A careful reading of the books and papers of the leading members of the Jesus Seminar about the Historical Jesus reveals something curious. They present themselves as the voice of mainstream modern scholarship regarding the historical Jesus. They explicitly or implicitly say or imply that their conclusions about the Historical Jesus are accepted by most New Testament, historians and Jesus scholars.
When I began to study the topic of the historical Jesus, I accepted at face value the claim of the Jesus Seminar of being representative of mainstream scholarship. But currently, after an intensive study many books, texts and lectures of the Jesus Seminar and other scholars outside this group (inclusing liberal, jews, conservatives, etc.), I'm very skeptical of this claim.
For several reasons, I don't believe anymore that the Jesus Seminar's view on the Historical Jesus is representative of what most Jesus scholars think. In fact, I now think their view on Jesus is minoritary among contemporary Jesus scholars, and I think good evidence for this conclusion could be provided.
My personal project of research is currently to document exactly what most scholars think about the historical Jesus and publish this results, not because the majority is right, but because the "majority of scholars" argument is very common among New Testament scholars, and we need to get some order here. I'm tired to hear "most scholars think that" or "I don't think most scholars say that" among New Testament scholars (of all theological persuasions, not just the radical extremists, atheists and religious pluralists of the Jesus Seminar).
I'll publish the result of this research, probably, at the end of this year or in 2013, if time allows it.
Let's to return to the main topic of this post.
For "resurrection", everybody understands the coming to life of a dead person in the same body (in the case of Christianity, in the resurrection, the person comes to life in the same body which is transformed to make it compatible with an spiritual, eternal life).
However, when you read the works of the Jesus Seminar's members John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, you'll realize that they change the concept of resurrection in order to :
1)Affirm Jesus' Resurrection (and misleadingly and dishonestly portrait themselves as "christians")
2)Deny Chrisitian exclusivism (on behalf of religious pluralism)
3)Make such idiosyncratic version of Christianity compatible with contemporary atheistic naturalism.
Consider John Dominic Crossan's misleading concept of resurrection. For him, the resurrection is "the continuing presence in a continuing community of the past Jesus in a radically new and trascendental mode of present and future existence" (The Historical Jesus, p. 404).
Note that in Crossan's view, the resurrection has nothing to do with Jesus' coming to life again in his own body, but with a given community's experience of Jesus' presence. Crossan's idiosyncratic definition of resurrection could be accepted even by hard-core metaphysical naturalists and materialistic atheists. (The latter could accept that a given community of religious believers experienced Jesus' presence; they only would add the important qualification that such experience is purely subjective and delusional).
Consider Marcus Borg's conclusion about the resurrection: "For me, the truth of Easter is very simple: the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continue to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death. The post-Easter Jesus is a experiential reality" (Borg's contribution to the book Will the Real Jesus Pleas Stand Up?, p. 124)
Such view on the resurrection doesn't clarify if such an "experiential reality" is veridical, or delusional, namely: Did they experience Jesus because Jesus ACTUALLY was risen from the death, or was their experience just a psychological phenomena projected upon the reality? The latter is what atheists, religious pluralists and other anti-Christians believe, but Crossan/Borg's view of the resurrection is ambiguous enough as to make it palatable for secularists and religious pluralists of every strip.
Marcus Borg, who is a explicit religious pluaralist (see evidence in this post about the origins of Borg's pluralism), openly says "As a Christian, I'm a layperson, an Episcopalian, nonliteralistic and nonexclusivistic" (ibid., p.117).
In general, a consistent "nonexclusivism" (i.e. religious pluralism) as an approach to the Historical Jesus implies the rejection of Jesus' putative claims of religious exclusivity (e.g. Jesus as the exclusive "Son of God", or as someone who stood or spoke with divine authority in matters which belong only to God, which are seen by pluralists as unhistorical and pure fictional creations of the early Church) and, specifically, a rejection literal bodily resurrection (which is seen as something which privileges Christianity over other religions).
For example, regarding the possibility of Jesus' literal bodily resurrection, Crossan correctly concede: "requires a 'supernatural interventionist' understanding of the way God relates to the world". (The Last Week, p.218-219 n18. Emphasis in blue added).
But Crossan (who is an atheist masked as a Christian, see evidence here) doesn't believe in God, and hence he doesn't believe in any supernatural intervention, and hence he rejects Jesus' possibility of bodily resurrection.
In the case of Borg, he thinks that supernaturalistic intervention of God is problematic because "it tends to privilege Christianity" (Will the real Jesus please stand Up? p.127) and this cannot be accepted by a pluralist like Borg, who adds: "I simply do not believe that God is known primarily or only in our tradition" (ibid. p. 128).
Again, it is Borg's pluralism which makes him to read the evidence about the historical Jesus in a way consistent with such pluralism (and against exclusivism, including the resurrection, which if caused by God, is seen by Borg as something which privileges Christianity).
But Borg's pluralistic prejudices are faced with a massive problem: there are good historical reasons to think that Jesus' teachings regarding God's Kingdom were exclusivistic, not pluralistic.
Consider Matthew 11.27: "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him"
There is good reason to think this saying is historical: According to the principle of dissimilarity (a criterion used by Jesus scholars to determine if a given saying is authentic), this saying is likely to be authentic because it says that the Son is unknowable by any person other than God ("no one knows the Son except the Father") but the early Church taught that Jesus was knowable (so the early Church view on the knowledge about Jesus was dissimilar to what the saying explicitly say). So, it is unlikely the saying was an invention of the early Church.
What is important and crucial to destroy Borg's pluralism is the second part of the saying ("no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him"). This clearly shows that, contrary to Borg's prejudices, the "Father" (=God) is not known in several religions or traditions, but only in ONE: The one linked to "The Son" (=Jesus).
