Monday, November 13, 2006

Richard Bauckham on Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

My thanks to Richard Bauckham for having taken the time for the following Q&A ‘interview’ on his eagerly anticipated and soon to be published Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

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(1Question) Chris Tilling: In a nutshell, what is the main argument of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses?

(1Answer) Richard Bauckham: It’s hard to put 500 pages in a nutshell! There is a historical argument and a theological argument, both centred on the notion of eyewitness testimony. The historical argument (most of the book) is that the eyewitnesses of the events of the Gospel history remained, throughout their lives, the authoritative sources and guarantors of the traditions about Jesus, and that the texts of our Gospels are much closer to the way the eyewitnesses told their stories than has been generally thought since the rise of form criticism. I also argue that the Gospels have ways, largely unnoticed before now, of indicating their own eyewitness sources, and I present new evidence for believing Papias’ claim that Mark’s Gospel was based on Peter’s preaching. Although the book’s conclusions support rather traditional views of the Gospels, much of the argument is quite fresh. The book also breaks new ground in Gospel studies by engaging with modern psychological research on eyewitness memory.

The theological argument is that the category of testimony offers a category for the Gospels that is both historiographically and theologically appropriate, and a way beyond the dichotomy of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Jesus as presented by eyewitnesses participants in his history, for whom empirical fact and meaning were interrelated from the beginning, are the kind of access to Jesus that Christian faith requires.

(2Q) CT: What first provoked your thinking to study the role of eyewitness testimony in early Christianity? When did you first suspect there was need for a fresh study?

(2A) RB: There are at least three roots of the argument in my previous work. One is an approach to the issue of names in the Gospels, on which I have had some ideas for some time that I have not developed until recently. Here I have taken advantage of our rapidly advancing knowledge of name use among Palestinian Jews, for which Tal Ilan’s Lexicon is an invaluable resource. Secondly, some time ago I became convinced that what Papias had to say about the eyewitnesses and the Gospel traditions had not been properly understood. I brought these two strands of thought together in an article I wrote for the inaugural issue of JSHJ. I then began to think about developing them into a short book – a suggestive sketch rather than a definitive study. But then one thing led to another as I found myself, for example, realising that form criticism was wrong about almost everything, and the book grew to 500 pages. In the course of that I also brought I into play ideas about the authorship and origins of John’s Gospel that I had been pursuing for fifteen years, and these became the third root of the argument of the book.

(3Q) CT: How does the category of eyewitness testimony help to bridge the gap between the so-called historical Jesus and the Christ of faith?

(3A) RB: The Jesus of history/Christ of faith distinction is used in more than one way, but if we take it as an epistemological distinction (what we know by historical research or by faith) then I think ‘the Jesus of testimony’ avoids the dichotomy in a way that enables believers to integrate faith and history. It is a mistake to suppose that we can dig behind the Gospels historically and reconstruct a purely historical Jesus who could be of any significance or interest for faith. Like most historical evidence, what we have is testimony, and it is the kind of testimony ancient historians most valued: the testimony of involved participants who spoke of the meaning of events they experienced from the inside. Dispassionate observers are not the best sources for much of what we want to know about history. Especially with uniquely significant, history-making events, where crude ideas of uniformity in history break down, we need testimony from the inside. The Holocaust is the signal modern example of an event we should have no real conception of without the testimony of survivors. Moreover, trusting testimony is a normal, perfectly rational thing to do. One can try to test the reliability of witnesses, but then they have to be trusted. We cannot independently verify everything they say and that’s the point of testimony. So while I’m not trying to remove faith in the special sense of faith in God and in Jesus or that such faith is response to the disclosure of God in the Gospel history, I do think that historiographical and theological considerations converge in the nature of the Gospels, rather than tearing faith and history apart.

(4Q) CT: You argue that the Gospel of John was written by John the Elder, an eyewitness who had been with Jesus for his entire ministry. How should one then account for the differences between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics?

