Form critics have commonly interpreted this to mean that the early church must have valued oral tradition over historical writing, but Bauckham responds that this is a misunderstanding of Papias’s point. In a much-discussed passage quoted by the early church historian Eusebius, Papias mentions his reception of the traditions of the earliest “elders” and “disciples,” expressing his own preference for testimony from a “living and surviving voice” rather than from written documents (Eusebius, Hist. Bauckham argues that a recovery of the category of “eyewitness testimony” can provide a better way forward in Jesus scholarship.īauckham then draws our attention to the writings of the second-century church father Papias of Hierapolis, our earliest source on the origin and authorship of Matthew and Mark. I will also attempt to engage with some of Bauckham’s critics (both conservative and liberal).īauckham begins by lamenting the current state of much Jesus scholarship today, which tends to operate according to a dividing line between theology and history, and between the “Jesus of the Gospels” and the “Jesus behind the Gospels.” He blames this state of affairs on an unwarranted posture of methodological skepticism combined with historical postivism: as historical documents, the Gospels are presumed to be guilty until proven innocent, and whatever minimalist picture of Jesus that remains after critical scrutiny is devoid of any religious significance. It would be impossible here to cover every single argument made in the book, but I will highlight what I found to be some of its strongest points. Bauckham proposes instead a reevaluation of the Gospels as the testimony of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry. Bauckham presents a tour de force of argumentation against the 20th-century liberal theory of form criticism, which theorized that the Gospels were based only on the oral traditions of anonymous communities that developed constantly evolving, free-floating stories about Jesus’s life, for the purpose of suiting their contemporary needs rather than preserving genuine history.

It took some determination to make it through all 615 pages, but it was certainly worthwhile. I recently started reading Bauckham in preparation to teach an adult Sunday School class on the historical Jesus. In neither case would I agree with all of the author’s conclusions, but in terms of apologetic effectiveness and scholarly depth, I have found them both to be exceptional. Andrews NT professor Richard Bauckham (Eerdmans, 2017).

However, a close second would be the newly-released second edition of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by University of St. If I had to pick my all-time favorite book on the historical Jesus, it would probably be Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T.

Bauckham jesus and the eyewitnesses