The Jesus Seminar…

In today's society we talk of Jesus as if he has some kind of split personality disorder. There's the Jesus of Nazareth who lived over two thousand years ago, said a lot of nice things, and taught a lot of nice stuff, but annoyed the wrong people and found himself on a cross. Yet there's also the Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the strange being the Christians believe to be fully human and fully divine and more impossible things about him. A lot of people over the past years have had much to say about these two characters, but perhaps none as influential, albeit controversial, as The Jesus Seminar. This essay will observe and critique the Seminar's origins and it's participants, its methodology and premises for its research, the new translation of the Gospels produced by the Seminar, as well as my own observations and criticisms of The Jesus Seminar.

John Dominic Crossan

Founded in 1985 by the late Robert W. Funk, a professor of New Testament Studies who spent the latter part of his teaching career at the University of Montana from 1969 to 1986, The Jesus Seminar has operated under the umbrella organization of the independent, non-profit Westar Institute[1]. Initially thirty scholars constituted the Seminar, but the number of Fellows eventually reached two hundred. Some of the more notable Fellows include John Dominic Crossan as its co-chair, Marcus Borg, Burton Mack, John Shelby Spong and Robert Price[2]. Standing squarely within the Bultmannian tradition and the New Quest, The Jesus Seminar continues the scholarly quest for the historical Jesus.

The Seminar's goals included breaking apart and distinguishing the Jesus of History from the Christ of Faith; combating the works of other scholars in the Quest for the Historical Jesus; but most interesting of all being the aim to debate, discuss and decide what acts and words could be actuality ascribed to Jesus[3]. In order to achieve such an objective, the Seminar constructed a form of modern critical scholarship which they dubbed, 'The Seven Pillars of Scholarly Wisdom'.

The Seven Pillars of Scholarly Wisdom

1. The distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of Christian faith.
2. Preference for the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) over the Gospel according to John as sources for the historical Jesus.
3. The chronological priority of the Gospel of Mark.
4. The hypothetical source "Q" used independently by Matthew and Luke.
5. The liberation and rejection of the eschatological (apocalyptic) Jesus and from Schweitzer's eschatological Jesus.
6. The fundamental contrast between an oral culture, such as that of Jesus, and a print culture.
7. Reversal of burden of proof from those who consider gospel content to be historical to those who consider it historical.

The first three pillars represent the development of 18th century and the findings of 19th century scholarship now commonly accepted[4]. The last four pillars reflect more recent trends used by The Seminar and its Fellows in their studies[5].

Like most scholars of our age, The Jesus Seminar treats the gospels as fallible historical artefacts, containing both authentic and unauthentic material. In order to determine what sayings and deeds were authentic, and which were less likely to be, the Seminar adopted a voting system using colour coded beads. Each bead represented a different option or opinion that the voter could take in discerning the historicity of the saying or deed and whether this saying or deed was helpful in determining who really Jesus was. The voting outcome was determined by the average weighted score, rather than by simple majority, meaning that all opinions were reflected in the decisions. By doing so, this allows the reader to second-guess each vote and it's outcome[6].

Jesus Seminar Fellows

As well as voting on the authentic and non-authentic sayings and deeds of Jesus, The Jesus Seminar produced a new translation as well. The Seminar attempted to translate the text in a style in such a way similar to how a first-century listener might have heard it and understood it, calling it The Scholars Version (TSV). This translation uses current colloquialisms and contemporary phrasing in an effort to provide a contemporary sense of the gospel authors' styles, if not their literal words[7]. However, The Seminar didn't limit the translating or voting to the canonical works, but included the The Gospel of Thomas and other fragmented pieces of text concerning Jesus[8]. Below is an example of this translation as well as the results of The Seminar's voting on The Beatitudes from Matthew's Gospel:

And he toured all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues proclaiming the news of <Heaven's> imperial rule, and healing every disease and every ailment the people had. And his reputation spread through the whole of Syria. They brought everyone who was ill, who suffered any kind of disease or was in intense pain, who was possessed, who was epileptic, or a paralytic, and he cured them. And huge crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from across the Jordan.
Taking note of the crowds, he climbed up the mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He then began to speak, and this is what he would teach them:[9]
Congratulations to the poor in spirit!
Heaven's domain belongs to them.
Congratulations to those who grieve!
They will be consoled.
Congratulations to the gentle!
They will inherit the earth.
Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice!
They will have a feast.
Congratulations to the merciful!
They will receive mercy.
Congratulations to those with undefiled hearts!
They will see God.
Congratulations to those who work for peace!
They will be known as the children of God.
Congratulations to those who have suffered persecution for the sake of justice!
Heaven's domain belongs to them.[10]

In the end, the results of The Seminar's findings were tallied and the Jesus discovered was more like non-eschatological wandering Jewish wisdom sage, compassionate and merciful, committed to the disenfranchised. Sayings with apocalyptic imagery and overtones were regarded as inauthentic, as were any actions of Jesus that depict him as a messianic preacher with an apocalyptically construed vision of the kingdom of God and its future. According to The Jesus Seminar, the apocalyptic elements attributed to Jesus come from John the Baptist and the early Christian community[11].

