What Did Jesus Really Say?

by David Weidlich, 1994

Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? Did he promise to return and usher in a new age? Did he commission his disciples to convert the world and establish a church? "No, no," and "no," say the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar in their book, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?.

The Jesus Seminar describes themselves as a group of distinguished scholars who attended the "best schools" and "represent a wide array of Western religious traditions and academic institutions." Sponsored by the Westar Institute, a "scholarly think tank in Sonoma, California," they make the front pages of newspapers and magazines across America. Their professed goal is to "make the legacy of two hundred years of research and debate a matter of public record." They want to discover the real Jesus viewed "through the lens of historical reason and research rather than through the perspective of theology and traditional creedal formulations."

The Five Gospels includes an introduction, which describes the assumptions and methods employed by the Fellows and Associate Members of the Jesus Seminar (and is where my quotes were taken). The meat of the book is a new, color-coded translation of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Thomas called the "Scholars Version."

Why is a new translation needed when there are already more than 80 English translations of the Gospels? Was our New International Version not translated by "scholars." The Jesus Seminar cites the importance of the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1945, of which there are no adequate translations. These scholars claim to have improved on previous translations of the four gospels in several ways. Previous translations are too pious sounding, they say. For example, the New Revised Standard Version has Jesus saying, "Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees..." (Matt. 23:13). The Scholars Version prefers the more gutsy- "You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you."

Another reason a new translation was needed, say the scholars, is that previous translations are too wooden. They "tend to reproduce the Greek text, more or less word-for- word...always the same English word for the same Greek word."

If this were true, it would be an important critique (and I would have had a much easier time learning Greek vocabulary). But it simply is not so. You can look in the back of Young's Analytical Concordance and see that the King James Version, as old as 1611, employed numerous English words to cover the range of meaning required by any given Greek word. For example, the verb, lambano, is translated using the following words: accept, attain, bring, call to, catch, come on to, have, hold, obtain, receive, take, etc., depending on the context. Newer translations are even less "wooden."

What is most controversial about the Scholars Version, is that the words are color-coded. The words ascribed by the Bible to Jesus are in four colors:

• "only those sayings that appear in red type are considered by the Seminar to be close to what Jesus actually said."
• "the words in pink less certainly originated with Jesus."
• "the words in gray are not his, though they contain ideas that are close to his own."
• "the sayings that appear in black have been embellished or created by his followers, or borrowed from common lore."

The big news is that only 18% of the words traditionally ascribed to Jesus qualify for red or pink ink. The majority is black ink. That's pretty dramatic. How do they know? Were they there? Did they discover some tapes or manuscripts that no one else has seen? Or are they attempting to re-fashion Jesus in a manner that suits their tastes?

The answer given by the scholars is that they are only using the tools of modern science, history and post-enlightenment reason. In fact, they are well aware of the temptation "to create Jesus in our own image." That may be why they have Jesus saying "damn you" to the scholars. (Oh wait- that one ended up in black ink-Jesus didn't say it after all, according to these scholars.)

The scholars also employed the tools of democracy by debating and voting on each of 1500 sayings attributed to Jesus. But they didn't follow the idea very far. You would expect the voters to be delegates representing a cross-section of denominations and seminaries. But that is far from being true. A list of the 74 Fellows of the Jesus Seminar includes no one from an evangelical (conservative) school. The largest theological schools in North America--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School--none of them are represented. No Bible colleges, like Moody, Biola, Multnomah, are represented. Yet the scholars of the Jesus Seminar regularly tell the media that they "represent a wide array of Western religious traditions and academic institutions." That is not true.

Many readers of the Sacramento Bee, US News & Word Report, Time, and other media that have reported on the Jesus Seminar have gotten the idea that the tools of science, history and reason support the findings revealed in the Five Gospels. It appears that the only thing keeping the ship of Christian faith afloat is ignorance.

Again, this is simply not true. There is precious little in the conclusions of the Five Gospels that resembles the scientific method or good history. It's not good history to ignore the eye-witness testimonies of dozens of writers in favor of the gut feelings of scholars 2000 years removed from the events being discussed. To assume that Jesus' followers were simply duped is sheer arrogance. These first century people had tons more evidence to go on than any contemporary scholar, and the evidence led them to such firmness of conviction that they were willing to be persecuted and martyred rather than give up preaching what they had seen and heard.

In addition, it is not good history to ignore the massive weight of manuscript evidence attesting to the validity of the Bible. It is ludicrous to raise the Gospel of Thomas, for which there is only one known manuscript, to the level of the other four gospels, which were copied and distributed throughout Africa, Asia and Europe and for which scholars have collected hundreds of ancient manuscripts.

