I want to finish this year posting in my blog with a personal reflection of an "outsider" regarding many of the cultural and religious ideas in the Western world (even though, to be honest, I don't consider myself an outsider anymore).
Among scholars, there is a debate about the Historical Jesus (who was Jesus really, what his actual teachings are, etc.) and its connection with the biblical Jesus.
For traditional Christians, Jesus was the son of God and hence the exclusive way to God's Kingdom and so forth. For the people like the members of the so-called Jesus Seminar (leaving aside individuals like Robert M. Price who is a Jesus' denialist), Jesus was at most a spiritual teacher, social reformer and/or a cynic philosopher, who wasn't the Son of God and obviously wasn't resurrected in a literal sense either.
In my opinion, the true identity of the historical Jesus stands or falls, largely, with the historicity of the resurrection. If the latter is a historical fact, then the view of Christians seem to be plausible regarding the biblical claims of divinity about Jesus. Jesus wouldn't be simply another spiritual teacher or "reformer" among many others, with some interesting insights, sayings and contributions for spiritual salvation; but that his resurrection (provided this occured) is an unique fact in history which, giving its putative supernatural cause, seems to validate his radical claims and status and give him an unique authoritative and privileged position among "spiritual teachers". An unique extraordinary spiritual and plausibly supernatural event like the resurrection is what one would expect from an unique spiritual teacher sent by God with unique and special credentials as evidence of the divine authority of his claims.
The Jesus Seminar tend to reject Jesus' resurrection as an historical fact precisely because its members correctly and consistently realizes that the resurrection, if historical, would make hard to deny Jesus' unique connection with God and Christianity's exclusivistic claims of salvation. It could be denied only in a very idiosyncratic, largely arbitrary and contraived way (and no major New Testament scholar, including a radical critic like John Dominic Crossan, seems prepared to take this idiosyncratic and implausible view).
Among scholars, there is a debate about the Historical Jesus (who was Jesus really, what his actual teachings are, etc.) and its connection with the biblical Jesus.
For traditional Christians, Jesus was the son of God and hence the exclusive way to God's Kingdom and so forth. For the people like the members of the so-called Jesus Seminar (leaving aside individuals like Robert M. Price who is a Jesus' denialist), Jesus was at most a spiritual teacher, social reformer and/or a cynic philosopher, who wasn't the Son of God and obviously wasn't resurrected in a literal sense either.
In my opinion, the true identity of the historical Jesus stands or falls, largely, with the historicity of the resurrection. If the latter is a historical fact, then the view of Christians seem to be plausible regarding the biblical claims of divinity about Jesus. Jesus wouldn't be simply another spiritual teacher or "reformer" among many others, with some interesting insights, sayings and contributions for spiritual salvation; but that his resurrection (provided this occured) is an unique fact in history which, giving its putative supernatural cause, seems to validate his radical claims and status and give him an unique authoritative and privileged position among "spiritual teachers". An unique extraordinary spiritual and plausibly supernatural event like the resurrection is what one would expect from an unique spiritual teacher sent by God with unique and special credentials as evidence of the divine authority of his claims.
The Jesus Seminar tend to reject Jesus' resurrection as an historical fact precisely because its members correctly and consistently realizes that the resurrection, if historical, would make hard to deny Jesus' unique connection with God and Christianity's exclusivistic claims of salvation. It could be denied only in a very idiosyncratic, largely arbitrary and contraived way (and no major New Testament scholar, including a radical critic like John Dominic Crossan, seems prepared to take this idiosyncratic and implausible view).
Summary of my reflections, ideas and suggestions:
The following is a summary of my current opinion about the debate regarding the historical Jesus. Please, don't take these points as an authoritative opinion (after all, I'm not a New Testament scholar even thought I'm studying the topic intensively) nor as conclusive conclusions. See them more as reflections and ideas for further inquiry and food for thought.
However, I'm going to support my opinions with scholarly evidence, references and facts (specially evidence coming from skeptics and critics of Christianity) in order to provide objectivity to my views and specially to avoid pure speculations, and force my interested readers to thinking hard about these questions.
Also, I'm not going to argue for or against Jesus' Resurrection in this post. I'm interested just in arguing for a conditional: If Jesus' Resurrection is true, then the view of Jesus by traditional Christians is, for most part, likely to be true (regarding Jesus' divinity, for example) and this includes exclusivism regarding salvation. If Jesus' Resurrection is false, then the Jesus Seminar' view of Jesus and pluralism regarding salvation are likely to be true.
Let's begin:
1-The Jesus Seminar's project is demostrably based upon naturalistic and atheistic assumptions. The purpose of this group is to create a portrait of Jesus palatable to a secular society and an anti-Christian audience.
