Page 119 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

Upon his seminal publication, Arthur Baird advances the contention of Manson under the name

58
of so called “audience criticism.” He believes that the Synoptic writers were intensely
concerned with describing the audience around Jesus. In their writings, they carefully described

Jesus’ audience. He says, “there are approximately 352 individual logia of Jesus, of which 98

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percent are clearly identified as to audience.” In his analysis of the logia of Jesus, he
classifies four basic types of people described consistently in the Gospels: “the Twelve, the

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‘crowd’ of disciples, the opponent crowd, and the opponents.”
Baird concurs, delineating the basic characteristics of each group. The most conspicuous trait of

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the first group, the Twelve, is “their lack of understanding.” The second group, the crowd of
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disciples, is characterized by their faith and “high regard for Jesus.” Realizes that the

and it discusses a legal question. The second is an epigram. The third is the explanation of the
whole matter.”

58 Baird, Audience Criticism, 19. He confess that “I came across further evidence for the
usefulness of this method, and through the intervening years in research, as in correspondence
with Professor Manson, I have been encouraged by the mounting evidence that here indeed is a
‘solid,’ demonstrable, and usable phenomenon.”

59
Ibid., 32. He also supplies total listing of logia in his appendix.
60 Ibid., 33.

61 Ibid., 36. Mark 6:52, 8:27-33, 9:9-13, 9:32, 9:33-37, 10:23-27, 14:3-9, Luke 9:51-58,
Matt. 13:10, 13:36, 15:15-16.

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Ibid., 37-43. He provides a list of ten types of people in this group: those who were with
the Twelve (Matt. 5:1, 8:21, 12:49, Mk. 1:36, 2:15, 4:10, 4:34, 8:34, Lk. 6:20, 10:1, 10:17, 19:37,
24:33); certain women “of our company” (Luke 24:22, 23:28, 10:38-42, 11:27, 23:49, Mk.
15:40-41, Matt. 27:55-56); those who were saved by Jesus and became followers like Zacchaeus
(Luke 19:1-10) and Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52); certain ones following Jesus who almost
followed him “wherever you go” (Luke 9:57) like rich young ruler (Matt. 19); those following
Jesus in crowd (Luke 7:9, 7:11, 6:17, 20:16, Mark 12:12, Matt. 21:45); friends or parents of the
sick or demented who are credited with “faith,” like the centurion (Luke 7:1-10), Jairus (Mark
5:21-43); the sick or demented who are healed where there is a record of “faith” as part of the
healing like woman with the flow of blood (Matt. 9:20-22) the Samaritan leper (Luke 17:11-19),
the Gerasene demonic (Mark 5:1-20); certain godly individuals whose religious experience made
them receptive to Jesus (Luke 7:2, Lk. 10:6, Mark 5:21-43, 15:43, Matt. 13:52, and so on);