Editing Jesus Seminar (section)

==Criticism from scholars==

The Jesus Seminar has come under intense criticism regarding its method, assumptions and conclusions from a wide array of scholars and laymen.<ref name="Jesus Under Fire">Michael J. Wilkins & J.P. Moreland, General Editors, ''Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus'', Zondervan, 1995, {{ISBN|0-310-21139-5}}</ref><ref name="Millenarian Prophet"/> Scholars who have expressed concerns with the work of the Jesus Seminar include [[Richard B. Hays|Richard Hays]],<ref>Hays, Richard B., "The Corrected Jesus", ''First Things'' 43, May 1994</ref> [[Ben Witherington]],<ref>''The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth''</ref> [[Greg Boyd (theologian)|Greg Boyd]],<ref>Boyd, Gregory A. (1995). ''Cynic Sage or Son of God?''. Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books. Reprint: Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-60899-953-8}}</ref> [[N.T. Wright]],<ref>Wright, N.T. (1996). ''Jesus and the Victory of God'', London: SPCK; Minneapolis: Fortress Press. pp. 22-44. {{ISBN|9780800626822}} Wright also discusses the work of Burton L. Mack, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus J. Borg in some detail.</ref> [[William Lane Craig]],<ref>Paul Copan, Editor, ''Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan'',  Baker Books, 1998, {{ISBN|0-8010-2175-8}}</ref> [[Luke Timothy Johnson]],<ref>Johnson, Luke Timothy (1997). ''The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels'', HarperOne. {{ISBN|0060641665}}</ref> [[Craig A. Evans]],<ref name="Fabricating Jesus"/> [[Paul Barnett (bishop)|Paul Barnett]],<ref>[http://paulbarnett.info/2011/04/jesus-seminar/ "Jesus Seminar"] Paper delivered at [[Brisbane College of Theology|St. Francis' Theological College, Brisbane]] Dec. 9, 1998</ref><ref>Barnett, Paul. (2001) ''Jesus and the Logic of History'' ([[New Studies in Biblical Theology]]), IVP Academic {{ISBN|0-830-82603-3}}</ref> [[Michael F. Bird]],<ref>Bird, Michael F. (2014). ''The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus''. Eerdmans. pp. 79-82. {{ISBN|0-802-86776-6}}</ref> [[Craig Blomberg]],<ref name="Jesus Under Fire"/><ref>Blomberg, Craig L. (2004). ''Making Sense of the New Testament''. Baker Academic. pp. 18-19.</ref> [[Markus Bockmuehl]],<ref>Bockmuehl, Markus. (2006). ''Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study''. Baker Academic. pp.
195-207. {{ISBN|0-801-02761-6}}</ref> [[Raymond E. Brown|Raymond Brown]],<ref>Brown, Raymond E. (1997). ''An Introduction to the New Testament'', Doubleday. pp. 820-823, 827-829. {{ISBN|9780385247672}}</ref> [[James D.G. Dunn]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/dunn01.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2016-02-11 |archive-date=2016-01-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160112122920/http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/dunn01.pdf }}</ref> [[Howard Clark Kee]],<ref>Kee, Howard Clark,
"A Century of Quests for the Culturally Compatible Jesus", ''Theology Today'', April 1, 1995.</ref><ref>"Controversial Jesus Seminar", ''Los Angeles Times'',  March 12, 1991, p. B6.</ref> [[John P. Meier]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Dec1997/feature3.asp|title=American Catholic is Down for Maintenance. |author=Franciscan Media}}</ref> [[Graham Stanton]],<ref>Stanton, Graham
(2002). ''The Gospels and Jesus''. Second ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 230-231. {{ISBN|0-19-924616-5}}</ref> [[Darrell Bock]],<ref name="Jesus Under Fire"/> and [[Edwin Yamauchi]].<ref name="Jesus Under Fire"/>

Jesuit theologian [[Gerald O'Collins]] has been critical of the methods and conclusions of the Jesus Seminar with particular attention to Christological ramifications.<ref>O'Collins, Gerald. "What Are They Saying About Jesus Now", ''America'', 27 Aug., 1994, pp. 11-14. Reprinted in ''Focus On Jesus: Essays in Christology and Soteriology'', Leominster: Gracewing, 1996. pp. 1-16. {{ISBN|0-85-244360-9}}</ref><ref>O'Collins, Gerald. ''Rethinking Fundamental Theology'', Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011, pp. 29-30. {{ISBN|0-19-162060-2}}</ref>

