Key to exposing the Jesus Seminar's view on the historical Jesus (specially Jesus' teachings and deeds) is to have a good command of the so-called criteria of authenticity. These criteria have been developed in order to know if a given saying, teaching or deed by the historical Jesus is likely to be historical.
As I've argued in a previous post, the proper use of the criteria is the positive one, that is, if a given saying or deed passes the criteria, the it is likely to be historical (more exactly, it gives more probability to the authenticity of the saying in question). But if it doesn't pass them, it says nothing about the historicity of the saying or deed in question. A saying could be authentic (and hence historical) even if we cannot prove it on the grounds of our criteria of authenticity.
Reading carefully the reconstructions of the historical Jesus by the Jesus Seminar, you can discover that they use the criteria of authenticity both positively and negatively (in order to consider historical only the sayings of Jesus which fit in their preconceived, anti-Christian and politically correct version of Jesus that they want to accept). So, for example, some of the sayings of Jesus in which he says or implies to be the "Son of God" are considered to be non-historical by the Jesus Seminar.
In the book "The Five Gospels" by the Jesus Seminar, around 80% of the sayings attributed to Jesus are considered to be unauthentic. Note carefully the words used by the Jesus Seminar: "Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels were not actually spoken by him..." (p.5)
Read again the above passage. Can you see that the conclusion is formulated in negative terms ("were NOT actually spoken by him") regarding the 82% of Jesus' sayings in the Gospels which don't satisfy the Seminar's criteria for authenticity?
As I've argued in my post about Jesus' self perception as the "son of God", these sayings commented there PASS positively some criteria of authenticity and hence are likely to be historical. Consistency regarding the use of the criteria of authenticity demands that you accept them as historically likely (if you like it or not). But the Seminar rejects some of these sayings because they imply a Christology which doesn't fit the secularistic, atheistic, specifically anti-Christian agenda of the Seminar. As consequence, the portrait of the historical Jesus made by the Seminar is likely to be false, because it doesn't fit with the actual, positive historical evidence that we have about Jesus (considered as whole and not just fragmentarily).
Consider the Seminar's view on Jesus' post-mortem sayings: "Whenever scholars detect detailed knowledge of postmortem events in sayings and parables attributed to Jesus, they are inclined to view that the formulation of such sayings took place after the fact" (p. 25)
But this "inclination" is an assumption, not a conclusion based on positive, concrete evidence. Moreover, it assumes that "scholars" are materialistic, atheistic "scholars" like the members of the Seminar who don't believe in spirits, God and the afterlife. But what about non-naturalistic scholars?
The Seminar's view assumes that postmortem events cannot exist. The assumption includes the idea that the Gospels are fabricating the information, instead of attesting the known facts. (So, a materialistic, anti-survivalist assumption is added to an anti-Christian assumption on behalf of forcing the evidence on the direction in which the Seminar wants the historical Jesus to be). Clearly these anti-Christian assumptions are pure atheistic wishful thinking, not responsible and objective scholarship.
Objective and consistent historians and scholars would subject the postmortem sayings to the criteria of authenticity and from that consideration alone would conclude if the saying is likely to be historical (the scholar cannot appeal to his own atheistic ideologies or theological convictions as hidden premises and then claim that he is doing objective "historical research") Atheistic ideologues like those in the Seminar assume in advance that such sayings were not historical (regardless of the evidence).
Consider a more egregious example of the Seminar's anti-Christian assumptions: "By definition, words ascribed to Jesus after his death are not subject to historical verification" (p.398)
Read again the above passage.
Technically, you cannot verify any historical event, because it doesn't exist anymore. What can be done is to reconstruct the past using the available evidence. But if the historical evidence points out consistently (and passing positively the standards criteria of authenticity) to afterlife manifestations, then exactly why should us to consider them to be non-historical? Obviously something more than purely historical considerations is operating here. The hidden premise is that the afterlife doesn't exist, and hence no words attributed to Jesus after his death can be veridical (=historical=factual).
The traditional view of Jesus (which essentially includes his resurrection and hence afterlife manifetations) is assumed to be non-historical by definition. I cannot think of a more dishonest, prejudiced, question-begging procedure than this one. It is designed to block any historical investigation and eventual validation of the Jesus as portrayed by traditional Christianity. It determines and guarantees anti-Christian results in advance.
According to the Jesus Seminar, Jesus' teachings after his death are assumed BY DEFINITION (and therefore, a priori, previous to the examination of the historical evidence and independently of it) to be not historical (remember that the Seminar uses the criteria of authenticity negatively too, so they conclude the non-historicity of a given saying or teaching when it cannot be accepted according to their use of historical methods).
In conclusion, we can say that in addition to the positive historical criteria of authenticity, we could add the:
As I've argued in a previous post, the proper use of the criteria is the positive one, that is, if a given saying or deed passes the criteria, the it is likely to be historical (more exactly, it gives more probability to the authenticity of the saying in question). But if it doesn't pass them, it says nothing about the historicity of the saying or deed in question. A saying could be authentic (and hence historical) even if we cannot prove it on the grounds of our criteria of authenticity.