In the introduction of the Jesus Seminar book The Five Gospels (five, because it includes the Gospel of Thomas), the authors confess: "The contemporary religious controversy turns on whether the world view reflected in the Bible can be carried forward into this scientific age and retained as an article of faith . . . . the Christ of creed and dogma . . . can no longer command the assent of those who have seen the heavens through Galileo’s telescope" (p.2. Emphasis in blue added)
Note carefully that according to the authors, the "worldview reflected in the Bible" (i.e. theism!) cannot be accepted if we accept science. In other words, science implies atheism, not theism. This is exactly the same philosophical view of pseudo-skeptics and hard-core atheists like James Randi or Michael Shermer.
The Christ of "creed and dogma" (i.e. the resurrected Jesus, the Jesus who performed miracles, the Jesus who expulsed demons, the Jesus who is the savior, the Jesus who said "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16), etc.) cannot be true, if you are scientific (i.e. atheist). Given that there is not God, then it is impossible that the Son of God can exist, or that a supernatural phenomenon (like the resurrection) may be historical.
Based on this philosophical assumption, is not surprising that the reconstruction of the historical Jesus which the Jesus Seminar has made is of a Jesus who's purely naturalistic. And this is not a surprise either that the Jesus Seminar has to reject the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. What is an actual "miracle" for me is the fact that people like Crossan or Spong (and other Jesus Seminar's members) keep considering themselves as "Christians" (which is clearly misleading and, in my opinion, intentionally dishonest).
If you begin with naturalistic assumptions, you'll end with a purely naturalistic reconstruction of Jesus. In fact, the authors print in red only those words of Jesus which they consider to be authentic. The result (surprise!) is that around the 80% of Jesus' sayings (specially the sayings of a supernatural kind or that pointed out to a supernaturalistic and divine Jesus) in the Gospels are considered unathentic. Only around a 20% are considered actual sayings of Jesus, and these sayings portrait Jesus as a sort of social critic or reformer, the Jewish version of a Greek cynic philosopher.
2-In his writtings, the members of the Jesus Seminar, even the self-proclaimed "Christians" among them, are openly hostile to God's intervention in the world. However, they concede that if Jesus' Resurrection is historical, then a supernatural intervention is likely to be the cause of that event. And as they reject such interventionistic view of God, they are forced to reject the resurrection too.
For example, in a book with Marcus Borg, the leading Jesus Seminar's member John Dominic Crossan concedes that Jesus' resurrection as a historical fact "requires a 'supernatural interventionist' understanding of the way God relates to the world". (The Last Week, p.218-219 n18. Emphasis in blue added). Given that Crossan is supposed to be a Christian, not a deist, what is the problem of conceiving God as an agent who intervenes in the world? (The true answer is that Crossan is actually an atheist, not a Christian. He doesn't believe in mind-independent objectively existing God and hence cannot accept the intervention of a non-existent entity in the world. See point 3.)
The crucial point is that Crossan correctly realizes the close connection between the Jesus'resurrection and God's causal influence in that event. I agree with Crossan in this point (a point that is accepted by most New Testament scholars and historians, as proved by the fact that no atheist scholar defends the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection).
Agnostic historian and New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, in his debate with William Craig, argued "What about the resurrection of Jesus? I’m not saying it didn’t happen; but if it did happen, it would be a miracle. The resurrection claims are claims that not only that Jesus’ body came back alive; it came back alive never to die again. That’s a violation of what naturally happens, every day, time after time, millions of times a year... The evidence that Bill himself doesn’t see his explanation as historical is that he claims that his conclusion is that Jesus was raised from the dead. Well, that’s a passive – “was raised” – who raised him? Well, presumably God! This is a theological claim about something that happened to Jesus. It’s about something that God did to Jesus."
Just for the record: Ehrman doesn't deny the historicity of the resurrection, only the historian's competence to prove it because the resurrection, if ocurred, is a miracle. (Obviously this is a red herring, since his debate with Craig was entitled "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", and not "Can a historian to prove historically that a miracle has ocurred?").
If the evidence for a putative miracle occurs in a context charged with strong religious significance (like in the case of Jesus, whose teachings were centered on God's Kingdom and spiritual salvation), then the miracle is not a merely ambiguous phenomenon, but one plausibly attributed to a supernatural origin (i.e. an origin connected to the God whose kingdom Jesus taught).
As atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemman explains "Indeed, the miraculous or revelatory aspect of Jesus cannot be the object of any scientific approach. However, as long as theology is "paired" with historical thought (as it is on the one hand by the character of its central sources and on the other hand by modern criteria of truth), then it must be interested in a natural explanation of the miracle- or it must admit that even on historical grounds a supernatural explanation is more plausible" (The Resurrection of Christ, p. 21. Emphasis in blue added).
Given that the resurrection cannot be explained naturally (as agreed by almost every major scholar), then it is obvious (specially given the religious context in which it ocurred, IF it did) that the most plausible explanation is that it was a miracle caused by a supernatural (divine) intervention.
