Bauckham R.- The Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions (JSHJ 2003)

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Historical JesusJournal for the Study of the

DOI: 10.1177/1476869003001001032003; 1; 28Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus

Richard BauckhamThe Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions

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THE EYEWITNESSES AND THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS

Richard Bauckham

St MarysCollege,Universityof St AndrewsSt Andrews, Scotland

Introduction

In an often-quotedcomment, Vincent Taylor wrote that, [i]f the Form-Critics are right,the disciplesmust have been translated to heaven immedi-atelyafter the Resurrection,.1He went on to pointout that many eyewitnessparticipantsin the events of the Gospel narratives did not go into perma-nent retreat; for at least a

generation theymoved among the young Pales-

tinian communities, and throughpreaching and fellowship their recol-lections were at the disposal of those who sought information .MorerecentlyMartin Hengelhas insisted,againstthe form-critical approach,thatthe personallink of the Jesus tradition with particulartradents,or morepreciselytheir memory and missionarypreaching...ishistoricallyundeni-able, but was completelyneglectedby the form-critical notion that thetradition &dquo;circulated&dquo;quite anonymously... inthe communities, which areviewed as pure collectives.;Gospel scholars have worked with severalmodels of oral tradition, such as the oral traditional literature studied by

A.B. Lord4or Kenneth Baileys account of the operationof oral transmis-sion in modem Middle Eastern villages,but onlyBirgerGerhardssons useof rabbinic tradition as an analogyaccommodates in some form the role of

1. V. Taylor,The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London:Macmillan, 2ndedn, 1935),p. 41.

2. Taylor,Formation, p. 42.3. M. Hengel, The Four Gospelsand the One Gospel ofJesus Christ (trans.

J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 2000),p. 143.4. See, e.g., A.B. Lord, The Gospelsas Oral Traditional Literature,in W.O.

Walker (ed.), The Relationshipsamong the Gospels(TrinityUniversity MonographSeries in Religion,5; San Antonio: TrinityUniversityPress, 1978),pp. 33-91.

5. K. Bailey, Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels,Themelios 20.2 (1995),pp. 4-11; cf. N.T. Wright,Jesus and the Victoryof God (Lon-don : SPCK, 1996), pp. 133-36.

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the eyewitnessesin the first generationof earlyChristian history.But, apartfrom the fact that Gerhardssons approachhas been dismissed-not entire-ly fairly6-asanachronistic and as offeringtoo rigidan account of the trad-ition, even Gerhardsson does not allow for the role of a wide range ofindividual eyewitnesses, but envisagesonly the circle of Jesus closestdisciples actingcorporatelyas a body of trained and authoritative tradi-tioners.~7

An importantcontribution to putting the eyewitnessesback into ourunderstandingof the transmission of Gospeltraditions in the earlyChristianmovement has recentlybeen made bySamuel Byrskogsbook,Story as His-

tory-Historyas

Story:The Gospel Tradition in the Context of AncientOral History.8He compares the practiceof Greco-Roman historians withthat of modem oral history,and finds the role of eyewitness-informantsvery similar in both. The historians,convinced that true historycould bewritten only while events were still within livingmemory, valued as theirsources the oral reports of direct experienceof the events by involved parti-cipantsin them. The eyewitnessexperienceshould be either the historiansown or that of eyewitnesseswhose livingvoices they could hear and whomthey could question themselves: Autopsy was the essential means toreach back into the past.9The ideal eyewitnesswas not the dispassionateobserver, but the person who, as a participant,had been closest to theevents and whose direct experienceenabled them to understand and inter-pret the significanceof what they had seen. The historians preferredtheeyewitnesswho was sociallyinvolved or, even better, had been activelyparticipatingin the events Eyewitnesseswere as much interpretersasobservers.&dquo;Their accounts became essential parts of the historianswritings.l2

Byrskogarguesthat a similar role must have been

playedin the form-

ation of the Gospel traditions and the Gospelsthemselves by individualswho were qualifiedto be both eyewitnessesand informants about the his-tory of Jesus. He attempts to identifysuch eyewitnessesand to find thetraces of their testimonyin the Gospels,stressingthat they, like the histor-ians and their informants, would have been involved participantswho not

6. Cf. D.A. Hagner,Foreword,in B. Gerhardsson, The Reliabilityof the GospelTradition (Peabody,MA: Hendrickson, 2001),pp. xi-xii.

7. Gerhardsson,Reliabilityof the GospelTradition, pp. 84-85.8. Byrskog,Story as HistoryHistoryas Story:The GospelTradition in the Con-

text of AncientOral History(WUNT, 123; Tbingen:Mohr Siebeck,2000).9. Byrskog,Story as History,p. 64.10. Byrskog,Story as History,p. 167.11. Byrskog,Story as History,p. 149.12. Byrskog,Story as History,p. 64.



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only remembered facts but naturallyalso interpretedin the process ofexperiencingand remembering.The gospelnarratives...are thus synthesesof historyand story, of the oral historyof an eyewitnessand the interpre-tative and narrativizingproceduresof an author.13In Byrskogsaccountthe eyewitnessesdo not disappearbehind the long process of anonymoustransmission and formation of traditions by communities, but remain aninfluential presence in the communities, peoplewho could be consulted,who told their stories and whose oral accounts layat no great distance fromthe textualized form the Gospelsgave them.

Byrskogswork is a majorcontribution with which all Gospelscholarsshould feel

obligedto come to terms. Some criticisms have

alreadybeen

voiced. It has been chargedthat Byrskog assumes, rather than demon-strates, that the Gospelsare comparable with the practiceof oral historyinancient Greek and Roman historiography Another reviewer is disap-pointed that Byrskogprovideslittle in the way of criteria either to identifyeyewitnessesor to identifyeyewitnesstestimonyin the tradition.&dquo;Theseare importantobservations and show at least that Byrskogswork, impres-sive as it is, cannot stand as a completedcase, but requiresfurther testingand development.

