Unique perspective from a scholar. He takes a topic that is written about extensively and brings a new perspective to it (the eyewitness factor). Great read!

This book, in my opinion, will become a classic reference to counter the flurry of books in the 1900's and recent times that have attempted to discredit first century authorship of the gospels and letters that make up the canon of scripture. The author has done a marvelous job at providing a well-researched and cited assessment of the facts, using internal and external analyses of the texts themselves and extra-biblical literature. Biblical scholars and enthusiasts will come away with a renewed appreciation of the historicity and authenticity of the gospels.

I heard many good things about this book, and Richard Bauckham is a terrific New Testament scholar, so I ordered it. His thesis is that the gospels are largely records of eyewitness testimony. He rejects the form critical conclusions of Bultmann and others, and argues that the gospels are more indebted to oral traditions and oral history.

He bases a lot of his views on the reliability of the early 2nd century church father Papias. Papias heard testimony from those who were with the first century Christians. He was told that the Gospel of Mark was a repository of the apostle Peter's memories. He also says that this gospel was the one with the least chronological order.

He also sees John as being the eyewitness testimony of the beloved disciple, who Bauckham takes to be John the Elder (not John the apostle, son of Zebedee).

Bauckham talks alot about the differences between personal memories and collective memories and relates this to the study of the gospels.

Bauckham also has an interesting chapter about the names in the gospels. He arrives at the dubious conclusion that Levi the tax collector in Mark's Gospel is not the same as Matthew the tax collector in Matthew's gospel, believing that the author of Matthew changed the name to apply Levi's story to a bona fide member of the Twelve apostles. Kind of strange.

It is more likely to me that Matthew changed his name from Levi to Matthew because the name "Matthew" is close to the word mathete, meaning "disciple," and Matthew wanted his name to reflect his changed status as a disciple of Jesus.

Other than that, the book was loaded with dense argumentation and analysis, and I had to really concentrate to follow the discussion. This is definitely not light reading. I recommend it to the scholarly Christian leader, but I can't see the average layperson reading it.

Much better reading is Bauchkam's book on the theology of Revelation, and his excellent commentary on 2 Peter and Jude, which is coming out again in a revised edition. I also enjoyed his book of the female witnesses of Christ - Gospel Women.

Bauckham accomplished, in my opinion, his goal of demonstrating that the canonical Gospels contain eyewitness testimony and that the Gospels themselves indicate this in the same ways as Roman biographies of that period. I felt that he spent far too much time and energy though, presenting his theory as to the identity of the Gospel of John's "beloved disciple" - a point he admitted, early on, really had no bearing on recognizing eyewitness material in the NT. Also seemed to be a great deal of repitition of throughout the book. Bauckham makes some truly excellent points in this work, but he could have delivered them in a slimmer volume.

Often I come across the idea that the four Gospels are creations of the early Christians to express and justify their beliefs. The Gospels, it is said, offer no reliable access to the earthly Jesus. To question this assumption you then are chided for being a literalist.

I don't think Adam and Eve were literal people. I don't worry whether Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. But it has always mattered to me whether Jesus actually did and said the things the Gospels portray.

So I am grateful to this scholar for helping me to see the reasonableness of this position. He offers plenty of evidence to show that the four Gospels are based on eyewitness testimony, each having been written in the living memory of the events they describe. He spends most of his energy on Mark and John, and he explores the issues and the evidence in great detail.

I appreciated his understanding of testimony as something integral to all human knowing, as well as something that inherently blends observed facts with perceptive interpretation. This is what the Gospels do. I also appreciated the restraint in his presentation. These are things that are not able to be proved, so he uses the word "plausible" to describe his conclusions.

On almost every page there were names in the footnotes of scholars he disagreed with, and who likely would disagree with him. There must be a vigorous debate about these things in scholarly circles, and it seemed like I listened in on that debate in this book, or at least part of it.

There were a couple of times when it seemed like Bauckham's conclusions exceeded the evidence, but they were rare. On the whole, he presents a satisfying picture. I feel like I can trust the Gospels to tell me about the real Jesus.

Often I come across the idea that the four Gospels are creations of the early Christians to express and justify their beliefs. The Gospels, it is said, offer no reliable access to the earthly Jesus. To question this assumption you then are chided for being a literalist.

I don't think Adam and Eve were literal people. I don't worry whether Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. But it has always mattered to me whether Jesus actually did and said the things the Gospels portray.