3-In point 2, I asked why a "Christian" like Crossan is bothered by the fact that Jesus' Resurrection, if true, would entail a supernaturalistic intervention. After all, if the Christian God exists, then it is perfectly possible that he intervenes in the world. Why couldn't he? (Just imagine Richard Dawkins or Keith Augustine complaining that the non-existence of inmaterial souls or an afterlife is unacceptable because it seems to support too much the truth of materialistic naturalism as a worldview. Do you imagine any of these hard-core atheists complaining about the non-existence of an afterlife for that reason? Obviously not, they're more than happy to embrace such anti-survivalist position, precisely because it supports the truth of their materialistic worldview. Likewise, if Crossan is a Christian, why is he bothered by the omnipotence of his Christian God which could enable him to intervene in the world?)
The astute reader is likely to guess the answer. Crossan is an atheist (masked as a Christian in order to give the impression that, contrary to traditional Christians, he is not motivated by ideology or "faith" but by objectivity, science and the respect for facts alone. This is a studied strategy, which falls apart when you explore the matter in more detail with a critical eye).
The irrefutable evidence for Crossan' atheism (misleadingly and astutely masked with the phraseology of Christianity) is available in the book "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? (p.50-51) in which Crossan debated William Lane Craig. In the exchange, and fully knowing Crossan's misleading position (Crossan claims that the statament "God exists" is a statement of faith), Craig pressed him hard to give an explicit answer to the question of God's objective existence. This was what happened (please note carefully Crossan' sophistical evasions and distractions):
Craig: But if the existence of God is a statement of faith, not a statement of fact, that means that God’s existence is simply an interpretive construct that a particular human mind—a believer—puts into the universe.
Crossan: …I would say what you’re trying to do is imagine the world without us. Now unfortunately, I can’t do that. If you were to ask me (which is just what you did) to abstract from faith how God would be if no human beings existed, that’s like asking me, “Would I be annoyed if I hadn’t been conceived?” I really don’t know how to answer that question.
Craig: Sure you do!
Crossan: Wait a minute! We know God only as God has revealed God to us; that’s all we could ever know in any religion.
Craig: During the Jurassic age, when there were no human beings, did God exist?
Crossan: Meaningless question.
Craig: But surely that’s not a meaningless question. It’s a factual question. Was there a being who was the Creator and Sustainer of the universe during the period of time when no human beings existed? It seems to me that in your view you’d have to say no.
Crossan: Well, I would probably prefer to say no because what you’re doing is trying to put yourself in the position of God and ask, “How is God apart from revelation? How is God apart from faith?” I don’t know if you can do that. You can do it, I suppose, but I don’t know if it really has any point.
Bingo!. Crossan doesn't believe in an objective, mind-independent entity named God. In a pretty literal sense, Crossan is an ATHEIST. When I read that passage some time ago, I fully and suddenly understood why some Jesus Seminar' members call themselves "Christians", but deny Jesus' Resurrection (which is essential to Christianity). The whole atheistic project of the Jesus Seminar group was now fully understable and clear to me.
Craig summarizes Crossan's position (after their debate) in this short video:
Craig summarizes Crossan's position (after their debate) in this short video:
I consider the duplicity and misleading use of language of some members of the Jesus Seminar as a example of charlatanism, intentional misdirection and intellectual dishonesty. Hence, I don't trust them.
4-The atheistic project of the Jesus Seminar is, basically, to make Jesus palatable to a increasingly secular society (which is highly hostile to Evangelical Christianity) in which religious pluralism seems to be the rule.
Religious pluralism is the view that "there are several ways to God". It is opposed to Christian exclusivism which says that Jesus is the ONLY way to God.
As said, the Jesus Seminar project seeks to portrait a Jesus who is not the only son of God (because it would imply an exclusivity contrary to religious pluralism) but a social reformer or spiritual teacher, "among others". The Christian exclusivism about Jesus becomes (in the hands of the Jesus Seminar) a Jesus compatible with religious pluralism.
And precisely, given that Crossan (and other Jesus Seminar members) fully realizes that Jesus' Resurrection is clearly connected with a supernatural (divine) intervention, he also realizes that if the resurrection is true, then Christian exclusivism is also true (and this is contrary to the religious pluralistic project of the group).
This rejection of Christian exclusivism in favour of religious pluralism is evident in the same book mentioned above, in which Crossan complains that Jesus' Resurrection "privileges Christianity as the only true or 'full' revelation of God, the 'only way'" (p.218-219 n18. Emphasis in blue added.)
Note carefully Crossan's connection between the factuality of the resurrection and Christian exclusivism regarding salvation. I submit this connection is a very plausible one. But Crossan employs this connection as a complain against Christianity (and hence, as an implicit theological assumption against the resurrection).
By the way, my answer to Crossan's complain is SO WHAT? It is a prerrogative of God to decide the means of salvation. Perhaps we can find unpalatable or wrong the view that just one way is the unique way for salvation. But this is our problem, not God's problem. You cannot determine what God has done simply appealing to your feelings and expectatives or to what you consider palatable.
