Hawk,
Thank you for your post. I like having the opportunity to attempt to synthesize the things I read.
I had a different experience from reading Bauckham. I was persuaded that he had provided support for his thesis that the Gospels are the product of discrete individuals attempting to tie their narrative to actual eyewitness testimony.
On the other hand, I have been dissatisfied with the alternative thesis – that the individual Gospels are a group effort developed by collating layers of stories from different stages of development. I’ve read Crossan and Brown and although I was willing to swallow the notion that their approach was the state of the art scholarship, at some point I had the experience of realizing that the emperor has no clothes – there is no non-inferential evidence that this was the case and it contradicts common sense and the clear statements in the texts to the contrary, the latter of which ought to count for something.
For example, I finally lost patience with Brown when I was listening to a videotaped lecture by Brown where he explained that the Gospels present an evolution of understanding about Jesus’ pre-existence from adoption by baptism (Mark), to birth (Matthew and Luke) to pre-existence (John). I was convinced until a Baptist pastor pointed out that the earliest evidence we have in Paul clearly points to a pre-existence “high” Christology. Brown didn’t deal with this issue in his lecture or in his book “The Community of the Beloved Disciple.” I am puzzled by that lacunae; he clearly knows it and was an honest and thorough scholar, but there you are.
I think we also have to dispense with the simplistic notion that the Gospels were dictated by eye-witnesses. That’s not what Bauckham argues, except for John. Rather, according to Bauckham, Mark was a collection of the stories that Peter routinely told or “rehearsed” and which were remembered by the author of Mark. So, as I pointed out before, the author of Mark found himself in a position I often found myself in – I know the gist of the story and the particular details that are important to the eyewitness – but details and connections that allow for the flow of the story often have to be interpolated.
That said, let me offer my analysis regarding Bauckham.
Papias and the “living and abiding voice”: Hawk wrote:
Bauckham takes Papias phrase "living and abiding voice" to mean that the information Papias has received at second or third hand has actually come from people who knew Jesus, and this includes information about Mark being Peter's recorder, and Matthew having collected sayings in the Hebrew tongue. (Jesus & the Eyewitnesses page 27)I understand the importance of Papias’ in this context is that he typifies the ancient world’s preference for oral information based on people who are willing to stake their credibility on the truth of the story over written text.
To me, this was an important and surprising point. In our modern world, outside of court, our paradigm is exactly the opposite. We tend to dismiss what people say, but if it is in print we attach a much higher value to it. We assume that written text has been vetted by a peer review or editorial process or that the author has really done some research the credibility of which is validated by the publisher. This modern assumption is one reason why such crapulous nonsense as The Da Vince Code has received the acceptance it has received.
The modern paradigm is not wrong in essence. It is in fact backed up by “custom and practice in the industry” that does in general establish the bona fides to some extent of the published work. The reason that the Da Vinci Code’s tendentious nonsense has been incorporated into the “conventional wisdom” of a lot of people is that it is getting a free-ride from popular acceptance of an “alternate history” fiction published as a historical mystery.
Bauckham’s point, therefore, is to highlight the ancient preference for living people to establish the credibility of the narrative, which hedescribes as an “ancient topos or commonplace.” (p. 21) Bauckham gives the examples of Polybius and Josephus (and elsewhere Thucydides, Tacitus, Lucian and Porphyry) to establish the ancient historiographical practice of collecting an “oral history” rather than an oral tradition from eyewitnesses during their lives.
In short, I take it that Bauckham’s point from the “living and abiding voice” quote is to establish in part the ancient “custom and practice” that Christians followed rather than the truth of any particular claim by Papias about who wrote Mark (which comes later and has additional support beyond Papias.)
The reliability of ancient Christian historians:Hawk wrote:
Of course, this information is based on what Eusebius tells us. I don't think that either Eusebius or Papias are entirely reliable. I have a copy of Eusebius Church History, some of which I have read. I was amused to find that in Book 1, recounting the life of Christ, Eusebius records the story of King Agbar of Edessa, who allegedly sent a letter to Jesus, requesting Jesus to come and cure him of a life threatening disease. Jesus is supposed to have sent a written reply. Eusebius gives us the contents of both letters, and it is clear that they are both fogeries, and yet Eusebius treats them as if they were genuine. This is not to say of course that everything that Eusebius writes is not to be trusted, but it does tend to put one on one's mettle, and not just take everything at face value.I was re-reading that part of Eusebius the other day, and although I was initially surprised by the silliness of written correspondence with Our Savior, on further reflection I was surprised to find that Eusebius claims that this letter is an exact translation of a document from the Record Office of Edessa. It seems that Eusebius was claiming some first person awareness of this undoubtedly forged text.
Weird.
