This means that this information is not lost, and that it is found in the four Gospels. Richard Bauckham argues that the four Gospels are based on accurate eyewitness accounts of the life, ministry, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. , the actual historical teaching of Jesus is veiled behind the Gospels, and there is uncertainty what this teaching was, because the Gospels obscure, rather than convey, his teaching. In this view when we read the Gospels, we hear the teaching of the editor or redactor of the Gospel. That the Gospels express the theological convictions of their editors or 'redactors,' who used the oral or written traditions they inherited, and then shaped the Gospels to reflect their own theology. In this view, when we read to Gospels, we hear the teaching of the early church communities. That although Jesus got things going, the Gospels reflect the theological creativity and theological interests of the early church after Pentecost, as Jesus original teaching was passed on in spoken form, reformed and transformed to meet the needs of the time. In this view, when we read the Gospels, we hear the teaching of Jesus from the perspective of the author of the Gospel. That Jesus himself was the source and focus of this theological creativity, and that this work is faithfully recounted in the Gospels, which, though written many years later, give an accurate account of this theological creativity in his teaching.

The key questions to ask is: what was the source and focus of the theological creativity which produced the Christian movement and which is reflected in the four Gospels? There have been three answers to this question over the last century. The significance of this claim must be seen against the background of Gospels' scholarship over the last 100 years. Richard Bauckham applies this theory in great detail to the gospel of John, which he claims is the witness of John the elder of the church in Asia. He claims that the notion of eyewitness was recognised in the writing of history and in the writing of 'lives' of famous people in the first century, that it has good claim to be authentic, and that this kind of eyewitness account forms the substance of the four Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. In his latest book he works through the evidence of the four Gospels, and the writings of Papias, in the context of various kinds of writing and historiography in the first century. Richard Bauckham is a distinguished academic, a prolific author, and Professor of New Testament at St Andrew's University in Scotland. Book Review: Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Eerdmans, 2006

Jesus and the eyewitnesses