Overcoming The Jesus Seminar: Because We Can

There is a group today, sponsored under the name of the Westar Institute, which dubs itself the "Jesus Seminar." They have gained quite a bit of public notoriety for themselves with their controversial -- and quite unbiblical in the traditional sense of the word -- portraits of the Lord Jesus. Earlier "historical" and literary efforts in the "Quest For the Historical Jesus" have redefined what it means to count a passage as historical or a saying as "authentic," by recasting the Documentary evidence of the Older and Newer Testaments in light of naturalistic and evolutionary views behind the historical development of each Testament.

The works of the likes of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, John Meier and others continue the trajectory found earlier in the 1970's, which portraits recast the historical role of Jesus of Nazareth according to the various social and economic groups known to exercise influence in the era of New Testament Judaism under Roman rule. Alternatively, these have portrayed the Lord of Glory as a middle-eastern Magus, a Zealot, Pharisee, an Essene, or revolutionary peasant of some charisma, a Jewish miracle-worker like Honi, the circle drawer, or else in light of other extra-biblical evidence regarding social roles known to have then existed.
Though disparate and quite conflicted, these portraits tend to depend upon a common and overlapping set of criteria used to isolate literary units ["pericopes" -- say "Per RICK uh pees"] used [so the story goes] to compile the Gospel accounts as they presently sit, and assess the likelihood that such accounts actually originated with the "historical" (meaning the veridical) Jesus, rather than being born of the religious enthusiasm of early Christian communities by way of legendary growth.

The background to the rules they follow has to do with the way they envision how the different kinds of gospel materials arose. First, they hold that the early sayings and deeds [alleged] of Jesus circulated in small units, the dreaded pericopes, which -- in some instances -- later editors or redactors altered and compiled, weaving them into yet larger literary units, and eventually into the final products we now know as the canonical Gospels.

Of course, they do not believe that the names assigned to the Gospels (which do not appear as titles on the earliest manuscript copies of the Gospels themselves) were actually the names of the authors. Each Gospel underwent significant change as it circulated in different Christian communities in a somewhat "piecemeal" fashion. In other words, they are composed of a good deal of authentic material, stuffed in between hollywood license (called "accretions," which means "made up stuff").


Now, enter the "Synoptic Problem." Three of the Gospels notoriously overlap at a good many points, saying what sometimes seems an exact quote of the other guy(s). But just which borrowed from which to get such exact citations? The general view among Gospels historians is called "Marcan priority." This views suggests that Luke and Matthew (not personally, but the Gospels which bear their name) depended upon two independent literary sources: the first was Mark, and the second is a reconstructed (hypothetical) document called "Q" for the abbreviation of "Quelle" (German for "Source" -- say "KVEL-luh," and shoot a rifle into the air twice).

Q stands for the material which Luke and Matthew have in common that you can't find anywhere in Mark. So, to explain the uncanny likeness of the stuff that Luke and Matthew have, that Mark seems to know nothing of, they assume these writers (okay, redactors) had handy a popular "sayings source" from the early Church to tell more than Mark does, which is why it shows up in Matthew and Luke (both considered it a reliable source).

So we have Matthew and Luke. They got much of their overlap by both leaning on Mark for info, and by both looking to "Q" when not leaning on Mark for their overlap. Some also posit documents called "L" and "M" but let's not go there this time, since it just gums up the works a little and is quite controversial even among people who believe this "Gospel development Myth." I call this the Jesus Seminar's GDM. In some form, it tends to operate behind the scenes in most all discussions of the Gospels when the question of historicity arises.

But few (any?) apply the same methodological skepticism to the GDM as they do to the Gospels when taking for granted the historicity of the GDM itself. Me? I'm just a wee bit more skeptical -- you know -- goose, gander. A few brief notes on the GDM are appropriate here, though I will not utterly fry its bacon on the spot since it is actually somewhat useful to take it for granted and then show that -- on one interpretation of it -- nearly all Gospel material is in fact verified. So you can go either way with this for the sake of apologetics, depending on which poison you wish to feed them - their own, or biblical truth (Both kill the weeds like roundup).

