Category Archives: Bauckham, Richard

‘Why the Beloved Disciple Is Not John the Son of Zebedee’

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I confess that I have, until now, accepted without question the ‘traditional’ attribution of the Fourth Gospel to John the son of Zebedee.

But I have been considering the view of Richard Bauckham, that the author and ‘Beloved Disciple’ of the Fourth Gospel is not John the Apostle, son of Zebedee.  He is, rather, another John (later called ‘John the Elder’) who was a Jerusalem-based disciple (but not one of the Twelve).

I summarise Bauckham’s argument in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2nd ed.).…

The reliability of recollective memory

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What factors tend to increase the reliability of recollective memory, and how do these relate to the historical reliability of the Gospels?

Richard Bauckham identifies the following:

  1. Unique or unusual events. The gospel stories clearly fit this category, as many of the events, such as healings and exorcisms, are unmistakably unusual.
  2. Salient or consequential events. Gospel stories often involve landmark or life changing events that would create vivid memories in people who witnessed them.
  3. An event for which a person is emotionally involved.
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The case of the rotting fisherman

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Richard Bauckham offers vivid demonstration of how reliable eyewitness testimony can be.  I was particularly drawn to this pair of accounts relating to the same incident, because it took place in my home county of Norfolk, England.

In June, 1901 a local newspaper carried the following report:

STRANGE TRAGEDY AT WINTERTON - Body Found in the Sandhills
Late on Tuesday, a gruesome find was made on the sandhills at Winterton, a large fishing village eight miles north of Yarmouth.
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The psychology of eyewitness testimony

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I have referred, on several occasions, to the work of Richard Bauckham on Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.  In that book Bauckham sets out a range of evidence in support of his view that the four Gospels are based very largely on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and therefore should be regarded as having a high index of historical reliability.

Writing in the 2nd edition of the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (art. ‘Historicisms and Historiography’), J.…

Male and female disciples in Mark’s Gospel

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Richard Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses) observes that in Mark’s Gospel the male disciples are represented as oscillating between understanding and misunderstanding, and between loyalty and apostasy.

‘In both cases,’ writes Bauckham, ‘the disciples oscillate between the possibilities, but the negative pole in each case (misunderstanding and apostasy) tends to predominate, resulting in the overall portrayal of them as fallible and failing disciples, whose inability to understand the necessity for Jesus’ suffering and death is connected with their failure to remain faithful to him when his passion begins.’…

The plural-to-singular narrative device in Mark’s Gospel

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Referring back to an old (1925) and neglected article by Cuthbert Taylor, Richard Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses) notes that there are twenty-one instances of a narrative device in Mark’s Gospel that invite attention.  This is a device in which switches, slightly awkwardly, from third-person plural to third-person singular.  Here are some examples:-

Mk 5:1f – ‘They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat .…

The twelve disciples as ‘official’ eyewitnesses

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At first glance, the lists of Jesus’ disciples (Matt 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:13-16; see also Acts 1:13) seem simply to introduce some of the key players in the story.  But these lists probably serve a more specific purpose, especially given that about half of the characters named in the lists are never named again in the Gospels.  So this more specific function of the lists of disciples is that they display continuity between Jesus and the early Christian community, and provide the latter with reassurance about the overall shape and content of Jesus ministry that could only come from those who had closely associated with him.  …

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

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New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham appeared recently on Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.  He discussed his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses with fellow New Testament scholar James Crossley.

Here are a few notes on some of the arguments presented by Bauckham:-

His book sets out new arguments in favour of the ‘traditional’ view of the authorship and historicity of the four Gospels, and, in particular, that they present reliable eyewitness testimony of the life and ministry of Jesus.…