Lutheran theologian [[Carl Braaten]] has been sharply critical, saying "The Jesus Seminar is the latest example of a pseudo-scientific approach that is 'dogmatically' opposed to basic Christian dogmas, popularizing in the public mind [[Adolph von Harnack|Harnack's]] view that an unbridgeable gulf exists between Jesus and the church."<ref>Braaten, Carl E. (2008). ''That All May Believe: A Theology of the Gospel and the Mission of the Church''. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. p. 42 {{ISBN|978-0802862396}}</ref>

===Composition of the Seminar and qualifications of the members===

[[Luke Timothy Johnson]], a historian of the origins of Christianity,<ref name="Luke Timothy Johnson"/> argued that while some members of the seminar are reputable scholars (Borg, Crossan, Funk, others), others are relatively unknown or undistinguished in the field of biblical studies.<ref>''The Real Jesus'', 1996.</ref> One member, [[Paul Verhoeven]], holds no Ph.D. but a M.Sc. in mathematics and physics,<ref>[http://meer.trouw.nl/nieuws-en-debat/verhoeven-niet-echt-zeer-geleerd#bodyanchor-8504 Paul Verhoeven's Ph.D. claims refuted] in Dutch national newspaper Trouw</ref> not biblical studies, and is best known as a [[film director]]. Johnson also critiqued the seminar for its attempts to gain the attention of the media for the 2000 [[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] program "The Search for Jesus" hosted by news anchor [[Peter Jennings]].

Seminar critic [[William Lane Craig]] has argued that the self-selected members of the group do not represent the consensus of [[New Testament]] scholars.  He writes:

<blockquote>Of the 74 [scholars] listed in their publication ''The Five Gospels'', only 14 would be leading figures in the field of New Testament studies. More than half are basically unknowns, who have published only two or three articles. Eighteen of the fellows have published nothing at all in New Testament studies. Most have relatively undistinguished academic positions, for example, teaching at a community college.<ref>[http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/rediscover1.html Rediscovering the Historical Jesus] by William Lane Craig</ref></blockquote>
Others have made the same point and have further indicated that thirty-six of those scholars, almost half, have a degree from or currently teach at one of three schools: [[Harvard University|Harvard]], [[Claremont Graduate University|Claremont]], or [[Vanderbilt University]], all of which are considered to favor "[[Liberal Christianity|liberal]]" interpretations of the New Testament.<ref name="blomberg">Craig A. Blomberg, "Where Do We Start Studying Jesus?" in ''Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus'', Zondervan, 1995, p. 20. {{ISBN|0-310-21139-5}}</ref> To [[open theism|open theist]] [[Greg Boyd (theologian)|Greg Boyd]], a prominent [[evangelism|evangelical]] pastor and theologian, "The Jesus Seminar represents an extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of New Testament thinking. It does not represent mainstream scholarship."<ref>Strobel, Lee. (1998). ''The Case for Christ''. Zondervan. p. 122. {{ISBN|9780310339304}}</ref> New Testament scholar [[Mark Allan Powell]] has stated: "The Jesus Seminar is not representative of the guild of New Testament historical scholarship today. Rather, it is representative of one voice within that guild, a voice that actually espouses a minority position on some key issues."<ref>Powell, Mark Allan. (1998) ''Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man From Galilee''. Westminster John Knox. p. 78.
{{ISBN|9780664234478}}</ref>

In the first chapter of his 2010 book ''Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of his Life and Teaching'', [[Maurice Casey]], an [[Irreligion|irreligious]] British scholar of the New Testament, criticizes the Seminar for having not included "some of the best scholars in the USA, such as [[E. P. Sanders]], [[Joseph Fitzmyer|J. A. Fitzmyer]], and [[Dale Allison]]."<ref name="Casey2010">{{cite book|last=Casey|first=Maurice|date=2010|title=Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lXK0auknD0YC&q=Mary+Magdalene+supported+Jesus%27s+ministry&pg=PA194|location=New York City, New York and London, England|publisher=T & T Clark|isbn=978-0-567-64517-3|pages=18–21}}</ref> He states that these glaring omissions were compounded by the fact that many of the supposed "experts" at the Seminar were young, obscure scholars who had only just completed their [[doctorate]]s.<ref name="Casey2010"/>

