Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Richard Bauckham

  • Book Notes: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

    Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006. 538 pp. ISBN: 0-8028-3162-1.

    I would remind my readers again that I am writing some notes on my experience of reading this book and not a formal review.

    I requested this book via interlibrary loan because it was recommended by a reader who commented on one of my posts blogging through What Have They Done with Jesus?. I objected to the idea that one could improve on the picture of Jesus by first building a picture of the eyewitnesses and then discussing what those eyewitnesses could tell us about Jesus. Since there is much less documentation on each of the eyewitnesses than there is on Jesus, any picture we create of them will be much less certain than even what we can say about Jesus himself, so just how does this procedure help us in getting a true picture of Jesus?

    Reading Bauckham on this topic has enlightened me somewhat on the intentions, if Witherington is indeed working on the same basis as Bauckham, but I remain essentially unimpressed with the final result. Bauckham is much plainer in expressing his procedure, and his book is more academic in style. (This isn’t particularly a criticism of Witherington who was intentionally writing a popular book.)

    If I can summarize in the briefest possible time, Bauckham is arguing that the gospel story was passed on by a form of controlled informal tradition, and that those who controlled this were the eyewitnesses sprinkled through the church.

    He finds evidence for this in a number of lines of argument including the use of names in the gospels, the shape of the stories, the level of divergence that is tolerated, and what is not tolerated, and even some cases of anonymity in the passion narrative of Mark. Why, for example, is it “one of the men with Jesus” who draws a sword in Mark 14:47, but the man is identified with Simon Peter in John 18:10? Bauckham argues that at the time Mark was written, this person’s identity needed to be protected because the authorities would be after him, while by the time John was written he (Simon Peter) was already dead.

    That is only one in many arguments for the survival of the eyewitnesses and their role in preservation of the story. I’m not going to make a real attempt to summarize all of these, as it would be impossible to do justice to the arguments. The book is only a bit over 500 pages; read it for yourself!

    While I have never been convinced by the argument that there were no eyewitnesses remaining by the time the gospel text was written, I am also unconvinced of the value of eyewitness testimony in and of itself. You may rightly ask what this leaves me.

    In the third quest the emphasis has been on evaluating sayings and incidents according to a set of criteria. This results generally in a very minimalistic Jesus, because some of the criteria, even necessary and good ones, tend to weed out a great deal that is quite possibly true, but which simply cannot be demonstrated well enough. This result seems surprising given the large amount of written material about Jesus, more than we have on many figures of history that we nonetheless feel free to characterize in more detail.

    It is no wonder that Christians seek something that will work a bit better. Perhaps they need look no further than how modern writing about ancient history is actually done. In essence, historians take the pieces that they have, sift them as they make sense, and attempt to fill in the blanks. I may simply be missing something in my reading, as I have only read a tiny fraction of what’s available on the historical Jesus, but I think Jesus is the only historical figure concerning whom we are barely willing to speculate. He becomes a very uninteresting figure.

    Part of this results from scholars who seem to want a Jesus who could occupy the office down the hall in the ivory tower. I think the argument over wisdom teacher vs. eschatological prophet is just such an issue. Many people of that time combined aspects of both. Why is this not possible for Jesus to do? He doesn’t have to fit our notions of consistency and a coherent philosophy.

    If we take this kind of approach, then I think we can also give serious consideration to the idea that the earliest generations of Christians might have had some idea of what they were talking about. They just may have had some idea of the character of Jesus. We would prefer a Jesus who perhaps never made the seemingly grandiose claim to be the Messiah. Let the early Christians do that for him. But somehow he made such an impression on them that a fairly substantial movement was able to get the idea that he thought he was the Messiah.

    Even if we view the tradition as an imperfect mirror, with the real Jesus dimly reflected therein, it seems a bit hasty to discard the mirror and start from scratch. In this sense I’m in tune with Bauckham, though that is saying much less than he is.

    On the other hand, it seems to me that many orthodox Christian writers are trying to combat the historical Jesus scholars by finding a way to say that Jesus is just as portrayed in the canonical gospels and that this is history, every bit as sound as any other form of history. Thus we have Bauckham arguing at great length that eyewitness testimony was important to ancient people, and finally in his conclusion that perhaps we should take it more seriously as well. “Trusting the eyewitnesses” is to replace “applying criteria” and result in a more complete and substantially accurate picture of Jesus.

    Here is where I part company. In trying to establish the eyewitnesses, Bauckham has made a number of arguments that are quite possibly true, but are nonetheless often no better established than the reasoning behind various criteria for historicity. This doesn’t mean he’s wrong; it simply means that when all is said and done we don’t know. My suggestion is that we go ahead and get comfortable with that.

