Scholars of the Gospel of Mark usually discuss the merits of patristic references to the Gospel’s origin and Mark’s identity as the “interpreter” of Peter. Finally, Bauckham's appeal to Gerhardsson's model of a Jerusalem school from which Paul learned to memorize Jesus traditions exposes him to all the objections raised against that earlier argument, for which Bauckham offers no remedy. And the shift from plural to singular third person voices would be more convincing if any of our Gospels used a consistent first person voice, singular or plural. The theory of an inclusio of eyewitness testimony falters against the fact that Bauckham's eyewitnesses (Peter for Mark and the Beloved Disciple for John) are not actually present for the crucial events they are to have witnessed. The pattern of naming names in the synoptics offers no peculiarities necessitating Bauckham's assertion that they are actually the names of eye-witnesses. Bauckham's arguments that would convince one that at least Mark and John rely upon eye-witnesses ultimately succumb to strong counter indications. If one assumes the two-source hypothesis, as Bauckham does, there is no point in arguing over Matthew and Luke: their sources (Mark and Q) are clear, and clearly not living eye-witnesses but written sources. The article argues that the Gospel writer has embedded his story of Jesus in a mythical framework in order to naturalize and essentialize a distinct early Christian social identity that was actually blurred and in the making.In spite of the fact that Richard Bauckham has produced a very learned and well-stated argument, his case for the Gospels as eye-witness testimony is unconvincing.

In the Gospel, the knowledge of God communicated only by Jesus and the mutual love between Jesus’ disciples function as strong symbols of belonging for Jesus’ followers but also create an imagined boundary between them and those who have not received Jesus’ revelation. It is demonstrated how John anchors his story of Jesus to mythical beginnings and uses various dualistic polarities to express a clear demarcation between Jesus’ followers and the rest of world. The article applies the social identity approach and concepts related to the symbolic construction of communities and imagined communities to explain how an ideal portrait of the community of Jesus’ followers is created in the Gospel of John. The article takes issue with recent attempts to deny that the New Testament Gospels were addressed to distinct early Christian communities and argues that it is still meaningful to trace how these writings construct distinct early Christian identities.

Jesus and the eyewitnesses