Community as Author part 2

As the communities became distinct their needs became distinct from one another. The Gospels were written, not as an attempt to set in stone a history that historians were researching, but as sermons to answer the needs of the community. The Gospels are more like sermons than history books.


Cullman, The New Testament (24) "It must be noted that the needs of preaching, worship and teaching, more than biographical considerations, were what guided the early community when it wrote down the tradition of the life of Jesus. The apostles illustrated the truth of the faith they were preaching by describing the events in the life of Jesus. Their sermons are what caused the descriptions to be written down. The sayings of Jesus were transmitted, in particular, in the teaching of the catechism of the early Church."


It was be a mistake to think that the situation was neat and controlled. The growth of the church was rapid, haphazard, and groups were breaking out all directions, as stated above. Under these conditions the Gospel material was less controlled, but the early transmission of it was controlled to some extent.


Luke Timoney Johson,br>

The evidence of the NT does not suggest that after the resurrection there was a long period of tranquil recollection and interpretation carried out under the tight control of a single stable community that , having forged the memory of Jesus into a coherent and consistent form, transmitted it to other lands, languages, and cultures. The evidence points in the opposite direction: there was not a long period of tranquility; the first community was from the beginning harassed and persecuted; the spread of the movement was carried out by many messengers and required flexible adjustment to new circumstances. The growth of a community's self -understanding and its memory of Jesus were mutually shaping influences."(Ibid.)

I agree with Johnson. My argument is not that the oral tradition was controled to such an extent that they were able to pass on word for word with no changes. My argument is, rather, that they controlled it enough to bring the basic story line to a point where everyone knew this is the way it was and no one could change it. But the actual details of the wording and the pericopes and subplots were flexible and probably do show some embellishment.

Oral tradition is not just haphazard rumors spreading at random, but is a carefully controlled process. The Jews understood how to learn the words of their teachers and preserve them just as they were spoken. All oral cultures understand how to control the process.

III.Oral Tradition Trustworthy

Fewer changes if tradition is controlled


"No one is likely to deny that a tradition that is being handed on by word of mouth is likely to undergo modification. This is bound to happen, unless the tradition has been rigidly formulated and has been learned with careful safeguard against the intrusion of error" (Stephen Neil, The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1861-1961, London: University of Oxford Press, 1964, p.250)

Tradition was controled.

Neil adds in a fn: "This is exactly the way in which the tradition was handed on among the Jews. IT is precisely on this ground that Scandinavian scholar H. Risenfeld in an essay entitled "The Gospel Tradition and its Beginnings" (1957) has passed some rather severe strictures on the form cuticle method.

See also M. Dibelius... Neil goes on to say that there is some "flexibility" in the transmission, but nothing that would change the basic facts or the thrust of the teaching otherwise, "But there is a vast difference between recognition of this kind of flexibility, of this kind of creative working of the community on existing traditions, and the idea that the community simply invented and read back into the life of Jesus things that he had never done, and words that he had never said. When carried to its extreme this method suggests that the community had far greater creative power than the Jesus of Nazareth, faith in whom had called the community into being." (Ibid.).


Oral tradition in first-century Judaism was not uncontrolled as was/is often assumed, based on comparisons with non-Jewish models. B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans* (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus(NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998):

"...[T]he early form criticism tied the theory of oral transmission to the conjecture that Gospel traditions were mediated like folk traditions, being freely altered and even created ad hoc by various and sundry wandering charismatic jackleg preachers. This view, however, was rooted more in the eighteenth century romanticism of J. G. Herder than in an understanding of the handling of religious tradition in first-century Judaism. As O. Cullmann, B. Gerhardsson, H. Riesenfeld and R. Riesner have demonstrated, [22] the Judaism of the period treated such traditions very carefully, and the New Testament writers in numerous passages applied to apostolic traditions the same technical terminology found elsewhere in Judaism for 'delivering', 'receiving', 'learning', 'holding', 'keeping', and 'guarding', the traditioned 'teaching'. [23] In this way they both identified their traditions as 'holy word' and showed their concern for a careful and ordered transmission of it. The word and work of Jesus were an important albeit distinct part of these apostolic traditions.*