So I am grateful to this scholar for helping me to see the reasonableness of this position. He offers plenty of evidence to show that the four Gospels are based on eyewitness testimony, each having been written in the living memory of the events they describe. He spends most of his energy on Mark and John, and he explores the issues and the evidence in great detail.

I appreciated his understanding of testimony as something integral to all human knowing, as well as something that inherently blends observed facts with perceptive interpretation. This is what the Gospels do. I also appreciated the restraint in his presentation. These are things that are not able to be proved, so he uses the word "plausible" to describe his conclusions.

On almost every page there were names in the footnotes of scholars he disagreed with, and who likely would disagree with him. There must be a vigorous debate about these things in scholarly circles, and it seemed like I listened in on that debate in this book, or at least part of it.

There were a couple of times when it seemed like Bauckham's conclusions exceeded the evidence, but they were rare. On the whole, he presents a satisfying picture. I feel like I can trust the Gospels to tell me about the real Jesus.

I found this book by Bauckham to be slightly boorish. Why?

Because the form criticism, reduction critics have let on that they know so much more!

Bauckham solidly refutes and consistently refers to 'home base' - the Apostles and their close associates as valid and non-contradictory eyewitness, and therefore being the original and only sources of the NT.

A necessary defense in the light of the plethora of 'Matthew's community' this and the 'Johannine community' that.

Most re-assuring in light of the fact that the textual-critical scholars of the Bible do not believe in half of the words belonging to Jesus! And the anti-supernaturalists who believe that no miracles were actual, therefore disbelieving that 'the virgin shall be with child'.

'In passing, we should note that in John's Gospel, "witness" is not the calling of Christian believers in general, as is often supposed, but the specific task of the personal disciples of Jesus who had been with Him 'from the beginning'. pg 116

*Dr Kostenberger does rightly oppose Bauckam's suggestion that the Gospel of John was not written by the beloved disciple, but the 'Elder' John.

I found this book by Bauckham to be slightly boorish. Why?

Because the form criticism, reduction critics have let on that they know so much more!

Bauckham solidly refutes and consistently refers to 'home base' - the Apostles and their close associates as valid and non-contradictory eyewitness, and therefore being the original and only sources of the NT.

A necessary defense in the light of the plethora of 'Matthew's community' this and the 'Johannine community' that.

Most re-assuring in light of the fact that the textual-critical scholars of the Bible do not believe in half of the words belonging to Jesus!

'In passing, we should note that in John's Gospel, "witness" is not the calling of Christian believers in general, as is often supposed, but the specific task of the personal disciples of Jesus who had been with Him 'from the beginning'. pg 116

*Dr Kostenberger does rightly oppose Bauckam's suggestion that the Gospel of John was not written by the beloved disciple, but the 'Elder' John.

I found this book by Bauckham to be slightly boorish. Why?

Because the form criticism, reduction critics have let on that they know so much more!

Bauckham solidly refutes and consistently refers to 'home base' - the Apostles and their close associates as valid and non-contradictory eyewitness, and therefore being the original and only sources of the NT.

A necessary defense in the light of the plethora of 'Matthew's community' this and the 'Johannine community' that.

Most re-assuring in light of the fact that the textual-critical scholars of the Bible do not believe in half of the words belonging to Jesus!

*Dr Kostenberger does rightly oppose Bauckam's suggestion that the Gospel of John was not written by the beloved disciple, but the 'Elder' John.

Basic point obvious: Jesus had eyewitnesses . In the sense of people qualified and competent to report what they saw; and the Gospels are based on their testimony as such. 'Eyewitnesses' were and are a well recognized metaphor from jurisprudence, and a facet of Hellenistic historiography.

To which a churlish reader such as this one might reply, Duh!

It is perfectly obvious the Gospels were based on witness reports. In some cases (e.g. John, and epistle of Peter) the author formally declared themselves to be witnesses, and gave a kind of oath-sounding affirmation. Luke begins his gospel by telling us he he carefully assembled good witness a la a kind of investigatory reporter, making sure he got his facts from good sources.

Again, Duh.

