplate the strange in the context of the more ordinary and familiar. At the limit of disruptions of schemata there is the quite incoherent memory, which persists because of the puzzlement it induces, its refusal to fit into a person’s meaning making. The other misunderstanding is that the mind’s use of narrative schemata to order events necessarily distorts reality. Schemata do not impede our access to what happened, but they enable it. Narrative patterns do not get in the way, but they provide the framework for both telling and understanding.


There is a social dimension of individual memory. Recollections arise from both the depths of a storehouse in the head, and also from a desire to communicate with others about the personal past. We do sometimes remember purely for our own purposes, but mostly we remember in order to tell others.


Memory occurs at the conjunction of information and meaning, at the interaction of past and present.


For the interpretative aspects of experience the first person perspective has priority, although this “I” perspective can also at times be a “we” perspective in shared experience of an event. This insight demonstrates the inadequacy of a simplistic modern distinction between objective fact and subjective experience, for the investigations by a third person observer, while indispensable, needs to be joined to a thorough analysis of first-person perspectives.


Meaning in personal memories either change or remain stable over time because remembering is always embedded in a developmental history. There are four factors making for change or stability. 1) One is the multiplicity of potential meanings so that some events are inherently ambiguous, e.g. with respect to a person’s motivations. 2) Another factor is deferred meaning by which meaning is not always fully explicated when events occur. 3) Then there is the factor of changing meaning that occurs when new information or an altered perspective can prompt us to reinterpret specific experiences or entire segments of our personal history. In the latter case, interpretations are judged by the criterion of authenticity rather than accuracy. This is why learning more about a key event can cause a radical reevaluation of it:  meanings remain stable, but take on additional dimensions of change by discarding previous understanding and replacing it with new insight. 4) Finally, there is the social factor of negotiating meaning whereby rememberers are engaged in a negotiation with others by learning how to tell their memories to others in ways that are intelligible and meaningful. People can differ or argue about the significance of events by discussing the event itself rather than, or as well as, develop their own personal interpretation in light of new insight into their meaning.


If information and meaning come together in remembering, so do past and present. This is the defining characteristic of memory:  it straddles past and present in a way that the past influences the present as the present affects the way in which the past is recalled. Those who recall the past really do intend to recall the past, but at the same time memories are recalled in order to be put to use in the present. Both poles of this dialectic need to be kept in view. Those who recall the past really do intend to recall the past, not to create it to suit present needs and purposes. At the same time memories are recalled in order be put to use in the present. Paul Ricoeur is very conscious of the way in which the present affects the way past is recalled, but nevertheless insists that memory intends to speak of the past and is engaged in a quest of truth, and that this search for the truth of the past “thing” is what determines memory as a cognitive issue. While memory is employed for present uses, it is distinguished from imagination which lays traps for the memory in that it is contrary to the specific search for the truth of the past “thing’--the what that was formerly seen.


Now we may explore the remembrance of Jesus in the eyewitness memories behind the Gospels.


Consider the list of factors that are important in relation to the reliability of memories.


1) Unique or unusual events. Most of the gospel narratives recount events that are often unusual, unique, or surprising. Nothing is ordinary or trivial. Most, like healings and exorcisms, have their own distinctive features that would have made them memorable as single events. The disciples, who witnessed many of these would have their own generic memories of these kinds of events, e.g. Mark 1:23-28; Matthew 9:27-31.


2) Salient or consequential event. Some of the gospel narrative would be memorable because of the huge personal and group significance they had. They were the most memorable events of their lives and landmark events that stood out in their memories.


3) An event in which a person is emotionally involved. The gospel eyewitnesses were not detached observers, but participants close to the action even when they were not among the actors. Their emotions are very rarely mentioned, e.g. Mark 9:6, 14:72 (about Peter). Yet the notion that emotion promotes strong visual memory of central features of the event at the expense of peripheral detail is reasonably compatible with the gospel narratives.


4) Vivid imagery. Most gospel narratives have little vivid imagery. Mark has the most of the Synoptics, but the lack of it in Matthew and Luke may be due to the simple lack of space, i.e. the need to keep within the limit of the ordinary size of a papyrus scroll if their books were not to be prohibitively expensive to copy and use. At the same time, their short narratives were still within the range of possible variation in oral performances. Perhaps oral performances might often have been longer with more vivid detail than even Mark’s written performances of them. Johannine narratives are longer but vivid detail is less common than in Mark’s since they are more focused on conversation than on visual detail. It should be noted that the vivid detail in Mark, e.g. 9:; 11:44; 13:5; 18:18; 20:6-7, 12, may not necessarily represent Peter’s memories but could be the product of Mark’s story telling ability by which he adds things not essential to a story.


5) Irrelevant detail. There is little irrelevant detail in the gospel narratives which instead preserve details for narrative or theological reasons. Scholars tend to think all details are significant, but some details may be just irrelevant survivals of eyewitness memory, such as possibly the “other boats” of Mark 4:36. The general absence of details is not evidence against eyewitness provenance, but it indicates that these stories have already been honed for ease of remembering. The eyewitnesses themselves would have pruned irrelevant detail from their own stories when they began to tell them. At any rate, psychological research into memory retention does not have a consensus that the presence of irrelevant detail is a mark of accurate memories.


6) Point of view. In light of the fact that persons recollect memories from different perspectives is consistent with the way in which points of view shift frequently in the gospel narratives. Eyewitnesses themselves could tell their story from the “observer” point of view even though they participated in them.


7) Dating. Recollective memories rarely include dating--a fact consistent with the way the evangelists did not know at what point most their narratives occurred (except at the beginning and the end).


8) Gist and details. It would be best to distinguish between details essential to the gist of the story and inessential details. In the case of the feeding of the five thousand, some details (five loaves, two fish, and five thousand men) seem essential to the story. The story is unlikely to have ever circulated in more general terms, referring to a little food and a lot of people. They make this story a different story from that of the feeding of the four thousand from seven loaves and a few fish and suggest that we should not regard these two stories as variants of a single story. A good example of the consistency of the gist along with variation in inessential detail is the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus told in all four Gospels. All agree Peter sat with others around the fire in the courtyard of the high priest’s residence, that three times he was asked whether he was one of Jesus’ disciples, the first time by a maid, and that after the third denial the cock crowed. All other details, including the identity of the second and third questioners and the actual words of their questions and Peter’s answers, vary. These variations are justified in different performances of the tradition. The gist of the story they all preserve conveys its significance. It is this that would have been constant in Peter’s own telling on various occasions. Whether he himself varied the story or if this was done by others is of no great importance. In such examples we can see that the gist of an eyewitness memory and the gist of an oral tradition can coincide. This is a most important conclusion for the study of gospel traditions. It recognizes the realistic extent to which memory can be relied upon, in the case of both the memory of the eyewitness and the memory of the performer of oral tradition. The transition from one to the other need not entail a significant decrease in reliability although, of course, this is possible.


9) Frequent rehearsal. This is crucial for any assessment of the reliability of the eyewitness testimony of the Gospels. We can be sure that the eyewitnesses would have first told their stories soon after the event. Jesus’ disciples who had been present would be telling the story to other disciples. The nature of such reporting indicates that an eyewitness’ story would acquire a fairly fixed form quite soon. Some key words of Jesus might be remembered precisely, and the story line would be stabilized. It would have been in such stereotyped forms that the stories of eyewitnesses would have become--through a natural process of sharing memories within groups of disciples--part of a store of shared memories among those closest to Jesus. Frequent rehearsal would have the effect of preserving an eyewitness’ story very much as he or she first remembered and reported it.


We can conclude that the memories of eyewitnesses of the history of Jesus score highly by the criteria for likely reliability that have been established by the psychological study of recollective memory. The paucity of vivid and irrelevant detail can be explained by the fact that they were dropped over the course of frequent rehearsal. The central features of the memory, those that constituted its meaning, are likely to have been preserved reliably.


All recollective memory employs schemata, including “scripts” or story schemata. Already in the process of perceiving events scripts are being deployed to assist the selective and meaning-making process that is essential to experiencing and remembering events. Scripts are no doubt especially operative in the processes of retrieving and telling memories. They are part of the “reconstructive” process that is by no means a distortion but the way in which meaningful recollective representations of events are possible. There is a social dimension to the operation of story scripts at all stages. Memories must be told in forms corresponding to socially available schemata is those who tell their memories are to be successful in communicating with others. These scripts are flexible and allow the memory to frame particular events, even those very unique or surprising, in a way that effectively communicates it. Often particular stories work by transgressing the expectations set up by a well-recognized schemata. The formation of fresh schemata may well begin with the eyewitnesses who struggle to do justice to their experience.


All this was neglected by the form critics, who took it for granted that the “forms” in which the gospel narratives and sayings are cast must have evolved in the process of the Christian communities’ development of the material for community use. Dennis Nineham claimed that the form-critical approach starts from the internal evidence of the Gospels. The formal stereotypical character of the separate sections, the absence of individual details, and the conventional character of the connecting summaries all suggest, said Nineham, that the development of gospel narratives was controlled by the impersonal needs and forces of the community and not by the personal recollections of the individual eyewitnesses. The absence of the characteristics we should expect in eyewitness testimony “forms the very foundation of the form-critical edifice.”


In comparison to Nineham’s claims, the case in this book is also based on internal evidence provided by the Gospels themselves. Most of Nineham’s claims about the proven conclusions of form criticism have already be addressed and refuted. Yet there is one question posed by form criticism which has not yet been addressed directly. While the form critics’ theory about the history of the Synoptic tradition has been discredited and shown to be based upon inaccurate premises, e.g. there was simply not enough time for “oral tradition” to develop the way they envisaged it, the form critics’ positive contribution was to call attention to the fact that the Gospel pericopes do exist as distinct literary units that can be classified as “forms” (even though the form critics proposed ideal “forms” which are rarely consistent with the actual mixed character of the “forms” that exist in the Gospels). The question that remains is, “How did the traditions acquire the literary forms that can be distinguished in analysis of Gospel pericopes?”