"Luke used one of the same technical terms, speaking of eyewitnesses who 'delivered to us' the things contained in his Gospel and about which his patron Theophilus had been instructed. Similarly, the amanuenses or co-worker-secretaries who composed the Gospel of John speak of the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, 'who is witnessing concerning these things and who wrote these things', as an eyewitness and a member of the inner circle of Jesus' disciples.[24] In the same connection it is not insignificant that those to whom Jesus entrusted his teachings are not called 'preachers' but 'pupils' and 'apostles', semi-technical terms for those who represent and mediate the teachings and instructions of their mentor or principal.(53-55)(corresponding fn for Childton and evans")

*


Also, there wasn't an necessarily a long period of solely oral transmission as has been assumed:

"Under the influence of R. Bultmann and M. Dibelius the classical form criticism raised many doubts about the historicity of the Synoptic Gospels, but it was shaped by a number of literary and historical assumptions which themselves are increasingly seen to have a doubtful historical basis. It assumed, first of all, that the Gospel traditions were transmitted for decades exclusively in oral form and began to be fixed in writing only when the early Christian anticipation of a soon end of the world faded. This theory foundered with the discovery in 1947 of the library of the Qumran sect, a group contemporaneous with the ministry of Jesus and the early church which combined intense expectation of the End with prolific writing. Qumran shows that such expectations did not inhibit writing but actually were a spur to it. Also, the widespread literacy in first-century Palestinian Judaism [18], together with the different language backgrounds of Jesus' followers--some Greek, some Aramaic, some bilingual--would have facilitated the rapid written formulations and transmission of at least some of Jesus' teaching.[19]" (p. 53-54)

N. T. Wright, critiquing the Jesus Seminar's view of oral tradition as uncontrolled and informal based on some irrelevant research done in modern Western non-oral societies writes:

"Against this whole line of thought we must set the serious study of genuinely oral traditions that has gone on in various quarters recently. [65] (p. 112-113)**

"Communities that live in an oral culture tend to be story-telling communities. They sit around in long evenings telling and listening to stories--the same stories, over and over again. Such stories, especially when they are involved with memorable happenings that have determined in some way the existence and life of the particular group in question, acquire a fairly fixed form, down to precise phraseology (in narrative as well as in recorded speech), extremely early in their life--often within a day or so of the original incident taking place. They retain that form, and phraseology, as long as they are told. Each village and community has its recognized storytellers, the accredited bearers of its traditions; but the whole community knows the stories by heart, and if the teller varies them even slightly they will let him know in no uncertain terms. This matters quite a lot in cultures where, to this day, the desire to avoid 'shame' is a powerful motivation.

"Such cultures do also repeat, and hence transmit, proverbs, and pithy sayings. Indeed, they tend to know far more proverbs than the orally starved modern Western world. But the circulation of such individual sayings is only the tip of the iceberg; the rest is narrative, narrative with embedded dialogue, heard, repeated again and again within minutes, hours and days of the original incident, and fixed in memories the like of which few in the modern Western world can imagine. The storyteller in such a culture has no license to invent or adapt at will. The less important the story, the more the entire community, in a process that is informal but very effective, will keep a close watch on the precise form and wording with which the story is told.

In the Handbook of Biblical Social Values (2000), Jerome Neyrey says,

The people in the bilbical world are dyadic. This means that individuals basically depend on others for thier sense of identity, for their understanding of their role and status in society, for clues to the duties and rights they have, and for indications of what is honorable and shameful behavior. Such people live in a world which is clearly and extensively ordered, a system which is well known to members of the group. Individuals quickly internalize this system and depend on it for needed clues to the way their world works. . . The tradition handed down by former members of the group is presumed valid and normative. . . Group orientation is clearly expressed in the importance given to authority. (p.94-7)

see also
- Bruce Malina & Richard Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptics, and Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel on John.
- See also John Pilch, Jerome Neyrey, and David deSilva. The Context Group publications are listed here.