    In my view, there is one problem with bringing orthodox theology in line with good historical methodology. In general, historical methodology is based on probability; not generally calculated probability, but a sort of common sense decision as to what is more likely. If two kings claim a great victory, we know they can’t both be right, so we look for more evidence, or we draw some common sense conclusions.

    In the case of Jesus, however, orthodox theology claims that he is unique, God in the flesh living amongst us. What does common sense say about a claim to virgin birth? Not likely. So if the options are either illegitimate birth by natural means or virgin birth, historical probability suggests the former. What does common sense say about people who die? They don’t come back. So if the claim is that somebody rose from the dead, historical probability suggests it’s not true.

    In practically every case of virgin birth claims (all that I know of) and all but a very small number of resurrection claims, neither believers nor unbelievers would decide differently. Yet I, an otherwise rational person (I think!), believe that Jesus rose from the dead. This is not an historical event that can be made probable. Even assuming miracles are possible, which I do, I am not going to assume that they are the most probable explanation. This can be tested by presenting the miraculous claims of another religion, and seeing how likely one is to accept them.

    In addition, I know my own experience. I did not come to believe in Jesus by historical methods. I came to believe in Jesus through contemporary testimony. I find the Jesus of orthodox faith fits that. I believe there is historical evidence for such a Jesus, but that this evidence falls far short of proof, and even short of probability. It must be so, because the Jesus of my faith is inherently improbable, unique in fact.

    Now you may be thinking that I’m not all that far from Bauckham, even if I got there afterward. And indeed the picture of Jesus in my head goes well with what Bauckham (and Witherington, for that matter) have written. That is indeed the case. But I sense in both writers the intention to make this more historically firm, to suggest that this is an historian’s conclusion. The jacket blurbs and advertising text tend to suggest this as well, though heaven knows many writers are badly served by their book covers! Thus far, I just don’t think they have done so successfully.

    I nonetheless strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in historical Jesus research. As I have repeatedly noted, each book on this topic is extremely good at critiquing the views of others, even if you find that their own pictures of Jesus are no more probable. In addition, Bauckham documents well and examines arguments in detail, so that you can profit no matter where you stand on the final result.

    Addendum:

    Here’s an overview of the chapters so you can get a better idea of the course of the argument. I have left the notes in an abbreviated form as I wrote them immediately after reading.

    1: From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony
    General overview of the idea – going to the Jesus of testimony, specifically eyewitness testimony
    2: Papias on the Eyewitnesses
    Rehabilitating Papias

    3: Names in the Gospel Tradition
    Studying use of names. Why are certain characters named and others not.
    4: Palestinian Jewish Names
    Palestinian Jewish names – an exceedingly useful chapter even if you wind up disagreeing with the thesis of the book.
    5: The Twelve
    Looking at the lists of the apostles; reconciling most, error in Levi=Matthew equation.
    6: Eyewitnesses “from the Beginning”
    What constituted an eyewitness?
    7: The Petrine Perspective in the Gospel of Mark
    Looking at indicators that Mark is based on someone’s testimony, and that this testimony is that of Peter the apostle.
    8: Anonymous Persons in Mark’s Passion Narrative
    Arguing they are not named so as to protect the guilty.
    9: Papias on Mark and Matthew
    Deals with the differences in how the two gospels are put together and how their sources are to be understood.
    10: Models of Oral Tradition
    We get to one of the big questions-what does oral tradition preserve and how?
    11: Transmitting the Jesus Tradition
    Bauckham now argues that we have a “controlled informal” transmission, with the “controllers” being the eyewitnesses surviving in the community.
    12: Anonymous Tradition or Eyewitness Testimony
    Looking at the reasons why we should see the gospels as eyewitness testimony rather than a tradition of the community without named sources.
    13: Eyewitness Memory
    One of my own key questions, and one that I don’t think Baukham manages to deal with adequately, but nonetheless he does look at it more carefully than most.
    14: The Gospel of John as Eyewitness Testimony
    I think this will easily be the most controversial chapter, though I think Bauckham makes the best case possible.
    15: The Witness of the Beloved Disciple
    Identifying who this person was, and then assigning him as author of the gospel of John.
    16: Papias on John
    A very difficult search for reflections of the views of Papias on the gospel of John. His (possible) references could be to John the Elder, whom Bauckham identifies as the author rather than John son of Zebedee.
    17: Polycrates and Irenaeus on John
    Looking for more patristic evidence and judging whether it can apply to John the elder, and just how did the identification of the author with John son of Zebedee occur?
    18: The Jesus of Testimony
    Summary of the case.

  • Book Notes: The Gospels for All Christians

    Bauckham, Richard, ed. The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-8028-4444-8.

