Are there any good scholarly reviews of this work by Richard Bauckham? I personally find the scholarly consensus (of anonymous gospels written by people who were NOT eyewitnesses) to be convincing, from what I’ve studied. But I’m not sure what to think about some of the points Bauckham brings up, so I’m curious how people who disagree with Bauckham (in that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses) would understand the purpose/rationale for why the gospels include names of various non-main-character people (sons of Simon of Cyrene) or other little details throughout the story that would seem to make most sense of an eyewitness including these minor details.
So my question in this post is two-fold: (1) are there any good reviews of Richard Bauckham’s work from scholars who disagree with and critique his main argument/approach?, (2) how do you understand the role of minor details and names given in the gospels that would seem to indicate the writer was an eyewitness or very close to the eyewitnesses to have such minor details as provided?
Thanks!
The most scholarly reviews of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses were probably those published in 2008 in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Vol 6, Issue 2. In particular, cf. the article by David Catchpole: On Proving Too Much: Critical Hesitations about Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Patterson and Weeden also argue the contra side, with Marshall and Byrskog arguing the affirmative, and Bauckham himself responding. You might also check out the articles by Jens Schröter and Craig Evans (and the response by Bauckham) in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament [link ** you do not have permission to see this link **]. She notes (p. 190ff):
“Regardless of how convincing [Bauckham’s] arguments are about the control that the eyewitnesses may have had over the gospel accounts, as we can see from the psychological research, eyewitness control is no guarantee of accuracy. It is probably not even reasonable to assume that the eyewitnesses aimed for complete historicity.
And summarizing on p. 193:
“In other words, it seems likely that the answer to the question How much can we reliably know about the Jesus of history from the gospels in the light of Bauckham’s work? is still “Not much.” Even if, as Bauckham suggests, at least parts of the Gospels as accounts were controlled by eyewitnesses until very close to the time at which they were recorded, this does not give them a greater probability of accuracy than does the notion that they are the highly redacted documents that are argued by the form critics. It simply reduces the potential role of the redactors in producing variations.”
If you’re looking for books that address Bauckham, consider Eric Eve’s Behind the Gospels and James Crossley’s recent Jesus and the Chaos of History, both of which have sections responding to Bauckham’s arguments. Alexander Wedderburn’s Jesus and the Historians also spends a bit of time addressing Bauckham in Chapter 6. And I’m sure Dr. Ehrman’s new book on memory will address Bauckham as well.
Bauckham doesn’t argue that Matthew and John were written by the apostles Matthew and John.He think that John was a different John, who also happened to be a high priest (I’m skeptical). His inclusio argument is seriously grasping at straws. His arguments regarding the relative frequency of names are better – it’s hard data, but they unfortunately show that the incidence of Greek male names in the gospel traditions exceed that of the background Jewish incidence by 80% (there are also a number of methodological problems with his use of onomatologoy, e.g. us not knowing how representative our sample of Jewish Palestinian names is, using a 5 century sample of Jewish names, having incomplete comparative data for diaspora, and as Tuckett points out, the knowledge of Palestinian names outside of Palestine.)
Specifically with respect to Simon of Cyrene (Cyrene being in North Africa), it is interesting to note that neither of his sons have Palestinian names. Alexander is Greek, and Rufus (red-head) is Latin. Is this probable in 30 CE in Jerusalem?
Bauckham himself admits that “it was a common Jewish practice, in retelling or commenting on the biblical narratives to give names to characters not named in Scripture.” He goes on to give examples from Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, with names attributed to Cain’s wife, Sisera’s mother, Jephthah’s daughter and the witch of Endor. He then states
“So it would not have been surprising to find Christians doing the same with the Gospel narratives from an early date. But the evidence suggests that this did not happen [footnote #24]. Certainly there is no ground for postulating that it occurred in the transmission of the Gospel traditions behind and in the Synoptic gospels.”
So what evidence does footnote #24 give to suggest that expansion of the naming tradition didn’t occur in the Synoptic gospels? The only evidence that he offers is that the man with the withered hand and woman with the hemorrhage are unnamed in the Epistle of the Apostles, and the wise men are unnamed in the Infancy Gospel of James. But he ignores or downplays the rich evidence for expansion of names and details in early Christian literature. Giving three examples where the expansion of names doesn’t occur doesn’t outweigh the dozens of examples where it does!
