Review Part 1: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

I've finished the first two chapters of Bauckham's new book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses in which he is arguing that the gospels were based on eyewitness testimony. That may seem obvious to many, but is in fact somewhat controversial in that much of twentieth century scholarship pictured a "long" oral phase between Jesus and the writing down of traditions in the gospels. This phase was often spoken of in terms of wild developments strongly detached from the original eyewitnesses to where Paul knew almost nothing of the historical Jesus and might better be thought the founder of Christianity. Bauckham would of course not be the first to take on what I think was a ridiculous mode of operation.

Bauckham's work is strongly based on the recent work of Samuel Byrskog, who has argued that ancient historians had a strong preference for eyewitness testimony. Bauckham works two very important distinctions. The one is between oral history and oral tradition. The general flavor of discussion of oral tradition speaks of the gospel writers drawing on oral traditions that were passed on from the collective memory of Christians telling the stories. Dunn recent work Jesus Remembered, like Bauckham's, argues for much stronger continuity with Jesus than many used to picture. But it would be on the other side of Bauckham in seeing oral tradition as a collective memory rather than some straightforward eyewitness testimony.

Oral history, in contrast to the idea of oral tradition, relies heavily on eyewitness testimony. Ancient historians were critical of those who relied on written sources in deference to a desire for firsthand knowledge. Bauckham also gives reference to passages that indicate that the word tradition often could refer to eyewitness testimony.

I'll say at this point that I am open to what Bauckham is saying here but I am also a little suspicious that he is going to drive a truck through it. Like it or not, the gospels do not fit very neatly together as verbatim accounts. My initial biases are that Dunn's approach fits what we actually see in the gospels better than what I suspect Bauckham is going to do.

Nevertheless, Bauckham is always insightful and always shines light in corners few others do. By far the most delightful reading in these two chapters for me is Bauckham's discussion of the second century Christian writer Papias. Talk about a potential Da Vinci Code if someone dug his work up. Unfortunately, all we have are the quotes people like Eusebius made from his work (early 300's).

Bauckham interprets a famous statement in Papias' prologue to the effect that Papias, who lived in Hieropolis, about 100 miles east of Ephesus, collected the testimony of Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, or Matthew as remembered by those who had heard certain anonymous elders who might come through town. The disciples themselves were already dead at the time around AD80-90.

But Papias also collected the testimony of Aristion and John the elder, at Smyrna and Ephesus respectively, who were also disciples still alive at the time. Bauckham dates the actual writing down of Papias' work around AD110.

I agree with most of what Bauckham argues here with three possible exceptions. First, Bauckham dismisses the dating of Papias implied in a later author called Philip of Side. Papias is usually dated to 130 or 140 because of this statement. Bauckham does provide some evidence that Philip messed up, but it's hard to know definitively.

Second, I agree with Eusebius over Bauckham that the elders to which Papias refers are probably Peter, Andrew, etc. themselves. That is, Papias listened to those who had actually heard these. This actually helps Bauckham's case because his sources are thus those who heard these disciples themselves, not those who heard elders who heard them.

But third, I'm not sure that we should picture Papias meticulously collecting data in the 80's. Maybe that's right, but I picture a very curious youth in the late 80's or early 90's who loved to hear the stories of anyone coming through town about Jesus. By the way, two of the prophet daughters of Philip apparently were some of Papias' sources, although I have a hunch Philip himself was dead by the time Papias came around. Yet these all ended up at Hierapolis where Papias was.

It is speculation, and I imagine Bauckham will get to it later in the book, but my hunch is the same as his with regard to the authorship of the gospel of John. My hunch is that the Gospel of John preserves the reminiscences of John the elder who was still alive in Papias' youth rather than those of John the Son of Zebedee. Martin Hengel thinks the same (The Johannine Question).

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the book. We are sure to end up with a lot of hunches that are, really, unprovable. But we will enjoy them because we thirst to fill in the gaps with secret knowledge ;-)