In his literary history Eusebius has taken reasonable pains as he says in the preface he had no other material at his disposal than the self-witness of the books at hand. It is no different with Christian authors. General grounds of probability cannot take the place of this demonstration. The history of classical literature has gradually learned to work with the notions of the literary-historical legend, novella, or fabrication after untold attempts at establishing the factuality of statements made it has discovered that only in special cases does there exist a tradition about a given literary production independent of the self-witness of the literary production itself and that the person who utilizes a literary-historical tradition must always first demonstrate its character as a historical document. With regard to the recurrent inclination to pass off Papias’s remarks about the first two Synoptists as “ancient information” and to utilize them in some fashion or other, a somewhat more general observation may not be out of place. The following initially addresses this gaffe in relation to how historians read Papias (not inappropriate here) but continues by applying the same argument even more to the case of the Gospels: Why do we so often see scholars toss out any methodological nous when it comes to their canonical scriptures? This methodological gaffe of relying the Gospels as a priori sources of historical information has been calling out for attention and correction at least since 1904.
The Epistula Apostolorum was “clearly” written by eleven of the Twelve apostles.
The Gospel of Peter was “clearly” written by “Peter”. The mere fact that there is a signature on a work cannot be a methodological basis for assigning a work to “real history” or “real eyewitness testimony”. What was far from persuasive, however, was the general thrust of where Bauckham’s argument here is leading. On these three points I found Bauckham’s conclusions (although not all his arguments) refreshingly persuasive.
that the author of the gospel of John identifies himself as “the Beloved Disciple” (– but exactly who that was B reserves for a future chapter).This chapter attempts to establish three points: The Gospel of John as Eyewitness Testimony Meanwhile, have made a few minor changes/additions to points 3 and 6 (’emotional involvement’ and ‘point of view’) in my previous chapter 13 discussion since originally posting it.ġ4.
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