This afternoon I had the opportunity to hear Richard Bauckham lecture on the subject of the historicity of the gospels (thanks to Jon for organizing this and other RTSF meetings). I found Bauckham’s comments very helpful and thought that some might be interested in reading a copy of my notes.

Bauckham began his lecture by commenting on the impact of The Da Vinci Code. It is remarkably easy to show that the whole conspiracy theory put forward by Dan Brown is total nonsense. The claim that the gospels were doctored to fit in with a post-Constantinian theology can be refuted by the many pre-Constantine gospel documents that we have. It is also important to appreciate that the idea of a purely human Jesus is not to be found in the Gnostic gospels at all, quite the opposite. The Gnostic gospels weren’t very interested in a purely human Jesus.

A further thing that we need to remember is that, according to most scholars, the gospels were written within sixty years of Christ’s death. Only one of the Gnostic gospels (Thomas) is thought to have been written during this period. Enthusiasts for Gnostic gospel theories should take the time to read them. They are almost entirely concerned (except in the case of Thomas) with the post-resurrection Jesus revealing esoteric doctrines. They are not trying to do the same thing as the canonical gospels. Most of them are collections of sayings with very little in the way of narrative. They are very different from the canonical gospels in this respect. We have to reckon with what the Gnostic gospels actually are.

The role of Mary Magdalene in Christian origins is another issue that is raised by Dan Brown in his book The Da Vinci Code. The only conceivable evidence for Mary Magdalene being the sexual partner of Jesus comes from the gospel of Philip. However, this theory must appreciate that the word used is a word for friend and is not the word that one would necessarily expect to be used in a sexual sense. Furthermore, sexual relationships were bad in the eyes of many Gnostics, so it is surprising that they should be expected to provide us any evidence of Mary Magdalene’s having had sexual relationships with Jesus.

The prominence of Mary Magdalene in certain of the Gnostic gospels should not come as a surprise to us. In the biblical gospels Mary Magdalene is very prominent. Indeed she is the most prominent of Jesus’ disciples after Peter, James and John. This is precisely where Mary Magdalene was taken up as a channel for secret Gnostic teaching.

Much of what Bauckham goes on to say will be expressed at greater length in his forthcoming book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. When seeking to establish the historical value of the gospels we must start with the question of genre. What expectations are we to bring to the text of the gospels? What would the first readers of the gospels have expected to find? A dominant view in scholarship until recently was that the gospels were neither history nor biography, but proclamation. The gospels were seen to be disinterested in history. In the last few decades, however, people have begun to realize that the initial readers of the gospels would have read them as biography.

Ancient biographies were not merely concerned with history, but had a purpose. They were generally propaganda, in some sense of the word. There were many forms of biography, running the whole gamut from historical to legendary. A lot depended upon whether the subject of the biography was ancient or contemporary. A biography of a contemporary figure would be held to far higher historical standards.

This leads into the related issue of literary conventions. Historiography has conventions of how the past is to be represented. The knowledge of such conventions can help you in reading. One example of such a convention is that a biography was expected to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Whilst birth and death were generally seen as appropriate beginnings and ends, the middle of an ancient biography did not need to be chronological in character. It could be arranged topically, for example. The conventions also already room for an author to tell the story one way rather than another. There is a certain range of variation in which the gospel-writers feel free to rewrite. Interestingly, sayings of Jesus are far closer between the gospels than the accounts of events are.

What about sources? Ancient historians thought that only contemporary history was possible in the fullest sense, because being an eyewitness or having personal contact with eyewitnesses was seen as extremely important. Taking the conventional dates, the gospels were written within the lifetime of eyewitnesses.

Ancient historians based their work on testimony. Most scholarship recognizes a significant gap between the founding of oral traditions and the production of the written text. Many of the concerns in this area have been shaped by form criticism. Form criticism places different gospel accounts into categories, or forms, of stories (miracle, healing, etc.). Each of these forms is supposedly adapted to a particular need within the Church. The gospels, according to this view, tell us primarily about the life of the early Church. The question is then that of establishing authenticity. Form critics often claim that, once one has appreciated the laws governing the transmission of tradition, one can argue back to a more original form.