But the real point at issue here concerns not the normal common-sense readers of the Gospels like ourselves, but those in the cult-like intellectual fringe of yesteryear, who were somehow bewitched in the 1920s and by the ravings of German liberal self styled `high critics' like Rudolph Butltmann. It was he who overlooked the obvious and dredged up anarcane alternative, the better to diminish Scripture and become all the rave of the anti-Christian mainstream media and adultery-addicted Art Deco salon set of his day. This happened in an age when intellectuals we all ga-ga over naturalistic reductionism and swallowed anything attacking the Faith; we had Clarence Darrow and the Scopes monkey trial, we had racial theorists with calipers measuring skulls; John b Watson and B.F. Skinner prototypes declaring there is no mind; we had colonials running around in pith helmets and butterfly nets in Papua, etc etc, all intoxicated with the notion that the verities of the God of old were 'outdated' and could be easily rendered correctly with modern science. And somehow, Bultmanns theories became horribly entrenched until repeated by thousands and millions of dupes readers. Bultmann basically said that the Scripture came not from witnesses but from oral traditions in disparate, disconnected communities. Sayings derived from purposes served, such as liturgical or evangelistic or pseudo-historical. And so the sayings and pericopes 'about' Christ, say Bultmannians, really tell us more about communities and agendas than Jesus.

Belatedly the pericopes were committed to writing. Evidence to the contrary, whether in the texts or from Papias, must simply be lies or inventions.

Bultmann is a scandal not only of higher criticism but of the entire scholarly enterprise itself, which was consciously constructed on the singular theme that God doesn't exist, and that the only allowable dscourse will be naturalistic.

Bauckham uses chap. 10 to lay out the scandal. Bultmann was debunked, point by point, some time ago. There's an unfortunate disconnect between the scholarly journals and these icons of popular science. And the world still rejects the Resurrection, or an afterlife judgment, and simply will grab at any half-plausible pseudo-theory to reassure themselves that there's no consequence of their wicked lives.

Now, with that in view, Bauckham's book begins to make sense. And it has real value in fact. He is primarily addressing a learned audience who have been infected with Bultmann and with the intensive anti-Christian virus. Ordinary, conscientious readers are already way ahead of him.

But other victims of `Jesus' Seminar' et al. claptrap that is so pervasive in antichristian mainstream publishing, who have soaked up the fraudulence about late dating of Gospels and the unreliability or oral transmission, will benefit.

Bauckham meticulously explains the significance of literary inclusio devices; the good credibility of Papias, and how his statements harmonize with Matthew and especially Petrine Mark; Johanine writings as real eyewitness testimony; the significance of many named persons in the Gospels (and others kept anonymous); assorted construction element emphasizing a witnessing purpose;the obviously likelihood that oral traditions were scrupulously memorized and were written in private notebooks; etc

What's missing in my view:

Most glaring and annoying is no mention of the Book of Revelation--which, after all, purports to be the testament and eyewitness experience of John, who is the same who was Christ's biographical witness. And John is ordered to `write down' the prophecy. And there is a solemn curse against anyone who would change it. And there are allusions to false apostles already corrupting the msg. All of these elements really bear direclty on Bauckham's thesis, and Revelation is rife with 'witness' themes, yet Bauckham gives it nary a mention.

Another weakness is his brief treatment of Paul's witness claim in which Paul asserts that he received the words of the sacramental liturgy from the Lord. Bauckham simply replies, `Paul couldn't have meant this,' without enough discussion on this monumentally important (and dubious) assertion.

Conversely, Bauckham gives us WAY too much about Greco-Roman literary forms and parallels that only tangentially bear on his thesis. This happens several times, totaling scores of pages. It fulfills the scholarly job of comparative literature, but is mind-numbing. Bauckham could have put the cites in footnotes or moved this material to an appendix.

If Baukham does a paperback edition, he should follow Tom Wright's example in his 900 page Resurrection, and give us a 250 page abridgment for popular reading.

There's no reflection, either, on the possibility that God may have constructed the Gospel with intentional ambiguity and opacity (as Jesus says) precisely in order to hide things from the 'smart guys' and reveal them only to the poor or humble or those in need. Part of the arrogance of the ruling intelligentsia is their naive assumption that reality is objective, under their symbolic control, and analyzable without acknowledging God. Scientists are only chasing their own tails.


From a scholarly standpoint, this book is a masterpiece that will certainly drive a stake thru Bultmann's heart. It should soften some of the bizarrely anti-Christianized heavily politicized and weirdly speculative maundering drivel we've been getting from HarperSanFrancisco, of Jesus Seminar genre, which is really converging on the Da Vinci Code agenda, and other septic spill from Beelzebub.