The present article is a modest contribution to this latter task. Its twoparts have different starting-pointsbut convergingconclusions. The firstexamines a passage from Papias to which Byrskog,like most scholars,givescomparativelylittle attention 16(treatingmuch more fully the more famousstatements of Papias about the originsof the Gospelsof Mark and Mat-thew), but which I hope to show can make a significantcontribution to ourunderstandingof the Gospel tradition and the Gospels. The second partexamines the phenomenonof personal names in the Gospels. In both partswe shall find importantevidence-additional to Byrskogs-thatthe eye-witnesses were well-known figuresin the Christian movement. Traditionsderived from them did not developindependentlyof them; rather theyremained throughouttheir lifetimes livingand authoritative sources of thetraditions that were associated with them as individuals,not just as a group.We shall also find some further evidence to strengthenByrskogsclaim thatthe practiceof oral historyby the Greek and Roman historians is relevant toour understandingof the Gospels. In the second part some criteria for

13. Byrskog,Story as History, pp. 304-305.14. C.R. Matthews, review in JBL 121 (2002),pp. 175-77; cf. P.M. Head, TheRole of Eyewitnessesin the Formation of the GospelTradition, TynBul52.2 (2001),pp. 275-94 (294),who thinks Byrskog should have taken more seriouslythe distinc-tion between ancient historiographyand ancient biography.

15. W. Carter, review in CBQ 63 (2001), pp. 545-46.16. Byrskog,Story as History, pp. 244-45.

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identifyingeyewitnessesand their testimonywithin the Gospel traditionswill be broached.

Papias on the Eyewitnesses

In a passage quotedby Eusebius from the Prologueto Papias lost work onthe deeds and sayings of Jesus, Papiasreveals a great deal about bow, in aperiod towards the end of the first century, the period in which the Gospelsof Matthew, Luke and John were beingwritten,the relationshipof eyewit-nesses to traditions about Jesus was understood:

ODK OICV1CHO8~ 601 xai oaa Jtcie napa TCOV1tpEcrfh)tprovICak6qsrpa8ovxai xa~,u3S~gvTl116vEuoa,o-oyicaTaTd~atTaiq ~pp.v~vEiavS,8va(3~~av-o-6~wvo;1tpmnrov dXq8mav.o-6 yap ioi5 t 1toM 7v.sryovaivgxatpovoonep oi 1to.Ot,did Toig Td~iie~ 8t8a6xovwv, 01>ioi5 icic5ot-pia5 arvio7~aSgVntLOVF-l~000-IV,dkkdt tOte;Tlig71ap6lTOD ICUpiO-OTT)1ttcrtEt8e8o)ievactcai dEnavrijS1tapaytVo~vaIfig lihQ8CiGei 8e 1tOU tcai1tapaICo.oue~lCroit5 ioi5 1tPEcr~UtpOt9XOOt,iovS TCOVnpF-CFPUCgp(OVdcvgicptvov .youe;,ii AV6pGg fizi IIeipoS d1tEV 11ii .t1t1to 11Iiwpd5fit IICro~o 11ii lo)dvv7i; 11 Mat9atoe; 11m5 erepoc rmv (01) KDpiODpa8~iwv a is Ap16IiWV)ccd 6 1tpEcr~tEpOe;Iwavvrl5,TOD Kbpiov pG8Q -ta, 7v,eyovaw.ou Yap Td ex icuv #I#hiWVioaovidv ~E w~~1~iv1tE~-pavov oaov Ili 1tap O>


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tion and John the Elder were still teaching-somewhereother than Hier-apolis-and Papias could learn from their followers what they were (still)saying.These two had been personal disciplesof Jesus but at the time ofwhich Papiasspeakswere prominentChristian teachers in the provinceof

Asia, and so deserved, as none of those in the other categories did, boththe epithetelder and the epithetdiscipleof the Lord. Papias calls thesecond of them John the Elder to distinguishhim from the John heincludes in category (3).Both Johns were disciplesof the Lord but onlyJohn the Elder was also a prominentteacher in the churches of Asia. 24

Since Aristion and John the Elder were disciplesof the Lord who werestill alive at the time about which

Papiasis

writing,as well as

relativelyclose

to him geographically(probablyin Smyrna 2and Ephesusrespectively),hewas able to collect their sayingsmediated by only one transmitter-any oftheir followers who visited Hierapolis.So it is not surprisingthat he valuedtheir traditions especiallyand quoted them often in his work (Eusebius,Hist. Eccl. 3.39.7).Sayingsfrom the other disciplesof the Lord he lists wereat least one more link in the chain of tradition removed from him. Eusebiusunderstood Papias to have actuallyhimself heard Aristion and John theElder (Hist.Eccl. 3.39.7),and Irenaeus says the same of Papias relation toJohn (Adv.Haer. 5.33.4;and quotedby Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39.1).It isconceivable that Papiaswent on, followingthe words Eusebius quotedfromthe Prologue, to say that at a later date he was able to travel and to hear

Aristion and John the Elder for himself. (IfPapiashad heard them himself,he could hardlyhave failed to say so in his Prologue,where he is explainingthe source of the traditions he reports and interpretsin the rest of his work.)But it is also possible that both Eusebius and Irenaeus supposedthe firstsentence of Eusebiuss extract from the prologue(everything I carefullylearned from the elders)to mean that Papiashad personallyheard Aristionand John the Elder teaching.It is more likely that this sentence actuallymeans that he learned from the elders in the way in which he goes on toexplain,that is, by inquiringof any of their followers he met.26In that case

24. Chapman,John the Presbyter,made the best case for identifyingthe two Johnsin this passage of Papias,but it is hard to believe that Papias would have included thesame John in both categories(3) and (4).

25. Aristion is probablythe same person as Ariston, whom the Apostolic Consti-tutions (7.46)considers first bishop of Smyrna.For the historical value of this connec-tion of Aristion with Smyrna,see B.H. Streeter, The Primitive Church (London: Mac-millan, 1929), pp. 92-97.

26. This seems more likely than the view of Chapman,John the Presbyter, pp.30-31, that Papias first giveshis principalsource (he learned directlyfrom the elders)and then his secondarysources (he asked disciplesof the elders when they visitedHierapolis).



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time at which the Gospelsof Matthew33and Luke were written,and a littleearlier than the time at which the Fourth Gospel was written. What Papiassays in this passage can be placed alongside Lukes reference to the eye-witnesses (1.2)as evidence for the way the relationshipof the eyewitnessesto Gospeltraditions was understood at the time when the Gospels werebeingwritten.

