KE\'iE\VS OF BOOKS

Richard liauckliam, j'cf/' and thi: f'hi'ifi/Mui';:

IKi

Ihr (io'prh and Ew!fitiif\'i 'le:<linumy.

( h a n d Rapids. l-'.<-i<imans. 201 Mi, P[>, xni - 5 ill. S L'.ni), doth.

l*A-eiy nni e A uhde a bof.k iv pubhshed diai r u m s MH h a ^igiiifl< an! need in tfie ai ,idemic conuiniiuty that it snakes ihe M ader \\ondci. "Wliy was this book not wnttni
betore now.''" I'or those s( holars wilh ati nilercst in ihe origins ol llic gospe! at coniils,
anfi die Jesus tradition ih.ii tlu'\ ( oniain. Ricliard Bauckham " s j ' ' " ^ and thf Kmviliuui'^ is
pi^t such a book. Fliis \-ohinie lakes Aim ,it the long-held and oii-repi'ated; belief ihal
ific four e,ini>ru( ai u,ospels i^iiiinallv rin ulaunl ,K "anonymous rummiiniiy traditions"
ittid only later itccamc c(inni cied uiih an <"yeiMir!ess lollower oi Je.sus. In lontraii.
Bauekluim argues that thr historn al e\idi'iice of ihe < iospeh theniselvi's, as we!) as outside sources, siisfLjests that the (io,spf'l> were wrilten not by aniiiiymiiu.s author^ tmt by lh<'
ont^nal tbliowers ol" Jesus \\ hn u r r r CIT'IN"itnesses to his ministry. Thus, wfieii one considers the rriliral >pan of arne htiwcen tin- life of Jesus and the priKiiictioii oi the (Jospels, we must rsu longer concen'e <st n asbeitis; tilled wiih snnpiy generic "oitil traduHui."
i)Ui lusiead vsi- should uuderstaud that time period as marked by the continuing presence
aud testimony of those who v\e!e ihi re "from ihe beginniug." Put difletendv, traditions
o! Jesus v\e[e not passed do^\n without comtrainis and withotit direuion, liut were
passed down within the context of the authontati\'e m'ersight aiui ongointj tesumoiiy oi
!h<- oriijinai tollou'ers ol (.Jhrisi.
BaLsckhani's SUKK takes its ( ui' fiom the priiif work of the Swedish s<holar Sanuiel
B\Tskog, .SV(i;v a\ Ihu'iny

Uhlmy m Stiny Th iknpel 'liaditmn in ihe C.'mli'xi oj Anat'til Ora!

Hi't'jr, I'tiibingen: Mohr Siefjeck. 2ntK);, Byrskog's volume established tluit ancient historingrttphy 'in con;iast to its nif idf'nt i nunti'ipait' saw the ideal e\ev\'itJH'ss not as some
Liriim'o!\'ed. dispa^sionau: obsrivn, \>\.n as someoiu' who wa.s a tiireit paitiiiparit in the
hisioric.tl rvrnis thernse]\'('s. Snt h uuiinaie invoK'cment would allow the eyewitness iu
offer the }>esi ititerprelation and understanding of the events that transj)ired However.
Bauckham does tiot simply pat rot Hyrskog's con<:lnsions on this topic, but uses the eight("en chapters in this vohinie to build upon these coni'lusions and lo de\'e]op a betlerrounded case lor the mle of e\ewitnesses in the (iospcls. 'i'hiis, Batickham enters into
inu( h new terriiorv, makini^ each chapter a treasure tni\'e of new and interesting details
concerning Use origins of the (iospels.
Although there is certainly i5ot spac e here to enter iitto all <'ighteen chapters, there are
lour areas that stand out as signific^iiit contribtitions to Bauckham's thesis. First, in chapter 2 Bati* khatn ofiers a tnuch-iiceded and \\ell-balanced treatment of Papias and his
approach lo eyci^-imess lestiiiiony. I'.ipias's well-known siatemeiu tliat he preferred ilie
"livinii ami suivivujg voice" !h\!>rd. .i!^9.4: is otien inns'iinderstomi tobi: evidence tfiat
dnring the time ol Papias carK sn one! t e n t u i ) ! oral Iradition was still preferred o\ei
written documents. Bauckiiain engagi-s in a i)torough analysis of this jiassagi- and demonstrates that til is approai h is ,\ i^ra nd misunderstanding; of what Papias is at tempi ing to
Hay. Pa[iias is not e\-eti a(i<ires-,ini; oral iradition at all. aripies Haiickham. hut is siiiif>Iy
nodng a truth tliat w;ts { oinnionpl.K i- in the aiii ient world at this time: hisiorieal im-estigations aie bi st done when iHie Ihis act ess io an actual e\ewitness .i.e., a living \oice .
He declares, "VXijainst a historiogrdphii background, whal Papias thinks preferaiile to
books is not oral tradition but acri-ss, while tbey are still alive, to those who were direct
parUeipitnts in the hisiorii Ltl even is