"And the stories about Jesus were nothing if not important. Even the Jesus Seminar admits that Jesus was an itinerant wonder-worker. Very well. Supposing a woman in a village is suddenly healed after a lengthy illness. Even today, even in a non-oral culture, the story of such an event would quickly spread among friends, neighbors and relatives, acquiring a fixed form within the first two or three retellings and retaining it, other things being equal, thereafter. In a culture where storytelling was and is an art-form, a memorable event such as this, especially if it were also seen as a sign that Israel's God was now at last at work to do what he had always promised, would be told at once in specific ways, told so as to be not just a celebration of a healing but also a celebration of the Kingdom of God. Events and stories of this order are community-forming, and the stories which form communities do not get freely or loosely adapted. One does not disturb the foundations of the house in which one is living."[B.D. Chilton and C.A. Evans (eds.), Authenticating the Activities of Jesus (NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998) p. 113-115.]

I agree with Johnson tha the fast pace and haphazard growth of Christian communities effected the way the story was told. That does not mean, however, that it just became a runaway mythology fest divorced from the truth of the original events. We can seek to understand in what ways the telling would be affected.

(1) The story began to be told in Greek, Johnson himself points this out. Greek would mean dissemination to a wider audience. Although it might also mean changes in the shades of meaning.

(2) The story would be written down. that would be a major change and it was intended to preserve the memory. The question is then, how much change was introduced in the totally oral period? I'm sure the oral period over lapped with the written period. They didn't all just stop the oral retransmitting on the day the first author wrote the first MS. But over several decades they no longer told things orally and the early documents such as Q were no longer reproduced when the canonical Gospels included the material with other things in an impressive compendium such as the Gospel of Luke. In the famous quotation from Papias, the one in which he mentions "Elder John," he says that he prefers to hear the human voice rather than read the words on paper. That tells me that at that point (early second century, maybe 120) there was still some oral tradition hanging on, bu that written sources had totally taken over as the primary source. Thus the overlap period was pretty long, probably about sixty years.


(3) Narratival form: combining sayings lists (which preceded narratival Gospels) with a story line made it easier to remember and created a context for the sayings; that form was probably born out of the needs of communities.

One thing we can be somewhat sure of is that one way in which the story was not effected was that it didn't change dramatically. We know this because there is just one story. There is only one version of the Jesus. Myths always proliferate into many versions, but everyone knew the basic storyline was factual and could not be changed.

What we need to keep in mind is the agreements, those things that all the communities included because they all agreed they were factual.

The four faces of Jesus

by Robert K. McIvern
(Ph.D biblical studies, Andrews U.)

college and University Dialogue


"Most significantly, all four Gospels share in the conviction that the most important thing to know about Jesus is the events surrounding His crucifixion, death, and resurrection. They all agree that the significance of the cross lay in who Jesus is, and that what happened there was the result of God’s will and not blind fate. All the Gospels note the link between the cross and the Passover, and that Jesus was crucified as king of the Jews, which is rather ironic, because the cross did in fact inaugurate the kingdom of God. Further, they all stress that Jesus was raised with a real body, and that the death and resurrection of Jesus provide the impetus for the missionary activity of the earliest (and latest) Christians. These concepts, and more, are shared by all four Gospels. Yet each has a distinctive view of Jesus."

As the communities became distinct their needs became distinct from one another. The Gospels were written, not as an attempt to set in stone a history that historians were researching, but as sermons to answer the needs of the community. The Gospels are more like sermons than history books.Cullman, (24)

"It must be noted that the needs of preaching, worship and teaching, more than biographical considerations, were what guided the early community when it wrote down the tradition of the life of Jesus. The apostles illustrated the truth of the faith they were preaching by describing the events in the life of Jesus. Their sermons are what caused the descriptions to be written down. The sayings of Jesus were transmitted, in particular, in the teaching of the catechism of the early Church."It would be a mistake to think that the situation was neat and controlled. The growth of the church was rapid, haphazard, and groups were breaking out all directions, as stated above. Under these conditions the Gospel material was less controlled.Luke Timothy Johnson,

I agree with Johnson. My argument is not that the oral tradition was controlled to such an extent that they were able to pass on word for word with no changes. My argument is, rather, that they controlled it enough to bring the basic story line to a point where everyone knew this is the way it was and no one could change it. But the actual details of the wording and the pericopes and sub plots were flexible and probalby do show some embellishment.Oral tradition is not just hazard rumors spreading at random.