However, how does that fact depart from modern historiographic practices? Does it really show a credulity that discounts his testimony when compared to modern scholars who treat the spurious “Secret History of Mark” as if it was true?
Hawk wrote:
Turning to Papias, Eusebius tells us that he gives us
"accounts which he says came to him through unwritten tradition, certain strange parables and teachings of the Saviour, and some other more mythical things"
Eusebius also tells us that Papias "appears to be a man of very small intelligence to judge from his books". (HC chap.3 (39:13))
And yet Eusebius seems happy to use him as a source!Of course, we don’t know the other stories or what Eusebius based his opinion on. Given his connection to John, Eusebius’ Arian tendencies may be in play, but that’s my speculation. Bauckham claims that the judgment was based on Papias’ “post-millenialism.”
As for the rest, part of history and life is making judgments about credibility and truth. The fact that a person has a particular hobbyhorse or bias – or even lies – doesn’t mean that all of a person’s testimony is discredited. There is in fact a jury instruction on this point.
I take it that Papias collected the stories that were told to him by the sources he named. The stories are not necessarily wrong or untrue, even if they don’t comport with other stories or with our common sense.
I often remind myself that truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to be plausible. After 25 years of litigation experience, I have leaned to warn my clients against “tailoring” their memory to fit what the documents or other people (or even logic) says because I have had too many experiences where the improbable turns out to be the truth because of some small and seemingly unimportant fact whose significance becomes important only in retrospect. I tell my clients that I would rather have them lose telling the truth as they know it than lose telling a lie.
Nonetheless, statements about Papias’s practice is evidence of how Papias collected his story, and making the reasonable assumption that Papias did what he said he did, the stories are evidence of what was being said by those who were contemporaries of Jesus.
And if we rule that Papias’s statements constitute “evidence”, then the burden of responding to that evidence with counter-evidence of some kind shifts.
Eyewitness testimony or teachingsHawk wrote:
Bauckham makes a great deal of the above passage about Papias and his living and abiding voice at the beginning of his book, trying to persuade us that this has the meaning of eyewitness testimony. The phrase the "living voice" is used by other ancient writers to describe the passing on of teaching from teacher to pupil, but not as a description of someone reporting eyewitness testimony. Bauckham emphasises the "abiding" voice, to tell us how close Papias takes us to the original eyewitnesses - but is this what Papias really meant? Is it not just as likely that he was quoting scripture? In this case 1 Peter 1:23
"You have been born anew, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God". Bauckham actually quotes the phrase as “surviving” voice and points out that the same word is used when Jesus talks about whether John may “survive” until his return.
Bauckham also points out that the phrase seems to resemble a statement by Galen about learning from teachers rather than texts and that it may have been a proverb that referred to actually talking to people who knew what they were talking about.
This is beyond my experience or knowledge, so I have to assume that Bauckham is accurate … because it is in print and I assume that it has been vetted academically per the modern paradigm.
Hawk wrote:
I don't think that Papias was talking about the passing on of eyewitness testimony at all, but about the teachings passed on from the first disciples -
"but in those that deliver the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and springing from the truth itself. If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders,—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord,"
This clearly refers to the commandments (teachings) given by Jesus. There is simply no mention of anything about Jesus life.
I think Bauckham has seriously misunderstood what Papias is supposed to have said, and to rely on that as evidence for the reliability of the gospel accounts of Jesus life is entirely wrong headed. That is of course if we are generous and grant either Papias or Eusebius credibility in the first place. It seems to me to be a very shaky foundation for trying to overturn 150 years of New Testament criticism! I don’t think that this an either/or situation. I don’t see that there was a necessary distinction that was made between the life of Christ and the teaching of Christ. The earliest sources we have – the Epistles of Paul – are filled with references to the model the life of Christ has for disciples that make sense only if there was information about Christ’s life that was circulating, albeit Paul’s letters are themselves skimpy about historical information concerning Jesus. (Of course, compare Paul’s epistles with those of Clement and Ignatius which are also free of details about Christ’s life.)
Also, this argument contradicts your previous criticism.
In this argument, you assert that Papias was not collecting historical details.
But previously you argued that Papias was overly credulous about collecting details concerning the death of Judas.
My conclusion – based in part on your previous argument - is that Papias did not limit his mission to collecting teachings.
Hawk wrote:
Bauckham makes much of the work of Keneth Bailey on oral tradition, although it seems to me that the kind of tradition that Bailey is writing about is that which develops in settled village communities, and that is light years away from the situation of the early church, which was a rapidly developing movement in the first century, only really becoming a settled organisation as such in the second century. Bauckham goes beyond Bailey in describing the developing folklore of the early church as a "formal controlled" tradition. I just don't find it credible that the apostles could have controlled the way in which the "Jesus story" evolved in different parts of the Mediterranean. If they did, then they clearly failed, as the existence early on of different Christian groups with different beliefs about Jesus testifies. I think this probably gets to the nub of the dispute.
