"The Jesus Seminar: Friend or Foe? Reconsidered"

by R. Dale Tedder, Jr.

In November 1989, an article was published in my denomination's magazine for clergy which essentially asks the question whether the Jesus Seminar is a friend or foe of the church. ⁽¹⁾ The author, Arthur Maynard, provides reasoning that, in his opinion, suggests that the Jesus Seminar is far less trouble to the church than the unbridled literalistic interpretation of Scripture that is running rampant.⁽²⁾ It is that vein that the author, a former college professor, writes his article. He briefly summarizes only three methodological tools used by the Jesus Seminar in their effort to decide what are authentic sayings of Jesus. He says:

"Scholars use three criteria in their effort to determine what material goes back to the earthly Jesus. 1) An account or a saying is regarded as authentic if it is inconsistent with first century Judaism. ...2) An item is considered authentic if it is incompatible with the early church. ...3) Items that may not meet either of the first two criteria but are consistent with those that do may be considered authentic."⁽³⁾

Thankfully, he suggests that the first two criteria are "very limiting."⁽⁴⁾ However, that is the end of the good news. After a brief defense of Robert Funk's⁽⁵⁾ credentials, Maynard describes Funk's purpose of the Jesus Seminar. The Seminar is to serve as a combatant against the ignorant popularity of fundamentalism. The church, according to Funk and Maynard, needs to move beyond literalism. The article concludes by asking the question once again: Is the Jesus Seminar a friend or a foe of the church? The answer for Maynard is, if the Jesus Seminar helps the church move beyond biblical literalism, and if the pastors in the church are forced to get out their seminary notes for a refresher in biblical studies, then the Jesus Seminar "is our friend."⁽⁶⁾ The article by Maynard, perhaps because of when it was written, falls far short of presenting an accurate picture of the Jesus Seminar. It is outside the scope of this paper to spend time speculating why Maynard entirely omitted the historical influences of the Jesus Seminar. So too, it is outside the parameter of this paper to theorize as to why he did not even offer a reasonable critique of the Seminar's methodology. However, after offering a short-list of the presuppositions of the Jesus Seminar, I will offer a critique of one presupposition in particular and propose a suggestion as to why this was completely ignored by Maynard.

Craig L. Blomberg provides a helpful list of the working presuppositions that the Jesus Seminar used in their search for the authenticity of Jesus' words.⁽⁷⁾ Due to the brevity of this paper I cannot list them all, however, here is a partial list: 1) The authors of the four canonical Gospels are not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 2) None of these four Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. 3) Jesus' teachings were altered in the oral tradition. 4) The early church invented sayings of Jesus that had little or no basis in what he actually taught. 5) If a saying can be demonstrated to promote later Christian causes, it could not have originated with Jesus. 6) The historicity of John's gospel is extremely suspect. 7) Historical analysis cannot admit the supernatural as an explanation for an event. Therefore, Jesus' words after his resurrection cannot be authentic. 8) Jesus never explained his parables and aphorisms. 9) Jesus never directly declared who he was. 10) The burden of proof rests on any particular scholar who would claim authenticity for a particular saying of Jesus and not on the skeptic.

Maynard offers only three presuppositions in his assessment of the Jesus Seminar, while Blomberg's list contains ten and is still incomplete. Each of these presuppositions is worthy of a full treatment and critique, however, I will examine only one. The rest of this paper will focus on the seventh presupposition, the exclusion of the supernatural as an explanation for an event. I will provide some historical background on the subject and then uncover its deeper philosophical and theological presuppositions. I suspect that Maynard realizes the explosive potential of this presupposition if it were to be shared with the church at large. I believe this is the reason why there was no mention of it is his article.

Restricting supernatural explanations from historical investigation has its roots all the way back to David Hume. It was Hume that suggested that:

"while it is not uncommon for witnesses to be mistaken, it is uncommon for miracles to take place. Hence the historicity of a miracle cannot be accepted except on the most reliable and unequivocal evidence. ...Hume ... believed that in every case it was more probable that the witnesses were wrong than that a miracle had actually taken place. Measured by this standard, many of the miracles attributed to Jesus could be said to have little claim to historicity, since the evidence for them is meager and its reliability is suspect."⁽⁸⁾

The supernatural element of Christianity was gradually removed from New Testament scholarship due to the philosophical naturalism that was so much a part of the enlightenment. The 19th century produced the First Quest for the historical Jesus. This "quest" was an effort by New Testament Scholars to remove the mythical and supernatural elements of the New Testament so that scholars could find the "Jesus of history" and not the "Christ of faith." In fact, it was no less than Albert Schweitzer who said:

"This dogma [that Christ is the God-man] had first to be shattered before men could once more go out in quest of the historical Jesus, before they could even grasp the thought of His existence. That the historic Jesus is something different from the Jesus Christ of the doctrine of the Two Natures seems now to us self-evident."⁽⁹⁾

