OPINION

THE JESUS SEMINAR AND THE THIRD QUEST

Arland J. Hultgren

It is becoming commonplace to speak of a "third quest" of the historical

It is becoming Jesus, following upon thefirstquest in the nineteenth century and the
commonplace to second in the middle of the twentieth. The third quest is being carried
speak of a "third on by a number of scholars individually and by a group of them in the
quest" of the Jesus Seminar.
historical Jesus, The Jesus Seminar was founded by Robert Funk in 1985 and is spon-
following upon sored by the Westar Institute at Sonoma, California, which Funk heads.
thefirstquest in Since its founding the seminar has met twice a year to discuss and
the nineteenth determine the authenticity of sayings attributed to Jesus in all known
century and the literary remains from thefirstthree centuries. As many as two hundred
second in the scholars have been in and out of the seminar over the years. The results
middle of the of the work have now been published in a volume of 553 pages,1 which
twentieth. lists 74 persons as fellows on the roster of the seminar at the conclusion
of this phase of its work. The next project of the seminar is to analyze
the narrative material in the early sources under the question, "What
did Jesus really do?"
The seminar has received a good deal of press coverage, some sensa-
tionalistic, as its work has proceeded. That has not upset members of

Arland]. Hultgren, Luther Seminary, 2481 Como Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108

1. Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the
Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: MacMillan, 1993).

266 Opinion
the seminar, since they believe that the public is terribly uninformed
about Jesus anyway or—more accurately—what scholars think about
Jesus today. The press reports have let the public know, for example,
that the sayings of Jesus in the passion narratives cannot actually be The cumulative
attributed to him, and that about all one can recover from the Lord's results of the
Prayer as truly authentic is "Our Father." The remaining words and voting are now
phrases shade off as a mixture; some could have been uttered by Jesus, published in The
but others most certainly were not. Five Gospels,
What is probably best known about the seminar, in addition to its which contains
results here and there, is its color-code classification of the sayings of new translations
Jesus. As the seminar met over the years, and after discussion of of the four
particular sayings, its members voted on the question of authenticity. canonical Gospels
They dropped one of four colored beads into a box passed around the plus the Gospel
table. A red one meant that the saying is authentic; a pink one meant of Thomas, and
each saying is
that Jesus said "something like this"; a gray one meant that Jesus did
printed in one of
not say it, but its ideas "are close to his own"; and a black one meant
the four colors.
that Jesus did not say that. The cumulative results of the voting are now
published in The Five Gospels, which contains new translations of the
four canonical Gospels plus the Gospel of Thomas, and each saying is
printed in one of the four colors. Often some comment follows concern-
ing the choice of color.
A number of criteria for authenticity are spelled out at the beginning
of the volume. Most of these are familiar to anyone who has read
scholarly works on the history of the synoptic tradition, form criticism,
redaction criticism, and even some commentaries. In that sense the
methodology of the seminar is not actually new. What is new can be
summarized under three headings: 1) the collaborative work of a
particular group, 2) the use of non-canonical sources (especially the
Gospel of Thomas) on a par with the canonical Gospels, and 3) the Questions arise,
prevailing view of Jesus held among the Fellows of the Seminar, which however. One is
has a bearing on the outcome of their voting. the question of
the propriety of
Regarding the first point, while scholars in the past have often made the voting process
decisions about the authenticity or non-authenticity of words and to determine
deeds attributed to Jesus, this is the first time that a group of them has what is authentic
collaborated and voted on virtually every saying attributed to Jesus in information
the ancient sources. Questions arise, however. One is the question of about Jesus.
the propriety of the voting process to determine what is authentic
information about Jesus. There are only fifteen sayings that appear in
red in all the gospels. None is from the Gospel of John, and only one is
from Mark (12:17). There are 75 more that appear in pink—again none
from John. In fact, we are told that "eighty-two percent of the words
ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels were not actually spoken by him,