lii diis case "disciples of the I^iitf" ip. 24';,

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Second, in chapters 6 through 9 Bauckham enters into specific discussions of how the
Gospels intentionally connect themselves to eyewitnesses. Particularly compelling is
Bauckham's treatment of the Gospel of Mark. He notes the Petrine "inclusio" in the
Gospel of Mark where Peter is both the first and last disciple mentioned, suggesting
"that Peter was the main eyewitness source behind Mark's Gospel" (p. 125). Bauckham
combines this observation with a number of other features of Mark's Gospel that provide a "Petrine perspective," such as Mark using Peter's name more than any other Gospel (a significant feature given its smaller size). In addition, he notes that Mark leaves a
number of characters in his Gospel anonymous, while at the same time he freely provides the names of other characters. What could explain the reason for why some characters are named and others are not? Bauckham suggests that this is an instance of
"protective anonymity" where Mark intentionally decides to omit the name of a character in order to protect that character from reprisals by the Jews or Romans. If this is
true, then it reveals, argues Bauckham, that this Gospel was written by an eyewitness
who knew these characters and wanted to protect them. Moreover, this practice would
indicate that the Gospel of Mark was written at a time when eyewitnesses to the events of
Jesus' life were still alive and needed protecting. Bauckham caps off this discussion of
Mark as an "eyewitness" gospel by returning to Papias and offering a fresh analysis of
his claims that Mark was the "interpreter" {hermeneutes) of Peter. He argues, convincingly
I think, that the term hermeneutes is best rendered as "translator" rather than "interpreter," thus making Mark's Gospel even more directly connected to Peter's eyewitness
account.
Third, Bauckham uses this volume (particularly chs. 10-11) to challenge the standard
scholarly paradigms of oral transmission in the early church. He notes that there are currently three positions amongst scholars: (1) on one end of the spectrum is the form criticism model which holds to iriformal uncontrolled transmission of Jesus tradition; (2) on the
other end is the Scandinaviein model of Gerhardsson (and others) which holds to B.formal
controlled model of transmission; and (3) in the middle is the approach of Kenneth Bailey
(and following him, Dunn and Wright) which argues for an iriformal controlled model of
transmission. Although this third approach has become popular because it is the happy
medium, Bauckham argues that it is still inadequate as a model for oral transmission. It
is inadequate because the main control over the transmission of the oral tradition still
lies with the community and not with individuals. He declares that Bailey's model
takes no account of the special authority of the mother church in Jerusalem, which was special
no doubt in part because of the leadership of Peter and the Twelve, eyewitnesses "from the
beginning." Such eyewitnesses would surely have played a more important role as authoritative
guarantors of the tradition than Bailey's model seems to allow, (p. 262)
Thus, Bauckham moves the reader away from these traditional models of oral trzinsmission to a model that is more concerned wdth "oral history"a history of Jesus that is
preserved and recited by the original eyewitnesses (p. 273).
Fourth, Bauckham fills somewhat of a scholarly void by putting forth an impressive
case for the eyewitness character of John's Gospel in chapters 14 and 15. His arguments
fiy in the face of the repeated claims of modern scholarship that John is the least historical of the four gospels. Since the Gospel of John explicitly claims to have been written by
an eyewitness, the "beloved disciple" (21:24-25), Bauckham takes iim at all the scholeirly