The TRUTH? They can't HANDLE the TRUTH. So we'll just assume they are approximately correct on the GDM story (Frog-prince not included, actual mileage may vary, offer void where prohibited). Now, there is, after much searching high and low in the records of antiquity, no reference to, or evidence of, any such document, or set of documents as "Q" requires. It is a post-modern psuedo-historical (but very useful for GDM lovers) "non-source" with all the promise of puff the magic dragon.

So first, we the believing crowd, wish to note that we are here -- Q is neither "historical," and those who adopt it are not particularly "critical" in their methodological approach. One quick VanTillian note: it is never a question of faith versus no faith, but only a question of WHICH faith you will assume when beginning your "historical" investigation. Some have faith in "Q," while others see this as the kind of legendary growth we wish to avoid in calling our study "historical." The fact that most scholars in the field currently assume it, is no more reason to adopt it than the fact that most people voted democrat last election is a reason to do likewise.

Second, there are excellent arguments which can overturn Marcan priority in favor of Matthean priority (which has been making something of a comeback lately). I will not rehearse these here, but mention this to point out that Marcan priority -- an operational assumption of the "Jesugeschichte" crowd - has been challenged with great effect.

The truth? Luke tells plainly that he is well aware of MANY such Gospel accounts and depends on no one of them solely, nor does he lean entirely to literary sources, but interviews his sources, and probably the sources behind those literary sources. As one of my seminary Professors put it so well. "Luke had another name for Q. He called it 'Mary.'"

Here, he refered to the mother of Jesus of whom Luke says repeatedly, "She treasured up these things." How would Luke know that? He ASKED her, and she told him, ergo the interview thesis implied by the internal evidence of Luke's Gospel itself. This also follows the historiographic tradtion of the "interviewing traveler" for which Herodotus was well-known centuries before Luke. There is no reason to suppose Luke did not do likewise. Doctors made house calls back then. Luke was used to this.

We also know that the Lord Jesus taught his disciples 40 days following the resurrection, and that the apostles became thereafter the guarantors of the Jesus traditions. Paul said so in 1 Corinthians 11 by citing the dominical command concerning the Lord's Supper as a "tradition" passed down from Jesus to the apostles, and from the apostles to the Corinthians. The opening verse of that chapter indicates just this:

"Be ye followers of me [my teachings], even as I also am of Christ [and His teachings]." The second verse continues this line of thought, where the word "remember" means retain the tradition without change" -- this is a covenantal notion of remembering, not a cognitive use of the term. It means transmitting and keeping without alteration. It is a rabbinical term.

He says: "Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you." Here, remember in the immediate context equates with "keep the ordinances just as I delivered them to you [unaltered] from Jesus."

Thus, when Paul later says, "Shall I praise you in this? I DO NOT praise you.." He goes on to show them where they have deviated from the dominical and apostolic liturgical pattern. Thus Paul must "set them in order" by restoring the tradition (apodosis) as Christ gave it so that they "remember" both the Lord Jesus and Paul. To "forget" is a synonym for "break covenant" by violating the God-given pattern of things in matters of worship (since all oaths are a matter of worship). The loose woman of the proverbs "forgets" the companion of her youth, and the covenant of her God. Forgetting implies reckless abandon, where remembering ("Remember your Creator while you are still in your youth," warns Solomon) means to "treasure up" his commands in your heart -- commit them to memory and carefully carry out his commands so as to keep them just as he gave them.

God does not want innovation in worship. He wants OBEDIENCE. We are to reserve creativity and talent for the dominion mandate, where ingenuity can really get you ahead in the world of capitalism.

