Richard Bauckham is professor of New Testament studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. His Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is a scholarly tour de force for his thesis that the four canonical gospels are immediate eyewitness testimony. In two cases, Matthew and John, the authors were eye-witnesses, while Luke and Mark were written by those who directly recorded eyewitness testimony, above all, that of Peter.

This claim is made over against the form-critical claim that the gospel stories circulated anonymously prior to their taking written form. In that case, lacking the controlling presence of eyewitness testimony, the gospel accounts were modified, shaped, and even recreated by the church according to its needs. Bauckham rejects this claim and presents compelling evidence and exhaustive argumentation to buttress his case. Within this essay it is not possible to present all his evidence, but I will summarize certain key points. They are as follows:

1. Ancient historians were convinced that true history could only be written within the period in which eyewitnesses could testify. 2. There were those who witnessed Jesus's words and deeds, and if this witness was to be credible, it had to be written as eyewitness accounts.

3. The gospels were written within living memory of the eyewitnesses. This is acknowledged by virtually all scholars.

4. Early Christian sources outside the biblical documents, Irenaeus, Eusebius quoting Papias, and others, speak of the gospels as eyewitness accounts. Nowhere in the earliest Christian literature are the gospels associated with communities, but rather, with eyewitnesses.

5. Paul assumed an apostolic eyewitness testimony which was acknowledged by the early Christians as authoritative. These eyewitnesses still existed while Paul was writing.

6. Internal evidence in the gospels would indicate that they were written by eyewitnesses, or recorded by those who received eyewitness accounts at first hand. This internal evidence includes the following: a. Direct claims as to a gospel's eyewitness status such as Luke 1:1-2 and John 21:24. b. The literary devise of inclusio, the inclusion of the apostle whose testimony comprises the gospel at decisive moments throughout that gospel narrative. This devise would have been understood by early Christian readers. c. The titles of the gospels, which includes the words, "according to," differentiating each gospel from other eyewitness accounts. d. The shifting from "we" to "he" in scenes involving both Jesus and the eyewitness who narrates the account. e. Certain persons found in the gospels were named because of their continued existence in the early Christian community. For example, Matthew used Mark as a source, but in going from Mark to Matthew, Matthew dropped certain Marcan names since they were unknown in the Matthean community but known in the Marcan community. f. The names found in inscriptions both in and outside Palestine validate their locale as Palestine in the time of Jesus. That is, the names do not validate the form-critical assumption that material was added to the gospels from other sources beyond the life of Christ. g. Various terms used in the gospel, such as "Son of Man," are retained in the pre-Easter narrative even though they were not used by the Christian community after Easter. In other words, the early Christian community remained faithful to the verbal tradition even though its language did not always fit their post-Easter context. 7. Form criticism used folklore as its model for the gospel accounts, but folk-tales, unlike the gospels, circulated anonymously over many generations and were not written during the lifetime of eyewitnesses. 8. Studies of oral societies reveal various forms of oral transmission, and among them, the strongest were formal, controlled traditions which required they be repeated exactly as told. This form of transmission was reserved for material of the highest importance. The testimony to Jesus was of that type. 9. Memorization was universal in the ancient world, and written and oral accounts were taken as complementary, the former serving as a norm for the latter.(3) The gospels had to be written for the integrity of the oral witness to be maintained. 10. Memory has been studied scientifically. Such studies show that the mind's recall is highly accurate when remembering unique or unusual events, significant events, events which involve the person, frequently rehearsed events, and memories that are fitted into a conceptual schema. The events of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection satisfied these criteria. In reference to the last point, the evangelists located events within a historical and theological schema with roots in the Old Testament. 11. Those who have experienced unique, personally compelling events, cannot help but testify. Bauckham studies memories of the Holocaust to shed light on the very different but compelling memories of Jesus. 12. From the perspective of the study of memory, the variations in the gospel accounts are the normal variations one would expect in remembered events, especially when the gospels not only seek to convey events, but to convey the meaning of events as well. For example, dates and the exact order of certain events are often forgotten, although the gists of events are remembered, as well as the overall sequence, i.e., Jesus ministered throughout the villages and died in Jerusalem.

These lines of evidence come together to form a compelling case that the gospels were written as eyewitness accounts, accounts that were frequently repeated and therefore highly accurate as testimony.

Bauckham, does not, however, reject all the results of form criticism. For example, keeping in mind point twelve above, Bauckham comments, "That the individual units of the Synoptic Gospels are close to the oral forms in which they previously existed and that in oral transmission they were not necessarily linked together as they are in the Gospels remain, in my opinion, the most significant insights of form criticism and have not been refuted."(4) In other words, individual remembered events were arranged by the eyewitness, not in a precise historical order (which was not always remembered), but in an order which reflected an interpretative schema. For example, Matthew has five blocks of Jesus' teachings and deeds as reflective of the Pentateuch. All the gospels, however, have the same overall pattern of Jesus' ministry leading to his death outside Jerusalem.