I myself confess that the view that Jesus is the "only way" has bothered me a lot in the past. That he's THE way (not just one way among others) was an idea that I considered unpalatable, bigoted and unjust (moreover, in that time I was completely ignorant of the evidence for Jesus' resurrection). But I learnt that what is true or false cannot be decided by the test of "palatibility". If you have follow the evidence wherever it leads and draw from this the logical implications, even if the latter are fully unpalatable for you or somehow hurts your feelings or destroy your expectatives.
As far I've studied the matter, the vast majority of New Testament scholars agree that, if Jesus' Resurrection is true, then God is likely to be the cause of that event (this is why you won't get atheist New Testament scholars defending the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection). Also, they seem to agree (with Crossan) that if the resurrection is exclusive of Jesus, then the thesis of the "only way" defended by Christians is likely to be true too. I entirely agree with them about these two points.
5-Many people seem to be sympathetic to religious pluralism because they cannot accept that God has provided just "one way" to him. They cannot accept that good people in other religions cannot be saved. I myself agreed with this position for a long time. Currently, I don't agree with it anymore, because I cannot determine in advanced what God's means of salvation are. It is God's decision, not mine. Therefore, I have to be open to exclusivism and cannot reject it a priori. It is a matter that has to be decided on the basis of the evidence.
If God's means are exclusivistic, let it be. If they're pluralistic, let it be. We have to follow the evidence wherever it leads, regardless of our desires or expectations.
The question is, if Jesus' Resurrection turns out to be true (i.e. historical), does it support exclusivism or pluralism regarding his teachings? Like Crossan, Borg and most New Testament scholars that I've read, it seems to support exclusivism, because the resurrection is an unique event, of argueable supernatural origin (Crossan's words), which seems to give a special support to Jesus' person and teachings. Hence, it puts Jesus wholly apart (in a different category) of other "spiritual teachers", "social reformers", "gurus" and so forth.
6-People who, for whatever reasons, have religious pluralist beliefs, will buy largely into the Jesus Seminar's historical reconstruction of Jesus. The reason is that they cannot accept (and are very hostile to) Christian exclusivism, and hence they will resonate with the Jesus Seminar's pluralistic portrait of Jesus as "one teacher among others", as another teacher who is nothing special nor exclusive regarding salvation, as someone with interesting ideas and insights for spiritual evolution or even salvation, but not the exclusive or "only" way to God.
I submit that the Jesus Seminar's members who reject Jesus' Resurrection are consistent, because the historicity and factuality Jesus' Resurrection doesn't fit with the purely naturalistic and pluralistic portrait of Jesus that they have previously created. They use a Christian language about the resurrection, but deny its actual literal meaning (preferring to speculate misleadingly about metaphors). As more evidence of this see Marcus Borg's speculations about "meaning" and metaphors and other verbal sleight of hand in his debate about the resurrection with William Lane Craig.
They don't believe in God nor in Jesus' Resurrection (the two basic theses of Christianity), therefore they're not theists nor Christians. They're atheists masked as Christians in order to push forward a social atheistic and anti-Christian agenda in the name of Christianity.
Note that it has nothing to do with theism or Christianity being true. Even if atheism were true, the Jesus Seminar's agenda is dishonest and misleading, and as such deserve to receive proper exposing and debunking. (By the way, it doesn't imply that all the members of the Jesus Seminar are charlatans; some of the have made interesting contributions to the discussion, but overall I think their hidden atheistic agenda makes them unreliable).
7-The argument from Jesus' Resurrection to exclusivism is this (this is not a deductive argument, just a series of cumulative steps leading to the exclusivistic conclusion. I'm assuming, for the argument's sake, that Jesus' Resurrection is historical in order to press the point about exclusivism). When examining the following argument, try to think if each step is the most plausible one (not just think in logically possible alternatives, because we're interested in what is most plausibly true, i.e. most plausible than the alternatives, not in mere logically possible speculations or imaginary scenarios. Remember how pseudoskeptics try to explain away the evidence for psi appealing to logically possible scenarios which only exists in the pseudoskeptic's materialistic imagination):
a-If Jesus' Resurrection is literally true, then it is from a supernatural origin (since no natural explanation nor physical law can account for this unique event). In fact, natural laws are general (they rule a indefinite number of similar phenomena), but Jesus' Resurrection, if true, is an unique event. No natural laws exist to account for an unique, isolate event.