Paul continues the point. Verse 16 reads: "But if any man seem to be contentious [about this issue], we [the apostles who received our traditions from Christ] have no such custom, neither [do] the churches of God. The apostolic traditions are dominical. The deliver them JUST AS they have received them from Christ. Thus, since they impose just the same liturgical pattern on all Churches -- reproving them and restoring the pattern when the churches like Corinth deviate from it in the least -- the churches of God themselves are a living testimony by their common practice to what Jesus has taught from the first.


Verse 17 reads, [As Paul begins to reprove them for their abuses in communion and restore the dominical priestly order] "Now in this [next thing] that I declare [in the name of the Lord] unto you I praise you not, that [because] ye come together not for the better, but for the worse [having forgotten the dominical order in communion].

Verses 20-21 continue this line of thought:

"When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper [for you are not following the LORD's pattern for the supper; thus you celebrate Your OWN idolatrous supper]. For in eating every one taketh [out of order] before [the] other his own supper: and one is [left] hungry, and another is [falls] drunken.

[They had forgotten the dominical order; the love feast (with the Lord's supper) was for the poor who had nothing, but the Corinthians showed up hungry instead of eating their fill at home, so that the one's who ate at the charity feast were the ones who COULD NOT eat at home -- the poor. So the Corithians "shamed him who has nothing" and sent the poor man away hungry, defeating the whole point of the feast -- to show forth the Gospel tangibly -- "come eat bread without price" as Isaiah says of the Word .... Some were even drinking too much of the wine that was to be used for the Lord's supper, and their obvious drunken folly was the sufficient reductio ad absurdum to Paul's point.

1 Cor. 16:1-2 explains how the priestly order of Christ (Melchizedek) was to be carried out each week (concerning the poor and how the love feast was to be paid for). It reads:

"Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given **order** to *the churches* of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come."

A general collection was taken up each Sunday (by the deacons though we are only told this elsewhere), and set aside -- this was a freewill offering, not the tithe, but in addition to it. Paul gave this order to multiple "churches" in Galatia as a standing order, and to the Corinthians -- it was a permanent rule (EACH Lord's day) -- and this money was to be used for the REGULAR business of the church -- any hungry church, which in this case was Jerusalem's church.

Recall that Jerusalem's church had grown very fast, and shared all things in common, because the Lord kept adding people by the thousands to the number of the saints. And even the handsome donations of men like Barnabas could not keep pace with the boom cycle.

Josephus tells us that "James the Just" exercised great influence as a leader in this church. This explains why James 1 rails against the GREEDY rich among the saints who refused to give to the Jerusalem Church out of what God has prospered them, and thus laid a greater burden on the other churches, as we see here. James also preached against the sin of favoritism, favoring the rich in the church, giving them preference over the poor. Being wealthy was not the problem. Being proud of one's wealth, making a show of donations, or refusing to share it in loving the saints as one does himself (if one must love his neighbor as himself, how much more the household of faith?). James hated greed, not wealth. Paul's Galatian-Corinthian mandate implied that God had prospered some of them just SO they could help their brothers with less.

The occasional poor - whichever church happened to need it at the time - would recieve out of this giving. If Jerusalem every stopped being poor (it didn't), there was always Smyrna to help (the very poor, but rich!, church of Asia Minor). Each church also had its poorer members since the Church targeted in its preaching the marginalized (slaves, prostitutes -- who were often oppressed into their "profession" -- lepers, the lame, blind, etc), and we see this fact illustrated in 1 Corinthians. For they "shamed the poor," the pointed recipients of the charity feasts. These are mentioned briefly in Jude's epistle where false teachers glutted themselves abusively on such meals also. Apparently, the Corithian charity feast problem, eating and drinking too much, was not uncommon. Other churches faced the same problem. The saints were to help cut down on this problem by eating first at home, and simply conserving the resources of the Church when possible, so that those who really needed them could have access -- as the deacons and elders deemed profitable or necessary.

The charity feast was a common meal, suited to both saint and newcomer, while the Lord's supper was for the saints alone (probably held at the end of each charity feast which seems to have been a part of the service itself for convenience sake). They would have had a break, as it were, in the service, where the common meal was served. Then they would have returned when everyone poor was full (and the wealthy ate very little, just enough to make company of the others, for they were to eat at home and then come to church). Then the Lord's supper would be served at the end of the service.