There is no reason at all to regardPapiasclaims in this passage as apol-ogeticexaggeration,for they are strikinglymodest. To traditions from mem-bers of the Twelve he claims at best to have had access only at second-hand,while, as we have seen, he probablydid not even claim to have heard

Aristion and John the Elder himself, butonly

to have received their teach-ing, during their lifetimes,from those who had heard them. We may there-fore trust the most significantimplicationof what Papias says: that oraltraditions of the words and deeds of Jesus were attached to specificnamedeyewitnesses.This speaksdecisivelyagainstthe old form-critical assump-tion that sightof the eyewitnessoriginsof the Gospeltraditions would, bythe time the Gospelswere written,have longbeen lost in the anonymityofcollective transmission. Not only from Lk. 1.2,but also, even more clearly,from Papiaswe can see that this was not the case. Papiasexpectedto hear

specificallywhat Andrew or Peter or another named disciplehad said orspecificallywhat Aristion or John the Elder was still saying.34We can prob-ably deduce that, just as these last two, long-survivingdisciplescontinuedto repeat their oral witness in their teachingas long as they lived, so theother discipleshad been, not just originatorsof oral traditions in the earliestperiod,but authoritative livingsources of the traditions up to their deaths.The oral traditions had not evolved away from them but continued to beattached to them, so that peoplelike Papiaswanted to hear specificallywhatany one of them said.

Not too much weightshould be placed on the particularnames in Pap-ias list of seven disciples.Like other Jewish and earlyChristian writers,hedoubtless uses the number seven as indicatingcompleteness,so that a listof seven can stand representativelyfor all (cf. the seven disciplesin Jn21.2). As has often been noticed,the order of the list is strikinglyJohan-

33. If Papias statement about Matthews Gospelcomes, like the statement aboutMarks Gospel, from the Elder (i.e.,probablyJohn the Elder),then he would haveknown (or

come

to know)Matthews Gospelin the period when hewas

collectingtraditions,but it is not clear from Eusebius whether Papiascomment on Matthew didcome from the Elder.

34. This pointis made by B. Gerhardsson,Memory and Manuscript:Oral Tradi-tion and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity(Acta Sem-inarii Neotestamentici Upsaliensis,22; Uppsala: Almqvist& Wiksells, 1961),pp. 206-207.



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nine,reflectingthe order in Jn 1.40-44 and 21.2. From these Johannine listsPapias has omitted the peculiarlyJohannine discipleNathaniel, no doubtbecause he wished to add instead the non-Johannine Matthew, importantto Papias as a well-known source of Gospel traditions.35This dependenceon the Fourth Gospeldoubtless belongsto Papiascompositionof the pas-sage, not to his thinking at the time about which he is writing.There is asomewhat Johannine flavour to the whole passage. The use of disciplesrather than apostlesrecalls the Fourth Gospel,but may also be a usagedesignedto emphasizeeyewitnesstestimonyto the words and deeds ofJesus in a way that apostle,a term appliedto Paul in Asia in Papiastime,need not. But the references to the truth in the second sentence of thepassage, includingthe apparent reference to Jesus himself as the truth (cf.Jn 14.6),have Johannine resonances, while a further possibleJohanninismoccurs in the final phrase of the passage: a livingand surviving voice(~warl5wvfig Kat f.1EVO


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historian Polybius(writingthree centuries before Galen)when he comparedhistoriographyto medical practice(12.15d.6).This is part of Polybius sav-age criticism of the work of the historian Timaeus, who relied entirelyonwritten sources. It is notable that Polybiuswas also fond of the wordaOz6xzqg(eyewitness),44which Alexander has shown was characteristicof medical literature, as in the quotation from Galen just given.45Thoughthis word is not common in the historians generally,Polybiususes it to referto a concept that was central to the method of ancient historiography:reli-ance on direct personal experienceof the subject-matter,either by the his-torian himself or at least by his informant. Continuinghis attack on Tim-aeus,

Polybiuswrites that there are three modes of historical-as of other-

enquiry, one by sightand two by hearing.Sight refers to the historianspersonal experienceof the places or events of which he writes,which wasso highlyprizedby ancient historians and which Polybius, like Thucydidesand others,considered of first importance.One of the two forms of hearingis the readingof memoirs (1tOJlVl1Jltcov)(in the ancient world written textswere heard even when a reader read them for him/herself):46this was Tim-aeus exclusive method of historical research but was put by Polybiusthirdin order of importance.More importantfor Polybiuswas the other form of

hearing:the interrogation(va1cpOEt;)of livingwitnesses (12.27.3). As Byrskoghas reminded us, ancient historians,consideringthat onlythe historyof times within livingmemory could be adequatelyresearchedand recounted, valued above all the historians own direct participationinthe events about which he wrote (whatByrskogcalls autopsy),but also, assecond best, the reminiscences of livingwitnesses who could be ques-tioned in person by the historian (whatByrskogcalls indirect autopsy). 47The latter mightsometimes be stretched to include reports received by thehistorian from others who had questionedthe eyewitnesses,but since theprincipleat stake was personal contact with eyewitnessesit cannot beunderstood as a generalpreference for oral tradition over books. It did not,of course, prevent the historians themselves from writingbooks,since theirpurpose was, among other things, to give permanence to memories thatwould otherwise cease to be available, to provide, in Thucydidesfamousphrase,a possessionfor all time (1.22.4). 48

44. For Polybiususe, see Alexander, Preface to Lukes Gospel,pp. 35-36.

45. Alexander, Preface to Lukes Gospel,pp. 121-22.46. Cf. Gerhardsson,Reliabilityof the GospelTradition, pp. 113-14.47. Byrskog,Story as History, pp. 48-65; cf. also Alexander, Preface to Lukes

Gospel,pp. 33-34.48. This is quotedin Lucian,Hist. Conscr. 42. Herodotus also said he wrote so

that [the memory]of past things may not be blotted out from among mankind bytime (1.1).Cf. Byrskog,Story as History, pp. 122-23.