The fact is that all human utterances employ stereotyped forms that can be classified. We cannot speak or write in a way that cannot be so classified. So then, how fallacious it is to argue that, because the Gospel material can be classified as forms, this is an infallible sign of community transmission! Scholars can easily lose touch with common experience when dealing in technicalities such as the classification of Gospel pericopes according to forms. But we can give common experience greater substance by appeal to the psychological studies of recollective memory. The structuring of stories according to forms occurs even before the eyewitness first tells his story, and such forms are further honed in the eyewitness’ telling of the memory over the course of the first few such rehearsals. This is a rapid process in the rehearsal of the story by the individual eyewitness in a social context. In order to account for the forms, there is absolutely no need to postulate a long process of “impersonal” community tradition. Indeed, the form critics never really addressed the question of where the forms came from. Form critics allude to either community development of the forms or to parallels in classical antiquity or international folklore. But the psychological studies disclose the origin of the forms in the process of recollective memory, and there is need to further study the extent to which gospel narratives use cross-cultural story scripts or conform to more culturally specific story scripts. The death of the form-critical paradigm should liberate scholars to pursue a whole field of research into narrative forms on the lines we have suggested.


All recollective memories have two poles--the objectivity of the event and the rememberer’s insight into its meaning. Interpretation is the search for meaning adequate to the event. Interpretations can change over time, but this process of change should not be envisaged as one in which “objective facts” are merely given at the beginning of the process, which then evolves away from these facts. The continuing process of interpretation is the search for an interpretation adequate to the reality of the event.


It is a familiar claim that Gospel narratives are written in light of the their endings, that the Jesus they portray is the risen and exalted Lord of the community. This is not disputed, but just how this process of interpreting the past in the light of more recent events or experience requires far more intensive discussion than is attempted here. But the four factors we noted as making for change or stability in recollective memories are relevant to that discussion. Especially important is the (second) category of deferred meaning. Events that are initially puzzling may come to make more sense in this way.


One important factor in the first Christians’ realization of such deferred meaning in the events that they had experienced was the study of the scriptures in light of the realization of who Jesus was by virtue of his resurrection and exaltation. The memories of the passion and death of Jesus must have been the most obstinately meaningless but the most unforgettable of the traditions. It took scriptural interpretation--now interwoven in the passion narratives--to make these memories tolerable and also unexpectedly full of inexhaustible meaning.


The stories of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms have received little subsequent interpretation. The context in which the Gospel writers place them provides them with more meaning than the individual pericope would have on its own, e.g. in context they are signs of the arrival of the kingdom of God. Some speculate that this may be the meaning Jesus himself gave to his works, but that the distinctive character of these miracles was smoothed out as they were handed down by ordinary people outside the circle of Jesus’ followers. It is unlikely that all the miracle stories came from such a popular source since Jesus’ disciples are bound to have told them. The absence of interpretation of these stories is better explained by supposing that miracle stories as such never contained within themselves the kind of interpretation Jesus himself gave to them, but if they were told normally within the context of other Jesus traditions, they would not need to embody their own interpretation; the interpretation would be given by the context as it is in the Gospels as we have them--where they are understood as signs of the kingdom of God. The stories themselves preserve the more simply meaningful character of the first reports and are given more meaning (as signs of the kingdom of God) by the context of other Gospel traditions that were told alongside them.


There is also the conjunction of past and present in recollective memory. There is negotiation between past and present, but not in a way that abolishes the reality of the past as past. The “present” should not be viewed primarily as the community use of the traditions. Far more important than the use of the traditions must have been the fresh light in which everything in Jesus’ ministry had to be seen after the cross, the resurrection, and the growing understanding of these events. However, even this seems to have affected only to a small degree the way many of the stories were told. Pre-Easter recollections stubbornly persist. This continuity of tradition before and after the resurrection was made possible by the eyewitnesses who saw their stories in a new light but whose memories already had a degree of stability that limited the measure of change provided by further interpretative insight.


As a postscript, it should be observed that the role of eyewitness testimony in the Gospel narratives is different from that in courts of law. In court eyewitness testimony is usually that of bystanders, who are interrogated concerning the exact time of day, faces of people merely glimpsed, details, etc. These aspects which are important for courts are not relevant to the kind of eyewitness testimony we are discussing. Our witnesses were not usually bystanders, they needed to give the gist of the report rather than remember peripheral details, and they were not expected to describe faces or pressed to remember what did not easily come to mind. The Gospel eyewitnesses told what was prominent in their memories and did not need to attempt the laborious processes of retrieval and reconstruction employed in courts which, incidentally, often engender false memories.


[Bauckham has concluded his main discussion of his thesis that the Gospels are based upon eyewitness testimony, except that in the last chapter he discusses an analogy between their testimony and the powerful testimony of Holocaust survivors. In the next three chapters, he explores the special case of the Gospel of John which is different from the Synoptic Gospels.]


14. The Gospel of John as Eyewitness Testimony


The Gospel of John claims not only to be based on eyewitness accounts but to have been actually written by an eyewitness. The concluding verses are:  “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:24-25, NRSV).


The disciple in question is the disciple who appears as an anonymous figure at key points in the narrative, usually described as “the disciple Jesus loved.”  At face value, this conclusion claims that this disciple wrote it. Modern scholars have not been willing to accept this claim.


A popular argument is that the Greek verb “write” should be understood as meaning “cause to write,” i.e. the verb can refer to authorship by dictation by a scribe. Indeed, it is often further argued that the Beloved Disciple is considered to possess only “spiritual responsibility” for the witness in the Gospel. Yet there is no evidence that has ever been presented that this verb can be used to describe a relationship between an author and a text that is more remote than that of dictation of a text by a scribe. The idea that this disciple was only the spiritual inspiration for the text is not coherent with the lexicographical meaning of the statement that he “has written” the Gospel. Anyway, how could a distant source be responsible for a text over which he has no actual control?


Other scholars argue that the concluding verses belong only to chapter 21, but not to the entire Gospel. Yet most scholars do agree that verses 24 and 25 belong together, and therefore it is impossible to read them as referring to only chapter 21.


John 21:24 means that the Beloved Disciple composed the Gospel whether or not he used a scribe as the apostle Paul often employed a scribe to write what he dictated.


If this is true, but if one finds it incredible, then there are two explanations for how this claim came to be made in the concluding verses of the Gospel.


One proposal is that 21:24-25 was added at a later stage by a redactor who mistakenly understood that the Beloved Disciple was the author. Another proposal is that the real author of the Gospel (not a later redactor) has fictitiously attributed his work to the Beloved Disciple.


The real authorship of the Gospel will be discussed in the next chapter, but now we must examine the possibility that the concluding verses is a late addition and therefore its evidence for the authorship of the Gospel is not reliable. The presenting issue is what was the ending of the original Gospel.


A large majority of scholars think that the Gospel originally ended at the end of chapter 20 since its concluding verses sound like a conclusion (cf. 20:30-31). It follows that chapter 21 would be an appendix, and 21:24-25 could have been an original part of this appendix. Many go further and think that 21:24-25 was not an original part of the appendix but was added later by a redactor.


Bauckham contends that the Gospel was originally designed to end as it does in the version we now have and that it never existed without the claim about its authorship that 21:24 makes.


The structure of the concluding parts of the Gospel is quite coherent:  there is a narrative epilogue (21:1-23) framed by a conclusion divided into two carefully designed stages (20:30-31 and 21:24-25). One reason the conclusion comes in two stages is that they fence off the narrative in chapter 21 from the main narrative in the Gospel, thus marking chapter 21 as an epilogue. The status of chapter 21 is not that of an appendix, but that of an epilogue. The epilogue balances the prologue (1:1-18). The prologue sketches the prehistory of the story of the Gospel while the epilogue foresees its posthistory. Just as the prologue goes back in time to creation, so the epilogue previews the future mission of the disciples symbolized by the miraculous catch of fish and focuses especially on the different roles that Peter and the Beloved Disciple are to play in it. The time projected by the epilogue runs to the parousia:  its last words are Jesus’ words “until I come,” corresponding at the other end of time to the first words of the prologue, “In the beginning.”


This correspondence is confirmed by the numerical composition of the prologue and epilogue (a literary interest of authors at the time and one used elsewhere in this Gospel):  the prologue consists of 496 syllables (a triangular number and a perfect number as well as the numerical value of monogenes or “only son” in 1:14), and the epilogue (a longer passage) consists of 496 words. The epilogue is longer because it is a narrative whereas the prologue is a poetic composition. Moreover the two stages of the conclusion which frame the epilogue each consist of 43 words. This numerical composition provides an initial conclusion that they should be read together and in parallel.


We must compare in detail these two stages of the Gospel’s conclusion. These are the texts:


“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31, NRSV altered). [Bauckham’s own translation has “the disciples” for the NRSV “his disciples” and “may believe” for the NRSV “come to believe.”]


“This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:24-25, NRSV).


The two stages of the conclusion (20:30-31 and 21:24-25) are parallel but not repetitive. At every point where they are parallel the second stage takes the matter on a stage further than the first. For example, both parts speak of what is and what is not written in this book. The first stage speaks of “many other signs that Jesus did” that are not narrated in this book. The second stage speaks more generally of “many other things that Jesus did” besides those that are included in the book and develops the hyperbolic notion that the world itself could not contain the books that would be needed to record everything that Jesus did (a standard historiographic topos). The progression in the parallels is from signs in particular to deeds in general. In this Gospel, Jesus did many things that were not signs:  the miracle of the catch of fish in chapter 21 is not a sign (which reveal Jesus’ glory and enable belief in him), but it is an act that symbolizes the coming mission of the church. So the first stage of the conclusion appropriately indicates the end of the Gospel’s narrative--especially its “signs”--and with it the completion of the Gospel’s main aim of enabling christological faith, while the second stage equally appropriately marks the end of the whole Gospel, whose epilogue looks beyond christological faith to the mission of the believing church.