This subject has not been treated well at any length so far as I can find (comments from anyome with source notes refuting this point are welcomed), and needs unpacking from the precursors of the Older Testament to enlighten the topic. For instance, the OT requires crop-farmers not to glean doubly, or at the edges of their fields near the borders, so that the poor may come and eat what was not harvested. See Leviticus and Ruth. There is in fact a larger systematic-canonical theology of charity, and especially of meals, which could and should be brought to bear upon this question.

For there to be gluttony and drunkenness at Corinth, this could not have resulted simply from abusing communion. And the original giving of the Lord's supper is what Paul cites, the passover Jesus shared with his disciples. They had eaten a full meal when Jesus brake bread and distributed wine.

People often forget that the Lord's Supper replaces ALL the holiday festivals in Israel, not just the Passover, and so elements of several can be seen in it. There is decisively NOT a lonely one-to-one correspondence between the Passover and Lord's Supper. And there is, of course, much difference between them. The Lord's Supper fulfills and replaces all the sacrifices (Contra Roma, it is not itself a sacrifice, but a judicially-authorized means of applying the benefits of a sacrifice), as the Lord Jesus fulfills all things written in the Law of Moses. Here, the typical paedo-communion arguments falter badly.

As a brief aside on Paedo-communion. Assuming that children regularly partook of the Older Covenant meal is not any way decisive for the debate. In fact, it is marginal at best either way. For there are clearly points of both continuity and discontinuity between the two celebrations from separate covenants. The decisive point is sacramental, not sacrificial. Any view of the Lord's Supper used as a comparison -- apart from noting it's relationship to baptism -- is necessarily insufficient to the point. This is because the New Testament presents baptism and the Lord's Supper as a package deal, though each has requirements acknowledging their different functions. So they are unified with respect to their covenantal efficacy -- they both put into effect for the individual the same covenant and sacrifice -- but diverse with respect to what they are intended to accomplish. One initiates singly, while the other confirms repeatedly.

For this reason, in order for the paedo-communion argument to succeed, its protagonists must at this point prove two things:

1. children of any age could eat the Passover, and
2. This has not changed in the Newer Covenant.

"But" the PC advocate will complain, "we are supposed to assume the principle of continuity as Theonomists." This is contradicted flatly by Paul. He calls the Lord's Supper an "ordinance" [a regulation regarding holy matters, not common. It's precursors are thus ceremonial in nature.

This is implied by what Paul says in the early verses of chapter 11. Hebrews 6-8 deals with just such questions -- ordinances are the laws regarding what is ceremonial and necessarily tied to the Temple. Thus, it has (per Hebrews) the assumption of DIScontinuity -- unless proven otherwise.

Thus, only by ignoring that the Lord's Supper is only for the Church (tied necessarily to the New Covenant Temple), as the Passover was timed to the sacrifice of the Temple in Jerusalem (even though eaten in the home), only by ignoring the ceremonial character of the Passover, can the advocate of PC land his bird without crashing.

Both 1 Corinthians 11 and Hebrews 7 make plain that the PC advocate does only half the job, therefore, like the sluggard who buries his hand in the dish and will not return it TO HIS MOUTH. If you want communion to make it to the mouths of babes, you must finish the job. This means that there is simply no way to show the point of continuity between the Passover and the Lord's Supper (Specifically) between ages of their respective recipients.

In fact age was never the issue, since nature itself distinguishes men from boys, and women from girls. Pauls asks regarding the light of nature, "Does not even nature teach us that..." The point of greatest covenantal importance has to do with the fact that baptism and the Lord's Supper share a particular relationship to each other. And this relationship demands that one only partake of the Lord's Supper when he is able by moral self-examination of life to CONFIRM or "improve" his baptism. Without the requisite moral knowledge of what baptism entails as a lifestyle, by partaking of the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner, one can only degrade the promise of his baptism. You do not want to confirm yourself in a covenant-breaking moral situation since this can be deadly. The Corinthians learned this the hard way.