One claim of form criticism, however, is scarcely discussed by Bauckham, namely, how the early church made use of the gospel accounts. For the form critics, that use was primarily preaching and teaching.(5) I shall return to this.

Ramsay MacMullen is the Dunham Professor of History and Classics at Yale University.(6) The purpose of his book, Christianizing the Roman Empire, is to determine how people came to faith in the years 100 to 400 of the Christian era. He sees three somewhat overlapping processes at work. First, up until Constantine, and after the public ministry of Paul, Christians were persecuted, and therefore, did not publicly evangelize. In this first phase, the faith was spread by healings and exorcisms. In the second period, the healings and exorcisms continued, but with the conversion of Constantine (A.D. 312), money and the status conferred by state approval led many, at least in appearance, to adopt the Christian faith. In the final period, the two former means continued, but law and force were applied. Pagan temples were razed to the ground, their valuables confiscated, and their adherents tortured and killed. Once the third phase occurred, the society was overtly Christian, and a new social and religious formation began to emerge. I want to concentrate on the first phase because, in the present moment we, in the West, no longer have the power of the state nor social prestige to promote the gospel. Further, similar to ancient Rome apart from her attitude toward Christians, we are a pluralistic, somewhat tolerant society.

In the ancient world, the great mass of the population believed in spiritual powers, from high gods to lesser and often malevolent powers designated as daimones. Generally speaking, the high gods were rather remote, but local deities and forces attended to day-to-day concerns. The various deities had their devotees, and it was generally recognized that all were more or less acceptable. None, apparently, stood out above the others, and further, there was a high degree of toleration. These high gods, deities, forces, and daimones were worshipped, placated, and avoided as the case may be. They worked miracles, gave special insights, produced signs and portents, affected events, and swayed the human heart. On the positive side, they were the source of blessings such as health and happiness, and negatively, the source of suffering and disaster.

When the Christian gospel entered into this arena, two things happened. First, the Christian God, in the name of Christ, was seen to be more powerful than any other god. Secondly, as a corollary, all other gods were imposters, powerless, low-level daimones, as nothing before the mighty name of Jesus. This was shown in the only way that made sense to people -- the Christian God could do things other gods could not do, and even more, in head-to-head encounters, the name of Jesus Christ reigned supreme. Let me give two examples, taken from MacMullen's book.

The first example is what MacMullen considers a typical conversion. The Christians were normally crowded in and among the non-Christians in urban areas where both groups, at least in religious matters, avoided each other. For non-Christians, becoming a Christian entailed loss of status, loss of economic opportunities, and the risk of persecution. But life is precarious, and sooner or later, a non-Christian would get sick or be harassed or possessed by an evil spirit. The family would remember stories about the power of the Christian God, and in their desperation, would seek out a Christian. "So a priest is sent for, or an exorcist; illness is healed; the household after that counts as Christian; it is baptized; and through instruction it comes to accept the first consequences: that all other cults are false and wicked, all seeming gods, the same."(7)

The second story is typical of the saints, renowned for their power to confront the gods of the pagans head-on. For example, a group of philosophers once challenged St. Anthony to defend his theological claims. Rather than engage in philosophical disputation, he challenged the philosophers to heal a crowd of persons who had come to Anthony to be delivered of their demons. In Anthony's words, "Either cleanse these men by your logic-chopping or by any other skill or magic you wish, and calling on your idols, or otherwise, if you can't, lay down your quarrel with us and witness the power of Christ's cross."(8) The philosophers were powerless, at which point Anthony "called on Christ, sealed the sufferers with the sign of the cross twice and a third time, and straightway the men stood forth all healed."(9)

These demonstrations of love and power in the name of Christ "served a purpose quite essential to the Christian definition of monotheism: it made physically (or dramatically) visible the superiority of the Christian's patron Power over all others. One and only one was God. The rest were daimones demonstrably, and therefore already familiar to the audience as nasty, lower powers that no one would want to worship anyway."(10)

This, in short, was how the vast majority of people were converted to faith until the time of Constantine. MacMullen recognizes that a few people, such as Augustine, were converted through intellectual inquiry. They were rare. The intellectuals were also the last to be converted. The great majority were converted through the mighty name of Jesus Christ. He also notes that some were converted through the witness of the martyrs, due to the appearance of a miraculous power which enabled them to overcome death even as they died. By and large, and the evidence is overwhelming, pagans were converted because the Christian God physically and dramatically revealed himself as the supreme Power.