So, contrary to Borg and other religious pluralists and atheists in the Jesus Seminar, there are reasons to think that Jesus' self-understanding was exclusivistic, not pluralistic. Jesus saw himself as someone who knows God in a way and to a degree that others "spiritual teachers" cannot know Him, and importantly, he sees Himself as the unique mediator of that knowledge to other human beings.
That the knowledge of God only is possible through "the Son" and that "no one knows the Father" is incompatible with Borg's pluralistic opinion "I simply do not believe that God is known primarily or only in our tradition"
Borg's opinion is purely autobiographical, not something rooted in the evidence.
The watered down version of Jesus defended by Crossan and Borg, as a mere cynic philosopher, a "teller of stories", a teacher whose only purpose was to change other people's perceptions, is unlikely to be true given the historical evidence about Jesus (and specially, given Jesus' resurrection, if the latter actually occurred).
In order to deny the historicity of this saying (and others about the historical Jesus implying exclusivity), some members of the Jesus Seminar are forced to misuse the criteria of authenticity (e.g. some of them use the criteria as necessary, not as sufficient, conditions to determine historicity, a very important methodological point which I'll discuss and document in detail in future posts), or simply to muddle the waters speculating about metaphors, meanings, and so forth (all of these evasive methods can be easily refuted).
A further example of misleading argumentation and sophistry by Borg:
Borg has written "Easter has one further dimension of meaning that I wish to underline. Easter is God's yes to Jesus... In my view, God's yes to Jesus does not mean the confirmation of the doctrinal claims made by Jesus, but God's affirmation of what Jesus was doing in a comprehensive sense: his teaching about the Way, his challenge about the domination system, and the alternative religious and social vision embodied in his willingness to partake of a meal with someone who wished" (Will the real Jesus Please Stand Up?, p. 125)
My goodness, what a watered down view of Jesus by a self-proclaimed "Christian". It's shocking.
Let's to analyze Borg's arguments:
1-For Borg, the Easter wasn't an experience caused by an external, objective (mind-independent) event like Jesus' actual bodiliy resurrection, but a subjective experience of the community who believed in him. Now, if it is the case, how the hell does Borg knows that such (subjective) experience was God's YES to Jesus' overall approach?
2-Elsewere, Borg has written about his personal concept of God like this: "God is ineffable . . . . God is beyond all images, physical and mental . . . . All our thinking about God . . . are attempts to express the ineffable. The ineffable is beyond all our concepts, even this one" (The God We Never Knew pp. 48-9)
In English, "ineffable" means incapable of being expressed in words. Note that for Borg, whatever thinking you have about God is ineffable. But if it is the case, how the hell can he express that the Easter mean God's "YES" to Jesus' teaching?
Since that thinking and writing that God gave a "YES" (a kind of "You're doing right Jesus, keep the good work, buddy") to Jesus through the (subjective experiences of the believers) of the resurrection, implies thinking and writing about God, then Borg's words used in these thoughts and texts is a literal demolition of Borg's own belief in the ineffability of the thinking about God.
If ineffable, Borg's words are meaningless and cannot be true. If true, they have meaning (as in fact they do) and are not ineffable, hence his "ineffability position about God" is false.
Borg's position is literally self-refuting.
3-Borg says that the "divine YES" is affirmative of Jesus' teaching about the Way. But Borg says that the resurrection is not a validation of Jesus' doctrinal claims. Do you note any contradiction here? I do, even making a strong charitable effort of intrepretation.
Since Jesus' teachings about the Way IS what is meant by Jesus' doctrinal claims, God's affirmation of Jesus' teachings is an affirmation (and hence, a validation or confirmation) of what Jesus taught in his doctrine. In what other plausible and relevant sense the phrase "affirmation by God" of Jesus' teachings could be understood?
In order to understand the bad and weak arguments and positions of people like Crossan, Borg and other members of the Jesus Seminar, you have to understand that their main purpose is to undermine Christianity. As consequence, they defend religious pluralism or assume atheistic-naturalistic positions (like the impossibility of miracles) in order to prevent the exclusivity of Jesus and hence of Christianity. More importantly, they want to make the figure of Jesus palatable of our society (which is strongly secular and anti-Christian) and this is why they version of the Historical Jesus (misleadingly presented as THE view of mainstream scholarship) is strongly politically correct, undermined and watered down.
Honest, serious thinkers (of whatever theological persuasion) don't mask their positions with fallacies and metaphors. They're straighforward and direct in their approach and argumentation.
For example, compare the misleading claims of people like Borg and Crossan about the resurrection, with the more honest, serious and straighforward position of atheist New Testament scholar Gerg Ludemman "It's meaningless to write anything about the "reality of the resurrection" if its nonhistoricity is certain" (The resurrection of Christ, p. 17)
If you don't believe in the historicity of the resurrection, the correct thing to do is to avoid speaking of the resurrection and specially of calling yourself as someone who believe in the resurrection.
Likewise, if you don't believe in ESP, please don't use idiosyoncratic definitions of ESP in order to call yourself a "paranormal believer". Don't fool your readers and don't mislead them with your words.
I'm interested in discovering the truth about Jesus (as with many other topics), and I've found in people like Crossan and Borg (and other members of the Jesus Seminar) a strongly misleading and prejudiced pseudo-scientific approach to the evidence about the historical Jesus, which produces a view of Jesus that cannot justify any person in calling herself properly a "Christian".
The simple fact that people like Crossan and Borg call themselves "Christians" is testimony of their duplicity and lack of intellectual seriousness.
0 comments:
Post a Comment