Theoretical physicist and theist John Polkinghorne comments "Whatever we can say about cloudy unpreditability, we surely can't suppose that it was through a clever exploitation of chaos theory that Jesus was raised from the dead, never to die again. If this happened (as I believe it did), it was a miraculous act of great power. "(Quarks, Chaos and Christianity, p. 97)
b-A supernatural origin of Jesus' Resurrection would imply the direct intervention of God, because God (the God of which Jesus spoke, his abba or father) is the first candidate, in the religious context of Jesus' life, to performance a miracle like that.
c-If God intervened directly in the resurrection, then his purpose was to validate Jesus' teachings about the God's Kingdom as special and unique among any other spiritual doctrines (in which God hasn't intervened or at least their intervention is less clear). This fact implies that all the atheistic spiritual doctrines are essentially false (since they deny God's existence and hence God's Kingdom) and the theistic doctrines, not validated by God himself (e.g. with a miracle) are unreliable.
d-If God validated Jesus' teachings, then these teachings are true (because a perfectly rational and good God cannot lie nor validate falsehoods, specially regarding spiritual salvation).
e-Jesus' resurrection is a historical fact.
f-Whatever doctrine is incompatible with Jesus' true teachings has to be false (this exploits religious pluralism is its broadest version).
g-Therefore, religious pluralism is false.
h-Hence, Christian exclusivism is true.
All the above steps can be resisted in a number of ways by the religious pluralist. But I think each step above is, given the religious context of Jesus' life, his teachings about God's Kingdom, the way in which natural laws operate and the putative fact of the resurrection, that each step is more plausible than the alternatives (and all the stepts taken together provide a good cumulative case for exclusivisim over pluralism. The key step is the historicity of Jesus's Resurrection).
This is why I submit that Jesus' identity depends, largely on the fact of the resurrection. If it ocurred, then the view of Jesus as the Son of God, cannot be ruled out. In fact, it seems very plausible and this is why exclusivism seems to be supported. Hence, that his teachings are exclusivistic, not pluralistic, cannot be ruled out a priori either (as Crossan and Borg concede). No social reformer, spiritual teacher or cynic philosopher has ever been vindicated in his teachings by a phenomenon like the resurrection. Hence, the resurrection doesn't seem to be the kind of validation that one would expect of the teachings of a mere social reformer, philosopher or "one among others" spiritual teacher.
8-Finally, a word about Jesus as the "Son of God". Skeptical critics doubt or deny that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. However, there is a passage in which many scholars, including some skeptical ones, consider as a true saying of Jesus: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32)
Note that Jesus says "The Son", implying that it is just one, not many.
Many scholars consider that this is a true Jesus' saying because Jesus is admitting ignorance regarding the Second Coming (and a God cannot be ignorant, he's omniscient). Hence, according to the principle of embarrassment, this is not the kind of saying that you would fabricate about a man to whom you are ascribing divinity or deity in order to convince other people to believe and worship Him.
Moreover, according to some Biblical scholars, in greek exists a figure of speech known as anabasis, which consists in an step by step increasing in stress inside of a passage. In the above passage, Jesus seems to be making a gradation in levels:
-No one ("normal human beings") knows
-Not even the angels in Heaven (angels, being a little bit superior than human beings)
-Nor the Son (the son, not a son nor some sons, implying that just one has that status and, moreover, that he is in a superior level than angels)
-Only the Father (abba) = God, which has a superior status than everybody else.
This clearly places Jesus as "Son of God" in a category above humans and angels (hence, in a superior position regarding any other spiritual teacher, social reformer, cynic philosopher, etc.). He is claiming to be the Son of God in a uniquely divine sense.
Another important reference is found in the Gospel of Mark (12:1-12) and is referred as the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard, which most scholars, even skeptics, consider as a true saying of Jesus. Jesus tells the parable of the owner of a vineyard who rented it to some vinegrowers. He sent a slave to receive some of the produce. But they refused to listen to the slave, beat him, and sent him away. One by one as the owner sent additional slaves, they refused to listen and either beat or killed them. He had one left to send, a SON. But the tenants killed him too and threw him out of the vineyard. In this parable, the vineyard symbolizes Israel, the owner of the vineyard is God, the tenants are the Jewish religious leaders, and the servants are the prophets send by God.
This parable clearly shows a Jesus who see himself as God's only son, different and above all the others prophets. Therefore, contrary to the misleading naturalistic and pluralistic portrait of Jesus made by some liberal scholars, it seems that Jesus perceived himself not as a mere human prophets, social reformer or spiritual teacher "among others", but as God's ultimate menssager. This exclusivity of Jesus' identity, authority and teaching reaches its maximum in a last unique event: the resurrection.
This is why I agree that when in (Luke 22: 70) is written "And they all said, 'Are You the Son of God, then?' And He said to them, 'Yes, I am.'" (Luke 22:70), we're reading a probable actual saying of Jesus (in spite that this specific Luke's passage is not seen by most scholars as historially evidenced).
In conclusion, I find these arguments convicing, and the portrait the Jesus Seminar and other liberal scholars regarding Jesus, as misleading, false and unjustified. I do think Jesus regarded himself as the Son of God. (If Jesus is actually the Son of God, or was deluded into that belief, is another problem. But if the resurrection is true, then the conclusion that he's the Son of God seems to be likely given Jesus' own self-perception).