In fear of being misinterpreted, it should first be said that Bauckham presents his case in a fresh light and has certainly done his research. The content of this text is powerful, and the intended message is definitely worth conveying. I would not have normally written a review for this work because there are so many others that have done a splendid job describing, in detail, that which makes it worth reading. However, I feel as if I should offer a warning to those whom are unprepared to take on the rather laborious task of actually reading the work in its entirety.

As powerful as this message may be, something may have been lost between that which was in Mr. Bauckham's mind and the actual pages of the text. Beginning with the very first page of this work and continuing throughout, this work is plagued by a writing style that is simply difficult to read with any consistency. I would compare the experience to listening to a lecture in which the presenter never once changes the tone of their voice. In fact, now that it has been mentioned, if this work is available in an audio format, I would highly recommend that alternative. To listen to a monotone lecture is one thing, but to read a work of length that appears to have been transcribed exactly as it would have been verbally presented by the author is something entirely different. What might have been the fatal blow with regard to readability was the insertion of the word "triumphalistically". Unfortunately, this occurs with about twenty pages left in the body of the work, which is far too late to seek out alternative means for retrieving the valuable information contained between the front and back cover of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

This is the first part of a detailed review of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham (2006).

The theological interest of Bauckham

The opening chapter's title, From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony, epitomizes Bauckham's distinction between the two concepts of Jesus. Bauckham laments that the quest for the historical Jesus has posed a serious problem for theology and those who are seeking the Christ of faith:

From the beginning of the quest the whole enterprise of attempting to reconstruct the historical figure of Jesus in a way that is allegedly purely historical, free of the concerns of faith and dogma, has been highly problematic for Christian faith and theology. (p.2)

From the perspective of Christian faith and theology we must ask whether the enterprise of reconstructing a historical Jesus behind the Gospels, as it has been pursued through all phases of the quest, can ever substitute for the Gospels themselves as a way of access to the reality of Jesus the man . . . ." (p.4)

What is in question is whether the reconstruction of a Jesus other than the Jesus of the Gospels . . . can ever provide the kind of access to the reality of Jesus that Christian faith and theology have always trusted we have in the Gospels. (p.4)

Here, then, is the dilemma that has always faced Christian theology in the light of the quest of the historical Jesus. (p.4)

Theologically speaking, the category of testimony [i.e. the eyewitness reports recorded by the gospels] 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. (p.5)

The repetition of this concern as reflected in the five citations above testifies to Bauckham's intention in this book that he leads the reader to a way to find a Jesus in history (not at all necessarily the same thing as the "the historical Jesus") who is also their Jesus of faith. This is important and central to how we read Bauckham. His concerns are theological to the extent that he sees historical interests, at least in the traditional sense of the word, as a problem for Christian faith.

Backhaum explains that the term "historical Jesus" is not at all self-evident and cites at least three possible meanings:

1. a term that points to the Jesus at the time he lived on earth and before, according to believers, he transferred to his present heavenly existence;
2. a term for the Jesus that believers see and accept in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life on earth despite their differences;
3. a term used by historians to apply to the Jesus they attempt to discern hidden behind the theological statements of the Gospels.

This third meaning, Bauckham continues, covers many and widely varying Jesus's as different historians (Crossan, Borg, Wright, Allison, Theissen, et al.) find new and different ways to construct their model of Jesus out of their interpretations of the Gospels. The method of these historians, writes Bauckham, is to "leave aside all the meaning that adheres in each Gospel's story of Jesus" (p.4), and then "reconstruct" another Jesus from the remaining bare bone facts and probabilities. These historians must then continue to use their "skeptical methods" to explain how and why their particular Jesus was turned into the Jesus of the Gospels, and this means they need to construct a new significance for his life that was later adapted by the Gospel authors who injected into his life their own theological meanings.

So one might wonder why one with theological interests should bother with the historical method at all. Why should not the two be kept distinct? But Bauckham's faith actually relies on the veracity of the historical record in the sense that it is inseparable from it. Unless his faith can be confirmed by historical method then he has no basis for his faith. If the historical method only produces a Jesus who is not the Jesus of the gospels, or if it cannot give us any insights at all into the Jesus of our faith, then that "would be tantamount to denying that Jesus really lived in [a] history" that must in some way be "accessible to historical study." That is unthinkable because the very next sentence of B. says: "We need not question that historical study can be relevant to our understanding of Jesus in significant ways." (p.4).