Now we may see what the two stages of the conclusion say about the witness on which the Gospel is based. There is a carefully designed two-stage disclosure of the Beloved Disciple’s role in the production of the Gospel. The first stage speaks generally of Jesus’ disciples; the second stage speaks of one disciple, the one Jesus loved. While the first stage does not use the term “witness,” it implies it in speaking of signs Jesus did “in the presence of the disciples.” The reader will naturally suppose that it is from these disciples that the Gospel’s narratives of the signs are derived (cf. 15:27). The second stage introduces the term “testify” and also specifies the Beloved Disciple as the witness. The reason for this narrowing becomes apparent when we consider the next element of parallelism between the two stages. Both of them speak of the writing of the Gospel, but the first stage avoids revealing its author by using twice the passive voice, “are written.” The second stage reveals that it was by the Beloved Disciple that they were written:  “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them.” Why the Gospel withholds revealing its author until the very end will be discussed in the next chapter.


Moreover, both stages of the conclusion have a link with the prologue, helping to form an inclusio between the beginning and the end of the Gospel. The links are different in the two cases but also closely connected. In the first stage, the statement of purpose--”so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God”--recalls the statement in the prologue about John the Baptist, who “came for a witness to testify to the light, so that all may believe through him” (1:7). The second stage of the conclusion also recalls John the Baptist, since its use of “witness” language for the Beloved Disciple is paralleled in the prologue by the “witness” language used of John in 1:15 as well as in 1:7-8. The conclusion enables readers finally to see how it is that the Baptist’s witness could be “so that all may believe through him.” The Baptist’s witness is incorporated into the Beloved Disciple’s testimony and written so that it continues to witness to all who read this Gospel.


How do each of the two stages of the conclusion relate to its context? The first stage involves what precedes and what follows:  what precedes is the story of Jesus’ appearance to Thomas, climaxing in Thomas’ confession. Jesus then says,”Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (20:29). The first stage builds on this by explaining how those who have not seen are to come to believe. This will be possible because the testimony of those who have seen--the disciples who were present when the signs were performed--has been written “in this book,” which therefore mediates between those who did see and those who do not. Appropriately, the epilogue then follow, previewing the church’s mission, which is how the witness of the disciples will enable many to believe and to have life.


The epilogue compares and contrasts the roles of Peter and the Beloved Disciple, first in the event of the catch of fish and then in Jesus’ conversation with Peter. The Beloved Disciple, with his “It is the Lord!” (21:7), appears in the role of witness who identifies Jesus while Peter, hauling in the net (21:11), takes the more active role in mission. In Peter’s conversation with Jesus, we then learn that Peter will have the active role of the shepherd who tends the flock and will die for it (21:15-19) while the Beloved Disciple’s role is conveyed more cryptically by Jesus’ saying, “If I will that he remain until I come...” (21:22, 23). This saying is quoted not merely to correct the way it had been over-literally misunderstood (21:23), but to convey that the Beloved Disciple will continue to fulfill the purpose Jesus has given him until the parousia because, as the conclusion says, that role is to witness--he has written his witness and so his witness will remain.


At the end of the second stage of the conclusion readers will recall the only previous verse in the Gospel that spoke of one specific witness to an event:  “He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true and he knows that he tells the truth” (19:35). This statement anticipates both stages of the conclusion:  “so that you also may believe” anticipates the first stage (verbally and conceptually), while what is said about this person’s testimony and its truth corresponds closely to the second stage. We should notice, however, what is carefully withheld in 19:35; the witness is not said to have written his testimony nor is it clear who the witness is. The identity of this witness becomes unmistakable only when readers reach 21:24 with its clear echo of language in 19:35. Only then are we supposed to learn that the witness behind the Gospel is specifically that of the Beloved Disciple and that he wrote it.


In light of the above examination of the literary structure of the Gospel, we cannot think that the identification of the author of the Gospel with the Beloved Disciple is some later, secondary accretion to the Gospel. The Gospel, with its epilogue and its two-staged conclusion, has been designed to reveal only at the end the role of the Beloved Disciple in its making. This revelation enables the reader then to see retrospectively that the role of the Beloved Disciple within the narrative is such to qualify him for the role of witness to Jesus and author of the Gospel.


There is a remaining puzzle in the passage that reveals the Beloved Disciple’s authorship. Who are the “we” who “know” that the Beloved Disciple’s testimony is true?


The “we” could include the readers but unlikely since first time readers are scarcely in a position to know the Beloved Disciple’s testimony is true.


The most common scholarly view is that “we” refers to a circle of teachers or elders who have added their testimony to the Gospel, indicating the author and recommending it. This viewpoint should be excluded in light of the demonstration of the literary structure of the Gospel given above.


The third view is that “we” could be a circle of leaders or eyewitnesses within which the Beloved Disciple includes himself. This is a possibility.


There is a final possibility that is preferable to the third interpretation of “we.” This is that the “we” is not a genuine plural but stands for “I.” In other words, this is the “we” of authoritative testimony similar to the “royal ‘we’ “ in English. In ancient Greek, “we” can be used in three ways--as the associative “we” (when “we” means “I and you” so that the author includes his readers); the dissociative “we” (when “we” means “I and my associates” so that the author distinguishes between the group to which he belongs and his readers); and the substitution of “we” for “I’ to give added force or authority to the self-reference.


[Bauckham conducts an intensive analysis of Johannine texts which identifies the different uses of “we” in them and demonstrates the appearance of the “we” of authoritative testimony. Rather than present his analysis, only the conclusions will be presented by printing the “we” of authoritative testimony in italics.] In the following passages, “we” is used in order for the author himself to emphasize his authority (or Jesus and his authority), which he does only when he speaking of his testimony (or Jesus’ testimony).


3 John 1:9-12:  “I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing in spreading false charges against us. And not content with those charges, he refuses to welcome the friends, and even prevents those who want to do so and expels them from the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but imitate what is good; whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. Everyone has testified favorably about Demetrius, and so has the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.”


I John 1:1-5:  “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us--we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.”


I John 4:11-16:  “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”


John 3:10-13:  “Jesus answered him [Nicodemus], ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man’.”


John 1:14-16:  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me’.’) From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.”


“We” passages in Johannine literature employ all of the uses of “we” in ancient Greek, and the identification of these particular uses depends upon the context and the purposes of the author [which Bauckham has carefully analyzed, but which is not presented here]. What is characteristic of Johannine writings is that the authoritative “we” is used whenever the writer or a character (Jesus in the Gospel) is giving his testimony--the witness that he is qualified to give. So then, the preferred way to understand the “we” in the second stage of the conclusion in John 21: 24 is that it is the author of the Gospel, the Beloved Disciple, speaking of himself as “we” when he is testifying that his testimony is true:  “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”


15. The Witness of the Beloved Disciple


In the last chapter we demonstrated that the Beloved Disciple was the primary witness on whose testimony the Gospel is based and also himself the author of the Gospel. Now we need to take a harder look at the concept of “witness” as it is used to describe the testimony of the author.


The Greek word group for “witness” (cf. John 19:35; 21:24) pertains to a legal setting rather than to historiography. In other words, linguistically “witness” does not usually have the meaning of the historiographic notion of eyewitness reporting. On the other hand, the nature of the Beloved Disciple’s witness and the role it plays in the Gospel bring it functionally very close to the historiographical sense.


In Truth on Trial:  The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody:  Hendrickson, 2006), Andrew Lincoln shows how the motif of a cosmic trial of the truth, derived especially from Isaiah 40-55, forms a broad metaphorical framework for this Gospel’s interpretation of Jesus. In that framework, witness is a legal metaphor and the Beloved Disciple’s witness cannot be equated with “literal” eyewitness. The Gospel has two phases:  the first phase has seven witnesses, and the second phase has only two witnesses--the Paraclete [Spirit of truth] and the disciples, of which the Beloved Disciple is one (19:35). Bauckham accepts Lincoln’s general thesis, but he disagrees with Lincoln’s judgment that the Beloved Disciple’s witness should be understood as only a theological perspective rather than eyewitness testimony; the witness of the Beloved Disciple is a theological perspective that is inseparable from his eyewitness testimony. Bauckham shows that an analysis of the structure of this “trial” in which there are seven witnesses in the first phase requires that the Beloved Disciple’s written witness can only interpret the other seven witnesses (John the Baptist, Jesus himself, the Samaritan woman, God the Father, Jesus’ works or signs, the scriptures, and the crowd who testify about Jesus’ raising of Lazarus) if his written witness does in some sense report them. Otherwise, the temporal succession of the trial collapses and the seven witnesses become no more than forms of expression of the Beloved Disciple’s witness.


We should conclude that the metaphor of witness does indeed include a significant element of reporting. If that makes the Beloved Disciple’s witness exceptional within the Gospel’s broader use of witness terminology, this exceptionality results from the logic of the overall metaphorical structure, not from some alien intrusion in that structure.


It begins to look plausible that the Beloved Disciple’s witness is intended to be both metaphorical-theological (part of the cosmic trial motif) and historiographic (eyewitness testimony). It is useful to compare the motif of witness in John to Luke-Acts. In John 15:27, the witness of the disciples is described as that of those who have been with Jesus “from the beginning.” This is paralleled in Luke-Acts in which, as we have seen in chapter 6, the qualifications for being a witness to Jesus is to have been with him “from the beginning” (cf. Acts 1:21-22; Luke 1:2). If we take John 15:27 seriously as a description of the role of witness to Jesus in the period of the Paraclete, then John never suggests that “witness” is something else that later Christian believers also do, but John confines “witness” to the disciples who had been with Jesus “from the beginning.” Luke also confines the vocabulary of witness to those who have been the personal disciples of Jesus, with the single special exception of Paul. Moreover, just as the Gospel of John draws from Isaiah, so Luke alludes to Isaianic prophecies in his understanding of the role of the disciples as witnesses (cf. Acts 1:8 and Isaiah 49:6). In other words, Luke has deliberately correlated the historiographic notion of eyewitness report (by those who were with Jesus “from the beginning”) with the Isaianic theological notion of God’s witnesses. Although John makes more of the lawsuit metaphor in Isaiah 40-55 than Luke does, the close parallels between John and Luke-Acts suggest that John, like Luke, exploits the coincidence between historiographic and theological ideas of witness.