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415

attempts to undermine the ending of John. He first refutes the 1928 theory of J. H. Bernard that graphein in 21:24 can mean "cause to be written" rather than meaning that
John himself actually wrote it. Even though many modern scholars have followed Bernard's theory, Bauckham concludes that it is a "staggeringly faulty piece of argument"
(p. 360). In addition, he deals with the oft-used argument that chapter 21 is an epilogue
added at a later time. Here Bauckham lays out a helpful comparison between the two
stages of the Gospel's conclusion in 20:30-31 and 21:24-25. He demonstrates that
although these two stages are parallel to some extent, they are not simply repetitive, but
the latter stage advances the discussion beyond the former. The connections between the
two stages provide good reasons to think they were both original to John's Gospel. A
final piece of Bauckham's argument for eyewitness testimony in John is his observation
of yet another "inclusio," but this time a Johannine one. By arguing that 1:35-40 is a
veiled reference to the beloved disciple, he shows that John, instead of the usual Peter, is
mentioned first and last in this gospel. Thus, the very structure of John's Gospel is
designed to communicate that the eyewitness testimony contained therein should be
traced back to John himself
Along with the mjmy positives in this volume, I do offer two minor complaints. First,
while Bauckham rightly argues that Mark, Luke, and John were actually the authors of
the Gospels that bear their names (although he argues John is John "the elder," not John
the son of Zebedee; more on this below), he insists, rather surprisingly, that Matthew was
not the author of the Gospel that bears his name. He declares that the author of Matthew's Gospel "was not himself the apostle Matthew" (p. 112). Not only is the basis for
this cleiim rather slimBauckham does not believe that Matthew could also have been
known by the name Levibut it seems to be counterintuitive to the overall thrust of his
book. If indeed the reception of gospel traditions in early Christianity was due to their
connection to individuals, and not just to anonymous "communities," then there are good
reasons to think that the gospel titles refiect those individuals who preserved and delivered that tradition. Even if one argues that Matthew is still the general source for the
Gospel of Matthew, though he did not actually write it, we would still expect the gospel
to be connected to the individual who did write it. After all, this is precisely the scenario
with Mark's Gospel. If gospels are named after their source, and not their authors, then
we would expect that Mark's Gospel would have been knov^oi as the Gospel of Peter. In
addition to these considerations, the idea that the Gospel of Matthew is the only gospel
of the four where the title does not actually refiect the true author is at odds with what
we know about the status of Matthew within early Ghristian communities. The fact that
Matthew was one of the most established and well-received gospels within early Ghristianity is borne out by the fact that it is cited and used more frequently among early
Ghristian fathers than any other gospel (see fidouard Massaux, Irtfluence de I'&angik de
saint Matthieu sur la litterature chretienne avant saint Irenee [Leuven: Leuven University Press,

1986]). When one considers the early and dominant infiuence of Matthew, and also
considers the importance the early church placed on the role of individuals in preserving
Jesus tradition, it seems more historically plausible that Matthew's reception is due precisely to the fact that early Christians knew Matthew was the author. Although Bauckham does affirm that the Gospel of Matthew contains eyewitness testimony, his overall