MacMullen is aware, of course, that certain readers will find these accounts incredible. He responds by noting that such accounts are not missing from the modern world, and further, he is determined to understand "as much as possible from the ancient evidence, and with the least possible coloring imported from other worlds."(11) For my part, I have encountered many people who have been healed and delivered in the name of Jesus and recorded a few of their testimonies on my web site.(12)

Now, let us return to the form-critical claim that the gospel accounts were remembered for their use in the early church. Bauckham wants to minimize this claim, asserting instead that the accounts were scarcely remembered for their use, but remembered and rehearsed because the encounter with Jesus was so profound that the eyewitnesses could do nothing but testify. In Bauckham's words, "the simplest way in which the early Christian movement strove to preserve the traditions about Jesus faithfully, without major alteration, was by transmitting the traditions for their own sake and in their own right, not as part of something else."(13)

In his view, the early church preserved the eyewitness accounts because the revelation in Jesus fulfilled God's promises to Israel, it was a new eschatological chapter in God's dealings with his people, and therefore, because of their theological understanding of salvation, they preserved the witness.(14) This makes perfect sense. The early Christians believed, seen very early in Paul, that Jesus was the decisive revelation of God, and therefore, the integrity of that revelation had to be preserved.

Bauckham goes on to state, however, that the form critics produced no evidence that the "church's evangelistic preaching and its communal instruction of believers were the contexts in which the Jesus traditions were passed on." Apparently, according to Bauckham, if such settings in life existed, it would imply that the "tradition was entirely pliable to the uses to which it was put in the church's kerygmatic and parenetic practices ..."(14)

By "pliable," Bauckham refers to the form critic's claims that the eyewitness accounts were modified, augmented, or recreated by the early church according to its needs. But it is obvious that there was a life setting to the transmission of the Jesus traditions. How could it be otherwise? No one can be alive without a context. No one exists without a life-setting. Bauckham has produced compelling evidence that the early church retained the eyewitness accounts without major revisions. Yet, he has devoted virtually no space as to how the gospel accounts affected those who heard them. Surely that would be relevant. Why would anyone listen to the gospel if it did not have profound significance?

There was a life-setting for the gospel message, and it wasn't just the need for teaching and preaching as the form critics claimed.(15) It was that and far more. Ancient conditions were the same as they are now -- lost, confused, heartbroken, sick, needy, desperate, and spiritually harassed and oppressed people were everywhere. That is obvious. And if Bauckham is right on the essential veracity of the gospel accounts, and I believe he is, then these same accounts, and the whole of the New Testament witness, make it utterly clear that the apostles did the very deeds of Jesus, and further, Jesus commissioned them to do them for the sake of the lost. And if MacMullen be right, these saving deeds together with the teaching that gave them meaning, continued for some centuries after the death of Christ.

If Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, if he be King of kings and Lord of lords, then his everlasting power and glory must have effects -- immediate, tangible consequences in the real world.(16) That is my vital conclusion. It is utterly illogical to insist on phrases whose meanings have little or no concrete relevance. If the church proclaims that Jesus is Lord, that he has all authority in heaven and earth, then we must also proclaim, lest we be docetic, that Jesus Christ does today the very deeds he did in the flesh, and more, the very deeds he did in that spiritual maelstrom of the ancient world. Let New Testament studies, church history, theology, and pastoral care proclaim that great fact and be done with its current equivocations.

In my next essay I will address the evangelistic and apologetic significance of the foregoing.

Endnotes

1. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006).
2. Ramsey MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100-400) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).
3. While in Nepal, my host, who had lived there some fourteen years, told me it was not unusual to find Nepalese who could hear a sermon or teaching, then walk miles to another village and repeat it virtually word for word. The same is true, among certain peoples, in the Middle East today.
4. Bauckham, p. 243.
5. Edgar V. McKnight, What is Form Criticism? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), pp. 18-19.
6. In regard to early Christianity, Dr. MacMullen has also written, The Decline of Rome and Roman Social Relations, 50B.C. to A.D. 284, and Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries.
7. MacMullen, p. 41.
8. MacMullen, p. 112.
9. MacMullen, p. 112.
10. MacMullen, p. 28.
11. MacMullen, p. 9.
12. MacMullen, pp. 22-24.
For my web site, see http://rsanders.org/god's%20mighty%20acts.htm. Particularly striking are the accounts of how the Nepalese came to faith, virtually identical to the accounts MacMullen uncovers, or, for that matter, the accounts found in the gospels. In listening to their testimonies, two things struck me. First, the mighty deeds done in the name of Jesus were stated in a matter of fact fashion. Secondly, the events they experienced were so compelling that they were willing to endure beatings, loss of family and friends, and more, to remain faithful to Jesus.
13. Bauckham, p. 278.
14. Bauckham, p. 277.
15. Bauckham, p. 278.
16. Form critics Dibelius and Bultmann limited the use of the gospel pericopes to teaching and preaching because they believed the gospel miracle stories reached their final form through infusions of hellenistic miracle stories. As such, these gospel stories had no foundation in fact, but were simply told for the "pleasure of the narrative itself." McKnight, pp. 22-3, 32. Although Christian claims will only be completely verified eschatologically, they could not arise in the first place without a significant anchoring in reality.

---The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D. is VirtueOnline's resident cyber theologian. He writes a regular column for VOL. His website can be accessed here: www.rsanders.org