Reading carefully the reconstructions of the historical Jesus by the Jesus Seminar, you can discover that they use the criteria of authenticity both positively and negatively (in order to consider historical only the sayings of Jesus which fit in their preconceived, anti-Christian and politically correct version of Jesus that they want to accept). So, for example, some of the sayings of Jesus in which he says or implies to be the "Son of God" are considered to be non-historical by the Jesus Seminar.
In the book "The Five Gospels" by the Jesus Seminar, around 80% of the sayings attributed to Jesus are considered to be unauthentic. Note carefully the words used by the Jesus Seminar: "Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels were not actually spoken by him..." (p.5)
Read again the above passage. Can you see that the conclusion is formulated in negative terms ("were NOT actually spoken by him") regarding the 82% of Jesus' sayings in the Gospels which don't satisfy the Seminar's criteria for authenticity?As I've argued in my post about Jesus' self perception as the "son of God", these sayings commented there PASS positively some criteria of authenticity and hence are likely to be historical. Consistency regarding the use of the criteria of authenticity demands that you accept them as historically likely (if you like it or not). But the Seminar rejects some of these sayings because they imply a Christology which doesn't fit the secularistic, atheistic, specifically anti-Christian agenda of the Seminar. As consequence, the portrait of the historical Jesus made by the Seminar is likely to be false, because it doesn't fit with the actual, positive historical evidence that we have about Jesus (considered as whole and not just fragmentarily).
Consider the Seminar's view on Jesus' post-mortem sayings: "Whenever scholars detect detailed knowledge of postmortem events in sayings and parables attributed to Jesus, they are inclined to view that the formulation of such sayings took place after the fact" (p. 25)
But this "inclination" is an assumption, not a conclusion based on positive, concrete evidence. Moreover, it assumes that "scholars" are materialistic, atheistic "scholars" like the members of the Seminar who don't believe in spirits, God and the afterlife. But what about non-naturalistic scholars?
The Seminar's view assumes that postmortem events cannot exist. The assumption includes the idea that the Gospels are fabricating the information, instead of attesting the known facts. (So, a materialistic, anti-survivalist assumption is added to an anti-Christian assumption on behalf of forcing the evidence on the direction in which the Seminar wants the historical Jesus to be). Clearly these anti-Christian assumptions are pure atheistic wishful thinking, not responsible and objective scholarship.
Objective and consistent historians and scholars would subject the postmortem sayings to the criteria of authenticity and from that consideration alone would conclude if the saying is likely to be historical (the scholar cannot appeal to his own atheistic ideologies or theological convictions as hidden premises and then claim that he is doing objective "historical research") Atheistic ideologues like those in the Seminar assume in advance that such sayings were not historical (regardless of the evidence).
Consider a more egregious example of the Seminar's anti-Christian assumptions: "By definition, words ascribed to Jesus after his death are not subject to historical verification" (p.398)
Read again the above passage.
Technically, you cannot verify any historical event, because it doesn't exist anymore. What can be done is to reconstruct the past using the available evidence. But if the historical evidence points out consistently (and passing positively the standards criteria of authenticity) to afterlife manifestations, then exactly why should us to consider them to be non-historical? Obviously something more than purely historical considerations is operating here. The hidden premise is that the afterlife doesn't exist, and hence no words attributed to Jesus after his death can be veridical (=historical=factual).
The traditional view of Jesus (which essentially includes his resurrection and hence afterlife manifetations) is assumed to be non-historical by definition. I cannot think of a more dishonest, prejudiced, question-begging procedure than this one. It is designed to block any historical investigation and eventual validation of the Jesus as portrayed by traditional Christianity. It determines and guarantees anti-Christian results in advance.
According to the Jesus Seminar, Jesus' teachings after his death are assumed BY DEFINITION (and therefore, a priori, previous to the examination of the historical evidence and independently of it) to be not historical (remember that the Seminar uses the criteria of authenticity negatively too, so they conclude the non-historicity of a given saying or teaching when it cannot be accepted according to their use of historical methods).
In conclusion, we can say that in addition to the positive historical criteria of authenticity, we could add the:
Jesus Seminar's atheistic and anti-Christian criteria of unathentitcity and non-historicity:
1-If a given Jesus' teaching or saying support the traditional view of Jesus as divine, it's non-historical (i.e. was not actually uttered by Jesus) and was invented by the Church.
2-(Essentially connected to 1): Jesus' sayings implying Christology are non-historical.
3-If Jesus' teachings were uttered after his physical dead, they are (by definition) not historical, because the afterlife doesn't exist and dead people cannot say or teach anything.
The above criteria works better if, as a rhetorical ploy to produce peer pressure, you claim (without any evidence), that "mainline scholars" agree with your view about Jesus, and that only ultra-conservatives and fundamentalist Christians, exclusively or mostly motivated by "faith", reject your conclusions.
In future posts, the misuse of the criteria of aunthenticity by the Jesus Seminar and how this directly affect the reconstruction of the historical Jesus will be discussed.
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