Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§8.6 - The Tradition
ognized from the first as apostles or otherwise authoritative bearers of the Jesus tradition
(§8.Id). Such indications as there are from the pre-Pauline and early Pauline
period suggest already fairly extensive outreach by such figures, both establishing
and linking new churches, and a general concern to ensure that a foundation of authoritative
tradition was well laid in each case. 280 In focusing particular attention
on the communal character of the early traditioning process we should not discount
the more traditional emphasis on the individual figure of authority respected for his
or her own association with Jesus during the days of his mission. 281
Within the Jesus tradition itself we should recall the clear memory that Jesus
sent out his disciples as an extension of his own mission (Mark 6.7-13
pars.). 282 Mark tells us that the twelve were chosen 'to be with him and that he
might send them out to preach ...' (Mark 3.14). What would they have said when
they preached? The implication of the text is clear, and the inference from the
fact of a shared mission hard to avoid, that their preaching would have at least included
teaching which Jesus had given them. 283 Also that Jesus would have
taught them what to say — not in a verbatim mode, but in a mode which would
convey the disciple-effecting impact which they themselves had experienced. We
may be confident that a good deal at least of the retellings of Jesus tradition now
in the Synoptic Gospels were already beginning to take shape in that early pre-
Easter preaching of the first disciples. 284
280. Paul himself provides the best evidence in each case: he is able to take it for
granted, as widely accepted, that an 'apostle' is a church-founder (particularly 1 Cor. 9.1-2); the
implication of such passages as Acts 9.32-43; 15.3 and Gal. 1.22 is that the earliest churches already
formed a network; and the indications of such passages as 1 Cor. 11.2; 15.1-3 and Gal.
1.18 confirm the importance of basic instruction in what was already designated tradition.
281. In personal correspondence Richard Bauckham emphasizes the significance of
Byrskog's work at this point.
282. On historicity, see particularly Meier, Marginal Jew 3.154-63. We noted earlier that
a strong body of opinion regarding Q sees the earliest stage of its collection/composition (Q 1 ?)
as intended to provide guidance for itinerant missionaries on the pattern of Jesus' own mission
(chapter 7 nn. 96-97); similarly Schürmann, 'vorösterlichen Anfänge'; and see later (§ 14.3b).
283. Theissen envisages the disciple missionaries as messengers of Jesus because they
passed on Jesus' words ('Wandering Radicals' 42-43).
284. The point has been argued by E. E. Ellis on several occasions, most recently in 'The
Historical Jesus and the Gospels', in J. Ädna, et al., eds., Evangelium — Schriftauslegung —
Kirche, P. Stuhlmacher FS (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 94-106, reprinted in his Christ and
the Future in New Testament History (NovTSup 97; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 3-19; also The Making
of the New Testament Documents (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 20-27; but he weakens his case by unnecessarily
questioning whether there was an initial oral stage of transmission {Christ 13-14)
and arguing for 'at least some written transmission from the beginning' {Making 24), that is, already
during Jesus' ministry (Christ 15-16; Making 32, 352). Similarly A. Millard, Reading
and Writing in the Time of Jesus (BS 69; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000) argues that notes
may well have been made by one or more of the literate among Jesus' hearers which could have
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