The way I'd answer this question is that the history of this claim - authentic traditions - involves the Christian scriptures themselves. That they were written down by eyewitnesses shortly after Pilate's time and that physical written manuscripts were preserved (supposedly) by certain of the ante Nicene "Fathers" through to Eusebius and on to today.ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 7:25 am I am aware that GJohn and 2 Peter 1:16 emphasize that they were written by witnesses to Jesus and that Ignatius emphasises that the events happened in Pilate's time, but Justin makes no appeal to the authors as witnesses or accurate preservers of authentic traditions as far as my limited awareness knows. But today, Christians regularly defend their faith by empasizing how accurate their accounts about Jesus are and that they are from traditions from Jesus's followers.
So what is the history of this claim? is Papias the earliest to make such claims outside the Christians' scriptures?
I seek answers from here.
Unlike the Buddhist scriptures, from what I have read, and recently, through your postings, the Christian scriptures did not have any period of oral transmission after the eyewitnesses wrote. The Christian writings were supposedly written by the "eyewitnesses".
The church fathers transmitted the manuscripts from the eyewitnesses to today. That is what I perceive to be the historical claim of the Christian education system. I don't agree with this claim of course, but that's what I think the core claim is. The "Universal Church" transmitted hand-written manuscripts written by the eyewitnesses to the life and death of "IS XS". Amen.
Extraneous claims of all kinds (deaths of the apostles, apocryphal pop culture) accreted around these core "canonical" claims at some later epoch.