(Paradoxically I would agree fully with that last sentence, only not in the way Bauckham intends. His faith limits him to only one avenue of enquiry and prevents him from asking questions that would open up others. He can question such pillars as form criticism but not, it seems, the foundations of traditional dating of the gospels. Nor does it seem that he can open up the doors to the possibility that the gospels are literary fictions and not historical biographies after all. But I will demonstrate in the coming sections of this review that some of these alternatives offer more cogent explanations than those provided by B's eyewitness model.)

"Solving" the "historical Jesus versus Jesus of faith" dilemma

Bauckham states the dilemma for Christian faith: Is the method of the critical historian by its very nature forever destined to bypass the needs of Christian theology and faith who believe in the Jesus in their Gospels? (p.5) He solves this dilemma by turning to the methods of ancient historians (Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Josephus, Tacitus) and asserting that their most prized sources for their histories were eyewitness testimonies by actively involved participants in those historical events, and that the only really "true" history could be written in the lifetimes of those actors. (The more actively involved or "biased" the better since theirs is the memory most likely to last the longest!)

The gospel authors followed this method of writing of events within the reach of one's own lifetime and relying heavily on engaged actors in those events, says Bauckham. (I am reminded of statements by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius's account of Papias that, among others, also testified of the preference for oral testimony over written documents, especially in matters of faith.) Bauckham explains that this was appropriate history by ancient standards, and is also legitimate for us today given that all knowledge necessarily comes to us via the "testimonies" of others.

This sort of history is both true history and true theology, says Bauckham:

1. it is true theology because it is a record of the witness who could not separate the (theological?) meaning of the events s/he saw from the events themselves;
2. it is true history because it is an oral report of eyewitnesses to the events.

Here I think Bauckham is confusing two senses of "history" as well as confusing anachronistic and modern meanings of "oral history". Yes, there is "oral history" that is a history of those participants in the events -- a type of history that is being revived in modern times. We see this type of history is most useful for capturing the social life of other generations -- our great-grandparents of the Depression years, indigenous survivors of the later white settlements, others who had experienced less common more contemporary events. But this is not what modern historians would confuse with the techniques of ancient historians who used oral reports as sources for their histories of something else, such as the history of a war between states. Modern historical method treats the latter oral accounts in the same way they do written accounts -- subject to analysis of tendencies for bias, sceptical scrutiny to compensate for this and ulterior motives, perspective of view, etc. To take oral testimony uncritically as "a source" without independent verification is simply "unhistorical" by modern standards.

When some ancient historians such as Herodotus encountered different oral testimonies they would sometimes record both conflicting versions and leave it to the reader to decide the one they would accept, even with some hints from the historian. If we accept Bauckham's thesis it is difficult to understand why none of the 4 gospel authors ever overtly addressed, as their ancient counterparts did, such varying accounts. When applied to the gospels we will encounter an avalanche of even vaster difficulties: why, for example, there is very little if any "testimony" that cannot be attributed to some other literary source; and why there is virtually no "testimony" that cannot be explained as a theological statement -- why there is virtually no trace of any detail that is not theological. Even witnesses expressing themselves with the most theological meanings must surely have dropped other human-interest details and these must also have been siezed upon by any other party interested in the real "historical" person. But we will test these questions in later chapters.

Critique of Form Critical Studies

Bauckham argues that the form critical method pioneered by Bultmann and related studies of the transmission of oral traditions has led many historians misguidedly to build models of gospel tradition-transmission across vast spans of time or generations that simply did not really exist between the time of Jesus and the writing of the gospels. The most widely accepted dates of the gospels (not the radically early ones) allow for their authors to be writing in the lifetimes of known eyewitnesses of Jesus. Once this is grasped then the raft of form critical studies positing traditions being passed through many anonymous others, each with their varying interpretations and local interests, before they were finally filtered to the Gospel authors, simply collapses. There has been all along the presence of respected eyewitnesses available for consultation and their own accounts. So argues B. And he has a good point here. What he misses, however, is what his faith position does not allow him to consider: the possibility that the gospels were theological constructions built on Old Testament and other stories as a result of a need for some 'biographical' narrative to illustrate an emerging Christian sect rooted in mysticism and other theological and philosophical roots in both the Diaspora Jews and Hellenistic philosophy.

