Eyewitnesses and the New Testament

Returning to the viability of the New Testament: Richard Bauckham uses evidence within the gospels themselves to show that the gospel writers named their eyewitness sources within the text to assure readers of their accounts’ authenticity.  Mark, for example, says that the man who helped Jesus carry his cross to Calvary “was the father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21).  There is no reason for the author to include such names unless the readers know or could have access to them. Mark is saying, “Alexander and Rufus vouch for the truth of what I am telling you, if you want you can go and ask them.”

Paul also appeals to readers to check with living eyewitnesses if they want to establish the truth of what he is saying about the events of Jesus’s life (1 Corinthians 15:1-6).  Paul also refers to a body of five hundred eyewitnesses who saw the risen Christ at once. You can’t write that in a document designed for public reading unless there really were surviving witnesses whose testimony agreed with and who could confirm what the author said.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were recognized as authoritative eyewitness accounts almost immediately, and so we have Irenaeus of Lyons in 160 A.D. declaring that there were four, and only four, gospels.  The widespread idea, promoted by The Da Vinci Code, that the Emperor Constantine –in the year 325 - determined the New Testament canon, casting aside the earlier and supposedly more authentic Gnostic gospels, simply is not true.

With the reliance and availability of so many direct observers, it would have been impossible for this new faith to spread as it did had Jesus never said or done the things mentioned in the gospel accounts.