(4A) RB: I think the Beloved Disciple, the author of the Gospel, was the man Papias called John the Elder, who had been a personal disciple of Jesus (the older tradition of attributing the Gospel to John the Elder did not reckon with this) and one of the last of such disciples to survive. I take the view that he was a Jerusalem resident who, although committed to Jesus from early on, probably did not travel with Jesus like the Twelve. But he would of course have been close to disciples who were eyewitnesses of events he did not himself witness. The named disciples who are prominent in John are largely different from the named disciples who are prominent in the Synoptics, and I take this to indicate that the circle(s) of disciples in which the Beloved Disciple moved were different from those from which most of the Synoptic traditions derive. This (along with the fact that I think John expected most of his readers to know Mark and so did not repeat Mark without specific reasons for doing so) accounts for the different narrative material in John. As for the discourses and dialogues of Jesus, I think John adopted a different approach to representing the teaching of Jesus in a narrative. He includes traditional sayings of Jesus but expands on them in extensive, reflective interpretation. The much greater interpretative element in John is actually quite coherent with my claim that this is the only Gospel to have been actually written by an eyewitness. Precisely because he had been close to Jesus he felt qualified to interpret Jesus.

(5Q) CT: The eyewitness inclusio you argue is evident in Mark and consciously appropriated and changed by John and Luke, is not present in the Gospel of Matthew. What is the significance of this for our understanding of Matthew’s Gospel?

(5A) RB: I’m not sure of the answer to this! Matthew’s Gospel remains for me the most puzzling of the four. It does not use the inclusio of eyewitness testimony, but it does have, like Mark and Luke, the carefully preserved list of the Twelve, which I think in the Synoptics points to the Twelve as the source of many of their traditions. It also highlights the apostle Matthew by adding the description ‘taxcollector’ to his name in the list and by transferring to Matthew the story of the call of a taxcollector that Mark tells of Levi. Matthew cannot have written the Gospel but he must have had some connexion with its origins. I do not think the Gospels were originally anonymous in more than the technical sense that the author’s name was not part of the opening text.

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20 Comments:

At 11/14/2006 12:54 AM, Anonymous Rob said...

This was fantastic. Thanks so much, man.

 
At 11/14/2006 5:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks again Chris!

RB on the Gospel of John: "Precisely because he had been close to Jesus he felt qualified to interpret Jesus."

Way to turn the traditional argument on its head!

 
At 11/14/2006 6:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chris, Great job! This was definitely worth the wait!

 
At 11/14/2006 1:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the heads-up. i look forward to reading the book, which should be just the sort of thing that we ords suspected to be true of the gospels and were wondering why the scholars couldn't see it!

- referred by OST

 
At 11/14/2006 5:53 PM, Anonymous Joseph Calandrino said...

Bravo, Chris, and bravissimo Richard!

I have argued that 'testimony' is always at the nexus of history and theology, and further, that 'real history' is always interested, never disinterested. I am grateful that a scholar of Bauchman's stature has stated so eloquently that the testimony of the witness is the heart of history and theology, and that we can now formally dispense with the false dichotomy of faith and history.

 
At 11/14/2006 6:59 PM, Blogger Steven Carr said...

'I think the Beloved Disciple, the author of the Gospel, was the man Papias called John the Elder, who had been a personal disciple of Jesus (the older tradition of attributing the Gospel to John the Elder did not reckon with this) and one of the last of such disciples to survive. I take the view that he was a Jerusalem resident who, although committed to Jesus from early on, probably did not travel with Jesus like the Twelve.'

The Beloved Disciple wasn't a disciple?

 
At 11/14/2006 9:30 PM, Blogger David Wilkerson said...

>>>>It is a mistake to suppose that we can dig behind the Gospels historically and reconstruct a purely historical Jesus who could be of any significance or interest for faith.<<<<

He should have stopped there. But I fear he sneaks 'faith in a basically historical Jesus' back in what follows....