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This historiographicalcontext is the one in which Papias use of theproverbabout the livingvoice most appropriatelybelongs. It would havebeen easy for this common saying,used as we have seen in a varietyofcontexts, to be applied also to the well-known preference among the besthistorians for eyewitnesstestimonyrather than written accounts. It expres-ses that as aptly as it does the practiceof learningdirectlyfrom mastercraftsmen or philosophers. Against a historiographicalbackground,whatPapias thinks preferableto books is not oral tradition as such, but access,while they are still alive, to those who were direct participantsin the histor-ical events-in this case disciplesof the Lord. He is portraying his inqui-ries on the model of those made

by historians, appealingto historio-

graphicalbest practice(even if many historians actuallymade much moreuse of written sources than their theoryprofessed).49That he himself wrotedown the traditions he collected is not at all, as some scholars havethought, paradoxical.It was preciselywhat historians did. Papias,who inspiteof Eusebius prejudicedjibe at his stupiditywas well-educated,50maywell have read Polybius. This historians strict principlesof historiographywere, like those of Thucydides,somethingof an ideal for later historians atleast to claim to practise. Alexander suggests that Josephuswas dependenton Polybiuswhen he insisted on his qualifications,as a participantand eye-witness (at1ttll),for writingthe historyof the Jewish war. 51

That Papias claims to have conducted enquiriesin the manner of a goodhistorian may also be suggestedby his use of the verb dvaKpiVF-tVfor hisinquiriesabout the words of the elders,which he made when disciplesofthe elders visited Hierapolis(to troy1tpEO~Utprovdvgicptvov~,o~yov5).This verb and its cognate noun dvaicpiciq were most often used in judicialcontexts to refer to the examination of magistratesand parties.But we havenoticed that Polybius uses the noun for the historians interrogationofeyewitnesses(12.27.3). At another pointin his criticism of Timaeus,he callsdivaicpi,aF-t;the most importantpart of history(12.4c.3).The way he con-tinues indicates that again he is thinking of the interrogationof eyewit-nesses (that is, direct observers both of events and of places):

For since many events occur at the same time in different places,and one mancannot be in several places at one time, nor is it possible for a singleman to

49. D. Aune, Prolegomenato the Study of Oral Traditions in the Hellenistic

World, in H. Wansbrough(ed.),Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition (JSNTSup,64;Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991),pp. 59-106 (81), also thinks that Papiasthought of himself as a historian;cf. D. Aune, The New Testament in its LiteraryEnvironment (Cambridge:James Clarke, 1988),p. 67.

50. On his knowledgeof rhetoric,see Krzinger,Papias, pp. 43-67.51. Alexander, Preface to Lukes Gospel,pp. 38-39, citing Polybius3.4.13 and

Josephus, Apion 1.55.



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an acceptableliterary work. This latter stage of the writing process is what,accordingto this interpretation,Papiasmeant by the words oUYKta1:at(or ouv1:at, the variant readingthat Kiirzingerprefers)1:a:pJ,1TlVEat(usuallytranslated set down togetherwith my interpretations ).54There ismuch to be said for this understandingof Papias statement. That hevouches for the truth of what he reports is also, of course, a conventionalpart of the historians practice(cf.Lucian,Hist. Conscr. 39-40, 42).

What is most importantfor our purposes is that, when Papiasspeaksofa living and surviving voice,he is not speakingmetaphoricallyof thevoice of oral tradition, as many scholars have supposed.He speaksquite

literallyof the voice of an informant-someone who has

personalmemories

of the words and deeds of Jesus and who is still alive. In fact, even if thesuggestionthat he alludes specificallyto historiographicalpracticeis reject-ed, this must be his meaning. As we have seen, the sayingabout the superi-orityof the livingvoice to books does not refer to oral tradition as supe-rior to books,but to direct experienceof an instructor,informant or orator assuperiorto written sources. 55But Papias,uniquely,expandsthe usual clich6living voice to living and surviving voice (~warl5 ~c~v~jSKatJ,1EVO


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obtained. Thoughthis came from only two disciplesstill alive and geo-graphicallyproximateenough for Papiasvisitors to have sat at their feetand to have much to report from their words,it may well be that, just as thenumber of the seven named disciplesis symbolic,so also Papiasevokes thesymbolismof the number two, the number required for adequatewitness.Thoughonly two, Aristion and John the Elder are sufficient for theirwitness to be valid.

Therefore Papiasuse of ggvf-tv in the phrase a livingand survivingvoice (~6o-q;wvfigxai pevo6Jqg) can be comparedwith Pauls, whenhe wrote that,of the more than five hundred who saw the Lord, most arestill alive

(oi 1tEOVEC;flvoum vE(o


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the deeds and words of Jesus. Like Papias,Luke will have enquiredandlearned what Andrew or Peter or Cleopasor Joanna or James had said orwere saying.

Names in the Gospel Traditions

Most characters in the Gospels are unnamed,but some are named. Thisphenomenonhas not been satisfactorilyexplained.In this section we shallsuggest the possibilitythat in many cases named characters were eyewit-nesses who not

only originatedthe traditions to which their names are

attached but also continued to tell these stories as authoritative guarantorsof the traditions. The relevant data from the canonical Gospelsis set outbelow. Not included are persons from the Old Testament, persons named inthe two genealogies in Matthew and Luke, publicpersons (such as mem-bers of the Herod family,chief priests,Pilate, and includingalso John theBaptist and Barabbas),and the Twelve. (The Twelve are listed in all threeSynopticGospels,and, while John has no such list, eightof these Twelveappear in the Gospelof John. But we cannot in this present context discussin detail the ways that individual members of the Twelve appear in the Gos-pelnarratives. Only some brief observations on this will be made below.)

62. The words &oacgr;&oacgr;I&aacgr;o&sfgr;in Mk 5.22 are missingfrom D and five manu-scriptsof the Old Latin, and have been considered an addition to the text, derived fromLk. 8.41: e.g. V. Taylor, The Gospel accordingto St Mark (London: Macmillan, 2ndedn, 1966),p. 287; R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans.J. Marsh; Oxford: Blackwell, rev. edn, 1968),p. 215; D.E. Nineham, The GospelofMark (Pelican GospelCommentary;London: A. & C. Black, rev. edn, 1968),p. 160.But R. Pesch, Jarus(Mk 5,22/Lk 8,41),BZ 14 (1970),pp. 252-56; B.M. Metzger, ATextual Commentaryon the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart:United Bible Societies,1971),pp. 85-86, argue in detail for the originalityof the majorityreading,and mostrecent commentators on Mark agree. J.A. Fitzmyer, The Gospelaccordingto Luke (I-IX) (AB, 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981),p. 744, calls Bultmanns suggestionpreposterous !



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63. Since Lukesstory

of theanointing

is not drawn from Mark but from anothersource, it seems best not to treat Lukes Simon (a Pharisee) as identical with MarksSimon the leper.

64. See previousnote.65. For the probabilitythat Clopas(Jn 19.25)is the same person as Cleopas (Lk.

24.18),see R. Bauckham, GospelWomen: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels(Grand Rapids:Eerdmans;Edinburgh:T. & T. Clark, 2002), pp. 206-10.