9-Regarding pressupositions, I think everybody have them. The question is if the presupposition is justified or not. For me, a naturalistic pressuposition like the Jesus Seminar' is unwarranted and, given that I think naturalism is false, I think that presupposition is false too (and misleading and question-begging in the context of the Historical Jesus, since the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection is part of what precisely is at stake and deserve to be investigated and determined).
As consequence, I don't believe in the historical reconstruction of Jesus made by the Jesus Seminar and other liberal scholars. It doesn't mean that I agree with all the theses about Jesus defended by traditional Christians; I only accept, currently, that they are right in 1)Defending the view that Jesus regarded himself as the son of God; 2)Christian exclusivism and 3)That such a views are likely to be true IF Jesus' resurrection is an historical fact.
10-The Jesus Seminar's views are very influential and well-received in popular press and media. And purely speculative books about Jesus like Dan Brown's become popular best-sellers.
I submit the ultimate explanation of this social phenomenon is mainly an hostility to or animus against the traditional Christian exclusivism and the divine view of Jesus plus a solid ignorance of Christian theology, history and philosophy.
This animus has cultural roots in Western countries, and has been caused by the efficacy of atheistic propagandists plus the irrationality, dogmatism and anti-intellectualism of many Christian pastors, churchmen and ideologues.
You can easily discover this animus asking the critic if God's existence and Jesus' resurrection were proved to be true (the two basic or core beliefs of Christianity), it would provide evidence for Christianity. You'll discover that some of them will say NO, and resist whatever evidence supports Christianity.
I call this the "ultimate defense against Christianity", because virtually nothing (not even the putative evidence in favour of this religion's two basic beliefs) would count in its favor.
4-The atheistic project of the Jesus Seminar is, basically, to make Jesus palatable to a increasingly secular society (which is highly hostile to Evangelical Christianity) in which religious pluralism seems to be the rule.
Religious pluralism is the view that "there are several ways to God". It is opposed to Christian exclusivism which says that Jesus is the ONLY way to God.
As said, the Jesus Seminar project seeks to portrait a Jesus who is not the only son of God (because it would imply an exclusivity contrary to religious pluralism) but a social reformer or spiritual teacher, "among others". The Christian exclusivism about Jesus becomes (in the hands of the Jesus Seminar) a Jesus compatible with religious pluralism.
And precisely, given that Crossan (and other Jesus Seminar members) fully realizes that Jesus' Resurrection is clearly connected with a supernatural (divine) intervention, he also realizes that if the resurrection is true, then Christian exclusivism is also true (and this is contrary to the religious pluralistic project of the group).
This rejection of Christian exclusivism in favour of religious pluralism is evident in the same book mentioned above, in which Crossan complains that Jesus' Resurrection "privileges Christianity as the only true or 'full' revelation of God, the 'only way'" (p.218-219 n18. Emphasis in blue added.)
Note carefully Crossan's connection between the factuality of the resurrection and Christian exclusivism regarding salvation. I submit this connection is a very plausible one. But Crossan employs this connection as a complain against Christianity (and hence, as an implicit theological assumption against the resurrection).
By the way, my answer to Crossan's complain is SO WHAT? It is a prerrogative of God to decide the means of salvation. Perhaps we can find unpalatable or wrong the view that just one way is the unique way for salvation. But this is our problem, not God's problem. You cannot determine what God has done simply appealing to your feelings and expectatives or to what you consider palatable.
I myself confess that the view that Jesus is the "only way" has bothered me a lot in the past. That he's THE way (not just one way among others) was an idea that I considered unpalatable, bigoted and unjust (moreover, in that time I was completely ignorant of the evidence for Jesus' resurrection). But I learnt that what is true or false cannot be decided by the test of "palatibility". If you have follow the evidence wherever it leads and draw from this the logical implications, even if the latter are fully unpalatable for you or somehow hurts your feelings or destroy your expectatives.
As far I've studied the matter, the vast majority of New Testament scholars agree that, if Jesus' Resurrection is true, then God is likely to be the cause of that event (this is why you won't get atheist New Testament scholars defending the historicity of Jesus' Resurrection). Also, they seem to agree (with Crossan) that if the resurrection is exclusive of Jesus, then the thesis of the "only way" defended by Christians is likely to be true too. I entirely agree with them about these two points.
5-Many people seem to be sympathetic to religious pluralism because they cannot accept that God has provided just "one way" to him. They cannot accept that good people in other religions cannot be saved. I myself agreed with this position for a long time. Currently, I don't agree with it anymore, because I cannot determine in advanced what God's means of salvation are. It is God's decision, not mine. Therefore, I have to be open to exclusivism and cannot reject it a priori. It is a matter that has to be decided on the basis of the evidence.
If God's means are exclusivistic, let it be. If they're pluralistic, let it be. We have to follow the evidence wherever it leads, regardless of our desires or expectations.