The question is whether the model of information transmission was accumulating unsupervised oral tradition like a game of telephone or was there a more controlled method by which the early church attempted to distinguish true teachings from spurious stories.
I think that Bauckham nails this one. He points out Papias self-conscious effort to tie his stories to those people who might be assumed to know what they are talking about, he notes that some of the texts (John and Luke) themselves say that this is what is happening, he notes the tradition of the inclusion in pagan historical works which appears to have been followed in the Gospels, he discusses the pharisaic mode of transmission through memorization that mirrors what Paul says about how he learned and passed along the teachings of Jesus. (Ch. 11.)
It makes sense that this is what was happening in that it really happened among the Jews and the Christians were saying that is what they were doing – handing on what they had received.
It also fits into what other sources that Bauckham didn’t discuss said. For example, in
First Clement - which is generally dated to the end of the First Century or during the life of John – writes:
CHAPTER 42
42:1 The Apostles received for us the gospel from our Lord Jesus Christ; our Lord Jesus Christ received it from God.
42:2 Christ, therefore, was sent out from God, and the Apostles from Christ; and both these things were done in good order, according to the will of God.
42:3 They, therefore, having received the promises, having been fully persuaded by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and having been confirmed by the word of God, with the full persuasion of the Holy Spirit, went forth preaching the good tidings that the kingdom of God was at hand.
42:4 Preaching, therefore, through the countries and cities, they appointed their firstfruits to be bishops and deacons over such as should believe, after they had proved them in the Spirit.
42:5 And this they did in no new way, for in truth it had in long past time been written concerning bishops and deacons; for the scripture, in a certain place, saith in this wise: I will establish their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.
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Likewise,
Ignatius of Antioch approximately twenty years later writes:
For if I, in this brief space of time, have enjoyed such fellowship with your bishop —I mean not of a mere human, but of a spiritual nature—how much more do I reckon you happy, who so depend on him as the Church does on the Lord Jesus, and the Lord does on God and His Father, that so all things may agree in unity! Let no man deceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two possesses such power that Christ stands in the midst of them, how much more will the prayer of the bishop and of the whole Church, ascending up in harmony to God, prevail for the granting of all their petitions in Christ! He, therefore, that separates himself from such, and does not meet in the society where sacrifices are offered, and with “the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven,” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, while he presents a mild outward appearance. Do ye, beloved, be careful to be subject to the bishop, and the presbyters and the deacons.
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It seems to me that Bauckham’s description of the mode of Gospel transmission fits better with the fact that there was a well-established ecclesiastical structure within a very short time that explicitly claimed to have been established by the apostles.
The statements of Clement and Ignatius, it seems to me, put the lie to any notion that the transmission of Gospel stories was allowed to be as haphazard and ad hoc as the “New Criticism” would have us believe.
It also responds to your claim that there was a lack of control over the Christian message.
From Paul through Clement through Ignatius, there has been a connection between orthodox teaching, orthodox liturgy and an orthodox liturgy, all working together to establish an orthodoxy that was recognizably distinct from heresy.
So, for example, Paul affirms that there is on baptism and one eucharist for the true Church. Clement points out the connection between the apostles and the bishops. Ignatius repeatedly points out that the bishops have the true eucharist which the heretics lack.
In other words, there were certainly heretics, but there was also an orthodox structure that allowed the heretics to be separated from the orthodox.
"Self-impeachment" of GospelsHawk wrote:
And of course, the gospels themselves give the lie to their having been sober eyewitness accounts of what actually happened, as I have indicated previously. It is impossible to reconstruct a chronolgy of Jesus life from them - we simply have no idea how long his public ministry lasted for instance.John seems to be the best on chronology, which seems to back Bauckham’s thesis.
Also, I think it tends to support the verisimilitude of the Gospels. Fiction has to be plausible; truth just happens. If someone wanted to write fiction, they would have created a chronology. If someone was being cautious about their source, they wouldn’t.
Hawk wrote:
All the stories are clearly tailored to present a religious message. And of course there are the fantastical elements, pigs throwing themselves off cliffs, Jesus creating food out of thin air to feed 5000, stilling storms, raising the dead, turning water into wine. Of course, you might say that I am revealing my antisupernaturalist bias here, and that if Jesus was the Son of God, then he may well have done these things, but…. If you have an anti-supernaturalist bias, then, of course, any source that testifies to a supernatural experience is “self-impeaching.”
On the other hand, I think it is illegitimate to simply write off supernatural stories on that account. I have heard supernatural stories from people I know to be credible, sober and with no incentive to lie. What I’ve noticed from such stories is that the people who tell them are somewhat embarrassed, they never draw the obvious conclusion and they invariably just give the unembroidered narrative.