The criticisms…

However I, like many others, are critical of The Jesus Seminar's methods, results and conclusions. Looking back over The Seminar's Seven Pillars, while I would agree with the first three pillars and elements of the sixth and seventh, I must say I am critical of the fourth and fifth pillars produced by the Seminar. While the "Q" source may 'solve' some of the gospel's narrative issues within Matthew and Luke in theory but the "Q" source at the end of the day is still only hypothetical. The fact that we do not have a copy of this "Q" source or that any of the early church writers makes reference to it, so if "Q" ever did exist at one time, it must have disappeared very quickly[12]. While I am still open to this theory and think more study should be taken into the area, I believe that we should continue to maintain it only as a theory, rather then a pillar of so-called 'scholarly wisdom'.

Yet my biggest concern is the actual Jesus sketched out by The Jesus Seminar.

The central objective of The Seminar was to examine, discuss and vote on the sayings and acts of Jesus and slowly but surely allow a portrait of Jesus to emerge. I find myself agreeing with scholars such as Tom Wright, Luke Timothy Johnson and James Dunn when I see the reverse happening. For the majority of Fellows at least, what comes first is an assumption about who Jesus really was, and it is this assumption they use in voting for what sayings and acts they deem authentic. One only has to look across the many names of the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar and is the similar school of thought coming through, the idea focusing on the portrait of Jesus as 'a travelling sage and wonderworker' and it is this portrait that the Seminar's 'authentic sayings and acts' are asserted to[13]. I find this very hypocritical as the late Robert Funk warns people to "beware of finding a Jesus entirely congenial to you"[14]. With such clear premises, perhaps The Seminar needs a dose of its own medicine.

To me, The Jesus Seminar produces a Jesus who is a secular sage, who preaches a secular message and does so by using secular methods of scholarship. I cannot see how this Jesus fits in such a non-secular world. He is born and raised as a Jew, preaches to a Jewish audience, is surrounded by Jewish followers and is even killed as a Jew but is yet so non-Jewish in his teaching and ministry? I strongly believe by The Jesus Seminar robbing him of his religion, The Seminar is robbing him of crucial parts of his identity.

However, while I am highly critical of The Jesus Seminar I still believe there is hope for The Seminar. I think the biggest problem The Seminar faces is the single school of thought that dominates The Seminar and its outcomes. It is clear that The Jesus Seminar is a driving force in the modern study of the historical Jesus within the Third Quest and will continue to be so for quite sometime. However if this seminar is meant to be all it claims to be — a seminar focused on debating and discussing the historical Jesus in order to discern more authentic and accurate information about him — then why doesn't it open its doors? Open its doors to the other schools of thought and other methods of research. I am sure the discussion would be deep and the debating heated but I believe that such a seminar full of so much variety could produce some of the most ground breaking study in the quest for the qistorical Jesus the world has ever seen.

Footnotes:
1. Carl Holladay, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 125.
2. Robert Funk, Roy Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1996), 533-537.
3. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 34-35.
4. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 2-3.
5. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 3-7.
6. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 36-37.
7. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, xiii-xvi.
8. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 14-16.
9. Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998), 171.
10. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 138.
11. Holladay, Carl. A Critical Introduction to the New Testament. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005. 126.
12. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1996), 51-54.
13. Thomas Wright, Five Gospels But No Gospel (accessed 14 October 2007); available from www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Five_Gospels.pdf; Internet.
14. Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, 5.

Link:
The Westar Institute/The Jesus Seminar: www.westarinstitute.org/Jesus_Seminar/jesus_seminar.html.

Daniel Gullotta is a student at ACU National, studying a Bachelor’s degree in Theology. He is a convert to the Anglican Church and a member of MEC's Youth Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane.

What are your thoughts on Daniel's essay? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2007 Daniel Gullotta

[Index of Commentaries by Daniel]