Thus, it is not the relationship between the Passover and the Lord's Supper which decides the issue most clearly (for this arbitrarily singles out Passover without considering the relationships of ALL other festival sacrifices to the Lord's Supper also (and also the Older Testament elements of the Temple like the Table of the Showbread, which is clearly a type of the Lord's Supper, and only the priests -- and King David and his men -- could eat from it), but the relationship between both sacraments of the New Covenant. Recall that Lord Jesus raised just this point when eating grain (bread-wheat) on the Sabbath, with His men.

Jesus compares Himself and His men to David and his men. Jesus implies He is the Messianic "Son of David." So if David could eat what was only for priests without guilt, how much more Jesus! So the Son of Man is even Lord of the Sabbath (to decide who can or cannot eat what and be guilt free before God). Since Jesus was called "Lord of the Sabbath," the Christian Sabbath became "The Lord's Day." This reference in Mark 2 is precisely where that name for the Sabbath came from. If Christ is uniquely Lord of the Sabbath, then the Sabbath is uniquely HIS Day. And On the Lord's Day, it is still lawful only for priest-kings to eat the showbread. Kings and priests have the promise of the dual office from baptism, but one first needs training. Samuel was set apart for the ministry from birth by the Lord. This did not mean Samuel could be a priest at age 6. It means he could train at age 6. Samuel must have been a sight in the tiny priestly ephod Hannah had made for him (making him something like a mascot of the priests).

The same "training" point is true with appointed marriages.

All Christians are priests and kings IN TRAINING. But the children do not yet know the duties of priests and kings. So they are not yet eligible for the showbread. Children must first be catechized in order for them to know their moral duties. The same is true of adults. "Differing weights and differing measures, both alike are an abomination to the Lord. Even a child is known by his ways, whether his conduct is pure and right." These verses are (respectively) proverbs 20:10 and 20:11. There is a reason for this, They form an exegetical unit, a unit hostile in principle to paedo-communion. For it requires a double standard, which biblical theonomy forbids.

When the Westminster divines penned the WLC questions on communion, they were still doing systematic theology self-consciously. Their regulative principle of worship (what I call "theonomy inside the Church" -- or ecclesiastical theonomy) is therefore itself consistent only with credo-communion. These may have been "mere mortals," but they were also Spirit-filled geniuses entirely "on the job." One can only ignore their wisdom regarding communion at great peril. "A wise man sees danger coming and takes refuge, but a foolish man keeps going, and suffers for it." Where do the wise take refuge? Solomon knows. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe. (This strong tower is nothing but the international Church of Jesus Christ the Lord; "faithful instruction [catechism] is upon her lips").

So the PC position goes in like a lion, but comes out like a well-cooked, bitter-herb basted lamb. Now I return to the question of the Seminar and their "historicity" criteria. What does it take to know that some piece of information actually originated with Jesus historically (and was not some later addition by a well-meaning overly "pious" community)?

The Seminar's more famous criteria used to determine this go by various names and are relied upon to a greater or lesser degree by this or that "Quest" author. So what do Crossan and Borg think is the key to historical success or "authentic sayings"?

These are the criteria of:

1. Dissimilarity: sayings or deed reportedly performed by Jesus which set him apart from others known to have been common at the time are to be considered historical or authentic, since no traditions existed according to which one might have created such information about him. These are the countercultural features of Jesus's life and sayings.

2. Multiple Attestation. When two or more independent sources present similar or consistent accounts, it is at least certain that the tradition upon which the sayings depend predates the sources. Most consider such accounts likely to be authentic or historical.