Perhaps, I can write them off as misperceptions, and the narrator will invariably say “go ahead; all I can do is tell you what happened.”
My worldview is not restricted to materialism, so I do not write the stories off as necessary fictions, but I don’t know what to make of them, so I leave it at that.
Hawk wrote:
…. but if you take the doctrine of Incarnation seriously, then I don't think he could have done those things.
Episodes like that present Jesus as some kind of superhero of which there were so many in the ancient world, so I see those stories about Jesus as having been created in order for the early Christians to say to the pagans "look, if your heroes can do all these marvellous things, then so can ours!" I’ll concede that your point about the Incarnation was theologically interesting to me, which forced me to learn some theology about something I’d never thought about.
Usually, that takes the form of reading the Angelic Doctor. :-)
My initial thought was that you were right. We know that the Kenosis hymn of
Philippians 2 says that Christ emptied himself and took on human form:
5 Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, 2
6 Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
8 he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, 8 of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 9 to the glory of God the Father.
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Philippians does not say that the Second Person divested himself of divinity – in fact, that would be counter to the Incarnation, the purpose of which was to bring the divine into the material. Philippians actually talks about taking on a “human likeness” and “human in appearance.”
Further, it sounds like you have a definite view of what the Incarnation means from which you logically derive certain empirical expectations. All I would point out on that is that the
complex relationship between the human and divine natures can get complicated indeed when logic is brought into action.Closing ArgumentHawk wrote:
You are a lawyer - would the kind of argument that Bauckham presents in chapter 6 stand up to cross examination in a court? The first point I would make is that – assuming proper “authentication” - ‘hearsay’ is evidence. “Evidence” per the
California Evidence Code is “testimony, writings, material objects, or
other things presented to the senses that are offered to prove the
existence or nonexistence of a fact.” All “relevant evidence”, which is evidence having a “tendency in reason” to prove or disprove any disputed fact, is admissible. (Id. at 210, 351.)
“Hearsay evidence” has a tendency in reason to prove or disprove such facts. If I say that “Bob” said something, that tends to prove that Bob actually said it. In fact, hearsay evidence is allowed under a raft of hearsay exceptions for this very reason – e.g., declarations against interest, admissions, state of mind, dying declarations, facts of independent legal significance etc.
Where hearsay is not allows, it is because we prefer – all things being equal – that the sponsor of testimony be in a position where his credibility can be tested. It is too easy, as we know, for people to hide behind what other people are claimed to have said, particularly if they aren’t available to testify. If they are available, the policy preference is to bring those people to court and have them testify. (And then again there is the all purpose “hearsay exception” under the Federal Rules of Evidence when this isn’t possible.)
So, the objection of “hearsay” is not the death knell that people think it is.
I think my argument would go as follows:
Eusebius quotes Papias. Should we believe Eusebius claim that this is what Papias said?
Absoutely. Eusebius has no love for Papias and would hardly make up things to put in Papias mouth. In fact, given Eusebius’ hostility toward Papias, I think we must chalk up Eusebius’ statement as a “declaration against interest” because it otherwise bolsters Papias’ on claims that Eusebius is hostile toward.
So, I think we should conclude that Eusebius accurately described something that Papias wrote.
Do we therefore credit Papias’ claim about how he collected information?
Yes, I think so. Papias’ statements go to establishing his custom and practice – a fact of independent legal significance – or his state of mind, i.e., that knew that he shouldn’t be simply making things up (or that he knew that making things up would be of less value than collecting statements from eyewitnesses.) So, his statement ought to be admissible.
We also know that Papias was in a position where he could collect such testimonies and that the period of history preferred eyewitness accounts to written or anonymous texts. So, his testimony is corroborated.
Should we credit his account that Mark collected recollections from Peter.
The prima facie evidence is that Mark did collect such recollections. That evidence is found in Papias whose claim of collecting such information from more primary sources is corroborated by the evidence that there were methods of transmission of accurate teaching in place among the , that there was an interest in the historical accuracy of accounts of Christ, that Mark according to Bauckham contains grammatical structure attributable to being an account from an eyewitness, that Mark has stories that seem to be from Peter’s perspective.
With that prima facie evidence, the burden of producing evidence would shift and then we would be arguing the “weight of the evidence.”
Honestly, for me, if I had to render a verdict, the Papias fragment would bear the most weight.
I will acknowledge that I have no idea why the “keys to the kingdom’ story is not found in Mark. Bauckham argues that the reason is because of the truncated perspective on Christ only. This may be true in light of the lack of a Resurrection appearance in Mark. I do tend to find explanations off such anomalies to be like “Just So” stories, however.
Thanks for the opportunity to work somewhat further through Bauckham.