In the AD 30-70 Christian world, spanning across the Mediterranean regions, would the witnesses of Jesus’s life—including Mary, Peter, the apostles as a whole, and many relevant others—tend to be able to both learn of and kill off deviant rumors that were circulating about them and what they saw. In this way, would the accounts of Jesus’ life be overtly subject to public knowledge—naturally overseen, controlled, and regulated (monopolized even) by living eyewitnesses—especially the apostles—such that they had the final say on the flourishing of gospel-history traditions circulating which involved themselves? Could they thereby suppress and even weed out erroneous information if they wanted to? Could they police the development of early Christian rumors about Jesus’s life and teachings? If these witnesses were immanent protestors of rumor x, then through broader Christians echoes and conformity to witness self-disclosing, was rumor x essentially doomed to fail at being seriously circulated? At least in the earlier years, would the apostles—as known witnesses—be especially able to control the transmission of the tradition, at least one remove through direct disciples?
Remaining witnesses would exert their influence:
Also in Diaspora:
This includes hostile witnesses:
And even through AD 70 (for Gospels):