Markan priority is not yet set in stone for many modern scholars; there is a sizable and vocal number (albeit a minority) who argue for Matthew as the earliest.

The Q source is seen as the material Matthew and Luke have in common when they aren't following Mark, but the discounting of Mark's gospel as the earliest makes that hypothesis problematic.

Try a URL search of Q; like most scholarship, it becomes more complex (and interesting) the deeper you go.

Aikido7, I appreciate the information, but I am also well-read on the subject. I have apparently come to different conclusions.

As far as Crossan and Borg, I mentioned that they both call themselves "Christian" or "spiritual". However, their "Christianity/Spirituality" is one born 2000 years after Christ. Their new and somewhat confused statements are completely different from Christianity as it has been passed down to us beginning with the gospels.

Crossan and Borg do not believe in the supernatural in the world. Can they believe in God? That is why I said that I think they are clouding over their beliefs. They state that the resurrection never happend and that Jesus may have been eaten by dogs. The Bible and Christian doctrine clearly teach that without the resurrection, there is nothing. Can they truly be Christians? Their presuppositions taint their findings just as much as Christian scholars.

I firmly believe that they like some of what Jesus taught (the Golden Rule) and that they want people to drop the "religion" and simply follow a philosophy. Noble and sincere, but in my opinion sincerely wrong.

BTW, Barbara Theiring is on the Jesus Seminar. A link was provided above to an alphabetical listing of the scholars on the Jesus Seminar.

You mentioned that you thought I ignored the statement about Scholars agreeing that certain words were not spoken by Jesus. I didn't mean to ignore it. The words are the words of Jesus as remembered (or in many cases probably written down) by his disciples. Look from one gospel account to the next and the words vary little. The general structure and message is preserved. Does this really come as such a shock? I also disagree with many of the Jesus Seminar's arbitrary dismissals of certain sayings as coming directly from Jesus. Anyone have R.E. Brown handy to quote from? He mentions some specific examples in his history of the NT.

Finally, I don't completely discount the Jesus Seminar's findings, nor do I doubt there sincerity. However, I think they only represent a small corner of Christian scholarship and don't believe that their views alone should be so prominent in the media.

Ish

Ish doesn't like the thought of Croissan and Borg getting publicity, as if their views are somehow *much* worse than those of the many TV evangelists. I think that their views provide a valuable balance to the TV-evangelist sort of view that one often sees.

And I've yet to see Nomad and Layman and Ish and the like explain how their views differ from those of many TV evangelists.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ish:

(Former Jesus Seminar members Crossan and Borg's) "Christianity/Spirituality" is one born 2000 years after Christ. Their new and somewhat confused statements are completely different from Christianity as it has been passed down to us beginning with the gospels.

The careful reader will see that Christianity began to change soon after Calvary--and indeed changes still. Christian faith is always a dialectic between history then and necessity now.


Crossan and Borg do not believe in the supernatural in the world. Can they believe in God? That is why I said that I think they are clouding over their beliefs. They state that the resurrection never happend and that Jesus may have been eaten by dogs. The Bible and Christian doctrine clearly teach that without the resurrection, there is nothing. Can they truly be Christians? Their presuppositions taint their findings just as much as Christian scholars.

I am convinced they believe in God, but whether that god is to them a "Hairy Thunderer" or a "Cosmic Cupcake"--I guess we'd both need to study their writings more to find that out. Again, the original gospel writers were people, not parrots; thinkers, not memorizers, and flesh and blood humans, not channelers. They no more "clouded" their interpretations of Jesus than Crossan and Borg do today. Is Jesus the mystic philosopher of John's gospel, the son of man "hidden messianic" parabaler of Mark or the bitter badgerer of Matthew? The cynic sage of Crossan or the "spirit-person" boundary-shatterer of Borg? Are they "clouding" or "interpreting?"

The Jesus Seminar has affirmed the resurrection, and concluded that it had nothing to do with Jesus' body. By the way, only Crossan has put forth the idea of Jesus' body eaten by dogs or carrion.

I firmly believe that they like some of what Jesus taught (the Golden Rule) and that they want people to drop the "religion" and simply follow a philosophy. Noble and sincere, but in my opinion sincerely wrong.

There is a good way to test your beliefs and opinions! It involves reading and thinking.

BTW, Barbara Theiring is on the Jesus Seminar. A link was provided above to an alphabetical listing of the scholars on the Jesus Seminar.

Wow. I did not know that! I don't know if you have read any of her books, but to me they seem more about fantasy than scholarship.

Look from one gospel account to the next and the words vary little. The general structure and message is preserved. Does this really come as such a shock? I also disagree with many of the Jesus Seminar's arbitrary dismissals of certain sayings as coming directly from Jesus. Anyone have R.E. Brown handy to quote from? He mentions some specific examples in his history of the NT.

I have looked at the gospels in some detail and--far from being the harmonious four-fold view of Jesus we have been accustomed to taking for granted--they differ widely in structure and message. You are uninformed. What may be shocking to you is that the late Raymond Brown also took for granted that many of the sayings of Jesus were later placed into his mouth by the evangelists to spin-doctor a Jesus to their own liking. Brown also wrote extensively of Jesus' deeds being manufactured to prove a gospel writer's point or to "prove" an Old Testament "prophecy."

Finally, I don't completely discount the Jesus Seminar's findings, nor do I doubt there sincerity. However, I think they only represent a small corner of Christian scholarship and don't believe that their views alone should be so prominent in the media.

You may be right, but their consensus that Jesus did not say all that is attributed to him is no "small corner." Peer and public review is the perfect way to sharpen the questions of the debate. I for one am glad competent scholarship--from whatever source--is getting out in public.



[This message has been edited by aikido7 (edited April 06, 2001).]

Well, by many Skeptics's claims (specifically those concerning Cold Fusion) any time you report in the media before scholarly journals you invalidate your claims. But this doesn't apply to the Jesus Seminar hype.

FarSeeker

Let's forget about cold fusion for awhile and focus on biblical scholarship.

The fellows of the Jesus Seminar write their papers in private and present and debate them in public. Then they are sometimes published. They are open to public and peer examination and evaluation. After the public debate, the consensus of all attending scholars is published--and sometimes individual papers are published as well.

But let's not focus on the Jesus Seminar specifically, but instead turn our attention to the turn this thread has taken: the presuppositions of mainline biblical scholarship for the past 100 years or so, first articulated nearly 300 years ago.
Biblical scholars have been weighing in
with these presuppositions for a long time;
the Jesus Seminar has been weighing in in a major way and a very public way since the mid-1980s. Why don't you weigh in, too, FarSeeker?

1.Which of the words of Jesus are from
historical memory and which are
theological pronouncements
placed upon his lips by the early
church?

2.Which of the deeds of Jesus are
descriptions of what a camcorder would
have seen and which are powerful
parabolic stories with more than
a surface level of meaning for the
Christian communities who wrote them?

3.What part of Christianity today is the
religion ABOUT Jesus and which part is
the religion OF Jesus? And which is
more useful? Or more threatening?

These are the questions Bible scholars are interested in--the same questions Christians in the pews must answer if the faith is to survive into the next millenium.




[This message has been edited by aikido7 (edited April 10, 2001).]