>>>> Like most historical evidence, what we have is testimony, .......the testimony of involved participants who spoke of the meaning of events they experienced from the inside.<<<

They gave testimony to the 'event' of the risen Christ or Spirit, not to the historical Jesus. That is what they experienced and wanted to communicate, not biography. Bauckham appears to still be talking about a 'testimony of a biography'.

>>> Dispassionate observers are not the best sources for much of what we want to know about history.<<<<

This seems like an unsupported assertion. How are they historically limited? The example of the Holocaust doesn't prove this does it? We could have a fine history written by outside observers collecting data from various sources. This has nothing to do with issues of uniformity, objectivity, subjectivity and the like.
Of course survivors could enlighten us about the minute detail or the feelings of the violence. If that is the analogy then Bauckham is simply claiming that the gospel writers are indeed giving us historically accurate details of the events and their meaning. But Holocaust survivors are not believed, in a historical sense, if they start claiming their camps were transformed into hell and Hitler appeared as Satan. But that is precisely the issue in the gospels. Not insider testimony or outsider objective history, but what is being testified to and does it contain even a small historical kernel.


>>> One can try to test the reliability of witnesses, but then they have to be trusted. We cannot independently verify everything they say and that’s the point of testimony.<<<<

One can easily falsify testimony or expose a witness a false, historically speaking. I think I am hearing this too "fundamentalistically". Perhaps Bauckham simply means the gospel writers in a general sense understand that Jesus is God incarnate in a way outsiders don't or can't. And consequently their way of communicating it may be completely unconcerned with historical accuracy. Of course this leaves the dispute over what the writers are saying exactly about Jesus and then how to reconcile them.


>>>> So while I’m not trying to remove faith in the special sense [of] faith [as the] response to the disclosure of God in the Gospel history<<<

As with Wright, one wonders.

 
At 11/14/2006 10:06 PM, Anonymous Stephen said...

No one will ever persuade me that the Gospel of John can be reconciled with the synoptics.

Bauckham hypothesizes that John the elder (1) lived in Jerusalem, (2) didn't travel with Jesus, (3) hung with a different crowd of disciples, and (4) felt at liberty to rewrite Jesus' message on the basis of his personal authority.

• How does that speak to the lack of any reference to the kingdom of God (except in dialogue with Nicodemus) in John's Gospel when it is the dominant theme in the synoptics?

• How does it speak to the bald claims of divinity in John (e.g., "Before Abraham was, I am") which have no parallel in the synoptics?

• Does Bauckham's reconstruction really dispense with the lack of parables and short, pithy sayings in John? In other words, the complete loss of contact with the actual voice of Jesus?

• On the other hand, are we to assume that the sources of the synoptic tradition (i.e., the Twelve) were unaware of the raising of Lazarus, or didn't see it as significant enough to bother reporting it?

I accept that the synoptic Gospels are rooted in eyewitness tradition. (I have always thought Bultmann and the form critics were unnecessarily sceptical on this point.)

But John tells a radically different story. Insofar as one demonstrates that the synoptics are grounded in reliable tradition, one also demonstrates that John has lost all contact with that tradition.

In other words, Bauckham's book may be able to reframe the debate about the synoptics, but his argument would have been more persuasive if he hadn't attempted to extend it to John. He would have done well to imitate Wright's example of virtual silence on John. (Or left the fourth Gospel for a later book, after critics had had time to digest this one.)

 
At 11/15/2006 6:25 AM, Blogger Apolonio said...

I have been waiting for this book to come out. Amazon does not have it in stock but the publisher does. Is the book out?

 
At 11/15/2006 7:36 AM, Blogger Antonio said...

Chris,

I miss you, man.

Antonio

 
At 11/15/2006 2:51 PM, Anonymous rjm said...

>>>They gave testimony to the 'event' of the risen Christ or Spirit, not to the historical Jesus. That is what they experienced and wanted to communicate, not biography. Bauckham appears to still be talking about a 'testimony of a biography'.<<<

Oh, please. So Jesus' followers magically forgot everything he did and said before the resurrection? This false dichotomy is nonsense. Of course the resurrection was crucial for the earliest Christians, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't care less what happened before it.

