Richard Bauckham writes in “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony” that the Twelve had been companions with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry and were chosen to be an authoritative body to act as eyewitness guarantors of the preservation and transmission of message of his life and resurrection.
This is a widespread orthodox view of the origin and role of the Twelve in the Christian churches today and I would be interested in tracking down the first time this view appears in any of our sources. In the book of Acts the Twelve are for the purpose of being a witness of the resurrection of Jesus, and the requirement that they had to have been with Jesus from the baptism of John appears to be specified as a requirement for just that — to be a witness to his resurrection (only). The most obvious connection between being with Jesus before his resurrection (‘from the baptism of John’) and being qualified to be a witness of the resurrection would appear to be that those who witnessed the resurrection also could testify that the one resurrected was the same Jesus who had lived in the flesh. But I return to Acts in a future post.
One of our earliest sources for Christian origins is Justin Martyr writing around 150 ce. He lived and traveled in the area north of Judea and in Rome and wrote to persuade Jews and gentiles of the Truth and Goodness of the newly emergent Christian belief. Most scholars accept that he knew and made reference to some early form of our gospels when he cited what he described as “The Memoirs of the Apostles”. Continue reading “The Twelve: Justin Martyr vs Richard Bauckham”