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The phenomenadepicted in these tables have previouslybeen discussedmostlyonly in the context of wider discussion of the significanceof more orfewer details in Gospel narratives. For example,Bultmann consideredincreasingdetail a law of the oral tradition. Like other such details, he con-sidered personalnames, including most of those listed above, to be secon-daryadditions to the traditions. Theyare an exampleof novelistic interestin the characters, which tended to individualize them in a number of ways,

includinggiving them names. 67However,consistent applicationof this viewrequired some forced argumentationin individual cases, as when Bultmannhad to suggest that Matthew and Luke knew a text of Mk 10.46 that lackedthe name Bartimaeus. 68With equal confidence HenryCadburyclaimed (oforal transmission of narratives)that the place,the person, the time, in so faras they are not bound up with the point of the incident, tend to dis-appear 69and (of the Gospelmiracle stories specifically):After repeated re-tellings even the names of the persons and places disappear .70But Cad-buryalso recognizedthat there is evidence (forexample,in apocryphalGos-pels)of the late introduction of names out of novelistic interest. This meansthat meetingthe current toward elimination of names is the counter currentof late development,which... gaveto simplifiedmatter the verisimilitude of

66. Because I do not wish here to judge the questionwhetherJohnknew any of theSynopticGospels, the list given is not limited to names that areadditionalto those inthe other Gospels.

67. Bultmann,History of

theSynopticTradition,pp. 68, 215, 241, 283, 310, 345,393; cf. also M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (trans. B.L. Woolf; London:

Nicholson & Watson, 1934), pp. 50-53.68. Bultmann, History of the SynopticTradition, p. 213; cf. also the fuller treat-

ment of Bartimaeus in Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel,pp. 51-53.69. H.J Cadbury,The Makingof Luke-Acts(London:Macmillan,1927),p. 34.70. Cadbury,Makingof Luke-Acts,p. 94.




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proper names .7 E.P. Sanders, in a chapteron IncreasingDetail as a Pos-sible Tendencyof the Tradition,attemptedto assess the evidence for thisallegedtendencyby comparingnot only the Synoptictexts but also extra-canonical parallels. 72Unfortunatelyfor our purposes, he did not separateout the phenomenadescribed in the tables above as a distinct category ofevidence, and so his conclusions do not relate specificallyto the caseswhere a character is named in one Gospelbut not named at all in another.

The tables above enable us to make the followingobservations. If weassume Markan priority,then,in cases where Matthew and Luke have bothtaken over Markan material,theyboth retain the names in four cases (Simonof

Cyrene,Josephof

Arimathea, Mary Magdalene,Marythe mother of

James and Joses),3Luke retains the name in one case where Matthew chan-ges it (Levi)/4Luke retains the name in one case where Matthew drops it(Jairus), and both drop the name in four cases (Bartimaeus, Alexander,Rufus,75Salome).In no case does a character unnamed in Mark gaina namein Matthew or Luke. This material therefore shows an unambiguousten-dency towards the elimination of names, a fact that refutes Bultmannsargument, so long as one accepts Markan priority(as Bultmann did). It isnot surprisingthat the Q material contributes no names, since it consists so

predominantlyof sayings of Jesus. Matthews specialmaterial also con-tributes no new names, other than that of Jesus father, Joseph .76By con-trast, Lukes specialmaterial supplieseleven additional named characters(two of whom occur also in John).This evidence does not contradict thetendencytowards elimination of names since there is no reason to thinkthese names secondaryto the traditions in which they occur. Finally,John,as well as namingfour characters who do not appear at all in the Synoptics(Nathanael,Nicodemus,Lazarus,Mary of Clopas),also gives a name to onecharacter who is anonymous in the other Gospels(Malchus).Even if we

71. Cadbury,Makingof Luke-Acts,p. 59.72. E.P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the SynopticTradition (SNTSMS, 9; Cam-

bridge :CambridgeUniversityPress, 1969), chap. 3.73. But Luke omits the name of one of her sons, Joses.74. But Luke omits the name of his father, Alphaeus.75. I have assumed that Mark names Alexander and Rufus not merely to identify

Simon, distinguishinghim from other Simons, since of Cyrene(retainedby Matthewand Luke)would be sufficient for that purpose. Theymust be in some sense named in

theirown

right,whereas apparently Alphaeus(Mk 2.14, omitted by Luke) and Joses(Mk 15.40, 47, omitted by Luke)are not.76. If the category of named characters were extended slightlyto include charac-

ters identified by their relationshipto named characters,then the mother of the sons ofZebedee (Mt. 20.20; 27.56) would be mentioned here. In that case, we should alsoinclude Simon Peters mother-in-law (in all three Synoptic Gospels)and the relative ofMalchus (Jn 18.26).




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name to a character unnamed in the canonical Gospelsseems to havebecome increasinglypopular from the fourth century onwards, but it isremarkable how few earlier examplesare known.81Since it was a commonJewish practice,in re-tellingor commentingon the biblical narratives, togivenames to characters not named in Scripture,it would not be surprisingto find Christians doingthe same in the case of Gospel narratives from anearlydate, but the evidence suggests that this did not happen. 82Certainlythere is no groundfor postulatingit as occurring in the transmission of theGospeltraditions behind and in the SynopticGospels.

It seems the names in these Gospelnarratives belongto the originalformof the traditions. Since it does not seem

plausiblethat a

great manyother

characters in the Gospel stories originallybore names that have not sur-vived into the Gospeltexts, we need to account for the fact that some Gos-pel characters are named, whereas most are not. We also need to accountfor the tendencyto omit names that we can observe in Matthews andLukes redaction of Mark.

An explanationthat could account for all of the names in the lists above,with the exceptionof the names of Jesus father Josephand the other char-acters in Lukes birth narratives,is that all these peoplejoined the earlyChristian movement and were well known at least in the circles in whichthese traditions were first transmitted. This explanationhas occasionallybeen suggestedfor some of the names (such as Bartimaeus), 83and has been

Metzger, Names, pp. 79-99.81. This must be distinguishedfrom the invention of new characters with names,

as, e.g., probably in P. Oxy. 840, where a Pharisaic chief priest named Levi appears,and in the Infancy Gospelof Thomas,in which Jesus school teacher is called Zac-chaeus and one of his

playmatesZenon.

82. Note, e.g., that the man with the withered hand and the woman with a haem-orrhage are both unnamed in Epistleof the Apostles 5, as are the wise men inProtevangeliumof Jas 21.1-4.