==={{anchor|Use of a flawed voting system}}Flawed voting system===

The voting system has been criticized by, among others, [[N. T. Wright]], who says: "I cannot understand how, if a majority ... thought a saying authentic or probably authentic, the 'weighted average' turned out to be 'probably inauthentic'. A voting system that produces a result like this ought to be scrapped."<ref>Wright, N. T.
"Five Gospels But No Gospel", in Bruce D. Chilton and Craig A. Evans eds., ''Authenticating the Activities of Jesus''. Leiden: Brill, 1999. p. 95. {{ISBN|9789004113022}}</ref> Casey sums up the voting process stating, "In practice, this meant an averaged majority vote by people who were not in any reasonable sense authorities at all."<ref name="Casey2010"/>

==={{anchor|Creating a Jesus based on the presuppositions of the members}}Influence of presuppositions===
[[Howard Clark Kee]], Professor of Biblical Studies Emeritus at [[Boston University School of Theology]], writing in the journal ''[[Theology Today]]'' stated, "the conclusions reached by these scholars are inherent in the presuppositions and methods they have chosen to adopt from the outset."<ref>Kee, Howard Clark, "A Century of Quests for the Culturally Compatible Jesus", ''Theology Today'', April 1, 1995.</ref>

[[Luke Timothy Johnson]]<ref name="Luke Timothy Johnson">[http://www.candler.emory.edu/ABOUT/faculty/johnson.cfm Luke Timothy Johnson] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061023204523/http://candler.emory.edu/ABOUT/faculty/johnson.cfm |date=2006-10-23 }}</ref> of the [[Candler School of Theology]] at [[Emory University]], in his 1996 book ''The Real Jesus'', voiced concerns with the seminar's work. He criticized the techniques of the Seminar, believing them to be far more limited for historical reconstruction than seminar members believe. Their conclusions were "already determined ahead of time," Johnson says, which "is not responsible, or even critical scholarship. It is a self-indulgent [[wikt:charade|charade]]." [[William Lane Craig]] argues that the principal presuppositions of scientific naturalism, the primacy of the apocryphal gospels, and the necessity of a politically correct Jesus are unjustified and issue in a distorted portrait of the historical Jesus.<ref>{{cite web|last=Craig|first=William Lane|title=Presuppositions and Pretensions of the Jesus Seminar|url=http://www.reasonablefaith.org/presuppositions-and-pretensions-of-the-jesus-seminar|access-date=19 May 2014}}</ref>

[[Raymond E. Brown|Raymond Brown]] likewise avers that the Seminar "operated to a remarkable degree on a priori principles, some of them reflecting antisupernatural bias. For instance, the bodily resurrection had no real chance of being accepted as having taken place. ... Again, almost as a principle, the eschatological character of Jesus' ministry has been dismissed..."<ref>Brown, Raymond E. (1997). ''An Introduction to the New Testament''. Doubleday. pp. 820-821. {{ISBN|9780385247672}}</ref>

[[Dale Allison]] of [[Pittsburgh Theological Seminary]], in his 1998 book ''Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet'', cited what he felt were problems with the work of (particularly) [[John Dominic Crossan]] and [[Marcus Borg]], arguing that their conclusions were at least in part predetermined by their theological positions. He also pointed out the limitations of their presumptions and methodology. Allison argued that despite the conclusions of the seminar, Jesus was a prophetic figure focused to a large extent on apocalyptic thinking.<ref name="Millenarian Prophet">Allison, Dale C. (1998). ''Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet''. Fortress Press. {{ISBN|0-8006-3144-7}}</ref>  Several Bible scholars (for example [[Bart D. Ehrman]], an agnostic, and [[Paula Fredriksen]], a Jew) have reasserted [[Albert Schweitzer]]'s eschatological view of Jesus.<ref>Schweitzer wrote that Jesus and his followers expected the imminent end of the world. [http://home.pcisys.net/~jnf/schauth/rq2.html Review of "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God"]</ref> Casey argues that the Jesus Seminar's fundamental social goal was not to construct an accurate portrait of the historical Jesus, but rather to create "a figure whom [the Fellows of the Seminar] are happy with".<ref name="Casey2010"/> In particular, the fellows of the Seminar have removed "the apocalyptic and eschatological concerns which characterize American fundamentalism"<ref name="Casey2010"/> and remade Jesus as "a cynic philosopher, which suits their intellectual ambiance".<ref name="Casey2010"/>