The question is, if Jesus' Resurrection turns out to be true (i.e. historical), does it support exclusivism or pluralism regarding his teachings? Like Crossan, Borg and most New Testament scholars that I've read, it seems to support exclusivism, because the resurrection is an unique event, of argueable supernatural origin (Crossan's words), which seems to give a special support to Jesus' person and teachings. Hence, it puts Jesus wholly apart (in a different category) of other "spiritual teachers", "social reformers", "gurus" and so forth.
6-People who, for whatever reasons, have religious pluralist beliefs, will buy largely into the Jesus Seminar's historical reconstruction of Jesus. The reason is that they cannot accept (and are very hostile to) Christian exclusivism, and hence they will resonate with the Jesus Seminar's pluralistic portrait of Jesus as "one teacher among others", as another teacher who is nothing special nor exclusive regarding salvation, as someone with interesting ideas and insights for spiritual evolution or even salvation, but not the exclusive or "only" way to God.
I submit that the Jesus Seminar's members who reject Jesus' Resurrection are consistent, because the historicity and factuality Jesus' Resurrection doesn't fit with the purely naturalistic and pluralistic portrait of Jesus that they have previously created. They use a Christian language about the resurrection, but deny its actual literal meaning (preferring to speculate misleadingly about metaphors). As more evidence of this see Marcus Borg's speculations about "meaning" and metaphors and other verbal sleight of hand in his debate about the resurrection with William Lane Craig.
They don't believe in God nor in Jesus' Resurrection (the two basic theses of Christianity), therefore they're not theists nor Christians. They're atheists masked as Christians in order to push forward a social atheistic and anti-Christian agenda in the name of Christianity.
Note that it has nothing to do with theism or Christianity being true. Even if atheism were true, the Jesus Seminar's agenda is dishonest and misleading, and as such deserve to receive proper exposing and debunking. (By the way, it doesn't imply that all the members of the Jesus Seminar are charlatans; some of the have made interesting contributions to the discussion, but overall I think their hidden atheistic agenda makes them unreliable).
7-The argument from Jesus' Resurrection to exclusivism is this (this is not a deductive argument, just a series of cumulative steps leading to the exclusivistic conclusion. I'm assuming, for the argument's sake, that Jesus' Resurrection is historical in order to press the point about exclusivism). When examining the following argument, try to think if each step is the most plausible one (not just think in logically possible alternatives, because we're interested in what is most plausibly true, i.e. most plausible than the alternatives, not in mere logically possible speculations or imaginary scenarios. Remember how pseudoskeptics try to explain away the evidence for psi appealing to logically possible scenarios which only exists in the pseudoskeptic's materialistic imagination):
a-If Jesus' Resurrection is literally true, then it is from a supernatural origin (since no natural explanation nor physical law can account for this unique event). In fact, natural laws are general (they rule a indefinite number of similar phenomena), but Jesus' Resurrection, if true, is an unique event. No natural laws exist to account for an unique, isolate event.
Theoretical physicist and theist John Polkinghorne comments "Whatever we can say about cloudy unpreditability, we surely can't suppose that it was through a clever exploitation of chaos theory that Jesus was raised from the dead, never to die again. If this happened (as I believe it did), it was a miraculous act of great power. "(Quarks, Chaos and Christianity, p. 97)
b-A supernatural origin of Jesus' Resurrection would imply the direct intervention of God, because God (the God of which Jesus spoke, his abba or father) is the first candidate, in the religious context of Jesus' life, to performance a miracle like that.
c-If God intervened directly in the resurrection, then his purpose was to validate Jesus' teachings about the God's Kingdom as special and unique among any other spiritual doctrines (in which God hasn't intervened or at least their intervention is less clear). This fact implies that all the atheistic spiritual doctrines are essentially false (since they deny God's existence and hence God's Kingdom) and the theistic doctrines, not validated by God himself (e.g. with a miracle) are unreliable.
d-If God validated Jesus' teachings, then these teachings are true (because a perfectly rational and good God cannot lie nor validate falsehoods, specially regarding spiritual salvation).
e-Jesus' resurrection is a historical fact.
f-Whatever doctrine is incompatible with Jesus' true teachings has to be false (this exploits religious pluralism is its broadest version).
g-Therefore, religious pluralism is false.
h-Hence, Christian exclusivism is true.
All the above steps can be resisted in a number of ways by the religious pluralist. But I think each step above is, given the religious context of Jesus' life, his teachings about God's Kingdom, the way in which natural laws operate and the putative fact of the resurrection, that each step is more plausible than the alternatives (and all the stepts taken together provide a good cumulative case for exclusivisim over pluralism. The key step is the historicity of Jesus's Resurrection).
This is why I submit that Jesus' identity depends, largely on the fact of the resurrection. If it ocurred, then the view of Jesus as the Son of God, cannot be ruled out. In fact, it seems very plausible and this is why exclusivism seems to be supported. Hence, that his teachings are exclusivistic, not pluralistic, cannot be ruled out a priori either (as Crossan and Borg concede). No social reformer, spiritual teacher or cynic philosopher has ever been vindicated in his teachings by a phenomenon like the resurrection. Hence, the resurrection doesn't seem to be the kind of validation that one would expect of the teachings of a mere social reformer, philosopher or "one among others" spiritual teacher.