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. Ill, No. 3 267

 according to the Jesus Seminar" (p. 5). Must one conclude then that
there is nothing in that 82% — and absolutely nothing in the Gospel of
John — that bears the message of Jesus? For example, Mark 1:15 ("The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near") appears in
black. Perhaps it is not an exact quotation from Jesus, but must we
exclude it as a source of authentic information about Jesus, i.e., as a
summary of his proclamation about the nearness of the kingdom? The
rules of the seminar for voting allow no such nuances, and so the results
are so minimal that, if we accept them and are honest, we must
conclude that the Gospel writers have far exceeded what the historical
traditions about Jesus should warrant. But many of us are not willing
to draw that conclusion because of different ways of assessing the
historical worth of the tradition. The opening pages speak of critics of
the seminar as "the skeptical left wing" and "the fundamentalist right"
(p. 5). But of course there are hundreds of New Testament scholars in
North America, who would place themselves in neither of those camps,
who are conspicuously absent from the roster of fellows. There may be
several reasons for their absence, but the demurral just mentioned is a
major one for many.
The use of the Gospel of Thomas is not new in the study of Jesus.
Joachim Jeremías, for example, used it frequently for comparative and
even evaluative purposes in his study of the parables. But what is
relatively new in the case of the Jesus Seminar is the claim that an early
edition of the Gospel of Thomas existed earlier (A.D. 50-60) than the
canonical gospels (p. 474). (Up until recently Thomas was usually
The prevailing assigned to the middle of the second century.) That claim has been
view of the made by others recently, but it has also been challenged. In any case,
fellows of the it is clear that the Gospel of Thomas has become a major factor in the
seminar is that understanding of Jesus by fellows of the seminar. Claiming that its
Jesus was a sage
literary origins are earlier than those of the other Gospels (or at least
or traveling sage.
contemporary with the origins of Q) renders it a privileged status
among the Gospels in putting together a portrait of Jesus, a portrait
that is relatively new. It portrays Jesus primarily as a sage, which brings
us to the next point.
The prevailing view of the fellows of the seminar is that Jesus was a
sage or traveling sage — designations that appear in their book several
2. Joachim Jeremías, The Parables of Jesus, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963).
3. That much of the material in the Gospel of Thomas can be assigned to the 30s or 40s is held
in an article by Helmut Koester and Stepehn J. Patterson, "The Gospel of Thomas: Does It
Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?," Bible Review 6/2 (April 1990), 37. The completed work
can be dated to A.D. 50-70, according to Stevan Davies, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian
Wisdom (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), 3.
4. See the discussion in Arland J. Hultgren, The Rise of Normative Christianity (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1994), 58-61.

268 Opinion
 times over (pp. 1,4,7,10,27,32-33). That Jesus was, among other things,
a sage is a valid insight, confirmed by the large number of wisdom
sayings attributed to him. Several years ago, for example, Charles
Carlston estimated that the Synoptic Gospels contain some 102 wis-
dom sayings attributed to Jesus, and John Dominic Crossan has iden-
tified some 133 aphorisms (mostly wisdom sayings) of Jesus in early They explicitly
Christian sources.5 But for the Jesus Seminar, "sage" is not just one of reject the view
many terms that would go into a description of who Jesus was; it is the that Jesus
defining term. Members of the seminar have determined, for instance, proclaimed the
that Jesus was not an eschatological prophet in the tradition of Johan- coming of the
nes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, Rudolf Bultmann, Günther Bornkamm, kingdom of God.
E. P. Sanders, and a host of others of this century. They explicitly reject
the view that Jesus proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God (p.
40) and state that the "liberation of the non-eschatological Jesus of the
aphorisms and parables from Schweitzer's eschatological Jesus" (p. 4)
is a major "pillar" of contemporary scholarship. The call for the eschaton
of eschatology in the teaching of Jesus had become prominent already
in the work of at least one of the members of the seminar, Marcus Borg.6
Jesus as eschatological prophet was the primary understanding of the
second quest; Jesus as sage appears to be the emerging understanding
of the third. Jesus is portrayed primarily as sage not only in the work
of the Jesus Seminar but also in recent books by Burton Mack and John
Dominic Crossan (the latter actually using the related term "Jewish
cynic"). A forthcoming work on Jesus as sage by Ben Witherington8
(who is not identified with the Jesus Seminar) may also add weight to
the emerging picture of Jesus along these lines.
The significance of the Jesus Seminar and the third quest for theology
and the church remains to be seen. The older consensus concerning
Jesus and Christian faith was, in short-hand, that the Proclaimer (Jesus,
prophet of the eschatological kingdom of God) became the Proclaimed
(the crucified and risen Christ proclaimed in the church). In that way
of thinking, there has been a continuity: (1) Jesus announced the
coming saving work of God; (2) the church proclaims that the saving
work of God has been accomplished in Jesus' death and resurrection
—with final wrap-up to come at his parousia. Can Jesus as sage fit into