Oral tradition is a carefully controlled process. The Jews understood how to learn the words of their teachers and preserve them just as they were spoken. All oral cultures understand how to control the process."No one is likely to deny that a tradition that is being handed on by word of mouth is likely to undergo modification. This is bound to happen, (Stephen Neil, London: University of Oxford Press, 1964, p.250)Neil adds in a fn: IT is precisely on this ground that Scandinavian scholar in an essay entitled "The Gospel Tradition and its Beginnings" (1957) has passed some rather severe strictures on the form cuticle method.See also ... Neil goes on to say that there is some "flexibility" in the transmission, but nothing that would change the basic facts or the thrust of the teaching otherwise, "But there is a vast difference between recognition of this kind of flexibility, of this kind of creative working of the community on existing traditions, and the idea that the community simply invented and read back into the life of Jesus things that he had never done, and words that he had never said. When carried to its extreme this method suggests that the community had far greater creative power than the Jesus of Nazareth, faith in whom had called the community into being."

Oral tradition in first-century Judaism was not uncontrolled as was/is often assumed, based on comparisons with non-Jewish models. (eds.), (NTTS, 28.2; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998):*Also, there wasn't an necessarily a long period of solely oral transmission as has been assumed:N. T. Wright, critiquing the Jesus Seminar's view of oral tradition as uncontrolled and informal based on some irrelevant research done in modern Western non-oral societies writes:"Against this whole line of thought we must set the serious study of genuinely oral traditions that has gone on in various quarters recently. [65] (p. 112-113)**In the (2000), Jerome Neyrey says,see also- Bruce Malina & Richard Rohrbaugh, - See also John Pilch, Jerome Neyrey, and David deSilva.

The Context Group publications are listed here.I agree with Johnson tha the fast pace and haphazard growth of Christian communities effected the way the story was told. That does not mean, however, that it just became a runaway mythology fest divorced from the truth of the original events. We can seek to understand in what ways the telling would be affected. Johnson himself points this out. Greek would mean dissemination to a wider audience. Although it might also mean changes in the shades of meaning. that would be a major change and it was tend to preserve the memory. The question is then, how much change was introduced in the totally oral period? I'm sure the oral period over lapped with the written period. They didn't all just stop the oral transition on the day the first writer wrote the first MS.

But over a couple of decades they no longer told things orally and the early documents such as Q were no longer reproduced when the canonical Gospels included the material with other things in an impressive compendium such as the Gospel of Luke. combining sayings lists (which preceded narrative Gospels) with a story line made it easier to remember and created a context for the sayings; that form was probably born out of the needs of communities.One thing we can be somewhat sure of is that one way in which the story was not effected was that it didn't change dramatically. We know this because there is just one story. There is only one version of the Jesus. Myths always proliferate into many versions, but everyone knew the basic storyline was factual and could not be changed.What we need to keep in mind is the agreements, those things that all the communities included because they all agreed they were factual.

Canonical Gospels: Community as Author Part 1

Skeptics make much of the fact that there is no clear evidence as to who wrote the four Gospels. This argument is almost used as an excuse to virtually write the Gospels out of existence as authoritative historical documents. Most skeptics on the net assume that the Gospels offer nothing in terms of understanding the situation of the early church, much less the events depicted in their pages. But why should the lack of knowledge as to the authors present such a barrier to knowledge of other things? We do not have to know the exact identity of the authors, because the original material comes from the community itself. Scholars no longer look to one individual as the author of any of the Gospels; instead they see the Gospels as the product of a process in which the whole community was involved; oral history, original writing, redaction (see Luke Timothy Johnson, Early Christian Writtings)


Minikie

March 7 1997, "researchers say Coptic Fragments reveal lot gospel"

UK (University of Kansas) public relations site

Sayings attributed to Jesus and other figures often use metaphors of fire, nearness and life in various combinations with other images, Mirecki said. "The question is not if these are the actual words of Jesus," Mirecki said. "That's a question that can never be answered, as even the biblical Gospels contain the teachings of diverse early communities rather than the direct teachings of Jesus. All such texts have gone through the interpretive filter of early Christian editors and scribes."