There is an exact scientific method for evaluating ancient manuscripts. It's called Textual Criticism. This science provides scholars with a method for determining the content of the original documents of Scripture by comparing the most ancient manuscripts collected from various regions. These principles enable them to identify any errors, editorial comments, or embellishments where they exist. However, in biblical documents, these are rare. F.J.A. Hort, a world-renowned scholar of the ancient manuscripts said that apart from insignificant variations of grammar or spelling, not more than one-thousandth part of the whole New Testament is affected by differences of reading.

The science of Textual Criticism is ignored by the Jesus Seminar. If it is given any credence at all, it is subordinate to the tool of reason guided by certain presuppositions. We do not need to guess the presuppositions of the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar. The "seven pillars of scholarly wisdom" are clearly delineated in the introduction of their book. One of these pillars assumes the necessity of separating "the real teachings of Jesus, the figure of history, from the encrustations of Christian doctrine." In other words, if you want to know what Jesus really said and did, you can only go outside of the Bible. Another "pillar of scholarly wisdom" agrees with Albert Schweitzer who "saw Jesus' ethic as only an 'interim ethic' (a way of life good only for the brief period before the cataclysmic end, the eschaton.) As such he found it no longer relevant or valid."

The final pillar, or assumption, is the most preposterous. The Jesus Seminar claims a "reversal has taken place regarding who bears the burden of proof...the gospels are now assumed to be narratives in which the memory of Jesus is embellished by mythic elements that express the church's faith in him, and by plausible fictions that enhance the telling of the gospel story for first-century listeners...supposedly historical elements in these narratives must therefore be demonstrated to be so." Notice the word, "assumed." No evidence is needed: the gospels are assumed fictitious unless proven otherwise (no explanation is given as to what would be considered adequate proof-even the red letters are sayings that they say probably originated with Jesus).

It's no wonder the Jesus Seminar ended up concluding the Bible is a farce. The pillars, upon which their research is based, are riddled with skepticism and outright denial. Their conclusions are not based on their presuppositions; their conclusions are their presuppositions.

So what motivates these people, if not the scholarly pursuit of truth? Again, we need not guess. We are told. In various media interviews and in the introduction of their book, these scholars reveal that they want to take the Bible away from those who simply believe that everything the Bible says is true. This "fundamentalist mentality, they say, long ago generated a climate of inquisition that made honest scholarly judgments dangerous."These "fundamentalists" chased the true scholars out of seminaries and denominations across the land. But, not to worry, "critical scholars" struck back and reasserted themselves in colleges, universities, and seminaries. Now it was the believers who had to retreat and establish their own academic institutions (the same ones that were not invited to the Jesus Seminar).

But the scholars of the Jesus Seminar are not satisfied with having control of the religion departments of universities. They are unhappy that conservative scholars (whom they call fundamentalists) are so influential and get so much media attention. So, in 1985, Robert Funk, a retired religion professor, set up the by-invitation-only Jesus Seminar. This group meets twice a year to share their knowledge, debate, vote and above all, publicize their findings (or presuppositions). Knowing that Christmas and Easter are the only times religious stories can be published anywhere other than the back page, they schedule their meetings for those holidays. So, just when thoughts are turning to Jesus, people open their newspapers and are told that the latest scientific and historical research reveals, without doubt, that all the sayings of Jesus are just made-up stories.

All this reminds me of the reception Jesus got from the Scribes and Pharisees when Jesus walked the earth. Those scholars didn't accept Jesus then and these scholars of the Jesus Seminar do not accept Jesus now.

I hope that people will see these twice-annual media stories in a larger perspective. I hope they will remember that people, as long ago as the Roman guards at Jesus' tomb, have made up stories to discredit Jesus. But the truth has always prevailed. The Christian faith has only grown stronger in the twenty centuries since Jesus lived and taught. Our faith, while it is faith, is based on certain facts, historical events and sayings. We are not imagining or wishing these things to be true, Jesus really said those things. Finally, I hope that believers will take the opportunity, when these questions arise, to speak up for what they believe and why they believe it.

Finally, I am reminded of what Jesus said when he was suffering accusations of being a glutton, drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." You can be sure Jesus really said that. (Matt. 11:25, 26)

What the Jesus Seminar Says Jesus Said --and Didn't Say

Jesus Probably Said (Red Letters):

• "Our Father." (from the Lord's Prayer. The rest of the prayer was supposedly written by others)
• "Love your enemies." (from Luke 6:27)
• "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." (This is the only passage in Mark that qualifies-Mark 12:17)
• (three sayings in the Gospel of Thomas which parallel other gospels)

Jesus Didn't Say (Gray or Black Letters):

• "Go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matt. 28:19)
• The Beatitudes ("Blessed are...") (Matt. 5)
• "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me." (John 14:6) There is nothing in John's Gospel which qualifies for red letters.

Here are some good books that talk about the historical and scientific evidence for the Bible's validity:
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce, InterVarsity Press.
From God to Us by Norman Geisler & William Nix, Moody Press.
Introduction to the New Testament by E.F. Harrison.