8-Finally, a word about Jesus as the "Son of God". Skeptical critics doubt or deny that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. However, there is a passage in which many scholars, including some skeptical ones, consider as a true saying of Jesus: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32)
Note that Jesus says "The Son", implying that it is just one, not many.
Many scholars consider that this is a true Jesus' saying because Jesus is admitting ignorance regarding the Second Coming (and a God cannot be ignorant, he's omniscient). Hence, according to the principle of embarrassment, this is not the kind of saying that you would fabricate about a man to whom you are ascribing divinity or deity in order to convince other people to believe and worship Him.
Moreover, according to some Biblical scholars, in greek exists a figure of speech known as anabasis, which consists in an step by step increasing in stress inside of a passage. In the above passage, Jesus seems to be making a gradation in levels:
-No one ("normal human beings") knows
-Not even the angels in Heaven (angels, being a little bit superior than human beings)
-Nor the Son (the son, not a son nor some sons, implying that just one has that status and, moreover, that he is in a superior level than angels)
-Only the Father (abba) = God, which has a superior status than everybody else.
This clearly places Jesus as "Son of God" in a category above humans and angels (hence, in a superior position regarding any other spiritual teacher, social reformer, cynic philosopher, etc.). He is claiming to be the Son of God in a uniquely divine sense.
Another important reference is found in the Gospel of Mark (12:1-12) and is referred as the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard, which most scholars, even skeptics, consider as a true saying of Jesus. Jesus tells the parable of the owner of a vineyard who rented it to some vinegrowers. He sent a slave to receive some of the produce. But they refused to listen to the slave, beat him, and sent him away. One by one as the owner sent additional slaves, they refused to listen and either beat or killed them. He had one left to send, a SON. But the tenants killed him too and threw him out of the vineyard. In this parable, the vineyard symbolizes Israel, the owner of the vineyard is God, the tenants are the Jewish religious leaders, and the servants are the prophets send by God.
This parable clearly shows a Jesus who see himself as God's only son, different and above all the others prophets. Therefore, contrary to the misleading naturalistic and pluralistic portrait of Jesus made by some liberal scholars, it seems that Jesus perceived himself not as a mere human prophets, social reformer or spiritual teacher "among others", but as God's ultimate menssager. This exclusivity of Jesus' identity, authority and teaching reaches its maximum in a last unique event: the resurrection.
This is why I agree that when in (Luke 22: 70) is written "And they all said, 'Are You the Son of God, then?' And He said to them, 'Yes, I am.'" (Luke 22:70), we're reading a probable actual saying of Jesus (in spite that this specific Luke's passage is not seen by most scholars as historially evidenced).
In conclusion, I find these arguments convicing, and the portrait the Jesus Seminar and other liberal scholars regarding Jesus, as misleading, false and unjustified. I do think Jesus regarded himself as the Son of God. (If Jesus is actually the Son of God, or was deluded into that belief, is another problem. But if the resurrection is true, then the conclusion that he's the Son of God seems to be likely given Jesus' own self-perception).
9-Regarding pressupositions, I think everybody have them. The question is if the presupposition is justified or not. For me, a naturalistic pressuposition like the Jesus Seminar' is unwarranted and, given that I think naturalism is false, I think that presupposition is false too (and misleading and question-begging in the context of the Historical Jesus, since the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection is part of what precisely is at stake and deserve to be investigated and determined).
As consequence, I don't believe in the historical reconstruction of Jesus made by the Jesus Seminar and other liberal scholars. It doesn't mean that I agree with all the theses about Jesus defended by traditional Christians; I only accept, currently, that they are right in 1)Defending the view that Jesus regarded himself as the son of God; 2)Christian exclusivism and 3)That such a views are likely to be true IF Jesus' resurrection is an historical fact.
10-The Jesus Seminar's views are very influential and well-received in popular press and media. And purely speculative books about Jesus like Dan Brown's become popular best-sellers.
I submit the ultimate explanation of this social phenomenon is mainly an hostility to or animus against the traditional Christian exclusivism and the divine view of Jesus plus a solid ignorance of Christian theology, history and philosophy.
This animus has cultural roots in Western countries, and has been caused by the efficacy of atheistic propagandists plus the irrationality, dogmatism and anti-intellectualism of many Christian pastors, churchmen and ideologues.
You can easily discover this animus asking the critic if God's existence and Jesus' resurrection were proved to be true (the two basic or core beliefs of Christianity), it would provide evidence for Christianity. You'll discover that some of them will say NO, and resist whatever evidence supports Christianity.
I call this the "ultimate defense against Christianity", because virtually nothing (not even the putative evidence in favour of this religion's two basic beliefs) would count in its favor.
Happy new year 2012 to all my readers!
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