thedistillers

William Lane Craig claims the Jesus Seminar is: "a radical minority of the leftwing fringe of Biblical scholarship" and concerning the Gospel of Thomas, he claims their approach go like this:

1. The Gospel of Thomas is an early, primary source.

“How do you know?”

2. Because no apocalyptic sayings are found in the Gospel of Thomas.

“Why is that evidence of an early date?”

3. This is evidence of an early date because Jesus wasn’t into Apocalyptic.

“How do you know he wasn’t?”

4. Because the Gospel of Thomas proves he wasn’t.

“Why believe what the Gospel of Thomas says?”

1. The Gospel of Thomas is an early, primary source.



Is it a straw man of what the JS is saying, or is it true?

Also, he concludes by saying: "Fortunately, the main stream of New Testament scholarship has been moving in a much different direction than the leftwing fringe represented by the Jesus Seminar. (...) It is widely agreed that the historical Jesus stood and spoke in the place of God Himself, proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom of God, and carried out a ministry of miracleworking and exorcisms as signs of that Kingdom."

discuss. What is meant by "the main stream of New Testament scholarship"? Who are the scholars that are considered "main stream", as opposed to liberal or conservative? It seems to me most people are in either camp.

LogicandReason

Great questions!

Toto

Your quote seems to be from here.

Yes, there is a lot of circular reasoning in the Jesus Seminar's attempt to make sense of the dating of the gospels and gThomas. But this does not make Craig's assertions true.

For background on the question of "mainstream", read Robert Price's essay By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus, which was written about the same time as Craig's essay.

Remember that Craig is employed by Campus Crusade for Christ as a paid ideologue. Bill Bright, who founded CCC, was a conservative and associated with the Council on National Policy.

When Craig throws around terms like "left-wing" you should be a bit suspicious. (Robert M. Price is a political conservative whose views give most Humanists fits.) I think Craig is trying to demonize the Jesus Seminar in the minds of his mostly conservative evangelical base.

Steven Carr

What early 'primary' sources are there by people who knew Jesus?

perfectidius

Burton Mack, of the Jesus Seminar, has written a few books about getting at early Christian beliefs. For instance, the discovery of the gospel of Q--nonchristian in nature, has layers of writing, the earliest of which are supposed to not have been apocalyptic.

There are many embedded texts in the NT that can give clues to how these ideas came to be shaped.

When Craig says "the majority of scholars think Jesus spoke the very words of God," that is irrelevent. The reason why so many theologians and Bible scholars say that may very well be that they were Christian to begin with. Who else would want to dedicate their lives to studying these ancient scriptures? Surely not a majority.

Daniel

Ben C Smith

This may not be the thread (or the forum) for it, but could you offer me some more information on Price as a political conservative?

Thanks.

Ben.

aa5874

Since when does agreement among scholars become historical facts?

This must be some sort of circular reasoning.

"How do you know that there was an HJ"?

It is widely agreed there is an HJ.

Circular, Circular, Circular!

andrewcriddle

On this issue one should read Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas by April DeConick http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ernetInfidels/ This provides an IMO plausible analysis of the successive layers of material in Thomas. The perception of Thomas as thoroughly non-apocalyptic may apply more to the final version than to its earliest strata.

Andrew Criddle

gregor

[QUOTE=Ben C Smith;5397515]Sorry for the drive by - but if I recall correctly, Price's web site previously hosted a few political essays. I seem to recall reading some in support of the war in Iraq.

No Robots

As for Iraq and such matters, it pains me that the Infidels are all such a bunch of naive Lefties!--Robert M. Price

George W. Bush started down a historic and heroic path in announcing we would pave the way for peace and render terror a useless fossil by transforming these Middle Eastern states into democracies.--Price on the war in Iraq