Eyewitness Testimony
Some of the New Testament authors explicitly claimed to be eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry. For example, it’s claimed in 2 Peter 1:16 that 'We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.' Similarly, 1 John 1:1,3 states that 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched ... we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard.'
This does not prove that they actually were eyewitnesses, only that they claimed it. The authors also claim they are telling the truth and not lying, eg. Rom. 9.1. We should be willing to investigate whether they were or not. In Luke's prologue (Luke 1:1-4) he makes note of the importance of speaking with eyewitnesses. Also, Peter's insistence on replacing Judas Iscariot with someone who had personally observed what had occurred (Acts 1:21-22) demonstrates the firsthand eyewitnesses. Ancient historians did not value recording the exact words spoken by an individual as highly as we value it today. Instead, ancient historians attempted to communicate a speaker’s intended meaning. Therefore, while different authors may record a speaker's words differently, their testimonies can still be reliable if they are in agreement. Additionally, if the stories in the Gospel were all related in exactly the same way, we might suspect the authors were merely copying (colluding with) each other. 'If the Gospels were too consistent,' notes Craig Blomberg, 'that itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses.'
The evidence strongly suggests that a large part of the New Testament is based upon eyewitness testimony. Mark's Gospel, for example, includes many indicators that it is based on the testimony of the eyewitness Peter, and also of Mark himself and others. Mark's Gospel places more emphasis on Peter than any other, such as when Mark mentions that Jesus speaks to Peter twice in Gethsemane, whereas the other Gospels are less specific. Mark also mentions Peter more times per page than any other Gospel writer. John Warwick Montgomery notes that there are scenes in Mark's Gospel where the third person plural perspective switches to third person singular involving Peter, which is the indirect equivalent of a first person discourse of Peter himself.
Richard Bauckham suggests that the unnamed persons in Mark's gospel are not named due to 'protective anonymity' because they had run afoul of the authorities who were persecuting the early church, and, being still alive at the time of the writing, would thus need to be protected. If this is the case, not only does this mean the writing is based on eyewitness accounts, it also confirms that Mark's gospel (or at least his sources) were written early in the church's history. Although Mark's Gospel is 'unnamed' in the sense that it does not include the title The Gospel According to Mark as we find in modern translations, there is in fact no ancient competition for its authorship, which we might expect to find if the authorship was attributed later. As more and more copies were made of the document, and as it spread far and wide geographically, it would quickly become impossible to universally attribute an author to it at a later date. We would also expect that if its authorship was fabricated by the early church that a more prominent figure would have been chosen, not the relatively unknown John Mark.
External testimony from Papias in the late first or early second century (as quoted by Eusebius) also confirms Mark as author of the Gospel and Mark's use of Peter as a source, which, although a later affirmation, is still considered valuable by modern scholars. Also, the Muratorian Canon (dated to between 140-170 AD) lists Luke and John explicitly as Gospel authors, and likely included Mark and Matthew as well, although unfortunately that portion has been lost in the fragmentary surviving copy.
An interesting yet somewhat puzzling detail in Mark's Gospel is recorded in Mark 14:51-52, during the author's account of Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane: 'A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.' This seemingly inconsequential detail does not appear in any of the other Gospels. Why did Mark choose to include it? Possibly the author himself was the 'young man ... following Jesus' (the young man was not one of the apostles) and therefore chose to include an incident in his Gospel that involved himself. This is an example of one of many 'anonymous witnesses' in the Gospels. Many scholars believe the young man ... was none other than Mark himself. The suggestion that the young man lived nearby, was roused from sleep, and came near after hearing the commotion caused by Jesus arrest ignores the fact that the young man was 'following Jesus', (and that the guards would not likely have tried to arrest him had he not been a follower of Jesus) so it seems to me to be an unlikely hypothesis.
Persuasive cases can also be made that the other gospels and letters of the New Testament are based on eyewitness testimony, such as, for example, the book of Acts (the continuation to the Gospel attributed to Luke which describes the history of the early church) which was in part based on Luke being a traveling companion of Paul. Certain similarities of phrasing and terminology in Paul and Luke's writings back up this assertion.
The New Testament includes certain incidental details that would be hard to comprehend unless they are the result of eyewitness testimony. One example is recorded in John 19:34. After Jesus dies on the cross, John notes that 'one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.' Death by crucifixion occurred due to two primary causes: hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia (asphyxiation). One consequence of the person going into hypovolemic shock and also being asphyxiated (unable to draw in breath) was that water would collect around the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart. Thus when the Roman soldier stabbed Jesus’ side with the spear (which was not common procedure for crucifixions) the wall of the pericardium was pierced, resulting in a flow of both blood from the heart itself and water from the surrounding sac. Even though he would have no idea why he saw blood and water pour out, John’s description of the scene is entirely consistent with modern medical conclusions about what would have happened. John would have had none of this modern medical knowledge; he merely recorded what he saw. How could John have known that if a person who had just been crucified were stabbed in the chest that blood and water would run out unless he witnessed it?
John describes himself in the first person as "I" in John stating himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved most. Due to persecution he had to be careful not to state his authorship everywhere so he could finish all 5 books as evident by his imprisonment at Patmos. There are unique markers or phrases that run throughout John, 1,2,3 John and Revelation only used by John to know it is John. John who saw Jesus alive from the dead was one of the original eyewitness Apostles, including himself as he records the various accounts. Such attributes don't fit John the Evangelist as being the author. He records he is the only Apostle present at the crucifixion. He reports in 1 John he saw Jesus alive from the dead. In Revelation he testifies again he saw Jesus resurrected. He told Polycarp, a student of John still in the first century, these things. Such high standards of historical reporting, to not accept these facts is just being ignorant. Details of this sort strongly indicate that the New Testament is a result of eyewitness testimony regarding the events it describes. Until you are willing to apply a higher standard of critique on another ancient text that you accept as being true, you should accept all this verification if you were to be intellectually honest with yourself and hold no doublestandards between ancient texts.
Taken together, this evidence (as well as other lines of evidence) strongly suggests that Mark’s gospel and at least several of the other New Testament writings are based on eyewitness testimony.