3. Palestinian Environment -- linguistic features ascribed to Jesus -- especially as incidental details in the narratives -- which were known to be native to early first-century Palestine are to be considered early -- since this reflects the early Church which originated in Jerusalem and became progressively more "Greek" or "Gentile" as it grew. This provides a kind of linguistic "clock" whereby one can work backwards to see earlier authentic or historical elements in the text. [I must admit, I find this particular linguistic criterion "brilliant"]

4. Coherence: any account consistent with the results of the other criteriological standards is to be considered historical or authentic.

5. Counterproductive Literary Features.

When the author(s) admit information likely to be at cross purposes with the evangelical impulse for which the Gospel accounts were written, there the information given is likely authentic or historical (For instance, the exchange from John's Gospel in which Jesus' opponent's cast doubt upon the legitimacy of his birth would have been an admission that some thought what Christians hold as blasphemy to be true of Jesus; Jesus seeking out a woman of lesser reputation at a well would be another example -- even his disciples were evidently annoyed by this). Other examples include admissions that Jesus does not know this or that information, apparent denials of his goodness (why do you call me good?), and the like -- making it more difficult to acknowedge his deity in later theological circles.

This also shows insufficient time had passed - like the backward working clock for language use, this applies the same to degree of theological maturity -- for such sections to have been tampered with by the theology of those of more mature reflection. If you are going to write a fictitious biography of your hero, you leave out the parts about hanging out with prostitutes, lepers and slaves. This is not likely to endear him to any 1st century audience. The Jews thought them cursed, and the Romans thought them a waste of humanity (slaves could be crucified since they were just property in Roman law).

Curiously, in unguarded moments, signature members of the "Jesus Seminar" allow that the entire Christian gospel message -- a summarized account of the Gospels -- should count as historical because they note that it flaunts so many of the conventions of Greco-Roman society as to be odious (and therefore highly unlikely to succeed at the task of evangelism).

Methodological Skepticism Explained and Evaluated (and carpet bombed).

Some have suggested the reverse of the above should also be the case. The "Seminar" likes this idea very much in fact. For example, various sections of the gospels, such as the Massacre of the Innocents, portray Jesus' life as fulfilling prophecy, and in the view of many scholars, reflect the agenda of the gospel authors rather than historical events. So, say they, we should distrust these accounts. The problem with this view is that the historical impulse (wanting to tell the truth about a remarkable person) is just as good a reason to write as any other personal reason.

Here are some excellent reasons to begin examining Methodological Skepticism by its own standard. Here is why you should be highly skeptical about such dubious assumptions.

This methodological presupposition favors the assumption of falsity until proven otherwise, or "methodological skepticism" by name, just what all western courts deny as proper procedure. Most historians deny that this is proper procedure too, making these ones exceptional in their skepticism.

Many historians have weighed in against this method, as it puts the historical sources at an extreme and unusual disadvantage. Any testifying they do on their own behalf cannot be considered proof (internal evidence ends up always being suspicious, meaning one must establish a document's historicity from external sources), when, in the nature of the case, few such confirmatory sources ever existed, and even fewer survived as extant sources today. This then represents a selective (arbitrary) approach, prejudicially singling out the New Testament for such excruciating standards, while exhonerating other simply because they do not make claims about such unique people.

The New Testament says, "Jesus was (and is) very extraordinary." Thus, pointing out the extraordinary claims in the New Testament as a reason for treating it more harshly assumes that unique things simply do not happen, and we should be more suspicious when one claims they do. An easy refutation to this is found in the Guiness Book of World Records, which records a host of unique people and events (if they are not unique, they do not make it into the book). This is NOT Considered "propaganda" just because the author is very concerned to find such people and put on display their incredible feats. So why distrust the biblical writers for doing likewise? They also were very concerned to record unique people and events, and the very uniqueness of them was the sufficient motive -- rather than tall-tale telling -- for writing about them.

This shows a great deal of personal prejudice built into the Jesus Seminar's "criterological machinery." Thus they decry the very prejudice in others they themselves display (but in reverse).

