ln recent years, the “often-maligned Jesus Seminar”4 has produced a noneschatological Jesus that many scholars criticize as taking insufficient account of Schweitzer’s critique of earlier “lives of Jesus.” That is, their Jesus is not very Jewish,5 not very eschatological (i.e., does not talk much about God’s distinctly future activity), and suspiciously resembles the values of the scholars who depict him.6 The divergence from Schweitzer proves to be no mere oversight, however; the Seminar admits an agenda to displace “Schweitzer’s eschatological Jesus.”7
The Jesus Seminar is popularly known for having voted with marbles on Jesus’ sayings. (Although voting makes some sense,8 the use of marbles in particular was probably designed partly for marketability, since it could readily attract media attention.)9 More critically, the method of calculating these votes has been critiqued for its subjectivity. One critic offers an example: whereas 25% of the scholars voting on the assigned day thought that Jesus surely said Matt 25:29, and another 11% thought that he likelier than not said it (for over one-third in favor), a majority thought that he either did not or probably did not say it. Thus the Seminar’s published conclusion was that Jesus did not utter the saying, even though a third of even the Seminar itself disagreed with that verdict.10
Emory professor Luke Timothy Johnson argues that the Jesus Seminar is “an entrepreneurial venture” that speaks not for major scholarly associations (such as SBL or SNTS) but is a “self-selected” group based largely on shared “goals and methods.”11 He notes that most major graduate academic institutions are unrepresented, that the Seminar lacks significant European representation, and that most participants have not produced major academic work in Jesus research. Moreover, well over half of the members have their doctorates from the five specific institutions where such ideas have flourished (especially from three of them, although certainly by no means do all the faculty at these institutions, still less all their graduates, hold such views).12 (A member of the Jesus Seminar himself also laments the predominant cultural and gender homogeneity of the group.)13 Johnson complains that the process is biased against the authenticity of Jesus’ sayings14 and that it has garnered attention by seeking the media coverage that most scholars have ignored.15
Whatever one makes of several aspects of Johnson’s critique (some of the Seminar’s “criteria” are more mainstream than others),16 he is certainly correct that the Jesus Seminar’s claim to speak for the broader range of scholarship is inaccurate. Unfortunately, the Seminar does publicly claim to speak for scholarship. Thus they hail their version as “the Scholars’ Version,” in contrast to other English translations (which they charge are theologically controlled).17 They thereby concisely dismiss the scholarly integrity of hundreds of other NT scholars. Likewise, they contend, their acceptance of only 16% of the gospel accounts as historically accurate will not surprise “critical scholars,” whom they define as “those whose evaluations are not predetermined by theological considerations.”18 Apparently they do not regard as genuinely critical or open-minded the majority of NT scholars who accept much larger amounts of the gospel material as reliable than the Seminar does. These “noncritical” scholars would include many who have published more extensive scholarly work on the subject (including many of the influential volumes cited in this book) than the vast majority of Jesus Seminar members have.
The Seminar in fact can accurately represent only its own narrower range of scholarship, though for much of the public its dominant voices apparently deliberately conflate its claims with the voice of scholarship more generally. For this radical group to claim to speak for Jesus scholarship more generally would be like a group of professors from fundamentalist institutions issuing a portrait of Jesus that would then be hailed as “the scholarly portrait.” The problem is not such professors summarizing the views of their own group (which is their right), but the presentation of those views as a scholarly consensus. The Jesus Seminar does not have the right to speak for scholarship as a whole.19