    I hesitate to call this a review. It’s more of an interaction with the text, a few thoughts as I read the book The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. I’m going to allow myself to ramble! Also, as you will doubtless note, this was published in 1998, and thus is not “hot off the presses” and yet I think it is very relevant.

    This was one of the four books that I noted arrived via interlibrary loan on the same day, something marginally inconvenient, considering the size of the books and the height of my “to be read” stack. I had added it into the list at the last minute, because it was edited by the author of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which was one that was already on my list, and because a friend had recommended it.

    I will confess that I started reading this book with low expectations. The problem it addresses, as stated to me, did not appear incredibly urgent or gripping. I was tempted to start with a different book, but there was that return date staring at me, and I loathe returning interlibrary loan books that I have not completely read, so I dug in.

    If you were educated in a liberal school, especially if you come from a conservative perspective, you will probably respond to this material differently. I compared notes with a friend who had used different texts than I did (I was educated by fairly conservative professors at Seventh-Day Adventist schools), and he certainly reacted differently on his initial read. Since I started conservative and moved more slowly left, I never took quite the extreme position which Bauckham is addressing.

    In the first chapter, Bauckham addresses the consensus view, at least at the time of writing, though I think it largely continues, which is that the gospels were addressed to specific communities and that in interpreting them we must discover the beliefs and the situation addressed in the community in order to understand the message. A corollary of this is that we learn either largely or exclusively about the community, rather than about Jesus when reading the gospels.

    To get the negative out of the way first, I felt that Bauckham overstated the nature of the consensus to some extent. Unfortunately, however, I can’t deny that there are folks around who exemplify precisely the attitude he is addressing. In turn, I think he overstates his case, practically eliminating any study of the audience from interpretation of the gospels. There are cracks in this extreme case, though they occur much more in the other essays, and he displays what strikes me as a slightly more moderate approach in chapter 5, John for Readers of Mark.

    Since he is attempting to force a paradigm shift, perhaps all this is understandable. Paradigms rarely shift when only nudged; they have to be attacked with sledge hammers. Then moderates (perhaps like me!) come around and start playing “moderately,” but in the new paradigm.

    I think this reflects a fairly common problem in Biblical studies (and perhaps other disciplines, but that’s their concern), in that when someone proposes a new approach or tool there is a tendency to apply it broadly to just about everything. Form criticism provides a useful tool for studying certain sayings that are transmitted orally, and then find themselves part of a written text. Form critics tended to make their tool the tool for Bible study, and soon they were studying things that probably never existed separately as part of the oral tradition using a tool that was really only well suited to that one task.

    If a carpenter worked in this manner with his tools we’d call him crazy. When Biblical scholars do so, we call them pioneers. And to be honest, in general they are. Their critics reverse the situation and throw out the tool because it doesn’t do everything its initial practitioners claim for it. This would be much like observing a carpenter using a hammer in many places where it should not be used, and concluding that the best option would be to discard the hammer.

    In turn, redaction critics come along and discard much work that goes with form criticism. Quite regularly they correctly criticize form critical work, yet at the same time they want redaction criticism to be the tool for Biblical studies, and soon we have it applied to texts that really show no signs of redaction.

    My suggestion here is that we need to salvage something from each of these things and make it useful, as many commentators (Brevard Childs comes to mind quickly) have done, not dismissing the methodologies completely, but putting them in their place.

    In the case of the gospel audiences, it strikes me that there would be significant impact of the author’s more immediate community, but that the broader audience would certainly reduce the amount that one could properly deduce about about the audience. Yes, it’s a moderating position, to which I am naturally attracted, but I think it is a valid one, a case in which a moderating position is precisely what is called for.

    I would use one of my own sermons as an example. I am very likely to prepare a text, preach it to a specific congregation, and then also post it here on my blog. The sermon is designed with the congregation I’m addressing in mind, but my words are not exclusively for them, and you should not interpret all of my words in terms of addressing that congregation. My ideas have formed in conversation with many people who hold many differing views. Yet there would be points that would be specific to that group.

    Similarly the form critical approach which heard the voice of the community in everything and the voice of Jesus in nothing needed some moderation. If you think about a modern preacher telling a story, ask yourself whether the preacher’s story is determined by the lesson he’s teaching the congregation or by the facts of the story as history.

    For me, the answer would be that I am loathe to adjust a story. I seek one that fits the situation I’m addressing without too much fudging of the facts. Nonetheless I do adjust emphasis. I have used the same story in different situations to make different points. I also know preachers who are quite comfortable adapting a story quite substantially to their needs at the moment.

