In the next post, we talk about the Twelve Disciples. This is further explored later in our study. This may not mean that they hand-wrote it (not likely in most cases), or even that they were the only storyteller, but that the Gospel is, at the very least, primarily based on their account. The titles we give to the Gospels, as well as the epistles, reflect the identity of the primary person attached to the narrative. People were aware who the authors were when they were passed along each time. It’s also important to understand that the Gospels were not anonymous. Already we seemed to be learning as much as our skeptic friend, and the study was beneficial for all of us. Sometimes a fictional story taking place in another time can be exposed based on the misuse or misplacement of common names from that era alone. We had not even thought of such an idea, but it makes sense. In short, it’s less likely that made-up names were added later to boost the story. He demonstrates that the frequency of names appearing in the Gospel is consistent with their frequency in databases of names from the same era, yet another proof of the stories being consistent with time in which they are said to have taken place. This was a bonus in our study.īauckham also does some name counting research, running the numbers on Palestinian names for clues of authenticity. Like us, they had not been brought up being educated enough about the ways that the Bible raises up women as equal to men, especially compared to other cultures of antiquity. As a strong feminist, they struggled with the values and perceptions of women at various places in scripture they deemed as offensive and sexist. The fact that women are granted the gift of seeing Christ raises them up as worthy witnesses in a world that put women down. “The Evangelists were careful to name precisely the women who were well known to them as witnesses to these crucial events,” and, just like the men, “remained accessible and authoritative sources” of the story.

I particularly appreciated how Bauckham highlights the vindication of female witnesses in the Gospel. But a pattern was brought to us in our study explaining how named individuals would verify the accounts in scripture. Sometimes a person’s name is not mentioned, even if they could function as a witness, because they are being protected.

In our study we encountered explanations for why some people are named and some are not, the overall explanation being their role as a witness to the story. Cleopas, for example, didn’t have to be named, but was, possibly to identify him as an eyewitness. Ever wonder why certain people are mentioned by name in the Gospels, and others not? Bauckham explains in his book how people are named because of their role as eyewitness to the story they participate in.

Jesus and the eyewitnesses