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thesis would be improved if he also affirmed that the title of the Gospel of Matthew
actually reflects the individual who preserved that eyewitness testimony.
A second area of complaint worth noting here is that Bauckham's case that the author
of John's Gospel is really John the elder, and not John son of Zebedee, seems to run into
a number of difficulties. Although the complexity of this issue would require much more
space than is available here, I will make just a few general observations: (1) The wellknown statement of Papias (Hist eccl. 3.39.3-4) where he calls the apostlejohn one of the
"elders" (along with some of the other apostles), and then later refers to a man called "the
elder John," has led many scholars to understand that Papias is referring to the same John
in both places. Afler all, is it reasonable to think that Papias, in a short amount of space,
would refer to two men named John, call them both elders, and yet be referring to two
entirely different people? Bauckham avoids the weight of this argument by suggesting a
new translation of the Papias passage where the term "elders" would no longer refer to
the list of apostles. Aside from whether there is sufficient grammatical warrant for such
a change (an issue we czinnot discuss here), Bauckham's sense of the passage does not seem
to be the natural way it was understood by its earliest readers, including Eusebius himself
(Hist. eccl. 3.39.7). (2) The internal evidence offered by Bauckham that the identity of the
beloved disciple in John's Gospel was really John the elder, and not the son of Zebedee,
does not prove to be compelling. It is difficult to believe that in the inner circles of Jesus'
ministry there wjis a John who was present at the Last Supper (13:23), even laid his head
on Jesus' chest (13:25), seemed to be often associated with Peter (20:2; 21:20), received the
special honor of caring for Jesus' mother (19:26-27), was one of thefirstto run to the tomb
with Peter (20:2), and yet all the while this John was not John the apostle, or even one of
the twelve. To believe this, we would have to believe that there were actuallytooJohns in
Jesus' inner circle, each with the same name, each a close companion of Peter, each
present at the Last Supper, and each a direct witness of the resurrection. And all of this
is occurring in a gospel where the apostle John is conspicuously left unnamedindeed,
even John the Baptist is simply called "John" since there is no need to distinguish between
various Johns mentioned. And, above that, this has to be squared with the fact that the
Synoptics tell us that only the twelve were present at the Last Supper (Mark 14:17), seeming to rule out the presence of an additional disciple like John the elder. After all of this,
one might think Ockham's razor would be relevant: the simplest theory (in this case, that
there is only onJohn) is often the best. (3) Bauckham makes an appeal to the fact that the
portion of the Muratorian canon that mentions John's Gospel, a portion he thinks may
have dependence on Papias, refers to John as a "disciple" of the Lord and yet refers to
Andrew as an "apostle." This shows, according to Bauckham, that the Muratorian canon
(and therefore Papias) does not view John as an apostle. However, the fact that elsewhere
Papias himself refers to the apostles as "disciples of the Lord" (Hist. eccl. 3.39.3-4) seems
to indicate that the change in terminology ought not to be given the weight that Bauckham suggests. In addition, other writers of this time period, a key exzunple being Irenaeus,
seem to use "disciple of the Lord" and "apostle" somewhat interchangeably when referring to John (e.g., Haer. 2.22.5). Buackham tries to explain these occurrences in Irenaeus
as simply Irenaeus using the term "apostle" in only a generic sense (e.g., in the way Barnabas is an "apostle"). However, the reader gets the impression that this explanation is a bit
thin. Again, the more straightforward reading is that Irenaeus believed that John the

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apostlethe only John expressly mentioned in the canonical gospels as part of Jesus'
inner circle^wrote the Gospel of John.
In the end, these minor complaints aside, Bauckham has delivered a remarkable and
insightful volvime that is sure to offer a much-needed challenge to the status quo in modern
gospel studies. The critical gap between the life of Jesus and the publication of the canonical gospelsa gap that is so often blurred and hazy to the modern historisinhas been
made immensely more clear and vivid by Bauckham's study. No longer can such a gap be
characterized as a time when Jesus tradition was transmitted in wild and unpredictable
ways, but rather it should be seen as a time when the tradition was preserved and guarded
by those who were most able and equipped to do sothe original eyewitnesses.
MICHAEL J. KRUGER

Reformed Theological Seminary

Charlotte, North Carolina

Guy Prentiss Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis.

Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2006. Pp. xi + 397. $20.99, paper.
The Federal Vision (FV), also known as Auburn Avenue Theology, has increasingly
stirred up a debate within Reformed and Presbyterian circles over the past six or seven
years. Guy Waters's The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis is a his-

torical and theological analysis that seeks to define and clarify the distinctive beliefs of
the FV while, at the same time, compare those beliefs to the Westminster Standzirds of
the seventeenth century. The polemical nature of his writing and his codified critiques
throughout clearly reveal his attempt to show both the inconstancies of the FV and how
it is an entirely different theological system from that which is espoused by traditional
Reformed covenant theology.
Guy Waters is associate professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. He holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania
(B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Duke University (Ph.D.). He is
currently an ordziined minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Though
he has studied under Richard B. Hays and E. P. Sanders, two leading expositors of the
New Perspective on Paul (NPP), it is clear from his eaxher Justification and the Mew Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response (Phillipsburg, NJ.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004) and
this book that he favors traditional Reformed theology and a traditional understanding
of a "Lutheran" Paul.
According to Waters, the FV is not a movement, but a "theological system" primarily
because many of the doctrines within the FV are interlocking pieces that really touch on
just about all areas of theologysoteriology, ecclesiology, covenant, Christology, and so
on. It may, therefore, be properly considered a fully developed system, though framed
specifically within the Reformed and covenantal tradition. Due to the extensive nature
of the FV in many areas of theology, defming it is somewhat difficult. However, it may
be fair to say that the FV is an ultra-covenantaUsm that emphasizes the continuity from
the OT to the NT and stresses the objective nature of covenzintal membership, which is
seen particularly in the sacrament of baptism.