83. For the case of Bartimaeus, see the references given in J.F. Williams, OtherFollowers of Jesus:Minor Characters as MajorFigures in Marks Gospel (JSNTSup,102; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), p. 153 n. 2; and add Dibelius, FromTradition to Gospel,p. 53; J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, II (New York: Doubleday,1994),pp. 687-90. G. Theissen, The Gospelsin Context: Social and Political Historyin the SynopticTradition (trans. L.M. Maloney;Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 1991), p.

101, makes the significantobservation: Bartimaeus is the only healed person the mir-acle story tells us became a "follower" in the narrower sense. For Simon of Cyreneandhis sons, see, e.g., Theissen,Gospelsin Context, pp. 176-77; R.E. Brown, The Death ofthe Messiah, II (New York: Doubleday,1994),pp. 913-16; S. Lgasse.The Trial ofJesus (trans.J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1997),pp. 80-81; R.T. France, The Gos-pel of Mark(NIGTC;Grand Rapids:Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), p. 641. ForJosephof Arimathea, see Brown,Death of theMessiah,pp. 1223-24. In the case of




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widelyassumed for others (such as Mary Magdalene),but it deserves con-sideration as a comprehensivehypothesis to account for all or most ofthem. We know that the four brothers of Jesus (namedin Mt. 13.55; Mk 6.3)were prominentleaders in the earlyChristian movement (1 Cor. 9.5; Gal.1.19),and, when Luke in Acts 1.14 depictssome women with the Twelveand Jesus brothers, he probably intends his readers to suppose that atleast the women named in Lk. 24.10 were among the first members of theJerusalem church. There is no difficultyin supposingthat the other personsnamed in the Gospelsbecame members either of the Jerusalem church or ofother earlycommunities in Judea or Galilee. In fact,theycomprisejust thekind of

rangeof

peoplewe should

expectto have formed these earliest

Christian groups: some who had been healed by Jesus, some who hadjoined Jesus in his itinerant ministry (certainlya larger group than theTwelve), some of Jesus relatives, several residents of Jerusalem and itsenvirons who had been sympatheticto Jesus movement. The tendency ofMatthew and Luke to omit some of the names we find in Mark would beexplainedif these peoplehad become,by the time Matthew and Luke wrote,too obscure for them to wish to retain the names when they were engagedin abbreviatingMarks narratives.

Not all of these named characters are plausiblyeyewitnessesof tradi-tions to which their names are attached. For example,the Synopticreportsof what Josephof Arimathea did are probablytoo brief to be considered hisown testimony. But in most cases it is very plausibleto consider thesenamed characters the eyewitnesseswho not only first told but throughtheirlifetimes continued to tell stories of events in which they had partieipated.84

A goodexampleis Cleopas(Lk. 24.18):the tellingof the story does not re-quire that he be named&dquo;and his companionremains anonymous. Thereseems no plausiblereason for naminghim other than to indicate that he wasthe source of this tradition. He is very probablythe same person as Clopas,

Jairus, it is curious that scholars who take the occurrence of the name (unique in theGospel miracle stories as the name of a petitionerfor a healingor exorcism)as indic-ative of historicity,do not go on to suggest that Jairus became well-known in the earlyChristian movement (e.g. Meier, Marginal Jew, II, pp. 629-30, 784-85; G.H. Twelf-tree, Jesus: The Miracle Worker [DownersGrove, IL: InterVarsityPress, 1999],pp.305-306);but this is the most obvious explanationof the fact that his name has been

preserved,unlike that of other characters in miracle stories.84. It is interestingthat most of these stories are preciselylocalized (exceptionsare the raisingof Jairuss daughterand Lukes story of Martha and Mary),but this isalso true of many Gospelstories without named characters.

85. The story is comparablewith Lk. 7.36-50 in that a character who first appearsas anonymous is later named in the course of the narrative. This seems to be a Lukannarrative technique.



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up the number at the tomb but instead he is scrupulouslycontent with theonly two women well-known to him as witnesses. Luke,who names thewomen only at the end of his account of their visit to the tomb,98lists,besides the indispensableMary Magdalene,Joanna,who is peculiarto hisGospeland already introduced at 8.3, and Mary the mother of James. Thisthird name may be Lukes onlyborrowing from Mark in his narrative of theempty tomb. Like Matthew Luke omits Marks Salome,but he does not sim-ply reproducethe list of women followers of Jesus he had employedearlierin his Gospel (8.3: Mary Magdalene,Joanna, Susanna).Mary Magdaleneand Joanna he knew to be witnesses of the empty tomb, Susanna heevidently did not. In this way the proposal that the evangelistswere carefulto name preciselythe women who were well-known to them as witnesses tothese crucial events in the originsof the Christian movement explains thevariations between their lists of women as no other proposalhas succeededin doing.

It is natural to suppose that these women were well-known not just forhavingonce told their stories but as peoplewho remained accessible andauthoritative sources of these traditions as long as they lived. Which wom-en were well-known to each evangelistmay have dependedon the circles inwhich that evangelistcollected traditions and the circles in which eachwoman moved duringher lifetime. The differences between the Gospelnar-ratives of the womens visit to the tomb may well reflect rather directlythedifferent ways in which the story was told by various of the women. Thesewomen were not all already obscure figuresby the time the Synopticevan-gelists wrote. The omission of Salome by both Matthew and Luke showsthat the evangelistsdid not retain the names of women who had becomeobscure. Those named by each evangelistwere, like their stories, still freshin the memories of that evangelistsinformants, if not in the evangelistsown memory.

Our second example-Simon of Cyrene and his sons-is more readilyunderstandable in the light of the first. In this case, the variation betweenthe Gospelsis that Mark names not only Simon, but also his two sons( 15.21 ),whereas Matthew (27.32)and Luke (23.26)omit the sons. Dibeliussssuggestionthat Simon of Cyrenewas named by Mark as an eyewitness99isquickly dismissed by Byrskog as no more than pure conjecture .100But

who find the tombempty

is conclusive evidenceagainst

the rather common view thatshe is the same person as Marks Salome.

98. This may be so that the namingof Mary Magdaleneand Joanna can functionas an inclusio with 8.2-3,remindingreaders that the women have accompaniedJesusand his story from earlyin the Galilean ministryuntil the resurrection.

99. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel,pp. 182-83.100. Byrskog,Story as History, p. 66.