Debt to Samual Byrskog

Bauckham cites his debt to Samuel Byrskog's "Story as History -- History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History" (2000). It is from Byrskog that Bauckham takes his argument that among ancient historians it was oral testimony that was preferable to written sources. Bauckham mentions two criticisms that have been levelled at Byrskog's work:

1. Byrskog assumes (failing to demonstrate) that the Gospels are comparable to the practice of oral history in ancient historiography;
2. Byrskog does not offer criteria by which to identify eyewitnesses or their testimony.

It is in response to these two criticisms of Byrskog's work that Bauckham has written the remaining chapters of "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses".

This review is continued, chapter by chapter, at:
http://vridar.wordpress.com/tag/book-reviews/bauckham-jesus-and-the-eyewitnesses/

This is an important book. Bauckham takes on form critics, and blasts them with scholarly insight, massive evidence, and something not usual in bible studies: commonsense.

Form criticism believed the gospels came about through a long process of oral transmission. It's hard to credit now, but at the time form criticism began, many scholars thought the gospels were written in the second century, and Bultmann imagined that the idea of 12 apostles was a late invention. "Nearly all the contentions of the early form critics have been convincingly refuted, but the general picture of the process of oral transmission ...still governs the way New Testament scholars think" (p 242).

Bauckham sets out to change that.

We now know the gospels were all written when there were still living witnesses to the events. Facts could still be checked. And, indeed, Paul asks his readers to do just that.

Eyewitness testimony played a vital role in the ancient world. Historians preferred eyewitness testimony over all others. The Torah's rules of evidence required 2 or 3 eyewitnesses.

It is therefore significant when Peter, in Acts, says that "We are witnesses to all that he did" (Acts 10). References to eyewitnesses testimony dot all the gospels. The apostles were told to "testify because you have been with me from the beginning" (John 15:27).

"Mark's gospel claims Peter as its main eyewitness source" (p 126). Not only is Peter present at nearly all that takes place in the gospel, but Mark forms a deliberate inclusio by mention of Peter in the beginning and end of the gospel. In dozens of ways, "Mark closely reproduces the way Peter told the story" (p 156). Mark shows intimate knowledge of Peter's emotions, his terror at the transfiguration and his anguish at his denials.


Bauckham provides some fascinating speculation about why some people are named in the gospels, and some not. He goes into great detail about Papias, and posits that we need to go back and take his statements about the gospels more seriously. Papias had no interest in anonymous traditions. He preferred eyewitness testimony over all other. His statements about the gospels need to be reevaluated. Bauckham points out that "nowhere in early Christian literature do we find traditions attributed to the community as their source or transmitter, only as the recipient" (p 197). So much for the sitz im leben theories.

There is also a long, meaty section on John, with so many insights that there is no way I can mention them all. Suffice to say that Bauckham, like Martin Hengel, believes John may have been written by John the Elder.

This is simply a great book. I should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the gospels.

This book sets out to establish that the Gospels compare favorably with other historical and biographical literature from the Classical period, and it makes an admirable case for that proposition. The author recounts the methods of Classical historians and biographers and posits certain literary conventions they used to warrant the accuracy of their text. He then turns to the Gospels, finding that they not only conform to good Classical historiographic methodology, they also make use of the Classical literary conventions warranting accuracy.

Basically, he finds that Classical historians highly valued eyewitness testimony as a basis for their works, and that the Gospels showed the same care to base their accounts on eyewitness testimony. He also demonstrates how, through the use of Classical literary convention, the Gospels identify the eyewitnesses to the various events they recount.

Bauckham engages in a statistical study of the names of minor characters mentioned in the Gospels, and his findings should raise more than a few eyebrows. It is a complex study, but the bottom line is that the statistical distribution of names of minor characters validates the historical accuracy of the Gospels.

Bauckham also tackles the identity of the Beloved Disciple, drawing parallels between the Beloved Disciple's relationship to Jesus and Porphyry's relationship to Plotinus. Porphyry was a disciple of Plotinus who wrote a biography of that philosopher, and whose self-portrayal in that biography mirrors the portrayal of the Beloved Disciple in the Fourth Gospel. Bauckham identifies the Beloved Disciple as the author of the Fourth Gospel and the three letters of John, and names the Beloved Disciple as John the Elder of Ephesus, a young Jerusalem disciple of Jesus who was not a member of the Twelve.

Interesting reading, to say the least.

