The Importance of Eyewitnesses and Their Close Associates
This standard isn’t a concept created by contemporary apologists. It’s as old as the Christian Scriptures.
When I talk about the canon of Scripture, I frequently refer to the emphasis that early Christians placed on the testimony of eyewitnesses of the risen Lord Jesus and their close associates. There are evidences of this emphasis in the Muratorian Fragment and in Serapion’s reaction to the Gospel of Peter—but these second-century allusions aren’t the first place where we see this standard at work. It is, in fact, embedded in Scripture itself.
Remember the opening sentence of Luke’s Gospel?
Since many have undertaken to have composed a narrative about the deeds having been fulfilled among us, as those who became the eyewitnesses from the beginning and assistants of the word [άρχης αύτοπται και ύπηρεται γενόμενοι του λόγου] handed them down to us, it seemed to me—having followed closely from above—that I should write to you all these things accurately in order, most excellent friend of God, so that you might truly know about the certainly of the words that you were instructed.
From the earliest stages of Christianity, the message of Jesus was grounded in the testimony of eyewitnesses and their assistants in the message. This standard wasn’t invented in response to Marcion’s followers in the second century or fabricated in an attempt to create a canon of Scripture in the third or fourth century. It was already established and embraced by first-century followers of Jesus.