Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Outline of forthcoming posts

Thank you for those who have linked to and commented on the previous post. I don’t have the time to address any of the points raised tonight, perhaps tomorrow. Instead, I wanted now to simply start the summary/review series of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.* While my posts will attend to each chapter, one after the other, some of them will involve considerable discussion so I won’t even try to restrict this series to one post per chapter. However, rather than simply writing posts on Chrisendom so that there is an excuse not to buy the book and read it for yourselves I hope that my posts will ‘whet the appetite’ of those considering buying the book to dig into the details of the arguments for themselves. Richard can’t justify every bold claim in an interview - that is why he wrote the book -, and neither can I in this series - that would be copyright infringement! Best bet is to buy the book ...

The chapter contents of the book are as follows (I shall update this post with links as I proceed):

(NB. As I only have an electronic copy of the book, I cannot refer to page numbers – I’ll update them when the hard copy arrives)

1. From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony - part 1, part 2, part 3.

2. Papias on the Eyewitnesses - part 4, part 5 (Richard’s comments on the generated discussion).

3. Names in the Gospel Traditions - part 6, part 7 (Bauckham responds II).

4. Palestinian Jewish Names - part 8 (Bauckham responds III).

5. The Twelve - part 9, part 10.

6. Eyewitnesses “from the Beginning” - part 11, part 12, part 13.

7. The Petrine Perspective in Mark - part 14, part 15, part 16.

8. Anonymous Persons in Mark's Passion Narrative - part 17 (Bauckham responds IV).

9. Papias on Mark and Matthew - part 18.

10. Three Models of Oral Tradition - part 19.

11. Transmitting the Jesus Traditions - part 20.

12. Anonymous Tradition or Eyewitness Testimony? - part 21.

13. Eyewitness Memory - part 22.

14. The Gospel of John as Eyewitness Testimony - part 23.

15. The Witness of the Beloved Disciple - part 24, part 25.

16. Papias on John - part 26.

17. Polycrates and Irenaeus on John - part 27.

18. The Jesus of Testimony - part 28.

Part 29 - A podcast summary

Part 30 - Bauckham's response to my biblical-studies colloquium questions

*(Nervous after thought mode on) I would add: This is just my attempt at a summary and review of Bauckham’s important work; I cannot guarantee that I will represent his arguments fairly all of the time. The only way to be sure, of course, is for you to purchase and read the book for yourself!

**Also see here for my Q&A session with Richard Bauckham about the book.