We should also remember the discussion of John’s use of the literary device of the inclusio discussed in chapter 6. The use of this device also indicates that the Beloved Disciple is the disciple who eyewitness reports are the most important source of the Gospel’s historical narrative. [Bauckham rehearses his arguments of chapter 6 to press his point that the inclusio device indicates the historiographic character of the Beloved Disciple’s testimony, but it is not included here; his point would be obvious by re-reading his discussion in chapter 6.]


Exactly what is the role of the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John?


The Beloved Disciple appears only on relatively few occasions (1:35-40; 13:23-26; 19:25-27, 35; 20:2-10; 21:2, 7, 20-24, and probably also 18:15-16). He first appears with Andrew as a disciple of John the Baptist who becomes a follower of Jesus with Andrew and Simon Peter. He is not mentioned again until he is described as the disciple Jesus loved who reclines next to Jesus at the last supper (but his description as “the one whom Jesus loved” and his privileged place at Jesus’ side indicates that he had been with Jesus during his whole ministry). He is portrayed as a male disciple at the cross to whom Jesus entrusts the care of his own mother. He witnesses Jesus’ death on the cross and the blood and water flowing from his side after Jesus’ body is pierced by a spear following Jesus’ death. He outruns Peter to the tomb of Jesus, but waits to follow Peter into the tomb where he sees the grave clothes lying in the tomb and “believed.” Finally, he appears in the epilogue which describes Jesus’ appearance to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) where he is the disciple who recognizes “It is the Lord!” and whom Jesus discusses in his conversation with Peter. He is probably also the unnamed disciple who was with Peter when Peter denied Jesus at the high priest’s house, but he is not described as the disciple Jesus loved because, in this scene, he is described as the “one known to the high priest”--indicating that he had access to information about Jesus’ hearing before the high priest before his crucifixion.


It seems odd to contemporary readers that the author describes himself by using the third person singular (“he”) rather than the first person singular (“I”), but this was a common practice by ancient historians, e.g. Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Julius Caesar, or Josephus. The reason for doing this is to avoid drawing attention to the author who is telling the story and addressing the readers. Using first person singular to describe himself as an actor in the story he is telling creates a distraction. Moreover, this is the kind of literary device which was used by historians who were actors in, and eyewitnesses of, most if not all of the events about which they were writing.


It is a common scholarly opinion that the Beloved Disciple appears in the Gospel as the “ideal disciple.” Often this characterization of the Beloved Disciple reinforces the presumption that he was not a historical figure, but only a symbolic character in the Gospel. However, a closer examination shows that this opinion is not well grounded. Usually, he is portrayed, not as a model for other disciples, but as a disciple who is granted an exclusive privilege. For instance, being given a special place of personal intimacy at Jesus’ side at the last supper is an exclusive privilege reserved only for him and cannot be a representative role for others. Or, his being entrusted with the care of Jesus’ mother, while it is conceivable that it might symbolize how any faithful disciple becomes the son of Jesus’ mother, is a unique responsibility given only to the Beloved Disciple.


The notion that he is the “ideal disciple” is usually connected with the contrast between the Beloved Disciple and Peter in the Gospel. In other words, the leader of the disciples, Peter, is portrayed as somewhat inferior to the Beloved Disciple, who is presented as the “ideal” disciple. However this notion is a distortion of the presentation of Peter and the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel. In the Gospel the two disciples have two very different roles to play. Peter is given the role of being the chief shepherd of the church, and the portrayal of Peter’s deficiencies and failures are not intended to denigrate Peter but to show him as the disciple who through failure and grace is enabled by Jesus to become the chief pastor of the church. The Beloved Disciple’s role is that of one who is granted an intimacy with Jesus in order that the Beloved Disciple may be able to be a perceptive witness to Jesus.


There is a sense in which the Beloved Disciple is given a superiority to Peter, but only in respects which qualify him for his own role of a perceptive witness to Jesus. His intimacy with Jesus is not so much a privileged status as that which is necessary for the work Jesus intends him to perform. This understanding of his role explains the way in which the Beloved Disciple is portrayed much more adequately than the idea that he is the “ideal disciple.” This portrayal can be analyzed as having four elements. First, the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as having a special intimacy with Jesus in order that he may fulfill Jesus’ expectation that he serve the church by being Jesus’ witness who knew him well. Second, he is portrayed as being at key events so that he is qualified to be a witness to Jesus. The most important event at which he is present is the death of Jesus on the cross when he witnesses the blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side. Third, he is portrayed as an observant eyewitness because whenever he appears in the Gospel, the narrative is marked by observational detail. For example, when the Beloved Disciple and Andrew begin to follow Jesus the exact time is given as “about the tenth hour,” that is, four o’clock in the afternoon. When he is seated next to Jesus at the last supper, he is able to observe Jesus dip a piece of bread and give it to Judas. In the high priest’s courtyard there is the detail about the charcoal fire. When he is at the cross, he observes that Jesus’ legs were not broken and a spear was thrust into his side to produce a flow of blood and water. At the empty tomb he sees with Peter “the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been placed on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” Finally, when he appears in the epilogue, there is the detail about Jesus preparing breakfast and the exact number of fish caught. Certainly the impression is created that the Beloved Disciple is an observant witness by the mention of observational details whenever the Beloved Disciple appears in the narrative. Fourth, the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as a perceptive witness who has spiritual insight into the meaning of the events of the Gospel story. However, it is not clear that this quality emerges before the resurrection even though the Beloved Disciple had a special intimacy with Jesus during his ministry. The breakthrough to his understanding seems to come in the narrative about the Beloved Disciple and Peter going to the tomb where it is said that he saw and believed. Here he has superiority to Peter in that he immediately grasps the significance and meaning of the empty tomb with its grave clothes lying there. (He is not the “ideal disciple” who serves as the model for later Christians who believe in the resurrection without seeing since it is expressly said that “he saw and believed”--the point being that he provides the eyewitness testimony that later Christians need in order to believe, but that, unlike Peter, he already perceives the significance of what they both see.) These four features of the portrayal of the Beloved Disciple are not directed toward proving that he was superior to Peter. Peter is better qualified to be the leader of the church, but the Beloved Disciple was better qualified to be the author of a Gospel. Following the resurrection, Peter and the Beloved Disciple have different roles to play and different ways of following Jesus:  just as Peter’s experience qualifies him to lead and to give his life for Jesus, so the Beloved Disciple’s experience qualifies him to offer a perceptive witness to Jesus and to write the Gospel.


How does the Beloved Disciple relate to the other disciples? The portrayal of the Beloved Disciple as having intimacy with Jesus and being present at key events suggests that the Gospel is based upon his eyewitness. Yet it is also likely that the Gospel also includes the eyewitness testimony of other disciples as well. The Beloved Disciple might be able to make the same claim as Josephus, who wrote, “My qualification as a historian of the war was that I had been an actor in many, and an eyewitness of most of the events; in short, nothing whatever was said or done of which I was ignorant.” While the Beloved Disciple had easy access to the eyewitness testimony of those who had been present at events he himself did not witness, it is nevertheless significant that there is no list of the Twelve in the fourth Gospel. The lack of such a list indicates that the author did not intend to present his portrayal of Jesus as that which is based upon the official witness of the Twelve. This coheres with the probability that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the Twelve. It is notable that the named disciples of Jesus who do appear in the Gospel of John are not, with the exception of Peter, those who are prominent in the Synoptic Gospels. The sons of Zebedee, James and John (whose personal names are not mentioned), barely make an appearance (only in 21:2). The male and itinerant disciples who are prominent in John are Andrew, Philip, Thomas, and Nathanael (who was also not a member of the Twelve). Also prominent are Nicodemus and the Bethany family of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. These names indicate the circles in which the Beloved Disciple moved and his sources for traditions for which he could not depend upon his own direct eyewitness. That some of them are members of the Twelve does not contradict the idea that this Gospel is not dependent on the core tradition of gospel tradition that went under the authority of the Twelve, for that official and corporate witness did not prevent individual members of the Twelve, e.g. Thomas, from also being tradents of traditions they transmitted as individuals. That the Gospel of John draws both on the Beloved Disciple’s own eyewitness and also on traditions he had directly from individual disciples whose specific traditions did not enter the Synoptic traditions of the words and deeds of Jesus can explain in part the distinctiveness of this Gospel’s narrative when compared with the Synoptic Gospels.


It is necessary to note how the fourth Gospel uses the language of “seeing.” Andrew Lincoln claims that “seeing and testifying are the equivalent of believing and confessing.” In other words, seeing and testifying are independent of empirical contact with Jesus in the flesh. Thus Lincoln is able to treat the Beloved Disciple’s presence in the story as no more than a literary device that is not important for the nature of the Gospel’s witness to Jesus. However, it does not seem  that the Gospel’s prolific use of various verbs of seeing can be pinned down to a fully consistent pattern of theological meaning. There may be a few cases where “seeing” is very close to meaning “believing,” although even in 12:44-46 (where Jesus equates “believing” his Father with “seeing” his Father) the two are probably not quite synonymous (since “seeing” the Father is dependent upon “seeing” Jesus in the flesh).. But “seeing” can certainly also be distinguished from :believing,” as, for example, in 6:36 (“you have seen me and yet do not believe”) and 20:29 (“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”). Moreover, in this Gospel seeing the glory of God in the flesh of Jesus entail both empirical sight and spiritual perception and such seeing is temporally limited to the period when Jesus lived in the flesh on earth. The seeing occurred when the revelation occurred. Even if “seeing” is sometimes used differently, it is empirical and temporary seeing that belongs to testimony. Whereas, as Lincoln emphasizes, the metaphor of “witness” does not belong to the standard terminology of historiography, the language of “seeing” does. Ancient historians were fond of the proverb, “Eyes are surer witnesses than ears.” It is this kind of direct experience to which the fourth Gospel refers when it claims, “We have seen his glory” (1:14) and “He who saw this has testified” (19:35) or “I have seen the Lord” (Mary Magdalene’s claim in 20:18). John’s understanding of testimony in the case of the disciples unites historiographic and theological aspects inseparably.