 
At 11/16/2006 10:30 PM, Blogger Steven Carr said...

'Of course the resurrection was crucial for the earliest Christians, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't care less what happened before it.'

What does Paul say Jesus ever *did*? (Apart from being present during the Exodus)

And early Christians denied the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse from the grave.

See 1 Corinthians 15 where converts to Christianity scoffed at the idea of a resurrection.

Hadn't they heard the words of their Lord and Saviour in Matthew 22?

I wonder why Paul didn't rub their noses in the fact that the very person they worshipped had said 'I am the way , the resurrection and the life'

Perhaps that hadn't been written yet.

 
At 11/21/2006 8:17 AM, Blogger Steven Carr said...

Bauckham says 'Like most historical evidence, what we have is testimony, and it is the kind of testimony ancient historians most valued: the testimony of involved participants who spoke of the meaning of events they experienced from the inside.'

So Luke would have regarded the Gospel of Mark as being not the sort of thing he valued - being an anonymous written account?

Why then did Matthew and Luke use so much of Mark's Gospel, with Luke possibly using Matthew's Gospel as well, when written, second-hand accounts were considered second-rate by ancient historians?

 
At 12/20/2006 12:41 AM, Anonymous colin said...

A couple of responses to interesting posts above.

"What does Paul say Jesus ever *did*?"

Not sure what point was being made here. Here is my tuppence-worth. Paul's letters are pastoral (not needing to be biography) and attuned to the pastoral need of the moment. They presuppose a common understanding and knowledge of Jesus, but Paul also cites Jesus' teaching and story quite enough to establish that Paul received the same traditions that found their way into the biblical gospels. See Paul Barnett "The Birth of Christianity: The first twenty years" especially (but not only) chapter 11.

I won't take each controversial post in turn (so as not to be tedious), but for example there is this one: "So Luke would have regarded the Gospel of Mark as being not the sort of thing he valued - being an anonymous written account?" I don't understand this assertion that it would have been anonymous to Luke. Since Luke received a copy as a contemporary, he probably knew exactly who wrote it, and probably knew Mark as being the author, just as Papias did. Have I missed the point you were making?

cheers

Colin

 
At 1/03/2007 1:49 PM, Anonymous ebenezer said...

i want to be given the bibles to read and who my lord god is

 
At 1/03/2007 1:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

i want to be given the bibles to read and who my lord god is

 
At 3/27/2007 1:07 PM, Blogger Malcolm said...

I obtained Richard Bauckham's "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" only a week ago and haven't been able to put it down. It is the most interesting and encouraging book I have read for a very long time. More than anything else it has confirmed my faith in the truth of the Gospels.

 
At 3/08/2008 12:32 AM, Blogger District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

I have some reservations about the book based on my personal study to this point. Dr. Buckham seems to reinvent the synoptic validity and claims no direct eyewitness for Matthew, Mark or Luke. Then as another writer noted goes on to say that the strongest evidence comes from a writer who according to him DIDN'T travel with Jesus or wasn't personally intimate on his journeys...This is a little too far out there for me.

Another serious issue I have is that he suggests Markan priority. Can anyone verify this from his book?

Anyway, he seems to strip more of the actual witness from the Gospel accounts therby making them more mystical in nature. NOW in all fairness, that's what I've picked up from every review including the review on this sight.

If I'm wrong, I'll come back and say so after I've read it myself, but these are my concerns and thoughts right off the cuff.

Thanks...great Site!

 
At 3/12/2008 9:40 PM, Blogger Chris Tilling said...

Hi Harvey, thanks for your intelligent comments.

Yes, he assumes Markan priority , if I remember rightly.

I hope the final chapter will help make sense of some of your concerns.

 
At 3/13/2008 4:09 AM, Blogger District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Chris~ Thanks my brother, I should have it in a few days. I'll let you know what I think. I do look forward to it though.

Blessed!

 

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