Bauckham: Jesus beyond the text
Last night I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by the retired NT professor, Richard Bauckham, on "The Johannine Jesus and the Synoptic Gospels". Bauckham is guest lecturing this week at Trinity Theological College (Singapore). His presentation was based on a new commentary he is writing. Though I dare not call myself a New Testament scholar (having lost my fervor for rabbinical debate some time ago), I do preach and teach often enough on the Gospel of John to know that it takes me into a very different space than do the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). In fact, I admit that I frequently shy away from preaching on John. Dr Bauckham, who brings a historian's eye to the narratives, clearly acknowledges the diversity of the gospels, though in this lecture he seemed reluctant to jump into etiological speculations, but rather to point out that there are many different ways to do historiography. He may have spoken more about this at other lectures, but I on