Of course we have no records of those communities, no documents such as membership roles, but we can make some educated conjectures as to the character of those groups, and thus peice together an idea of the kinds of communities and what is meant when we speak of "the community as author." The upshot is that these communities, school/communizes, contained eye witnesses who bore witness to the original events of Jesus ministry and who could have check mistakes and embellishments upon the story.


I.Nature of Community


What do we mean by "community?" Surely most the early Christians lived near each other in Jerusalem. Do we mean a close nit village? Or do we mean in our modern sense of a loose collection of people who agree on something, such as the "beer drinking community" which has nothing to do with where they live? In the sense in which I use this term it is meant to imply a closely knit group, those who live in close proximity, who cares good in common, who perhaps live as a community almost like hippies in the 1960s; but in any case a group of people who live near one another, share wealth, work, hardship and belief. A grope close knit enough that they could expel those who did not agree, or who would not give in to the community rule.

The early believers formed such a community in Jerusalem, the embryonic Jerusalem church, is exclitply stated in the book of Acts.


Acts 2:42-47

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers. 43 Then fear came over everyone, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. 46 And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added those being saved to them.

To this communal like setting the Apostles added teaching about the events of Jesus ministry and his resurrection.

Acts 4:32-37

32 Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was on all of them. 34 For there was not a needy person among them, because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the apostles' feet. This was then distributed to each person as anyone had a need. 36 Joseph, who was named by the apostles Barnabas, which is translated Son of Encouragement, a Levite and a Cypriot by birth, 37 sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

Who were the people in the community? It's clear from Luke's Account of the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) that people form all over the known world heard the message. But many of them were no doubt form Jerusalem. we have a clue in the book of Luke, the final chapter, and the first Chapter of Acts where we see the fledgling community form. It is quite probable that they were made up of both disciples already following Jesus at the time of the crucification/resurrection, and the community of Bethany. The whole community of Bethany had the opportunity to become eye witnesses, and these probably make up the 500 that Paul mentions. Skeptics always ask who were the 500, this is who they were, they were the community of Bethany.


II.Eyewitness in Community



In the final chapter of Luke (24) two deiciples are walking toward the town of Emmaus, Jesus joins them but they do not recognize him. One, name Cleopus, has been thought by some to be a cousin of Jesus,' but be that as it may, they were apparently disciples because latter they realize it was him, so they do eventually recognize him. After that point they go find the eleven in Jerusalem and Jesus appears to them all while they relate the story. Then all of them march out to Bethany. why they are going to Bethany we don't know, but it was the home of the little family of Lazarus, Mary of Bethany and Martha who were Jesus' friends. So perhaps he was going to say good-bye. It is from that point that he ascends into the heavens and is gone. An angel comes and says he will return in the same the same way. The curious thing is, as they leave to walk to Bethany, there are 14 of them, the eleven, the two men (Clops and friend) and Jesus. When they get back there are 120.


Acts 1:12-15

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olive Grove, which is near Jerusalem--a Sabbath day's journey away. 13 When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. 14 All these were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers. 15 During these days Peter stood up among the brothers--the number of people who were together was about 120--

Of course all 120 could have been with the Apostles before they walked through the streets of Bethany.


Luke 24:33-52

33 That very hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and those with them gathered together, 34 who said, "The Lord has certainly been raised, and has appeared to Simon!" 35 Then they began to describe what had happened on the road, and how He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 36 And as they were saying these things, He Himself stood among them. He said to them, "Peace to you!" 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. 38 "Why are you troubled?" He asked them. "And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself! Touch Me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have." 40 Having said this, He showed them His hands and feet. 41 But while they still could not believe for joy, and were amazed, He asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" 42 So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, 43 and He took it and ate in their presence. 44 Then He told them, "These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. 46 He also said to them, "This is what is written: the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, 47 and repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And look, I am sending you what My Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high."

