Richard Bauckham Richard Bauckham Richard J. Bauckham (born 22 September 1946) is an English Anglican scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament studies, specialising in New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John. He is a senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. In 2006, Bauckham published "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses," described by many scholars as a paradigm shift in Gospels study. In this book, Bauckham argues that the Synoptic Gospels are based "quite closely" on the testimony of eyewitnesses, while the Gospel of John is written by an eyewitness, against the current scholarly consensus that the Synoptic Gospels are closer to
Synoptic Gospels that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. The "synoptic problem" is the question of the specific literary relationship among the three synoptic gospels—that is, the question as to the source or sources upon which each synoptic gospel depended when it was written. The