Methodology of the Jesus Seminar

The declared objectives of the Seminar are 1) to find out what critical historiography can say about the historical Jesus. 2) to communicate responsibly the results of our scholarly work to the public. There are statements from the Seminar that indicate their intention of disclosure to the general public as an indication of their scholarly purpose.

The Seminar formed in l985 with Robert Funk as leader. The members are called Fellows. In 1985 thirty scholars began the research. The seminar meets twice a year in a different remote location. The first meeting was held in St. Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana. This School is located in a small southern town far from large cities. It would be a good place to do research. The purpose has changed in the later years. The Seminar now discusses technical writings that are sent prior to the gathering.

The Seminar claims that they desire to provide the best information available to the readers but their systems seems to hinge on the dating of Thomas and “Q” which are in most often rejected by scholars. The Seminar also presupposes words said by Jesus that refer to Jewish heritage or to Christian tradition is invented by the Church and are not credible and therefore not considered by the Seminar.

Hays stated that the four ways in which the methodology was a problem to be 1) the dating for the Gospel of Thomas and “Q”. The dating and use are both highly suspect to Hays. 2) the use of the standard of dissimilarity for considering the creditability of the Jesus tradition. Hays believed the criterion of being either too Jewish or too Christian excluded the essence of the Christian Jesus. 3) the Seminar’s Seminar claims Jesus could not distinguish God’s presence from any future events. It was one of the Seminar’s criteria for separating the sayings of Jesus. 4) the determining of the saying of Jesus apart from other events in His life is methodologically a problem. The setting is not taken into consideration.

Funk stated that the fictions of science are not adhered to when they are not applicable to our life. He claims that religious fictions (Bible) are held more strongly to be true. These are more difficult to free people from because of the mystical dispositions. The fiction does not hold now because of terms of usage. The stories of Jesus of Nazareth are quickly becoming hypothetically based stories according to Funk. The solution is to produce a liberating fiction that is common to the best information we can amass; one that goes beyond egocentric creeds. Satisfaction of this according to Funk will not be easy.

The effort and opening words of Funk in 1985 seemed an affront to my beliefs. Scholarly investigation is a noble venture but I wonder if the work had been done with less fanfare that it might have been seen as more acceptable and less like a demonstration of scholarly showmanship. If the work were done with the aim of Biblical enrichment, it would have been more readily acceptable. To change what was introduced as being quite radical was perhaps the wrong publicity to begin with to bring to the public. The Bible is as Funk pointed a sacred belief document and to try to write a new document that can be more scientifically or scholarly credible may be a lofty goal but not what the public needs or wants to hear, truth or not.

The Jesus Seminar reaches their conclusions through a color-coded voting. That is the end. The journey to get to the voting as I have pointed out is debatable. It has been argued publicly and privately as to the legitimacy and truth of its findings.

A more colorful explanation has been given by the Seminar regarding the significance of the colored beads. It states that they relate to the following:

One claim of the Seminar is that the Bible may have been written such that it misrepresents a sense of good timing. Jesus is lost in the apocalyptic stories and was not a prophet of the end of time. Another inference about Jesus is that as a man without a home, why would Jesus not (humorously) believe that those that are rich couldn’t get to the kingdom of heaven. This Jesus sent his disciples out without source of income or food just as he had no resources.

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