    Would the disciples do this to the story of Jesus? Intentionally? I doubt it. But unintentionally I think they could apply stories in very different ways as time went on, and thus the audience and the situation of the early church would impact the message. It may be difficult or impossible to determine just how much, but given the possibility, it seems useful to me to try.

    The second chapter, The Holy Internet: Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generation (pp. 49-70, Michael B. Thompson) is probably one of the two most helpful chapters I’ve read in the last five years, and the other one is the third chapter, Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of the Gospels (pp. 71-112, Loveday Alexander). This information is available elsewhere, but not in such a compact and helpful format. It’s very easy to underestimate communications in the ancient world.

    I’m reminded of the difference between the way my children communicate and the way I did when I was their age. We were in South America during my teen years, and it cost several dollars a minute to make international calls. You just didn’t do it, unless things were really, really critical. Now I get pictures and videos of my grandchildren moments after whatever great milestone–or merely interesting moment–has passed. When I talk about it, they’re likely to look blank and say something about how we must have really been out of touch! But we weren’t. Those snail-mail letters actually did communicate.

    When you compare snapping a picture with your cell-phone and sending it to a list of folks from your contacts to taking the picture, getting it developed, waiting for it, writing a letter, mailing it, and waiting for it to travel the necessary distance, it might seem like nothing would get communicated. But we did precisely that all the time.

    In the same way, we might imagine that if we had to walk from days to weeks in order to visit a neighboring church, we wouldn’t do it. Yet the folks in the early church did, and they did it quite a bit. We might also imagine that few books would be distributed if they were copied by hand, but again, we would assume incorrectly. People did go to all that trouble, and produced quite a few.

    One further thought I got from chapter three was the close connection between oral and written forms. I have argued this before in terms of the New Testament autographs. It’s quite possible that texts were revised even by authors after they were written down. We consider something more set in stone once it is written, but they perhaps did not. Some variations in early manuscripts might be explained by such freedom rather than scurrilous scribes (Western non-interpolations?)

    About People, by People, for People: Gospel Genre and Audiences (pp. 113-146, Richard A. Burridge) is more dense and less useful than the preceding two chapters, but nonetheless is rather helpful and provides some of the very balance I was requesting in the first chapter. I think I would still lean a little bit more toward seeing an impact of the audiences, but the argumentation here is definitely worth considering.

    I found Bauckham’s second essay, John for Readers of Mark (pp. 147-172) to be more interesting than his first, but ultimately unconvincing. I say this not in the sense of having a ready refutation, but rather in the sense of having a tentative verdict of “not proven” regarding his case. There are some intriguing connections here, and I’m not going to try to summarize them. Bauckham provides a way to read John as complementary to Mark on the assumption that Mark could be expected to be available to his readers. I think some of his arguments would be considerably blunted if gospel stories were transmitted orally, and especially if Mark represents a great deal of that oral tradition. But that is too much to try to argue right here. Bauckham does address the issue of oral traditions, but rejects them as adequate explanations; I find his rejection premature.

    The sixth essay, Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences (pp. 173-194, Stephen C. Barton), is a discussion of how accurately we can determine the gospel audiences. I think we do well to be skeptical, especially of our own reconstructions, but I also think that we will be saying something about audiences if we interpret at all. In general, however, the chapter is quite balanced in my view.

    Finally we have Toward a Literal Reading of the Gospels (pp. 195-217, Francis Watson). Again, this probably pushes a little further than I would be comfortable with, but it is nonetheless a valid counterpoint to the tendency to believe the gospels have nothing to do with literal events. Note here that Watson is using the word “literal” as it would be used in literary discourse, not the more popular idea of “having greater truth value.” The literal reading that Watson is looking for is one that allows the gospel writers to talk about actual events and people, even if he also wishes to symbolize something else.

    Nicodemus is a good example. One can understand him as symbolic of a particular group of people with whom the community had to deal, yet there is no particular reason to assume that there was no Nicodemus, or that there is no underlying actual story. This is an area again that calls for careful nuance. I’d like to quote Watson:

    Is it possible to envisage a future Gospels scholarship in which person and text are reintegrated? This suggestion would not entail the naive positivistic assumption that the Gospels are to be understood, so far as possible, as a direct transcript of historical reality. Like the various incompatible models of the so-called historical Jesus, the Gospels are interpretations of the historical reality to which they refer. The Gospels represent the early Christian reception of the life and person of Jesus, and the eventual emergence of the fourfold Gospel canon represents the decision that the Christian community will henceforth appeal to this complex rendering of the received reality and no other. . . .

    All in all, this is a worthwhile goal.

    In conclusion I must say that while I approached this book without enthusiasm, it grew on me as I read, and I think that the authors and editor have done a great service. I commend it to those who are interested in the study of the gospels.