Why is the Beloved Disciple’s role as principal witness and author not revealed until the end of the Gospel? The Gospel prepares very carefully for the revelation that the Beloved Disciple is its author, but also equally carefully withholds it until the very end of the Gospel. It appears that the Beloved Disciple was not a well known disciple as a character in Gospel traditions. He was not one of the few prominent disciples nor one of the Twelve portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels. Therefore, the Beloved Disciple’s readers are not likely to have heard of him, certainly not readers of Mark’s Gospel whom the Beloved Disciple assumes will be readers of his Gospel. His claim to be an eyewitness who is qualified to write a Gospel is not easy for him to advance especially when he and his readers regarded Mark’s Gospel as substantially the testimony of Peter. The Beloved Disciple’s anonymous and unobtrusive appearance in chapter 1 is like saying, “I know you haven’t heard of me. I’m not in the Gospel narrative you know, but actually I was there at the beginning, even before Peter.” His appearance as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is a combination of both modesty and temerity:  it acknowledges that he is not a disciple whom most of his readers will know by name, but the epithet that substitutes for a name claims a special closeness to Jesus. The claim is not overdone:  he appears only a few times, but they are times of critical significance in the narrative. By the time he is finally revealed as principal witness and author his readers have learned enough about him to credit his claim.


Is the author’s claim to have the Beloved Disciple as its author authentic? Did this disciple really write the Gospel, or did someone else write it as though it were by the Beloved Disciple, perhaps even completely inventing the figure of the Beloved Disciple as a cover for his own authorship? The question is not easy to answer. All our arguments so far go to show that the Gospel portrays the Beloved Disciple as its primary witness and author, making a claim about both his eyewitness testimony and his perceptive witness. It is another matter whether this portrayal is historical fact or fiction. In ancient historiography, false claims to being an eyewitness to legitimize an author’s work were made, but they were denounced by the most scrupulous historians. Judgments have to be in part on whether the content of the Gospel’s narrative is considered historically plausible within the historiographic conventions of the time. There is one strong argument in favor of its authenticity. The Gospel presumes the Beloved Disciple is an obscure figure who needs to establish his credibility to his readers. Why would an author in search of a suitable pseudonym choose such a character? Why not write in the name of a well known disciple such as Andrew or Philip or Thomas? It is hard to believe that a pseudepigraphal writer would have invented a character who required such a complex strategy to reveal his identity and qualifications to be the author of this Gospel.


There is at least one sense in which the Gospel of John resembles Greco-Roman historiography more closely than the Synoptic Gospels do. John presents a much more thoroughly and extensively interpreted version of the story of Jesus. Though the writers of the Synoptics incorporate and fashion their sources into an integrated whole, they remain close to the ways in which the eyewitnesses told their stories and transmitted the sayings of Jesus. They are collections with only a relatively small degree of freely created interpretative comments and addition. They have preserved the formal character of their sources to a much greater extent than most Greco-Roman historians did. The historians assimilated their sources into seamless, comprehensive narratives strongly expressive of their own developed interpretations of the history they related. This is why Papias viewed Mark as being more like a historian’s notes rather than a finished work of historiography. We have suggested that he preferred John’s Gospel not only because John is based directly upon an eyewitness account, but also because John presents a greater selectivity of events in a more continuous narrative with a more strongly delineated plot with lengthy discourses and debates--all of which enables the author of John to present a much fuller development of his own interpretation of Jesus and his story. In the case of the Synoptic Gospels, it was important to preserve the eyewitness testimonies. The more reflectively interpretative Gospel of John does not, by contrast, assimilate the eyewitness reports beyond recognition, but is, as it stands, the way one perceptive eyewitness understood what he and others have seen. The author’s eyewitness status authorizes the interpretation. Whereas scholars have supposed that this Gospel could not have been written by an eyewitness because of its high degree of interpretation of the words and deeds of Jesus, in fact the high degree of interpretation is appropriate precisely because this is the only of the canonical Gospels that claims eyewitness authorship.


In this Gospel we have the idiosyncratic testimony of a disciple whose relationship to the events, to Jesus, was distinctive and different. It a view from outside the circles from which other Gospel traditions largely derive, and it is the perspective of a man who was deeply but distinctively formed by his own experience of the events. In its origins and in its reflective maturation this testimony is therefore idiosyncratic, and its truth is not distinguishable from its idiosyncrasy. As with all testimony, even that of the law court, there is a point beyond which corroboration cannot go, and only the witness can vouch for the truth of his own witness.


16. Papias on John


The traditional view is that the apostle John, a son of Zebedee, is the one whose witness stands behind the Gospel of John with the text having been composed by disciples of the apostle. However, if the Beloved Disciple is one of “two” unnamed disciples in 21:2 (as is most likely in light of the way in which the Beloved Disciple is narrated in this Gospel), then he cannot be John, the son of Zebedee, since the “sons of Zebedee” are also mentioned in 21:2. When the Beloved Disciple is specifically mentioned in 21:7, the readers would understand that he was one of the anonymous disciples in 21:2 and therefore could not be John, the son of Zebedee.


At the same time, it is very likely that this Gospel circulated with the title of “the Gospel according to John,” John being one of the most common names in Palestine, in fact the fifth most common name according to our date about the names of male Palestinian Jews.


Bauckham contends that the actual author of the Gospel of John is the disciple of Jesus whom Papias calls John the Elder. This man was not John the son of Zebedee, but in the course of time the two came to be identified so that the author was considered to be John the son of Zebedee. Then the early evidence that the author was John the Elder came to be misunderstood because it was read in light of the later assumption that the author was the John the son of Zebedee.


So then, we need to revisit Papias’ comments discussed in chapter 2. Papias’ list of the Lord’s disciples--Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, and Matthew--is Johannine except that he adds Matthew. This list indicates that Papias did not think John the son of Zebedee was the author of the Gospel of John because he places him last in his list just as the “sons of Zebedee” appear only once in the epilogue (21:2) at the very end of the Gospel. However, the author of the Gospel, the Beloved Disciple, appears earlier in the Gospel--at the beginning or, at least, by 13:23. So then, it appears that Papias has not included the Beloved Disciple in this list (which means, of course, that John the son of Zebedee, who is named last by Papias, could not be the Beloved Disciple).


Papias adds to his list of the Lord’s disciples, Aristion and John, who were still living in the time about which Papias is writing. There is an intriguing possibility that these are two anonymous disciples who are mentioned in the epilogue at 21:2.


In John 21 there is mention of a rumor that the Beloved Disciple will survive until the parousia. This rumor makes sense if the Beloved Disciple survived most of the other disciples of Jesus. Irenaeus says that the fourth Gospel was the last to be written and its author survived longer than most of his fellow disciples. Irenaeus may have learned this from Papias. If the author of the Gospel was John the Elder (named as a surviving disciple of Jesus by Papias), then we have a temporal fit between the fact that the Gospel was written last by a long surviving disciple and the fact that John the Elder was a long surviving disciple.


Papias distinguishes the two Johns by calling the surviving John “the Elder.” The elders were the senior teachers in the church in the province of Asia. Irenaeus understood the elders as those who had not been disciples of Jesus but knew personally the disciples. It could be, however, that both John the Elder and Aristion, who were disciples of Jesus, were counted as “elders” because they survived the other disciples and so were colleagues of the Asiatic “elders.”


There is another fragment from Papias in which he refers simply to “the Elder.” almost certainly referring to John the Elder. This suggests that we should take this title as meaning something distinctive about John. Of all the Asiatic elders he alone could be designated as “the Elder” without ambiguity. Papias’ usage corresponds strikingly with the usage of the second and third Johannine letters whose author designates himself simply as “the Elder.” This usage remains distinctive of Papias and the letters, and since we know from Papias that the Elder’s personal name was John, it is likely that we are dealing with a special usage in the case of one and the same individual.


It is likely that John the Elder was so called not only to distinguish him from the other John, but also because of his longevity. This coheres with his calling Christians “little children” in his letters.


There are no explicit comments by Papias on the Gospel of John in the fragments we have. As we have argued, Papias’ comments on Mark and Matthew most likely are made in comparison to the Gospel of John (whose familiarity to Papias is indicated by his Johannine list of the disciples as well as other Johannine linguistic usages). Papias must have said something about the origin of John’s Gospel, but it is probable that Eusebius omits this because Eusebius disagreed with Papias that someone other than the apostle John was the author of the Gospel.


If Papias said something about the Gospel of John, then there ought to be traces of his remarks in the early literature. Bauckham analyzes comments on the Gospel of John in the Muratorian Canon, an unofficial list of the canon of New Testament writings, and compares what it says with some statements by Irenaeus--all of which are likely to reflect what Papias had written about the Gospel of John.. [Bauckham’s analyses are not presented here, but only his conclusions.]


The conclusion is that what Papias probably said about the origin of John’s Gospel was that John the Elder, the disciple of the Lord, wrote it. He may have said that John was urged to do so by the elders, the leading teachers in Asia, who had known other disciples of Jesus. Papias also very likely said that these elders vouched for the truth of the Gospel (referring to John 21:24).  He then quoted I John 1:1-4 in order to show that its author, John the Elder, was both an eyewitness of the events of Jesus’ ministry and wrote about them in his Gospel. Alone among the Gospel writers, John wrote the sayings and deeds of the Lord “in order.”