I was very pleased to find that Bauckman proposes to discard the model of form criticism for the Gospels entirely. Based on good literary and historical models, he examines the methods for transmitting important information in a community like the early Christian community. The parallel communities of the time were excellent models. He asks the right questions to determine whether the early church valued eyewitness accounts and attempted to preseve them. The answer in short is that they did so. That was a complete contradiction to the assumptions of the form critics.

Dr. Bauckman pointed out that many expositors who have not accepted the conclusions of form criticism have nevertheless bought into its preliminary assumptions of a lengthy phase of oral transmission with no real interest in preserving the memory of the historical Jesus. Those assumptions, however, he proves to be just as wrong as the conclusions of form criticism.

Dr. Bauckman is partial to Markan priority in a literary sense. This partiality may be difficult to sustain beside his other arguments. He would have an easier time to say that the Synoptic framework was the agreed form for memorizing and transmiting the story of Jesus in the Christian community. Therefore, all three of the Synoptic authors would have known that framework and the pericopes that make it up from their apostolic sources.

I recommend this book for students who want to know how the traditions of the Gospels might have been formed. Dr. Bauckman may not have the last word, but he has a strong argument that must be considered.

Bauckham posits nothing without thorough research and reason to support it. How refreshing to read again the gospels without the ghosts of "form criticism" lurking over my shoulder!

There is compelling evidence that over 500 individuals saw the man Jesus alive after he was certainly dead. One credible eyewitness is usually enough to turn a verdict one way or the other........highly recommend this book to others.....

Bauckham here does the church and world a significant scholarly favor by taking on the form critical approach and assumptions to the gospel as being nothing other than an outcome of a community formation process of oral tradition, that has been edited, and redited and applied and reapplied. Thus, layer upon layer that needs this search for a supposed authentic Jesus.

Bauckham argues in a thorough and academic way that this is incorrect. Primarily it does not approach the Gospels for what they are: personal engaged eyewitness testimony of the most accepted and solid histoiography of its times. He unloads and unpacks this in over five-hundred pages of engagement with the sources, academia opinions, and critics. He is thorough, articulate and reacts to various schools and opinions.

He finds the break to this modern disengagement of many in academia with the historical Gospel approach through an Enlightenment arrogance to challenge ancient history as not truly being able to know what they were witnessing to. Rather than seeing themselves standing on the shoulders of the history past, they rather see themselves as standing on their own shoulders and judging/rewriting through their interprative tools all history before them.

Bauckham here not only refutes this with the Biblical/historiography evidence, but also with philosophy of epistemology, showing that trust in testimony is critical to interpersonal communication. The Enlightenment's trend to make the individual supreme here needs to move back to the past view of trust in testimony until it can be shown as an unreliable bedrock as faulty memory.

Besides the historography examination of this ancient Greco-Roman world, the author explores at length the second century connection through Eusebius' history with the likes of Papias, Polycrates, and Irenaeus.

Some doubts as to his concentration on discounting of John of Zebedee not being author of any Biblical book, but will wait to see the reaction and dialogue on this vital topic.

To be carefully read, pondered, discussed and rejoiced with thanks for again raising this vital area of discussion for the church and its faith in eyewitness testimony and history.

Can't recommend its reading enough.

How refreshing to read a treatment of the Gospels by a major scholar that does not have the stench of the Jesus Seminar ideas or the odor of the Ehrman/Pagels agenda emitting from it! Bauckham actually believes that the Gospel accounts are based on eyewitnesses and are not the result of a long oral tradition finalizing in various forms, each tainted by the theological views of the ones who finally who recorded them. And he offers a very convincing argument for his position! The subtitle of this work could be: "Why we should have listened to Luke and Papias in the first place."
Building on the work of Samuel Byrskog in his "Story as History - History as Story," (he is cited over 30 times), Bauckham conducts a "tour de force" of Gospel history with an amazing amount of detail, always presented in a lively prose. Gospel heavyweights like Wright, Stanton, Dunn, and Hengel sing its praises on the covers, so what can I add? Only to say that readers need to recognize that the misdirected Jesus Quest of the last generation has been fueled by a self-appointed coterie of AMERICAN scholars who have made a lot of money on their "Jesus fantasies" while destroying the faith of many laymen who don't know that their scholarship is bogus. Furthermore, they have made Americans again the laughingstock of the European scholarly world by their agenda-driven writings. (Note the names above are all British/German!).
True, many laymen probably won't read this 536 page book, but hopefully those who want to be informed and to inform others will join Bauckham in his scholarly detective work.
I wish I could require this for reading in my Life of Christ class this Spring, but it is late for course adoption and I can only require so much. On the other hand, no informed pastor, serious layman, or seminary prof and student should neglect what I sincerely believe will become a classic. One complaint: No bibliography is included and although the author usually mentions the details of a book in the footnotes, sometimes he doesn't (Chapman, "John the Presbyter" for example, page 17). Also, some of my evangelical colleagues will not like his Markan priority, but sometimes you have to be thankful for what you can get and not short-sightedly toss out something that has great value otherwise.
These matters are minor in light of the major strengths of this work. If you are wondering what REAL historical research looks like, get this book.