50 Then He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands He blessed them. 51 And while He was blessing them, He left them and was carried up into heaven. 52 After worshiping Him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they were continually in the temple complex

The point is, there were a large group of eye witnesses already with the Apostles who formed the basic community. It is these same people who were together on the day of Pentecost, just a few days hense, who were overcome by the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues, who started the church, who made up the first Christian community. As we see, Jesus led them through the streets of Bethany,as the risen Christ, and was transmogrified into heaven in front of all, thus making the entire community of Bethany a witness. We can only surmise that people saw him, but as they were not in their homes wathcing tv they probably did, that is very likely.


Of cousre it could be that a few more, such as Jesus mother (who we are told was there in Acts 1) were there and not mentoined with the 11, but who were all the others?

Quite probaly these others were picked up as walked to and from Bethany, after all they had to walk through the street. So the whole community of Bethany saw them, they were all witnesses. So all the people of Bethany could then testify to the fact tha they saw Jesus alive again, they saw him to up to heaven, they saw an angel come and promise his return.


Is Luke Reliable?


Of course skeptics will argue that Acts is the New Testament and the NT can't verify itself, so we cant' use it as evidence. Of course this si stupid, because any document can tell us something about itself. It can tell us about who wrote it, how they thought, what they believed and what conditions were like when they wrote. Luke is very well known for his god historicism. He includes the place names of obscure places, and the names of magistrates not known to exist otherwise, but whom archeology has borne out. He gets the titles of the magistrates right which is a small but important detail, because it is usually one of the things that those not on the scene get wrong.

Moreover, the author of Acts has no idea about a community as author argument. He could not have designed the narrative with this in mind. Of course he might have exaggerated to put all the eye witnesses in one place. But it only makes sense that among the first community would be those whom first heard Jesus preached and who followed him, and the first to hear stories of the risen Christ.

This would explain why there is only one version of the story. Myth always proliferates. There are two versions of Hercules death, about 14 versions of Inanna and Tamuz but only one Jesus story.Why? because the facts were known from the eairlest period and the eye witnesses helped to keep them straight. It's also becasue the peroid of eye witness oral transmission was only about 18 years.


the group that produced the Gospel of John calimed eye witnesses among them:

1 John 1:1"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life."


Group Proliferation


This initial group which was together after the ascension became the same group together on Pentecost and thus started the original Christian community which was filled with eye witnesses. The first chapter of Acts ends with that same group of 120 praying. The Second chapter beings "2:1 When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place." From the day of Pentecost on they become the original church. So the original church was full of eye witnesses. It was these people who passed on the

Obviously these people did all sit with pen in hand to write the actual first draft of each Gospel, but they did form the basis of the story telling mechanism which passed the story on from one person to another. They were available to check the story if it got off track. Now that means if some tried to change the outline of the story, the whole group has 120 eye witnesses who could say "no, we saw him risen, we saw him ascent into heaven." This doesn't mean, of course, that we can prove every miracle or every event, but it means that we can trust the Gospels for the basic outline of the story. That's why there is only one essential story of Jesus, and there are no competing versions where he dies in other ways and in other places.

The communities multiplied, the fragmented and become multiple communities. The original community spread itself out and the growth of the movement was hap hazard. But we can see the likelihood of witnesses in other communities.


L.T. Johnson (The Writtings of the New TestamentFortress Press 1986)

"Christianity was a movement of Social groups. The social setting for the tradition is intrinsic to the nature of the movement. Acts shows how rapidly the message spread across vast geographic areas. Within seven or eight years separate communities existed in Jerusalem,Judea, Sameria, and Syria. In 20 years there were communities in Cyprus and Asia Minor; after twenty five years communities flourished throughout Macedonia, Achia, possibly Dalmatia.Thirty years after Jesus as killed there was a Christian community in Rome."(117)

Probably each one of the four Gospel represents a community. The original group that went to Bethany that day formed the basic core of the oral tradition. By AD50, just 18 years latter, there were many communities, there was a proto-Gospel being circulated which included the empty tomb story (see Koster--Ancient Christian Gospels) and by AD 70 there was a Gospel of Mark beging to circulate, and this Gosple would be fragmented into more than one version. By the end of the century the basic outline and structure of the Gospels were set in stone.