First, as Dr. Ehrman has argued, verisimilitudes – items added for their appearance of authenticity – were not uncommon in ancient forgery. For example, the forged epistles of Paul drop names and ‘minor details’ to convince the reader of it’s apostolic nature (e.g. 2 Tim 4:13; 2 Thess 3:17; 1 Tim 1:20; 2 Tim 2:17). In addition, our apocryphal gospels are full of similar verisimilitudes (cf. e.g. the Infancy Gospel of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, who similarly introduce many novel named characters and elements; The gospel of Peter names the site of Jesus’ tomb. The gospel of Thomas expands Thomas’ name to Didymus Judas Thomas.) Similarly the apocryphal acts are full of novel named characters and verisimilitudes. By Bauckham’s logic, there must have been a historical Damonicus, Aristodemus, Lycomedes, Cleopatra, Cleobius and the wife of Marcellus, since the Acts of John refers to them!
As Bauckham himself notes, the early textual tradition shows expansion on anonymous characters, e.g. the naming of the rich man in Luke 16:19 in P75. The western text of Acts contains several added verisimilitudes (e.g. Acts 21:40). Similarly the Codex Bezae contains added verisimilitudes (e.g. Acts 3:11) and additional names (e.g. Lk 24:13). Other variants in the gospel traditions show the tendency to add in verisimilitudes, e.g. Luke 22:43-40, John 5:4, the pericope adulterae.
The Gospel of John, which I think has a much worse claim on being apostolic or derivative of eyewitness testimony than the synoptics, also introduces a number of novel elements and verisimilitudes (e.g. Nathanael, Nicodemus, Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Malchus; cf also John 19:35, 21:24). I know some people will think this is begging the question, but I think the case for a non-apostolic John is very strong (cf. e.g. Casey’s Is John True, also Martyn’s History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, or R.E. Brown’s commentary on John.)
I could spend a lot of time tearing apart Bauckham’s work, and I’d be happy to address any specific questions you have from his book. Bauckham isn’t all wrong, and I think it’s plausible that some testimony ultimately derived from eyewitnesses (either to Jesus or to first century Palestine) made it in to the gospels. But I don’t think it’s likely that the gospels primarily consist of eyewitness testimony. Bauckham’s book is mostly an assembly of weak arguments.
achase79,
Thank you VERY much for the thorough reply. It was tremendous and very helpful! I personally haven’t read Bauckham’s work – I’ve just heard lots of evangelicals go on and on about how amazing it is and how convincing the arguments are supposed to be. I’ve only been studying books in the field of Biblical scholarship over the last year or so, so I’m pretty new to a lot of these debates and topics of study. Having read several books by Ehrman and a few other authors, I generally find myself knowing some pretty convincing arguments Ehrman and other scholars have brought up contra fundamentalists, but I don’t know enough to entirely see through some of the arguments fundamentalists use. Especially before reading a new book, it greatly helps me to hear an overview perspective from someone more knowledgeable than I, as you have done well in your post. So thank you! Whenever I get around to reading Bauckham’s book, I’ll come back on the forum when I have some specific questions, but now I know a little better what to be aware of when reading his work, as well as some scholarly reviews to read about it.
achase79 said
Specifically with respect to Simon of Cyrene (Cyrene being in North Africa), it is interesting to note that neither of his sons have Palestinian names. Alexander is Greek, and Rufus (red-head) is Latin. Is this probable in 30 CE in Jerusalem?
I like the explanation Joel Marcus gives in his introduction to his commentary on Mark 1 – 8 for the Anchor Bible series. He posits that the author of Mark was writing from near the Syrian border (either in Syria or nearer to Galilee) for an audience there. Mark name drops Alexander and Rufus because they known to the community Mark was written from possibly as early followers of Jesus or of Christianity after Jesus. Since there was a presence of Hellenistic Jews in Galilee this could explain the name Alexander although not so much for Rufus. How much name dropping is in Mark in general?