===Inappropriate emphasis on flawed criteria===
Numerous scholars have criticized the Seminar for placing too much value on the [[criterion of dissimilarity]]. For the Seminar, a saying will only be held as authentic if it does ''not'' match the beliefs of Judaism or those held by the early Christians. Critics such as Gregory Boyd have noted that the effect of this is that the Jesus of the Seminar shows no continuity with his Jewish context nor his disciples.<ref>Gregory A. Boyd, [http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/apologetics/new-testament/are-the-gospels-reliable/ The Jesus Seminar and the Reliability of the Gospels]</ref> Raymond Brown has stated that "a rigorous application of such criteria would leave us with a monstrosity: a Jesus who never said, thought, or did anything that other Jews said, thought, or did, and a Jesus who had no connection or relationship to what his followers said, thought, or did in reference to him after he died."<ref>Brown, Raymond E. (1997). ''An Introduction to the New Testament''. Doubleday. p. 827. {{ISBN|9780385247672}}</ref> J. Ed Komoszewski and co-authors state that the Jesus Seminar's "Criteria for In/Authenticity" creates "an eccentric Jesus who learned nothing from his own culture and made no impact on his followers".<ref>{{cite book  | last = Komoszewski | first = J. Ed| title = Reinventing Jesus | publisher = Kregel Publication | year = 2006 | page = 49  |display-authors=etal}}</ref> The same criticism has been made by Craig Evans.<ref name="Fabricating Jesus">[[Craig A. Evans]], "Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels," InterVarsity Press, 2006 {{ISBN|0-8308-3318-8}}</ref>

===Bias against canonical sources and for non-canonical sources===
Casey criticizes the Seminar for the "exaggerated importance which they have attributed to the [[Gospel of Thomas]]",<ref name="Casey2010"/> stating, "Their voting was so bizarre that they ended up with more red in the Gospel than in our oldest genuine source, the [[Gospel of Mark]]."<ref name="Casey2010"/> [[Craig Blomberg]] notes that if the Jesus Seminar's findings are to be believed, then: {{quote|It requires the assumption that someone, about a generation removed from the events in question, radically transformed the authentic information about Jesus that was circulating at that time, superimposed a body of material four times as large, fabricated almost entirely out of whole cloth, while the church suffered sufficient collective amnesia to accept the transformation as legitimate.{{cn|date=September 2022}}}} [[Craig A. Evans|Craig Evans]] argues that the Jesus Seminar applies a form of hypercriticism to the canonical gospels that unreasonably assumes that "Jesus' contemporaries (that is, the first generation of his movement) were either incapable of remembering or uninterested in recalling accurately what Jesus said and did, and in passing it on" while, in contrast, privileging extra-canonical texts with an uncritical acceptance that sometimes rises to the level of [[special pleading]].<ref name="Fabricating Jesus"/> [[Howard Clark Kee]], writing in ''The Cambridge Companion to the Bible'' (1997) and citing [[Helmut Koester]] and [[John Dominic Crossan]] as examples, states: {{quote|Some scholars have advanced the theory that these so-called apocryphal gospels actually include texts and traditions that are older and more reliable than those in the canonical New Testament writings. ... These opinions are purely circular arguments, since the investigators have found material which they prefer to what is the canonical Gospels and, in support of their preferences, attribute this material to more ancient sources. No ancient evidence confirms these theories, but the theories have been welcomed and widely publicized in the popular press.<ref>Kee, Howard Clark, et al. eds., (1997) ''The Cambridge Companion to the Bible'', "Bibliographic Essay", Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-34369-0}} pp. 582-83.</ref>}}

=== Other ===
[[Garry Wills]], a vocal proponent of liberal Catholicism, nonetheless strongly critiques the Seminar:<blockquote>This is the new fundamentalism.  It believes in the literal sense of the Bible—it just reduces to what it can take as literal quotation from Jesus.  Though some have called the Jesus Seminarists radical, they are actually very conservative.  They tame the real, radical, Jesus, cutting him down to their own size...the sayings that meet with the Seminar's approval were preserved by the Christian communities whose contribution is discounted.  Jesus as a person does not exist outside of the gospels, and the only reason he exists there is because of their authors' faith in the Resurrection.  Trying to find a construct, "the historical Jesus," is not like finding diamonds in a dunghill, but like finding New York City at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.<ref>Garry Wills, ''What Jesus Meant'' (2006), Viking Press, {{ISBN|0-670-03496-7}}, p. xxv–xxvi</ref> </blockquote>