5. Charles E. Carlston, " Proverbs, Maxims, and the Historical Jesus," Journal of Biblical Literature
99 (1980), 91; John Dominic Crossan, In Fragments: The Aphorisms ofJesus (San Francisco: Harperr
& Row, 1983).
6. Marcus Borg, "A Temperate Case for a Noneschatological Jesus," Foundations and Facets
Forum 2/3 (September 1986), 81-102. See also his Jesus: A New Vision (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1987) and Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).
7. Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (San Francisco: Harper-
Collins, 1993), 30-31; John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life ofa Mediterranean Jewish
Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 421-22.
8. Ben Witherington, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994).

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. Ill, No. 3 269

 any comparable syntax? Can one say that the Sage became the Pro­
The proclamation claimed? More likely, as in the recent book by Burton Mack, the
of Jesus as risen message coming out of the Jesus Seminar and the third quest will be
Lord leads to that Jesus the sage is all that w e really need, and that that kind of Jesus
mission — some­ is better for the health of the world anyway—a point that Mack makes
9
thing that explicitly. "A few proverbs, maxims, and memorable figures/ he
Jesus the Sage says, "can offer guidance even in the midst of confusing times/' The
does not do. proclamation of Jesus as risen Lord leads to mission — something that
Jesus the Sage does not do. Moreover, Jesus the eschatological prophet
summons us to faith in God and self-giving to the neighbor. But does
Jesus the sage (or guru), who directs us to consider what is wise, ever
get us to stretch beyond ourselves in like manner?
Theology cannot dictate ahead of time what the quester for the histor­
ical Jesus must come up with. On the other hand, neither can the
theology and proclamation of the church rest its case on the shifting
sands of historical research (Martin Kahler). Even if someone were too
But the question find a diary that is somehow certified as coming from Jesus, and if it
that lurks in all of should contain some unpleasant surprises, the theology and proclama­
this is whether the tion of Jesus as the one in whom God has done a redemptive deed via
Jesus Seminar and cross and resurrection need not be threatened. Likewise, if Jesus was
the third questers in fact a sage, and not an eschatological prophet of the kingdom of God,
in general are not that same theology and proclamation need not be undercut. But the
in fact seeking to question that lurks in all of this is whether the Jesus Seminar and the
dismantle and third questers in general are not in fact seeking to dismantle and rebuild
rebuild the whole the whole edifice from the ground up. In other words, could there be
edifice from the a theological agenda among them? Their frequent disparaging of the
ground up. In apostle Paul for corrupting everything, and their criticism of the Syn­
other words, optic Gospels for putting a Pauline, kergymatic interpretation on the
could there be a traditions of Jesus (culminating in the cross and resurrection accounts),
theological agenda on the one hand, and their lifting up Q and the Gospel of Thomas as
among them? prime sources for the real Jesus on the other, make that lurking question
necessary to ask. On the question of Jesus himself, yes, he was a sage.
But we need not, on those grounds, dispense with him as an eschato­
logical prophet of the kingdom as well. Π

9. Β. Mack, The Lost Gospel 255.

10. Ibid., 257.

270 Opinion
 ^ s
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