I hope Ehrman takes Jesus & the Eyewitnesses to task in his upcoming book on gospel memory/tradition in the early years.
I lost hope in Bauckham’s book when at one point he tried to suggest that perhaps the reason Lazarus wasn’t mentioned as a historical figure in the synoptics was because he was under some Christian Witness Protection program. Seriously??
Greg Matthews said
I like the explanation Joel Marcus gives in his introduction to his commentary on Mark 1 – 8 for the Anchor Bible series. He posits that the author of Mark was writing from near the Syrian border (either in Syria or nearer to Galilee) for an audience there. Mark name drops Alexander and Rufus because they known to the community Mark was written from possibly as early followers of Jesus or of Christianity after Jesus. Since there was a presence of Hellenistic Jews in Galilee this could explain the name Alexander although not so much for Rufus. How much name dropping is in Mark in general?
I finally got a chance to watch the first half of Ehrman’s debate with Richard Bauckham last night. I was reminded of these comments.
It may be that I didn’t understand Bauckham’s argument, but he was a bit infuriating. He relies too heavily on would have arguments. Mark would have had a greek education. I don’t see how we would know that or how his Mark-John Mark, is the same as the author of the gospel. Further his idea that churches would have had libraries with Gospels in them seems a bit weak. It’s a baseless assumption that any church would have had multiple gospels early on. He wants to make a point about distinguishing them but then can’t explain why authors citing them don’t do that.
Prof Ehrman was dominant as always. Even when it came to Papias, Bauckham’s argument was incredibly weak. Out of the two statements about our Gospels, he thought Papias was wrong about anything being written in Hebrew, but right on the other count because Papias book had Logia in the title. On the contrary it’s all together likely that Papias was not referring to our gospels, but if you think he was reliable, then you have to seriously consider the problem created when you think he was wrong about half the evidence. It’s just as likely that Papias was not referring to our Matthew and was right about a gospel being written in Hebrew. Could he have been referring to Shem Tov Matt? So Papias is ambiguous at best. I haven’t listened to the second half yet, but expected more from Bauckham. He purports to have new evidence re: Papias for his new edition of the book.
NW said
achase79,Thank you VERY much for the thorough reply. It was tremendous and very helpful! I personally haven’t read Bauckham’s work – I’ve just heard lots of evangelicals go on and on about how amazing it is and how convincing the arguments are supposed to be. I’ve only been studying books in the field of Biblical scholarship over the last year or so, so I’m pretty new to a lot of these debates and topics of study. Having read several books by Ehrman and a few other authors, I generally find myself knowing some pretty convincing arguments Ehrman and other scholars have brought up contra fundamentalists, but I don’t know enough to entirely see through some of the arguments fundamentalists use. Especially before reading a new book, it greatly helps me to hear an overview perspective from someone more knowledgeable than I, as you have done well in your post. So thank you! Whenever I get around to reading Bauckham’s book, I’ll come back on the forum when I have some specific questions, but now I know a little better what to be aware of when reading his work, as well as some scholarly reviews to read about it.
I second much of what you wrote. Listening to the debate, a second time, between Ehrman and Bauckham was worth it.
Bauckham’s main contention seems to be that someone like Luke would want to get his information from living memory; reliable eye witness sources. This is a testable claim. If Luke wrote Acts, for example, we know that such sources of “living memory” got it wrong when it came to Paul. We have Paul’s own letters that contradict Luke in numerous places. Thus either the sources reliability didn’t make them any more accurate (Telephone effect?) or Luke wasn’t interested in such sources. You have to love the would have argument; a good way to claim knowledge you don’t have.
Another point comes to mind re: fundamentalists opinion of Bauckham’s work. After all, if Bauckham is right, then they can not continue to claim the NT was written by disciples etc and they are left relying on what Luke “would have” done. Progress might be slow, but it’s progress none the less
Also the exchange between Ehrman and Bauckham was illuminating in yet another way. Bauckham concedes he thought Papias was wrong about Matt being written in Hebrew, but accepts everything else BECAUSE. Achase is right Bauckham’s arguments, as far as I can tell(I haven’t read Bauckham yet, either) are weak. Seems like they are entirely based on speculation. If this therefore that.
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