Steven Carr

On pages 132 to 137 of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham shows some of the detailed provenance that can be given for ancient works of literature.

Richard Bauckham tells us about Lucian, when he was born, that he wrote many things, who commissoned one of his works, why it was written.

Bauckham applies the well known Christian principle of trusting his sources, and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Oh sorry, my mistake, Bauckham writes '... we can hardly put much trust in a biographer determined to damn his subject.'

Bauckham tells us how Lucian knew Publius Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus, a source for much of it.

Of course, Bauckham has doubts , and does not always give his source the benefit of the doubt '... depiction of Rutilianus hardly portrays him as likely to be a very trustworthy witness.'

How different from the Gospels, where the mere suggestion that something came from an eyewitness automatically means that every detail is historically reliable.

Bauckham can see that '(Lucian) is a skeptical historian not taken in by the stories of his credulous informant....'

How different from the Gospels, where if an eyewitness source says the fetus John the Baptist leapt for joy in the womb when the fetus Jesus entered the room, then Luke reports it as sober fact.

It is amazing that this work by Lucian has far greater provenance than the Gospels, which are anonymous works which never name sources, written by authors of whom we have no other works to see how reliable they are.

Compare that with the detailed provenance that Bauckham can give for one of Lucian's works.

And compare Bauckham's credulous acceptance of the Gospels, with his legitimate scholarship when it comes to non-Christian works.

No wonder mainstream Biblical scholarship is a mess.

show_no_mercy

Contrary to how Christians view eyewitness testimony, real eyewitness testimony is horribly mutable. Just read this sad story. Even if the gospels were written by "eyewitnesses", it doesn't lend any more credibility to the story, since human recollection of earlier events can be influenced by later events.

Steven Carr

Bauckham knows that, and claims that the eyewitnesses for Lucian were 'credulous' and unlikely to be trustworthy.

Sai

The Book of Mormon has great provenance, and plenty of witnesses.