17. Polycrates and Irenaeus on John


Apart from what we can reconstruct of Papias’ discussion of the Gospel of John, the most valuable patristic witness to the identity of its author is Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus in the late second century. That John wrote his Gospel in Ephesus is widely attested by Irenaeus, the Acts of John, and Clement of Alexandria as well as by others. We have a letter he wrote to the bishop of Rome regarding the tradition of the Asian church celebrating Easter on the Jewish fourteenth day of Nisan rather than always on a Sunday. In his letter, he refers to his relatives, some of whom were disciples of Jesus and some of whom were bishops.He mentions Philip the Evangelist and his daughters who are mentioned in Acts 21:8-9. He does conflate the Evangelist with Philip the apostle, but this was typical of Jews and Christians who assumed that scriptural references to persons with the same name were one person. Polycrates refers to John as the high priest who wore the petalon, but this is just another example of conflating the name of someone known in local tradition with a character in the scriptures--in this case with the name of John, a member of the high priest’s family in Acts 4:6. While claiming that John was a high priest was a mistake, it does indicate that Polycrates’ Ephesian church knew that John was not the son of Zebedee. It is likely that this identification of John of Ephesus with the member of the high priest’s family in Acts was facilitated by the information in John 18:15 that the Beloved Disciple was known to the high priest (if this is indeed a reference to the Beloved Disciple). [Bauckham provides a detailed discussion of the allusion to John as a high priest, but it is omitted here.]


What is germane is that John is described by Polycrates as follows:  “John..., he who leaned back on the Lord’s breast, who was a priest, wearing the high priestly frontlet (to petalon), both witness and teacher. He has fallen asleep at Ephesus.” The phrase about leaning on the Lord’s breast is drawn from John 13:25 and 21:20--thus identifying John as the author of the Gospel and the special value of that Gospel as one written by a disciple close to the Lord. Irenaeus uses precisely the same words--reflecting the local tradition in Asia from which Irenaeus came before he was assigned to be the bishop in Lyons. Reference by Polycrates to this John as the author of the Gospel continues with the statement that John was a witness and teacher. The word “witness” can mean martyr, but Polycrates does not mean that John died as a martyr because he has called three others, including the famous martyr Polycarp, “bishop and martyr.” If he were calling John a martyr he would not have mentioned that he was a “witness” before mentioning that he was a teacher. In other words, these two designations mean that John was the author of the Gospel (“witness”) and of the Johannine letters (“teacher” and Elder).


Polycrates’ purpose in his letter was to advocate for the Asian tradition of celebrating Easter or Pascha on the fourteenth day of Nisan. So then, his emphasis on John’s authorship of the Gospel serves his purpose since, according to the unique chronology of that Gospel, Jesus was crucified on the fourteenth day of Nisan, “the day of preparation” for the Passover--the very way Polycrates describes the fourteenth day of Nisan.


Polycrates’ statement that John is buried at Ephesus corresponds to a statement by Irenaeus that John wrote his Gospel while living in Ephesus.


Polycrates’ references to John, the witness and teacher who is buried at Ephesus, identify him as the Beloved Disciple who wrote the Gospel of John. His exegetical tradition that this John was a high priest was historically inaccurate (although characteristic of the time), but it clearly distinguishes this John from John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, since the apostle definitely could not be identified as the high priest, especially since this is most likely an allusion to Acts 4:6 influenced by John 18:15.


The second century local tradition of the province of Asia was that the John who wrote the Gospel was not identified as John the son of Zebedee, but as a disciple of Jesus who did not belong to the circle of the Twelve, who lived in Ephesus, and who lived for a long time and was well known in the churches of the Roman province of Asia. Both Papias and Polycrates are witnesses to the distinction between the two Johns. This distinction also appears in the Muratorian Canon, which most associate with Rome, but it is likely that the Muratorian Canon reflects the writing of Papias who lived in Asia.


Irenaeus, writing at the end of the second century, came from Asia and knew Polycarp personally and was familiar with the writings of Papias. Irenaeus describes the origins of the four Gospels, and says, “Then John, the disciple of the Lord, the one who leaned back on the Lord’s breast, himself published a Gospel while he resided in Ephesus.” Irenaeus makes other references to John as the author of the fourth Gospel.


Irenaeus considers John to be the author of all the Johannine literature, including the Apocalypse or Revelation to John. He often calls him “John, the disciple of the Lord.” What Irenaeus tells us about John of Ephesus is what was known in the churches of the province of Asia. Most of this is confirmed by Polycrates of Ephesus, writing independently of Irenaeus at about the same time.


None of Irenaeus’ references to John we have been considering indicate that John was the son of Zebedee. Irenaeus does make five unequivocal references to the son of Zebedee, but there is nothing in these references to suggest that he is the same person as John of Ephesus nor is he ever described in these five references by the characteristic epithet Irenaeus uses to describe the author of the Gospel, “the disciple of the Lord.”


Examination of his uses of this epithet, “the disciple of the Lord,” [which Bauckham analyzes] makes it clear that this is done to distinguish John uniquely; it is probably the equivalent to the modern “Beloved Disciple” which is employed instead of the awkard “the disciple Jesus loved.” It is not Papias’ usage, for he calls John “the Elder;” but it is likely that Papias’ epithet fell out of use after John died. After he was dead, it is not necessary to separate him from the other elders or even from the ordinary “presbyters” of the local churches, but it would have been important to identify him as the one close to Jesus by calling him henceforth “the disciple of the Lord.”


The only evidence that Irenaeus might have identified John the disciple of the Lord with John the son of Zebedee are eight references to the author of the Gospel as an “apostle” or one of the “apostles.” In some of these, he is alluding to comments by another author, Ptolemy, a Gnostic.  Also, it is important to note that Irenaeus does not limit the term “apostles” to only the Twelve; in fact, he even calls John the Baptist an “apostle” because he was a witness to Jesus. If John the Baptist can be called an apostle, then certainly the author of the fourth Gospel can be called an apostle on occasion. In Irenaeus’ polemic with the Gnostics about apostolic authority it is understandable that on occasion he would indicate the apostolic authority of the Gospel of John.


All in all, there is no reason to think that Irenaeus thought the author of the Gospel was one of the Twelve. Only those who presuppose that a John who was a personal disciple of Jesus must have been John the son of Zebedee are obliged to read Irenaeus in this way. If we come to Irenaeus instead with the knowledge that the John who resided in Ephesus and was known as the author of the Gospel in local tradition was not John the son of Zebedee, then nothing that Irenaeus says either about John “the disciple of the Lord” or about John the son of Zebedee even suggests that they might be the same person.


There are only two Christian works in the second century that clearly identify the John who wrote the Gospel as the son of Zebedee--the Acts of John and the Epistle of the Apostles--although there are a few other less clear allusions in this way in some other second century writings. [Bauckham analyzes these, but this analysis is omitted here.] The use of the term “apostle” for writers of scripture was done because there was an emerging definition of a canon of Christian writings appropriate for reading in worship along with the Old Testament and an emerging emphasis upon apostolic tradition being handed down in the churches. These developments were necessary to counter the claims and teaching of the Gnostics who defended their heresies as the secret tradition of the apostles. These factors account for the increasing use of the term “apostle” for John of Ephesus. Those who, unlike Irenaeus, did not know the local Asian tradition about John the disciple of the Lord would have referred to John as an “apostle” which then led to the idea that increased in Christian tradition that the John who wrote the Gospel was the member of the Twelve, John the son of Zebedee. [Bauckham includes tables of references to named apostles in Irenaeus’ writings and the sources of Irenaeus’ knowledge of John the disciple of the Lord.]


18. The Jesus of Testimony


At the beginning of this book, Bauckham proposed that the concept of testimony is the category that provides a bridge between the so-called Jesus of history and the so-called Christ of faith. It is the essential concept for grasping the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ because testimony involves both empirical perception and spiritual insight. Seeing Jesus both in the flesh and through the eyes of faith is necessary because Jesus is the human being who lived in history in whom God is revealed. Since testimony to Jesus is a report about what Jesus said and did and what happened to him and in connection to him---which is made according to an interpretation by faith of God’s presence and action in his life in history--the Jesus of testimony is always both a genuine historical figure and the messianic Lord and Son of God in whom the church believes.


The primary task of this book was to show that the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do put us in touch with the eyewitnesses of the history of Jesus. The case has already been made that, in their different ways, the writers of the Gospels present their Gospels as based on and incorporating the testimony of the eyewitnesses so that their testimony is preserved in literary form. The Gospel of John is the Gospel that incorporates the most extensive reflection on the significance of the eyewitness testimony. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which were not written by eyewitnesses (unless Mark was at least someone who had seen Jesus and had some knowledge of him even though he did not know him well enough to be considered an “eyewitness”), are less ambitious than the Gospel of John, and they are content primarily with preserving the official testimony of the Twelve as well as the particular testimony of individuals who were participants in some events in the ministry of Jesus. Of course, even the Synoptic Gospel writers present their own interpretation of Jesus by selecting and arranging their material and creating a coherent narrative that is itself an interpretation. Since the writer of John was himself an eyewitness--most likely John the Elder, a close personal disciple of Jesus who was not one of the Twelve, but someone who moved in a circle of disciples that included some of Jesus’ friends and admirers in and around Jerusalem--he actually felt freer than the other Gospel writers to explain what his perception of Jesus meant. Yet all of the Gospels portray, not merely the so-called Jesus of history, but the Jesus of testimony--the Jesus whose life was full of spiritual significance for those who knew him and observed his ministry.


In this concluding chapter, Bauckham looks more carefully at the category of testimony itself, examining the philosophical understanding of testimony as an epistemological concept (that is, the role of testimony in our knowing reality), considering testimony as a component of the task of writing history, and discussing the characteristics of testimony to events which are unusual or unique (with the testimony of Holocaust survivors providing an analogy to the testimony of the witnesses of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus).


An important philosophical study of testimony for Bauckham is Testimony:  A Philosophical Study (Oxford:  Clarendon, 1992) by C.A.J. Coady. In this landmark philosophical study of testimony, Coady shows how we rely upon testimony for knowledge every day in both trivial and significant ways. There is of course “formal testimony” used in courts of law, which is governed by special rules of evidence, but there is also “natural testimony” used in everyday life, by which a speaker is engaged in the speech act of testifying to the truth of some proposition which is either in dispute or in some way in need of determination, and his attestation is evidence toward settling the matter. In other words, we rely all the time on “facts” for which we only have people’s testimony.