A lot of this depends on an analogy with folk literature, an analogy that has been rendered obsolete due to developments in the study of folk literature. There was the assumption that the past was not that important for the early Church; they were largely present-orientated, more concerned with Jesus’ presence in the Church in the present, than with His work in the past. In form criticism the anonymous community is prominent, leaving little place for the unique role of eyewitnesses.

Against the position of form criticism many different arguments can be levelled. Many people have attacked different areas of the approach. If one were to put all of these critiques together, one would realize that the position of the form critics has been well and truly debunked. As one example, form critics are wrong in arguing that the tradition was transmitted in its use in the community. There are many good reasons to believe that the tradition was transmitted by channels independent from its use.

In addition, form critics are not always clear on the manner in which oral tradition ‘works’. Oral tradition works by ‘performances’. Performances vary, but they don’t build on each other in the same way as a literary tradition. They are far more independent of each other. A further point to appreciate is that, in oral cultures, people are able to distinguish between folk tales and history. They also have a sense of the past.

Traditions, Bauckham argues, were transmitted by, or in the name of, eyewitnesses. These eyewitnesses were not anonymous and did not disappear as they passed on their tradition. They didn’t leave their traditions to merely become the property of anonymous communities. The eyewitnesses were the living guarantors of the traditions associated with their names. People were able to trace the stories that they heard back to the original witnesses, who were usually no more than a few steps removed from them. It must also be noticed that it was not communities that handed on traditions. Communities received traditions and appointed teachers transmitted them. The individuals selected to transmit the traditions had a known relationship to eyewitnesses.

How do we know that traditions were not anonymous? There are a few lines of possible argument here. The following are some examples. In the gospels we see many names within the stories. Many of the characters in the gospel narratives are anonymous, but certain personal names like Jairus and Bartimaeus occur from time to time. It might well be that these individuals were the originators of the traditions associated with their names. This may the reason why their names are mentioned. They would be characters known among the churches, who could act as guarantors of the testimony associated with their names.

A further thing to observe is the great attention given to the list of the twelve apostles in the synoptic gospels. Their names, surnames and some of their nicknames are given to us. We are supposed to be left in no doubt of their identity. This is important as the apostles were the principal guarantors of the tradition. There is also the fact of the ‘inclusio’ of eyewitness testimony to be observed in some of the gospel narratives. Some of the names written at the opening and closing of the accounts serve as bookends that identify the main source of the testimony of the books.

After this there followed a time of questions.

Q. Is NT theology entering into a post-critical era that gives us a new perspective on historicity?

A. NT theology is extremely varied. There is a widespread feeling that going back ‘behind’ the gospels is not the right approach. There is also the question of whether we are expected to transfer our allegiance to an uninterpreted ‘historical Jesus’. Of course, the ‘historical Jesus’ that we are presented with is never ‘uninterpreted’, rather the interpretation given is often one that is designed to reject the interpretation of the gospels. It is important to appreciate that the gospels claim to be history. The facts matter, even though the gospels are open about their apologetic purpose and interpretative approach to the history they present.

We must treat the gospels as eyewitness testimony. We do not generally seek to independently verify eyewitness testimony, but trust it unless there is reason to do otherwise. We need to learn to take seriously the ‘Jesus of eyewitness testimony’. In trusting the eyewitnesses we recognize the dangers involved in continually trying to go back behind them.

Q. Does a position on the importance of eyewitness testimony involve a position on the authorship of the gospels?

A. The case for the importance of eyewitness testimony stands independent of issues of gospel authorship. It is quite possible that only John was written by an eyewitness. Matthew probably had something to do with the gospel named after him, but he was not necessarily its author. The important point is not so much that the author of the gospel was an eyewitness, but that the content of the gospels is eyewitness testimony.