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careful consideration shows that there is more to be said for it. In the firstplace,readers of Mark who wondered about the sources of Marks infor-mation would readilysuppose that most of his narrative derives from thecircle of the Twelve, who are almost the onlydisciplesof Jesus mentionedby Mark before the women appear in 15.40 and who participatein most ofthe events until eleven of them leave Marks narrative,never to reappear inperson, at 14.50, while even Peter disappearsafter 14.72. We have alreadyseen that Mark carefullyportrays the women as eyewitnessesof the crucialevents from which the Twelve were absent. But another plausible eye-witness, Simon of Cyrene, appears in 15.21,before readers hear about thewomen in 15.40.

Secondly,the way Simon is described-as Simon of Cyrene, the fatherof Alexander and Rufus-needs explanation. The case is not parallel tothat of Mary the mother of James the little and Joses, where the sons serveto distinguishthis Mary from others,because Simon (common though thename was) is already sufficientlydistinguishedby reference to his nativeplace,Cyrene.Matthew and Luke, by omitting the names of the sons, showthat they recognizethat. Nor is it reallyplausiblethat Mark names the sonsmerely because they would be known to his readers. Mark is far from prod-igalwith names. The reference to Alexander and Rufus certainlydoes pre-suppose that Mark expectedmany of his readers to know them, in person orby reputation,as almost all commentators have agreed, but this cannot initself explainwhy they are named. There does not seem to be a goodreasonavailable other than that Mark is appealingto Simons eyewitnesstesti-mony, known in the earlyChristian movement not from his own firsthandaccount but from that of his sons. PerhapsSimon himself did not, like hissons, join the movement, or perhapshe died in the earlyyears, while hissons remained well-known

figures,&dquo;tellingtheir fathers story of the cruci-

fixion of Jesus. That theywere no longer such when Matthew and Lukewrote would be sufficient explanationof Matthews and Lukes omission oftheir names.

Our third example is the recipientsof Jesus healings.Only in four

101. It has often been suggestedthat Rufus is the same person as the Rufus of Rom.16.13. In favour of this is the fact that this Rufus must have moved to Rome from theeastern Mediterranean,since Paul knew his mother well, according to Rom. 16.13.Contacts between the Jerusalem church and the church in Rome were close, as the pres-ence in Rome of several persons originallymembers of the Jerusalem church shows:

Andronicus and Junia (Rom. 16.7), Peter, Sylvanus and Mark (1 Pet. 5.12-13). IfMarks Gospelwas written in Rome, this could also add to the plausibilityof identifyingMarks Rufus with Pauls. On the other hand, Rufus was a popularname with Jews, whoused it as a kind of Latin equivalentof Reuben, and so it can be only a possibilitythatthe two Rufi are the same.



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Gospelstories of healing,exorcism or resuscitation are the recipientsofJesus act named (taking recipientloosely enough to include Jairus,whose daughterJesus raised):Jairus,Bartimaeus,Lazarus and Malchus. Inaddition, thoughno stories are preserved, the three women named in Lk.8.3-Mary Magdalene,Joanna and Susanna-are among women said tohave been cured of evil spiritsand infirmities,while Mary Magdalenespecificallyis said to have had seven demons cast out from her. 1&dquo;2Onemore named recipientof Jesus healingmay be Simon the leper.Since he isable to entertain visitors in his house, Simon must have been cured of hisleprosy,and it is possible that he had been healed by Jesus. 103These exam-

plesof

personssaid to have been healed

by Jesus,but whose

healingstor-

ies are not told and who are mentioned in the Gospelsfor other reasons,help to highlightthe rarity of names in the healingstories. It is quiteclearthat the names of the beneficiaries do not belongto the genre of Gospel mir-acle stories. Explanationof the names that do occur is required.

In the cases of Jairus, whose name is droppedby Matthew, and Barti-maeus, whose name is dropped by both Matthew and Luke, we encounteronce again the phenomenonof a character who must have been named byMark because he was well-known in the earlyChristian movement butwhose name was droppedby one or both of the later Synopticevangelists,presumably because at the time at which they wrote or in the part of theChristian movement with which they were most familiar this figurewas notwell-known.

Here our Gospelevidence makes interestingcontact with a quotationEusebius gives from the Christian apologistQuadratus:

[T]heworks of our Saviour were alwayspresent, for they were true: those whowere healed, those who rose from the dead, those who were not only seen in theact of

beinghealed or raised

(ovxro4>l1o(JV

uovov epa1tEVJ!evolxai

VlOt.vOl),but were also alwayspresent, not merelywhen the Saviour wasliving on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure,so thatsome of them survived even to our own times (Eusebius,Hist. Eccl. 4.3.2).

Quadratus addressed his work to the emperor Hadrian,and so was writingin or after 117 CE, but by our own times he presumablymeans not the timeof writingbut a time earlier in his life. EvidentlyQuadratuswas of the samegeneration as Papias.The period of which it could crediblybe said thatsome people healed by Jesus were still alive would be the same periodtowards the end of the first century in which Papias was collectingtradi-

102. Meier, MarginalJew, II, pp. 657-59, argues for the historicityof this traditionabout Mary Magdalene.

103. This is suggested, e.g., by C.A. Evans, Mark 8:27-16:20 (WBC, 34B; Nash-ville : Nelson,2001), p. 359.



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tions, includingsome from two disciplesof Jesus still living. This was alsothe time when Matthew and Luke were writingtheir Gospels.But the mostimportantaspect of what Quadratussays is not his specificclaim that somepeoplehealed by Jesus survived into his own time. More significantis hisvery explicitnotion of the eyewitnessfunction of the recipientsof Jesushealings and resuscitations during the whole of their lifetimes,howeverlong these may have been. In this sense he views the recipientsof healingsin a way similar to Papiasview of the disciplesof Jesus: they belongednotonly to the originsof the Gospeltraditions but to the ongoing process oftradition in the earlyChristian movement. Just as Papiasview must datefrom the periodin which he was collectingtraditions,so Quadratusview inthis passage is not likelyto have originatedat the time he was writingbut togo back to the time in his life when he doubtless heard about a few benefi-ciaries of Jesus miracles who were still living.In that case it was a view cur-rent in the periodwhen Matthew, Luke and John producedtheir Gospels.

The paucityof names in healing stories even in Mark suggests that farfewer of the recipientsof Jesus healingsfulfilled the function of continuingeyewitnessesthan Quadratussuggests. But Quadratusview does offer avery plausibleexplanationof the occurrence of the few such names that

there are in the four canonical Gospels.Mark could expect his readers toknow of Bartimaeus as a kind of livingmiracle, who made Jesus act of heal-ingstill,so to speak,visible to all who encountered him as a well-known fig-ure in the churches of Jerusalem and Judea. But after his death and after thefall of Jerusalem, which removed the Jewish Christians of Palestine from theusual purviewof Christians outside Palestine,Bartimaeus was presumablyno longer a figureof wide repute, and so Matthew and Luke omitted hisname.

