Jesus Seminar

Jesus Seminar. What Is The Jesus Seminar?Original Purpose of The Jesus SeminarWorking Premises of The Jesus SeminarMajor ProblemsWhat Difference Does It Make to Us?A group of New Testament scholars working together to reach a consensus as to what Jesus really said (as opposed to words that have been attributed to Jesus by later tradition) To compile a list of all the words (canonical or not) attributed to Jesus in the first three centuries The Jesus Seminar has published its working premisesThere are 64 numbered premises and 7 “pillars of scholarly wisdom”What follows is a sampleNumbering of premises follows The Gospel of Mark pp226Roman numerals are from The Five Gospels pp25 1 The selfselected group of researchers which constitutes the Jesus Seminar though it includes several fine scholars does not represent a balanced cross section of current scholarly opinion 2 The selection and dating of sources is a major problem especially the valuing of the Gospel of Thomas as an early and independent source for Jesus tradition 3 Another major problem is the Seminar’s dominant use of the criterion of dissimilarity for assessing the authenticity of Jesus tradition 1 Everything that is authentic must be dissimilar (unlike) to both Judaism and Christianity 4 The Jesus Seminar’s insistence on finding a &#39noneschatological&#39 Jesus 1 Jesus himself did not proclaim a message of God’s future intervention in history a final judgment nor is the kingdom a major theme 5 The assessment of Jesus’ sayings in isolation from a more comprehensive reconstruction of the events of his life ministry death and resurrection is methodologically problematic and leads t At least the Jesus Seminar came up with some authentic words from Jesus (ie he really existed)At the same time the wedge is firmly driven between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faithThe Seminar offers an attempt to explain who Jesus is that is representative of where many are who study him — great moral teacher Galilean rabbi social activist etcThe Jesus Seminar does not represent a crosssection of modern New Testament scholarship — one only has to look at the reaction of moderates to see thisThe Seminar’s view tends to be radical skeptical and cynical.

According to the Jesus Seminar Jesus of Nazareth was born during the reign of Herod the Great His mother&#39s name was Mary and he had a human father whose name may not have been Joseph Jesus was born in Nazareth not in Bethlehem Jesus was an itinerant sage who shared meals with social outcasts Dissolved 2006 15 years agoFounder Formation 1985 36 years agoPurpose To decide their collective view of the historicity of the deeds and sayings of.

The Jesus Seminar Westar Institute

The Jesus Seminar was originally formed in 1985 under the sponsorship of the Westar Institute to “renew the quest of the historical Jesus” Thirty scholars participated in the first meeting and approximately 200 people now call themselves “fellows” The Seminar meets twice a year to debate technical papers that have been prepared and circulated in advance.

Jesus Seminar AllAboutReligion.org

The Jesus Seminar comprised three phases Phase 1 Sayings of Jesus (19851991) Phase 2 Deeds of Jesus (19911996) Phase 3 Profiles of Jesus (19961998).