The testimony upon which we rely for our knowledge requires trust. As Coady says, “When we believe testimony we believe what is said because we trust the witness.” But how can such trust be justified? Do we really know what we accept on the word of another in the same way we know what we learn from our own perception, memory, or inference? Coady contends that our trust in the word of others is fundamental to the very idea of serious cognitive activity. Indeed, testimony has the same kind of epistemic status (as knowledge) as our other primary sources of information such as perception.


Coady’s conception of testimony as a fundamental source of knowledge which is as valuable as our own personal perception does go against the grain of most modern epistemologies or theories of how we know reality. Coady is influenced by the “common sense” philosophy of the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher, Thomas Reid, who classified testimony as one of the “social operations of the mind.” Testimony belongs to the kind of social activities such as giving and receiving commands, asking and answering questions, and promising--all of which presuppose interpersonal exchange. He contrasts these social operations with the “solitary operations of the mind.” Reid insists that the social operations of the mind are not reducible to the solitary operations of the mind as though the solitary operations were basic and the social operations were reliable only if we somehow check them by means of the solitary operations. Testimony, says Reid, exposes the social character of knowledge. To trust the testimony of others is simply fundamental to the kind of creatures we are. Testimony does not need to be justified on the basis of other (“solitary”) means of knowledge, for it is as basic as they are.


Reid’s approach to testimony is now broadly shared by many of the most influential contemporary epistemologists (philosophers who study how we know), but this is a recent development. The reason that testimony has not been studied or widely accepted as a basic source of knowledge until recently is because of the influence of the individualism bequeathed to philosophy by the Enlightenment. Post-Enlightenment epistemology begins with the individual’s own perception (“How do I know?”), which has been accorded priority over common knowledge. When knowledge is justified only on the basis of the individual’s perception and reasoning powers, then the category of testimony becomes problematic. As a result, from David Hume on, testimony has been considered reliable only when it is justified by allegedly more fundamental forms of knowledge that do not require reliance upon others. In other words, I would rely upon testimony only because I have been able to check the credibility of the witness or to observe that the kind of testimony in question usually turns out to be trustworthy. Coady contends that it is simply not true that each of us has done anything that approaches sufficient observation by ourselves of the correlation between testimony and observable facts to be able to determine whether or not we can justify our reliance upon testimony. Indeed, the very use of public language presupposes the reliability of many of the testimonies made in that language ( “an extensive commitment to believing the reports of others [is] a precondition to understanding their speech at all”). What we should be suspicious of is the notion of an individualistic justification for the phenomenon of communal epistemological trust.


Recovering an awareness of testimony as a basic means of knowledge does not mean renouncing any kind of cognitive autonomy as though no individual could never think for herself. It simply means that trust in others is the basic matrix within which the individual can acquire and exercise what Coady calls “a robust degree of cognitive autonomy.” In other words, the independent thinker is not in fact someone who works out everything for herself, but the one who exercises a controlling intelligence over the input she receives from the normal sources of information whether their basis is individual or communal. So then believing testimony enables a fundamental attitude of trust, but it is not necessarily an uncritical trust. What ordinarily happens is that we accept the testimony of others unless there are the standard warning signs of deceit, confusion, or mistake being present. In those situations, we incorporate our knowledge of the witness’ competence, the circumstances surrounding his utterance, the consistency of the parts of his testimony, and its relation to what others have said.


By its very nature, testimony invites trust. We have no reason to think that, as a means of knowledge, testimony is less reliable than perception, memory, and inference. We have no reason to suppose that the perceptions of others given in testimony are less worthy of belief than our own perceptions. A fundamental attitude of trust is not gullibility, but it is a necessary epistemic virtue. It is only the excessive individualism of the modern western ideology that tempts us to the view that testimony should regularly and generally incur our suspicion while our own perceptions, memories, and inferences should not. Paul Ricoeur says, “First, trust the word of others, then doubt it if there are good reasons for doing so.”


What should be the role of testimony in the study of history?


This book has accepted the conclusion of the seminal study of Samuel Byrskog that the Gospels share broadly in the attitude to eyewitness testimony that was common among historians in the Greco-Roman period. These historians valued above all the reports of firsthand experience of the events. Ideally the historian himself would have been a participant in the events. At least, the historian would seek informants who could speak of firsthand knowledge of the events and interview them.This enabled historians to avoid the mistakes that occur when information is passed through the hands of many intermediaries, and it also enabled them to cross examine their sources. Of course, the best historians did not rely exclusively upon eyewitness reports, but they valued them as primary. These historians assumed that history still within living memory is the only kind of history that, properly speaking, should even be attempted. As far as really past history is concerned, the historians relied upon earlier historians who had written about events still in their living memory. Generally speaking, they themselves did not think that they had any way of doing better than past historians had done in writing about the history they knew.


Our task involves asking whether contemporary historiography differs from ancient historiography concerning the role of testimony in knowing the past.


The New Testament scholar Dennis Nineham persuaded many English-speaking scholars to set little store by the role of eyewitness testimony in the transmission of Gospel traditions. He said that even if the Gospels consisted exclusively of eyewitness testimony, they would still be just “crude ore” which the historian “must apply his proper, rigorous techniques before he can extract the precious metal of historical truth.” Nineham’s low view of eyewitness testimony relies upon the historical method of the French historian Marc Bloch and the philosophy of history of R.G. Collingwood.


It is true that historians in the early modern period were rightly attempting to move beyond the credulity with which older historians had treated their sources. However, the early modern historians were reacting to the late Roman historians and the medieval historians rather than to the historians of the Greco-Roman period. Moreover, the modern historians also sought to develop methods that would enable them to study history that was not accessible through the testimony of living eyewitnesses upon whom the Greco-Romans relied in their writing of history of more recent events. Modern historiography also came to rely upon non-literary sources, especially archaeology. Yet the truly revolutionary approach of modern historians was to ask and to answer questions about the past that the sources were not designed to answer. Not only could archaeology provide answers to questions not raised by the literary sources, but also the literary sources themselves were examined for the sake of finding answers that their authors never contemplated their readers to consider. As a result, even texts that are considered to be quite unreliable can still be valuable for yielding new information. For example, some scholars have thought that even if the Gospels are not reliable as sources for historical knowledge of Jesus because the writers of the Gospels were promoting faith in Jesus, the Gospels are still good evidence for knowing about the Christian communities for which the Gospel writers wrote.


Bloch considers both literary and non-literary sources as being “witnesses in spite of themselves.” This means that what the writers of the past were trying to inform us about has ceased to be the primary object of our attention today, for we are more interested in the “traces” of the past which those writers inadvertently disclosed while they were trying to tell us about something else. For example, we do not expect to learn much about the saints in medieval lives of the saints, but the writers of those lives do inform us about the way of thought and life of the era in which the writers themselves lived. In this book, we have adopted this principle, e.g. discovering the relative popularity of names in first century Jewish Palestine partly from literary sources that were not intended to provide that kind of information.


Nevertheless, Bloch’s approach to his sources does play down the role of explicit testimonies from the past, and his approach indicates a certain modernist arrogance toward the past. He encourages the modern historian to think of himself as an autonomous thinker who is liberated from the entail of tradition and who is able to provide knowledge that no one has ever provided before.


Collingwood compares the modern scientific historian to the natural scientist. Collingwood relies upon Francis Bacon’s idea that the natural scientist must “put Nature to the question” by taking the initiative to force nature to yield its information (thus reflecting the modern project of dominating nature that has led to the ecological crisis of the world). Collingwood adopts Bacon’s approach to nature as the modern historian’s approach to history. Collingwood thinks that history never voluntarily “gives” the historian anything, but if anyone--even a learned historian from the past or an eyewitness--hands the modern historian on a plate a ready-made answer to his question, all the historian can do is to reject it. If he accepts it, he is surrendering his autonomy as a historian.


Collingwood admits that in everyday life we accept the testimony of others, but he denies that this kind of knowledge can ever be historical knowledge. Whatever testimony may tell the historian, the historian has to independently establish its truth for herself. Whereas in everyday life we treat testimony as reliable unless we find reason to doubt it, in scientific history we are suspicious of testimony at the outset and then believe it only when it can be independently verified.


Collingwood’s claim that the historian can obtain complete independence from testimony has been effectively refuted by Coady’s philosophical study of testimony. The truth is that testimony is fundamental to the historian’s knowledge of the past as it is to human knowledge in general. This does not mean that the historian cannot acquire a certain kind of independence from testimonies from the past, but the historian can think independently only because she has a more basic dependence upon testimony. Collingwood’s philosophy of historiography has been influential because it is not completely wrong. It is an exaggerated account of the fact that modern historical work has developed more searching critical methods of assessing the reliability of testimony and learned to depend upon asking questions the sources do not intend to provide. This can make the historians feel in control of her material rather than dependent on it. This exaggerated sense of the historian’s independence of the past is being challenged by postmodern historians who view Collingwood’s kind of history as barely distinguishable from fiction freely created by the historian.


Collingwood’s attempt to cut loose from testimony altogether--combined with an extreme individualistic epistemology derived from the Enlightenment--can lead historians to an overly skeptical approach to those sources that were intended to recount and inform about events of the past. Particularly, in Gospel scholarship there is an attitude abroad that approaches the sources with a fundamental skepticism rather than trust and requires that anything the sources claim be accepted only if historians can independently verify it. Moreover, many scholars in the study of the Gospels have little or no experience of working as historians in other areas of history and so it is easy for Gospel scholarship itself to develop its own conventions for gauging the reliability of sources. Yet these conventions do not necessarily correspond very well to the way evidence is treated in other historical fields. Young scholars often treat it as self-evident that the more skeptical they are toward their sources the more rigorous will be their historical method. But it must be emphasized that historical rigor does not consist in fundamental skepticism toward historical testimony but in fundamental trust along with testing by critical questioning.Testimony should be treated as reliable until proven otherwise. What Paul Ricoeur advised about ordinary life applies to the historian also:  “First, trust the word of others, then doubt it if there are good reasons for doing so.”


Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical account of historiography is more adequate than Collingwood’s. Ricoeur says that there are three phases of a historian’s work--the documentary phase; explanation and understanding; and the historian’s representation. In the documentary phase the historian assembles testimonies that are “voluntary” and those that are “involuntary” (for they witness “in spite of themselves”). The historian must put questions to these sources, for the documents do not speak unless someone asks them to verify some hypothesis. In the second phase the historian seeks the “why” of events. And, in the third phase, the historian writes a literary text that represents or stands for the historical events. One of Ricoeur’s concerns is to distinguish between history and narrative fiction by insisting that at every stage there is deliberate reference to what happened in the past. At the root of the whole enterprise is memory. Memory is declared in testimony so that documents are “archived memory.” Moreover, Ricoeur views testimony as memory that is different from other “traces” of the past, for only through testimony is the historian’s representation of the past connected to the events themselves. In the end, testimony is all we have. The witness says not only, “I was there,” but also, “believe me.” When questioned, the witness can only say, “If don’t believe me, ask someone else.” So then, the kind of trust we use in ordinary life, must also be used in history, but it must exist in dialectic with the kind of critical questioning that the archived testimony evokes from the historian. At every phase of her work, the historian engages in interpretation, and interpretation of testimony is the historian’s primary mode of seeking historical truth.


Since contemporary historians usually operate at a greater distance in time from testimony, their historical account usually is based upon testimony, but the historian presents to the reader what she has done with testimony more than the testimony itself.


The special importance the Greco-Roman historians attached to participant testimony still retains its validity because it takes us inside the events. Contemporary oral history is a parallel to the kind of history practiced by the Greco-Roman historians.


Testimony can bring us up against the radically unfamiliar that we could not have imagined without it. The texts do not merely report facts, but they make us encounter strangeness.


Participant eyewitness testimony has a special role when it comes to events that transcend the common experience of historians and their readers. The more exceptional the event, the more historical imagination alone is liable to lead us seriously astray. With the participant witness that confronts us with the sheer otherness of the event, we will reduce it to the measure of our own experience. The insider testimony may puzzle us or provoke disbelief, but we must allow the testimony to resist the limiting pressure of our experiences and expectations.


The paradigm of testimony of an exceptional event in modern history is the testimony of Holocaust survivors. The Holocaust was an event “at the limits” of experience and representation, as Ricoeur puts it. It is an “uniquely unique event.”


In the Gospels we also have to do with an event “at the limits” which is “uniquely unique.” We may gain insight into testimony in the Gospels from examining the testimony of Holocaust survivors. Of course, the two kinds of events are quite different in that one is negative and the other is positive, but both events are beyond the usual limits of experience and representation.


The Holocaust memories have been preserved on videotapes made by oral historians. One of them is Edith P.’s testimony of travel in a cattle-car from Auschwitz to a labor camp:  One morning, I think it was morning or early afternoon, we arrived. The train stopped for an hour; why, we don’t know. And a friend of mine said, ‘Why don’t you stand up?’ There was just a little window, with bars. And I said, ‘I can’t. I don’t have enough energy to climb up.’ And she said, ‘I’m going to sit down and you’re going to stand on my shoulders.’ And I did; and I looked out. And...I...saw...Paradise! The sun was bright and vivid. There was cleanliness all over. It was a station somewhere in Germany. There were three or four people there. One woman had a child, nicely dressed up; the child was crying. People were people, not animals. And I thought:  ‘Paradise must look like this!’ I forgot already how normal people look like, how they act, how they speak, how they dress. I saw the sun in Auschwitz, I saw the sun come up, because we had to get up at four in the morning. But it was never beautiful to me. I never saw it shine. It was just the beginning of a horrible day. And in the evening, the end--of what? But here there was life, and I had such yearning. I still feel it to my bones. I had such yearning, to live, to run, to just run away and never come back--to run to the end where there is no way back. And I told the girls, I said, ‘Girls, you have no idea how beautiful the sun is, and I saw a baby crying, and a woman was kissing that baby--is there such a thing as love?’


The most accomplished novelist could not equal Edith P.’s testimony in conveying the horrifying otherness of the world of Auschwitz in which people were animals and existence was death and the beauty of creation could not be experienced. The witness’ glimpse of our world discloses to us her world in the Nazis’ kingdom of night.


Edith P.’s testimony comes from deep memory where she relives her experience, but she is also telling it to us by choosing words that belong to our world as well as to her memory. Many survivors struggle with this because their deep memory threatens to destroy communication as its reality is so other that they know that words betray it. Edith P.’s story is successful because the deep memory reaches us and we are stunned by its otherness.


The story’s method is negative, for it invites us to see the world of Auschwitz as a complete negation of what we take to be unremarkable and ordinary in our world. Yet there is nothing contrived about this. She has cast her testimony in a very effective narrative form. Notice how she withholds the detail about the woman kissing the baby until the last sentence in a way that encapsulates the meaning of the whole experience and brings it to full expression with the addition of an element of the normal world--love. This is a story surely honed in the memory of the telling. It is like the oft-told tales of an oral culture, but at the same time it has lost none of its personal voice or its immediacy in the memory of the teller. Its narrative skill in no way detracts from its authenticity as testimony. The language is direct and straightforward. The scene is vivid, but there is no redundant description but only what needs to be said. In this testimony we hear an authentic moment of epiphany, interpreted for us to some degree, but not contaminated by its manner of telling.


[Bauckham further examines other oral testimony of survivors and compares it with Elie Wiesel’s literary testimony.] 


If we compare testimony to the Holocaust with Gospel testimonies to Jesus, we observe several things. Both events are “uniquely unique,” and they both have the character of disclosure. The Holocaust discloses what we could not otherwise know about the nature of evil. The history of Jesus discloses God’s definitive action for human salvation. The testimonies to the Holocaust evokes horror. The testimonies to the history of Jesus evokes wonder and thanksgiving--a wonder that would be lost were we to be deprived of the Gospel testimonies that evoke the theophanic character of the history of Jesus, the wonder we lose when we turn from the Gospel testimonies themselves to the inevitably reductive reconstructions of some kind of “real” historical Jesus.


The qualitative uniqueness of each of these two events creates a problem of communication. The attempt to connect to our world makes for easy intelligibility at the cost of the uniqueness of the event and its power to disclose. When the quest of the historical Jesus discounts what the witnesses claim in the interest of what is readily credible by the standards of historical analogy, that is, ordinary experience, it reduces revelation to the triviality of what we knew or could know anyway.


Despite the difficulties of communication, participant witnesses in both events have felt the imperative to communicate, to bear witness. Wiesel thought that the Holocaust actually created a new literature. It is similar to the way in which the witnesses of the history of Jesus created the Gospels.


In both cases, the exceptionality of the event means that only the testimony of participant witnesses can give us anything approaching access to the truth of the event. In the case of the Holocaust and of the Gospels, testimony asks to be trusted. The insistence of some critical scholars that the historicity of each pericope must be established, one by one, with arguments for each, is not to recognize testimony for what it is. It is to suppose that we can extract individual facts from testimony and build upon our own reconstruction of events that is no longer dependent on the witness. It is to refuse that privileged access to truth that precisely participant testimony can give us. Such testimony is indispensable when the events we confront are at the limits.


The form of Edith P.’s testimony is similar to that of many Gospel pericopes. Since the Gospel stories are often stories retold by others, they are narrative styles in which subjective states are often less explicit although there are exceptions, such as the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus. Edith’s story must have been honed in remembering or telling it. This is certainly true of Gospel stories. The witnesses themselves had to make a story of what they remembered, choosing what to include, shaping the narrative and retelling it in the form they themselves had given it. But Edith’s example shows us that the skillful narration of a story is entirely consistent with its immediacy to the memory of the witness.


When a writer like Wiesel tells of his experiences in writing there is much more interpretation given than is the case with oral testimonies. Writers tend to include allusions to other texts, as Wiesel includes references to Dostoyevsky in order to bring out the meaning of his own experience. This may help us to understand why there is a difference between the narratives of the crucifixion and the narratives of the resurrection. The narratives of the passion include extensive references to the Old Testament. References to other texts help to interpret the passion in the context of the story of Israel. Yet when we read on to the accounts of the empty tomb and the resurrection, there are hardly any such allusions. These stories show little sign of following literary precedents. For all the ingenuity of scholars, these stories remain strangely sui generis and lacking theological interpretation. We seem to be shown the otherness of resurrection through the eyes of those whose ordinary reality it invaded. The perplexity, the doubt, the fear, the joy, the recognition are those of deep memory, mediated, of course, by literary means, but not entirely hidden by the text.


Reading the Gospels as eyewitness testimony differs from attempts at historical reconstruction behind the texts. It takes the Gospels seriously as they are; it acknowledges the uniqueness of what we can known only in this testimonial form. From a historiographic perspective, radical suspicion of testimony is a kind of epistemological suicide. It is seriously faulty as a historical method, for it can only result in a misleadingly minimal collection of uninteresting facts about a historical figure stripped of any real significance. In the case of the history of Jesus as in any case, the historian cannot verify everything but the historian must at least critically assess the testimony as testimony. Historical assessment must also take seriously testimony’s claim to the radical exceptionality of the event and be careful not to reduce it “business as usual.” There is a risk involved in trusting testimony, but the risk is required by the quest for truth--both historical and theological. In the case of the history of Jesus the “unique uniqueness” of the events is properly theological, that is, it demands reference to God. There is no adequate way of telling the story without reference to God, for the uniqueness of what God does in this history is what makes it the unique and particular history it is. The witness “sees” what is disclosed in what happens. But understanding also grows; as John’s testimony shows, in the ongoing memory of Jesus, interpretation ponders and works to yield its fullest meaning. Yet reflective witness is reflective remembering, and therefore it cannot cease to narrate.


Revelation as God’s communicative action does not reach its goal until it evokes recognition and understanding. So the telling of the story reflects both the event and its reception. The event of revelation includes its own reception. This is just another angle on the appropriateness of testimony as the historical and theological category for appreciating the Gospels.


It is in the Jesus of testimony that history and theology meet.