Posted by doug [doug] on March 26, 1999 at 13:37:40 {JgGWpI0TP.ILc5oxX9v2MW.px4jlZiJt2}:
In Reply to: The historical Jesus posted by Thomas on March 25, 1999 at 23:47:30:
People interested in the Jesus Seminar should know that in the profession of biblical studies it is generally considered a joke. Why? Because it consists of a concatenation of people interested in the Bible--a few of them experts in the
text, most of them not--who vote on various passages to "determine" if Jesus would probably have said or done whatever is in the passages. Passage A may be voted authentic or "probable" by, say, 60% of the whoever-is-there membership,
with some thinking it sounds like Jesus for X reason and some for Y reason and some for Z reason. Then Passage B comes up for a vote, and 60% of them think this one is authentic, too. But it may be a quite differently composed 60%, with
some of them voting yes because of X perception of Jesus, some because of Q perception of Jesus, and some because of P perception of Jesus. In other words, it's a mishmash, and no one should pay the least attention to its pronouncements
of authenticity or inauthenticity. In addition, it must be pointed out that scholarly discoveries about Jesus' life do not come along every day. In fact, they never come along. All the voting and rehashing is just one more round of
individuals' interpretations and biases regarding evidence that has been open to everyone, most of it for 2000 years, some of it (about social and historical contexts) for generations. The Jesus Seminar is, essentially, a new-age
publicity stunt.