Charles Fraser

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Charles is Currently Reading

Charles Fraser is currently reading

Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony

by Richard Bauckham

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Charles Fraser said: " This is a lengthy, rather academic book with footnotes. It's a book for people looking for Biblical analysis rather than inspiration, although it was in parts gripping reading.

We learn that ancient historians preferred statements from people deeply i This is a lengthy, rather academic book with footnotes. It's a book for people looking for Biblical analysis rather than inspiration, although it was in parts gripping reading.

We learn that ancient historians preferred statements from people deeply involved in events rather than from disinterested parties - they believed this would get them closer to the truth.

Papias of Hierapolis wrote a five volume work Exposition of the Logia of the Lord, which is lost; a very few fragments survive. Papias had read the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and John. Bauckham believes that Papias, born c. AD 70, received the teachings of John the Elder and Aristion, both of whom were disciples of Jesus and were very old when Papias heard their message and learned about the descriptions of events in the life of Jesus, which he wrote in the five lost volumes. Note Bauckham believes John the Elder is not John Zebedee, one of the 12.

Bauckham then correlates the personal names of people named as participants in the gospels and Acts with compilations of the real names of people in Palestine in the appropriate era. He concludes that there's good agreement. It turns out that half of Jewish Palestine's people were called by about a dozen personal names - with Simon and Joseph the most popular. Many of the popular names, such as Jesus, John, Judah reflected the name of God, YHWH. The names Moses, David and Elijah were entirely absent, reflecting the people's lack of presumptuousness about these figures that were to be the eschatological deliverers of Israel. And who would ever have guessed that in Aramaic, the name "Caiaphas" the high priest who organised the plot to kill Jesus means "coagulation, jelly sediments of boiled meat". Caiaphas was not just mentioned in the Bible - Josephus also records him. Funnily enough Wikipedia does not give "coagulation, jelly sediments of boiled meat" as the potential meaning of the name, although both Gemini and Claude AI flag it just as likely as the most likely Wiki definition.

Bauckham presents evidence that the ancient claim that Mark is recounting eyewitness accounts from Peter is correct and introduced [to me at any rate] the literary device of inclusio to help confirm this. Inclusio also indicates the Beloved Disciple was the principle witness in the Gospel according to John, and women such as Joanna were important witnesses in the Gospel according to Luke.

There is much, much more information relating to authorship and reliability of the accounts in the gospels, which Bauckham compares with academic studies of transmission of information orally over time. Safe to say that the sort of things witnessed by Jesus's disciples will be remembered accurately. And, even better, between the events of Jesus's life being witnessed and then being written down, there are not multiple generations of separation and oral tradition. ...more "

10 hours, 36 min ago · see review