These examples of named Gospelcharacters as eyewitnesses-thewomen at the cross and the tomb; Simon of Cyrene and his sons; and thenamed recipientsof healing-relate to only quitesmall portions of Gospelnarratives,thoughin the first two cases to exceptionallyimportantportions.If the majority of stories and sayings in the Gospelsare to be associatedwith the testimonyof named eyewitnesses, these would have to be theTwelve and a few other named disciplesof Jesus who travelled with him(including the women of Lk. 8.3). 104Such sources, of course, were those

104.I am not

much persuadedby Byrskogsargument in Storyas

History, pp. 67-69, that local people were informants in the Gospeltradition. This seems to take theanalogywith Greek and Roman historiography(as well as modem oral history)too far,in that it seems to envisageevangelistsor compilersof traditions about Jesus travellingto the scenes of the events in order to interview local people,as the best historians did.Theissens more fully argued case (Gospels in Context, pp. 97-112)for the originsofthe miracle stories in populartraditions,told outside the circle of Jesus followers, is



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from whom Papias expectedto hear traditions of the words and deeds ofJesus.

The lists of the Twelve in the three SynopticGospels(Mt.10.2-4; Mk3.16-19;Lk. 6.13-16)may well be intended to function as lists of the officialbody of eyewitnesses, who in the early period of the Jerusalem churchtogethergave an authoritative shapeto a collection of the traditions.105Inthis respect the notion of discipleswho had been with Jesus from thebeginningis highly significant.This is not a peculiarlyLukan notion (Lk.1.2: din


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nizable only in retrospect, he nevertheless is with Jesus at the very begin-ning,one of the first pairof disciples,paired with Andrew just as Peter is inMk 1.17,a discipleof Jesus before Peter was. In ch. 21, where Mk 16.7 is ful-filled in an appearance of the risen Jesus to Peter, the Beloved Disciple isthere too, and the last words of Jesus in the Gospelrefer to him (21.22-23).

This stress in the Gospelson the eyewitnessqualificationsof those whowere with Jesus from beginningto end, whether the Twelve as a group orparticulardiscipleshighlightedin particularGospels,is an interestingpointof correspondencewith the best principlesof Greek and Roman historio-graphy, for which the best informant or (better) author was one who hadextensive

personalexperienceof the

subject.For

example,in

comingto a

conclusion about the character of Scipio,Polybiustreats as most reliableGaius Laelius, who from his youthup to the end had participatedin hisevery word and deed (10.3.2).Josephusdefends the reliability of hisaccount of the Jewish war in that,unlike those who relied merelyon a fewhearsayreports, he had been present in person at all the events (Apion1.46-47).

This is not the place to discuss the relationshipof Peter to Marks Gos-pel 108or of the Beloved Discipleto Johns,lo9but we have said enoughtoindicate that the witness of specificdisciplesof Jesus was not silenced bywhatever form the corporate testimonyof the Twelve took. We cannot hereexamine in detail the ways in which individual named members of theTwelve appear throughoutthe Gospels, but we can note the well-knownfact that the three disciplesPeter, James and John form an inner circle prom-inent in Mark, and add that this distinguishesMarks narrative strikinglyfrom others. The prominenceof these three (asdistinct from the prominenceof Peter alone) in Matthew and Luke derives largelyfrom Mark (thoughcf.Lk. 9.54; 22.8),while in Johns Gospelthe sons of Zebedee barelymake anappearance (21.2)and other named disciples-Andrew (appearingindepen-dently of his brother, as he does not in Mark),Philipand Thomas-achievea prominencedistinctive of this Gospel.These differences may well reflectthe way particularbodies of tradition were associated with particularnameddisciplesamong the Twelve. Papiasenquiriesabout what particulardisci-pleshad said thus have some correspondencewith features of the Gospels.

Also notable is the distinctivelyLukan emphasison a much wider groupof itinerant disciplesthan the Twelve (Lk.6.17; 8.1-3; 10.1-20; 19.37; 23.29;

24.9, 33; Acts 1.15, 21-23)and the fact that Lukes Gospelrarelyrefers to the

108. See Byrskog,Story as History,pp. 272-97;Hengel,Four Gospels,pp. 78-89.109. In my view, Byrskogstreatment of eyewitnessclaims in the Johannine liter-

ature (Story as History, pp. 235-42) is the least satisfactorypart of his book,but theissue is too complexto be pursuedhere.



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Twelve as such in material not derived from Mark (only 8.1;24.9,10, 33).Inview of his emphasison the role of the Twelve in the earlychaptersof Acts,this is rather remarkable. Of these other disciples,only one male,Cleopas,isnamed in the Gospel(butcf. Acts 1.23;18.24-25;21.16 for others).But moststrikingis Lukes uniqueintroduction of three named women, alongwithmany anonymous women disciples,at an earlypoint in the ministry (8.3),where the reference to them forms an inclusio with the reference to two ofthese same women as witnesses to the empty tomb (24.10).It looks verymuch as thoughLuke is alludingto the principleof witnesses qualifiedbyhavingbeen with Jesus from beginningto end, applying it to the women,and

indicatingthese named women as the

eyewitnesssources of some of

his distinctive traditionsThis has not been an exhaustive study of the phenomenonof personal

names in the Gospels,but it has at least openedup a subjectthat has beensurprisinglylittle discussed. So far as it goes, it offers some means towardsidentifyingthe eyewitnessesand identifyingtheir testimonyin the Gos-pels-which Warren Carters review of Byrskogswork found lackingin histreatment. 111Further criteria for these purposes need also to be exploredandtested. What has been demonstrated is sufficient to make it a genuinepos-sibilitythat many Gospel pericopes owe their main features not to anon-ymous communityformation but to their formulation by the eyewitnessesfrom whom theyderive. -

110. See further Bauckham,GospelWomen, pp. 165-71. Is there a similar purposein the puzzling way in which the Gospelof Matthew transfers a Markan call story fromLevi to Matthew (Mt. 9.9)?

111 S 15 above

Documents

Bauckham R.- The Eyewitnesses and the Gospel Traditions (JSHJ 2003)