This is called the fallacy of self-exception, in which one enjoins upon all others a rule from which he arbitrarily exempts his own writings. Moreover, if we judge the Jesus Seminar by this, their own rule, then they did not in fact say most of what they wrote. It was the tendentious work of later theologians seeking to redact such works according to their own cultural values and agendas.

Would anyone seriously entertain this? I doubt it. This does not account for the evangelistic impulse in the first place (Why would anyone bother, especially if it might get you killed?). Moreover, God-fearing Jews did not believe in taking literary license with testimony about God. Paul makes this plain regarding the resurrection of Jesus, saying if God did not raise Christ as an historical act, then we [the apostles] are found false witnesses about God!

Paul clearly held forth a distinction betwen what is historical and what is not. He knew that "accretions" were lies to be shunned, and the early Christian communities necessarily held the apostolic view of such things. Thus, the supposed "legendary growth" aspect of the source-development story behind the Gospels should be suspected as unhistorical unless and until it can be proven by solid historical evidence. This is another point at which undue skepticism resides within the criteriology of the Seminar (and other like radical NT critics).

Again, internal evidence -- and a good deal of it -- tells a different story. Both Testaments of the Bible have self-conscious evidentiary standards it applies to all matters of controversy, which implies that this is also part and parcel of the biblical view of what properly counts as "historical" or not. This is why Jewish (Deuteronomic) jurisprudence required multiple eye-witnesses to establish as historical any alleged fact. It also requires, where possible, a cross examination of sources, living or written, in the proverb, "The first to present his case seems just, UNTIL another comes forward to question [cross-examine] him."

Earlier historians show a similar awareness of this distinction -- Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius -- and the Deuteronomic evidentiary requirements were more strict that those of the historiographic canons of the pagan world. Paul shows that he knows this (2 Cor. 13:1 cites Deuteronomy "by the testimony of two or three witnesses is every matter [including historical matters, since these are often the basis of a present legal case in the Bible] established." "Every matter" means EVERY matter of controversy, past, present or future.

Moreover, the very qualification of apostleship assumes this - for just the deuteronmic evidentiary requirement -- mandated that one be an eye-witness to the entire ministry of Jesus from its inception (Acts 1).

The assumption of the Jesus Seminar regarding apostolic views of evidence and history is simply naive (or as they would say, "ahistorical") in the extreme. There is no good reason to doubt -- for the stalwart consistency of the Gospels, and even from what Jospehus says of Jewish jurisprudence in the first century -- that the New Testament has anything but the most stringent criteria for what may count as historical, or that it did not regard "legendary growth" or "literary accretion" regarding Jesus as false testimony to be shunned at all costs under the third and ninth commandments.

Paul shunned outrightly "false teachings," "another gospel" (note the word Gospel) and "another Jesus" taught by false ministers (an alleged "angel of light"). John the apostle repeatedly warns --like Peter and Jude -- against false teachers, false "christs" and teachings about Jesus not consistent with apostolic doctrine, which was rooted in eye-witness testimony. Paul sets the forth the eyewitnesses to the historical resurrection of Jesus as the information of first importance when introducing the topic in 1 Cor. 15, and delibeately puts the full weight of the historicity of this claim to bear on his own apostleship -- and that of the 12. He has no desire to be thought anything but a blasphemous liar should the resurrection of the body of Jesus be anything but what "our eyes have seen, and our hands have handled." For nothing but this tangible proof would ever have persuaded Thomas. And John knows this. He is quite historically aware, and jurisprudentially self-conscious. God is a Judge, and as such, has criteriological ideas too. These are found in the First and Second Testaments, and look nothing like what is warranted by any methodological skepticism.

The evangelists had to meet such skepticism in their own time in order for such accounts to make it into the Bible IN THE FIRST PLACE. For this same reason, not just anyone could become an apostle. Only a kind of chronological snobbery, and naive assessment of ancient, deuteronomic historiographic standards could hope to justify the "Jesus Seminar" approach to "default skepticism" regarding the Newer Testament accounts.