Bauckham here does the church and world a significant scholarly favor by taking on the form critical approach and assumptions to the gospel as being nothing other than an outcome of a community formation process of oral tradition, that has been edited, and redited and applied and reapplied. Thus, layer upon layer that needs this search for a supposed authentic Jesus.

Bauckham argues in a thorough and academic way that this is incorrect. Primarily it does not approach the Gospels for what they are: personal engaged eyewitness testimony of the most accepted and solid histoiography of its times. He unloads and unpacks this in over five-hundred pages of engagement with the sources, academia opinions, and critics. He is thorough, articulate and reacts to various schools and opinions.

He finds the break to this modern disengagement of many in academia with the historical Gospel approach through an Enlightenment arrogance to challenge ancient history as not truly being able to know what they were witnessing to. Rather than seeing themselves standing on the shoulders of the history past, they rather see themselves as standing on their own shoulders and judging/rewriting through their interprative tools all history before them.

Bauckham here not only refutes this with the Biblical/historiography evidence, but also with philosophy of epistemology, showing that trust in testimony is critical to interpersonal communication. The Enlightenment's trend to make the individual supreme here needs to move back to the past view of trust in testimony until it can be shown as an unreliable bedrock as faulty memory.

Besides the historography examination of this ancient Greco-Roman world, the author explores at length the second century connection through Eusebius' history with the likes of Papias, Polycrates, and Irenaeus.

Some doubts as to his concentration on discounting of John of Zebedee not being author of any Biblical book, but will wait to see the reaction and dialogue on this vital topic.

To be carefully read, pondered, discussed and rejoiced with thanks for again raising this vital area of discussion for the church and its faith in eyewitness testimony and history.

Can't recommend its reading enough.

How refreshing to read a treatment of the Gospels by a major scholar that does not have the stench of the Jesus Seminar or the odor of the Ehrman/Pagels crowd emitting from it! Bauckham actually believes that the Gospel accounts are based on eyewitnesses and are not the result of a long oral tradition finalizing in various forms, each tainted by the theological views of the ones who finally who recorded them. And he offers a very convincing argument for his position! The subtitle of this work could be: "Why we should have listened to Luke and Papias in the first place."
Building on the work of Samuel Byrskog in his "Story as History - History as Story," (he is cited over 30 times), Bauckham conducts a "tour de force" of Gospel history with an amazing amount of detail, always presented in a lively prose. Gospel heavyweights like Wright, Stanton, Dunn, and Hengel sing its praises on the covers, so what can I add? Only to say that readers need to recognize that the misdirected Jesus Quest of the last generation has been fueled by a self-appointed coterie of AMERICAN scholars who have made a lot of money on their "Jesus fantasies" while destroying the faith of many laymen who don't know that their scholarship is bogus. Furthermore, they have made Americans again the laughingstock of the European scholarly world by their agenda-driven writings. (Note the names above are all British/German!).
True, many laymen probably won't read this 536 page book, but hopefully those who want to be informed and to inform others will join Bauckham in his scholarly detective work.
I wish I could require this for reading in my Life of Christ class this Spring, but it is late for course adoption and I can only require so much. On the other hand, no informed pastor, serious layman, or seminary prof and student should neglect what I sincerely believe will become a classic. One complaint: No bibliography is included and although the author usually mentions the details of a book in the footnotes, sometimes he doesn't (Chapman, "John the Presbyter" for example, page 17). Also, some of my evangelical colleagues will not like his Markan priority, but sometimes you have to be thankful for what you can get and not short-sightedly toss out something that has great value otherwise.
These matters are minor in light of the major strengths of this work. If you are wondering what REAL historical research looks like, get this book.