- Select Your Own Jesus  

"If we are to survive as scholars of the Humanities, a well as Theologians, we must quit the academic closet. And we must begin to sell a product that has some utilitarian value to someone … or which at least appears to have utilitarian value to someone" (Professor Robert Funk in Forum 1/1/1985 p.10)

Some say we should leave everything to the experts. How would someone support (or refute) the following statements? Jesus was not really the Son of God, but instead: A misguided Jewish visionary (Albert Sweitzer) A simple Jewish teacher who would be horrified at the myths in the gospels. (A.N. Wilson, who produced a TV documentary on this.) A Jewish revolutionary (S.G.F. Brandon) A Marxist revolutionary (Liberation theology) A man who married again after divorcing Mary Magdalene, whom the Dead Sea Scrolls talk about frequently. (The Gospels are in a secret code) (Barbara Thiering) An end-time prophet, not a social one (E.P. Sanders) A child of rape, who married Mary Magdalene, and the male-dominated church invented stories to keep women down (John Spong) A practicing homosexual (Morton Smith) A polygamous "Mormon" who fathered children A magician who went to Egypt to study magic (Morton Smith J.U.F. p.121) Only a Hasidic Jew (Geza Vermes) A genuine exorcist (Graham H. Twelftree) An innocent victim whose death was unconnected with his ministry (Burton Mack) A peasant Greco-Roman cynic (Dominic Crossan) A pro-feminist A Jewish sage of the goddess Sophia (Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza) A non-miraculous healer of just the "social stigma" of leprosy (Dominic Crossan) (J.U.F. p.138) A spiritual mystic (Marcus Borg) The originator of a disguised fertility cult centered on hallucinogenic mushrooms. (former University of Manchester scholar John Marco Allegro J.U.F p.209) An alien (a college friend of mine) All of these statements (except the last one) were by academic scholars and authors who think it too unbelievable that the four gospels could be reliable writings. They generally believe the parts of the Bible that do not fit their theory were non-genuine later additions. How do they support their views? In this allegedly academic field, you do not have to support your theories with any falsifiable evidence. Such is the "landscape" of radical Christian liberalism today. At both state institutions and church colleges supported by offerings of devout church members, there are many thousands of academics who wish to cut and paste among different sources to create their own theory of another Jesus that is the most reasonable to them. The bottom line is: with their methodology, Jesus can be made in your image, and by careful selection of material, Jesus can be whatever you want him to be!

Then out of this background came the something rather ugly. Professors Robert Funk, Dominic Crossan, Burton Mack, Marcus Borg, and about 200 other self-appointed people formed the Jesus Seminar to authoritatively state their conclusions as the consensus of academic scholarship. As scholar Thomas C. Oden says, "The Jesus Seminar is the creation of a media-culture looking for a story." Twice a year they meet to pronounce the conclusions of academic scholarship on the authenticity of the writings about Jesus. They are famous for voting on the authenticity using colored marbles they drop in. A red marble means it is certainly authentic. A pink marble is for sounding close. A gray marble says it probably is not something their Jesus would say. A black marble means the saying was definitely not uttered by their Jesus. They evaluated 22 parables in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 28 in the Gospel of Thomas, and 10 from other sources. Just over 2/3 of the parables in "Thomas" and the Bible scored over 50% of red plus pink votes. The bottom line is: By seeing how each saying fits with their opinion of Jesus, they think that they, and not the early Christians, are in a better position to authoritatively determine what Jesus really said. There are at least three problems with the Jesus Seminar: denial, gullibility, and irrelevance

Despite the early persecutions, a number of very early New Testament manuscripts have survived. 50 A.D.? In cave 7 at Qumran, Jose O'Callaghan found papyrus fragments, which inconclusively might be the Gospel of Mark. This is arguable though. c.100 A.D. The Lukan manuscript in Paris c.110-15 A.D. (others says c.117-138 A.D.) p52 John Rylands papyrus (parts of John 18:31-33) Another fragment, John 18:37-38, is generally thought to be from the same scroll and is also referred to as the John Rylands Papyrus. early/mid 2nd century p104 has Mt 21:34-37, 43, 45? c.125-170 A.D. p66 Bodmer II Papyrii has almost all of John. c.175 A.D. p90 Jn 18:36-19:7 mid/late 2nd century p77/p103 has 16 verses of Mt. 175-200 A.D. or early 3rd century p75 Bodmer 14/15 Papyrii (most of Luke and John) We have 102 of the original 144 leaves. c.200 A.D. p1 Mt 1:1-9,12,14-20; 2:14? 200 A.D. p45 Chester Beatty (all 4 gospels and Acts) We have 30 of the original 220 leaves. c.200 A.D. p4,p64,p67 (same manuscript) parts of Luke After this time, there are many more manuscripts. Christian writers, even prior to 200 A.D., quoted from or referred to verses in the Gospels and Acts. Clement of Rome 97 A.D. (no reference to John) Papias a disciple of John the Apostle Ignatius, a pupil of John the Apostle 110-117 A.D. Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians 110-135 A.D. The Didache 120-150 A.D. Letter of Mathetes to Diognetus 130 A.D. Justin Martyr wrote about 138-165 A.D. Muratorian Canon mentions 4 gospels/Acts c.170 A.D. Irenaeus 170-202 A.D. Theophilus of Antioch 180 A.D. Clement of Alexandria 193-217 A.D. Even Gnostic heretics Basilides and Valentinus.

If you wish to look at writings of heretics, you would do better to look at the Diatessaron. The Encratite Gnostic Tatian wrote this harmony of the gospels c.170 A.D.. He left out the parts that emphasized the humanity of Jesus, but he directly quoted 75-80% of the gospels. It is so close to the Byzantine and western texts that scholars say it is almost useless for looking for variant readings. Since the over 5,100 Greek manuscripts only have an uncertainty of less than 4% of the words, why would an allegedly objective scholar statistically focus on the "outliers" of a Gnostic Gospel and ignore nearly everything else?

Since there are so many rival modern theories of the historical Jesus, at least most of them are wrong. What they have in common though, is that all of them jettison the Jesus of Christianity as a "conspiracy" of the early Christians (who were martyred for Him). Once they do that, they can know at most glimpses of a few teachings by Him. It is sad that perhaps that is all they want to know, and the concept of "Jesus as Lord" is comfortably irrelevant.

The Jesus Seminar "does not, therefore, represent anything like a consensus view of scholars working in the New Testament, but only the views of group that has been - for all its protestations of diversity - self-selected on the basis of a prior agreement concerning the appropriate goals and methods for studying the Gospels and the figure of Jesus. It is, from beginning to end, an entrepeneurial venture guided by Robert Funk." Luke Timothy Johnson in The Real Jesus : The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (Harper) p.2. Postscript: Apologies to my college friend, wherever he is, for putting his view next to the really silly ones.