So thus far, we may say of the JSem position:

1. It depends on very unlikely assumptions about the nature of the development of the sources -- and of the Christian view of these sources and they way they did or did not handle them -- behind the Gospels.

2. Q probably never existed, and there is no "non-hypothetical" (fact-based) reason to think otherwise. It is "unhistorical," the very no-no we supposedly need special criteria for, in order to avoid ahistorical "legends" when studying the Gospels "material." Okay for us; not so much for you. You see how that works?

3. There is a good chance that "Marcan Priority" is a theory based on legendary growth (started by earlier scholars in the nineteenth century and popularized by people like Bultman and Kasemann) rather than hard evidence. And the Seminary cannot prove otherwise to the satisfaction of most historians (and they know this).

I don't know whether to laugh or cry here either.

4. Most every methodological, philosophical, and historiographic assumption built into the Seminar's interpretive machinery completely ignores the internal evidence from both Testaments -- in substantial supply -- that they are simply mistaken in such assumptions.

The apostles did in fact carefully distinguish between historical and ahistorical material, affirming and carefully guarding the one, and shunning and refuting the other. This was part and parcel of the apostolic guarantorship of the deposit of truth laid to their trust by Christ as the "pillar and ground of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

The Older and Newer Testamental evidentiary requirements for jurisprudence, and the qualifications of the apostles themselves ensure this. So does the standard historical methodology shown and told by Luke the beloved physician and excellent historian. The early Christians were source-checkers. They sought to PREVENT legendary growth of any kind in the sources they used, and thus made the most stringent evidentiary requirements for their historical work "standardized," not only by first-hand investigations, but by running their sources by the apostolic eye-witnesses, and by reading up on the other Gospel accounts currently available. Luke says there were many, but that he wanted a more orderly account (presumably he means "Chronological order.").

This implies that Luke has read each and every one of the earlier Gospel sources and critiqued them, finding them to loose in terms of the ordering of events -- even though the information they contained was accurate. Accuracy was not the problem. Order was the problem. Luke was a scientist, and scientists need things just so. I know some of them. This saying is worthy of full acceptance.

Luke simply believed that new converts like Theophilus could not sort out which event in the life of Jesus ministry came where and when in relation to the other events of the tradition the way eye-witnesses could fill in some of the details easily resolving what would otherwise look contradictory. This is always the case with historical events. First-handers take for granted information others would dispute as contradictory, because the first-hand sources know information they do not tell to others (you can never say EVERY thing about an event).

So Luke sought to set in order the exact order of events chronologically that the early Christians took for granted as true regarding Jesus from eye-witnesses. Now Luke was not an eye-witness, and we do not know how much of Jesus' ministry (if any) he saw first hand. So Luke pores through all the contemporary sources available on the topic, checks with the apostles, travels to go interview sources first-hand, and compares all the least details in his writings until he is so steeped in first-hand source material that he confidently announces to Theophilus that he has a "perfect knowledge" of all things about which he writes.

All good evidence is that Luke is a far better historian that modern critics will admit. This is why when they challenge Luke's accuracy they regularly get burned. This has in fact happened repeatedly, but does not make the press much. I can rehearse these instances later. The simple fact upon which the Seminary stumbles grossly is that Luke is clearly to good history what Walter Payton was to running.

Here, I am pretty sure I am supposed to laugh, but it must be completely historical laughter.

5. The Seminar's "Methodological Skepticism" in particular turns out to be self-refuting, fallacious (self-exception is an informal fallacy) unwarranted so far as many ancient historians are concerned; it is contrary to all the internal evidence of both Testaments regarding the great care the apostles and prophets took regarding accuracy and fidelity to past, and it belittles without warrant the historiographically-advanced nature of the biblical law; in the end, such skepticism receives little help by the criteria they allow to be used to establish this or that pericope as authentic or historical over against it.

To this topic my next post shall turn. The beatings will continue until morale and "Seminar" historiography improve.