Deism's effect on New Testament scholarship removed the historic Christian understanding of God. The idea that although God was transcendent, he was also immanent in being, history, the incarnation and the Holy Spirit was all but gone. Kant's notion of confining God to the noumenal realm had taken over. Grounded in this understanding of God, if in fact God was still believed in at all, scholars developed methods of historical analysis which removed God from the equation. It is this tradition of which the Jesus Seminar claims to be a part. In fact in an interview, Robert Funk explained part of his rationale for extracting the supernatural elements from the New Testament. He said if the enlightenment showed us anything, it was that miracles do not happen.⁽¹⁰⁾

It is this a priori exclusion of God and the supernatural that sets the real agenda for the Jesus Seminar. I would also suggest that it is this presupposition that Maynard knows all too well would enrage the laity. What we believe about God is essential to what we believe about Jesus and the supernatural. If God is excluded at the beginning of the process, He surely will not be there at the end. If God does not exist, or at best does not participate in history, then the antisupernaturalism of the Bible and the removal of Jesus' deity are certainly the logical conclusions.

In addition to these obvious conclusions concerning the work of the Jesus Seminar, there are some fundamental problems with philosophical naturalism as a foundation for historical research. First of all, to rule out an historical claim a priori is a claim to be omniscient. That is, one must claim to know all that can and cannot happen in the universe. Secondly, "antisupernaturalism is historically reductionistic."⁽¹¹⁾ Historical research requires analytical investigation of all the applicable material prior to a decision. However, I hasten to add, neither of these issues will even be dealt with in a worldview that excludes God. Curiously, this antisupernatural presupposition of the Jesus Seminar typically does not appear in the popular and mainstream information about their work. Instead, the lack of disclosure concerning the Jesus Seminar's philosophical naturalism facilitates the notion that this is merely honest scholarship.

In truth, however, one could predict the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar before it even began. Richard Hays says:

The participants in this poll were those who chose to take part over a span of eight years in a seminar sponsored, not by one of the major scholarly societies such as the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas or the Society of Biblical Literature, but by Funk's maverick entrepreneurial venture, the Westar Institute... This self-selected group, though it includes several fine scholars, does not represent a balanced cross-section of scholarly opinion.⁽¹²⁾

Additionally, D.A. Carson suggests that if he were allowed to select 75 conservative scholars, the results would be radically different. Yet the Jesus Seminar permits the popular press to present it as an objective and well-balanced consensus of New Testament scholarship. However, the Jesus Seminar is intentionally aimed at reaching the populace via the mainstream media. This is Funk's way of combating fundamentalism and television-evangelists. Yet even the most cursory investigation of the work of the Jesus Seminar reveals its agenda and presuppositions. Instead of this being groundbreaking scholarship, I concur with Richard Hays who asserts, "that this imaginative book has been produced by a self-selected body of scholars who hold a set of unconventional views about Jesus and the gospels. ...[T]heir attempt to present these views as 'the assured results of critical scholarship' is- one must say it- reprehensible deception."⁽¹³⁾ Though the critique of the other presuppositions and methods of the Jesus Seminar is helpful, I am persuaded that the unveiling of this naturalistic presupposition at the beginning of the analysis is all that is required for finding out where it will end.

1. The United Methodist, "Circuit Rider."

2. It must be said that the author never once defines his use of the term "biblical literalist." However, he does ignorantly include the "literalists" in the category of those who believe that every word in the Bible was dictated by God. This is a most unfortunate inclusion. I would agree with B.B. Warfield: "It ought to be unnecessary to protect again against the habit of representing the advocates of verbal inspiration as teaching that the mode of inspiration was by dictation." The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, (p. 173 n. 9). In the same book Warfield concludes: "The Reformed Churches have never held such a theory; though dishonest, careless, ignorant or over-eager controverters of its doctrine have often brought the charge." (Ibid. P. 421)

3. Arthur H. Maynard, "The Jesus Seminar: Friend or Foe?," Circuit Rider (November 1989), p. 11.

4. Ibid.

5. Robert Funk is the founder and head of the Jesus Seminar.

6. Maynard, Ibid.

7. Craig L. Blomberg, "The Seventy-Four 'Scholars': Who Does The Jesus Seminar Really Speak For?," The Christian Research Journal (Fall 1994), p. 35.

8. I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co.), p. 59.

9. Robert B. Strimple, The Modern Search For The Real Jesus. (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing), p. 9.

10. This is a paraphrase of what Funk said in Arts and Entertainment's program called "Jesus: A Biography."

11. Blomberg, p. 36.

12. Richard B. Hays, "The Corrected Jesus," First Things (May 1994), p.44.

13. Ibid., p. 47.

Back