henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl suntanned Henning) (04/01/91)
[Since posting my initial query, I have come up at least with the title of Bishop Spong's book: /Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism/ I'm curious to learn more of the book's content, and of responses to it.] Recently in the Buffalo /News/, there was a letter protesting the reportage in the "Religious News" section of the paper on the voting of the 200-member Jesus Seminar, which concluded that "about 80% of the words attributed to Jesus were probably made up by later authors". Excerpt from one account of this new item: ---------------------------- "The picture of Jesus that emerges from the meeting that concluded Sunday in Sonoma, Calif., is one of a prophet-sage who told parables and made pithy comments, but never spoke many of the words that have, in modern times, become pulpit favorites. "Virtually all of Jesus' words in the Gospel of John were voted down by the Jesus Seminar, a 200-member group of mainline biblical scholars from around the country who came together, in part, to counteract literalist views of the Bible. "The group has stirred controversy since its first meetings in 1985, when scholars participating in the group voted down the apocalyptic voice of Jesus when he is quoted as saying he will return one day to a world filled with turmoil. "Scholars felt that the doomsaying words were put on the lips of Jesus to bolster hopes of gospel writers about 30 to 60 years after his lifetime." &c. ---------------------------- The person who wrote to the paper in protest felt that the /News/ had no business reporting this item as "Religious News" (making one wonder what other selective omissions this person would make if he wielded the Power of the Press), and -- in a classic case of "I've made my decision, so your contrary decision must be invalid" -- made the startlingly unjustifiable statement that "they [the Seminar] must not have been believing Christians". Truly, one of the sorrier instances of "my mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts" -- and I grant the delicate point that the fact here is, not that 80% of the sayings attributed to jesus are CLEARLY attributable to later sources, but that a group of 200 scholars finds it likely. I think I understand the confused anger which prompted that letter, but it seems to be symptomatic of a deplorable trend in late 20th century America. We live in a constitutional democracy; this doesn't simply mean that the majority rules -- because even if a majority decides that a certain minority shouldn't be allowed to exercise this or that privilege for whatever reason, the constitution guarantees certain liberties to every citizen. For example, even if a majority of Americans feel that there should be prayer in school, such legislation can and should be stricken as unconstitutional -- now, it is true that, if the Supreme Court consists in the majority of people "sympathetic" to prayer in school, that they may elect not to fulfill their constitutional obligations ... but that doesn't change the Constitution, it merely abuses it. Hopefully the abuse would be corrected eventually (as were, say, slavery, women's suffrage, and prohibition). In this democracy, everyone has the right to express his opinion. And -- while responsible citizens might not express their opinions publicly without undertaking to collect impartial evidence and as thorough a knowledge of the topic under advisement as might be available -- there are a number of loud and irresponsible citizens, particularly among xians it seems, who are "bold to speak out" regardless of their lack of broad knowledge and awareness; indeed, who parade their ignorance as a virtue, for which they humbly expect the commendation of their god. Consider the following historical example: The man who wrote the anti-evolution law which resulted in the Scopes "monkey trial" was a tobacco farmer, who "thought that his Bible was the first and only Bible ever written; when someone had told him that the King James version of the Bible was not the only version the poor man was overcome." [Irving Stone, /Clarence Darrow for the Defense/] This man was John Washington Butler, and knew nothing of evolution. "In 1922 a visiting preacher from Nashville had told ... the story of a young woman who had gone to the university and returned home believing that, instead of God creating man, he was descended from a lower order of animals. This sermon set Butler to worrying; he was a devout man who had raised his five children on the letter of the King James Bible. He knew that evolution was being taught in the Tennessee high schools; it seemed to him neither fair nor just that the public schools, which were run on the taxes paid by the surrounding farms, should undermine the religion that had been planted in the young while at home."[Stone] One can understand Butler's feelings, of course. It doesn't make his legislative response any more "fair or just", however. For whatever bizarre socially retrogressive reason, there is a whole litany of such activism today -- a parade of people proud of the crude simplicity of their reception of the bible, eager to raise their voices to the end of restricting the civil liberties of their fellow-citizens: whether it be censorship of art [partially] subsidized by the state, censorship of books which can be taught in school, censorship of the music sold in stores and the films shown in cinemas, seeking to outlaw abortion, seeking to impose prayer as part of the educational system and public ceremony. [NB: I understand that not all people who support any of the above must necessarily share entire ideologies.] As there are a number of xians in the population, they are entitled to participate in the democratic process; one wishes that some of them would participate in a more responsible manner. kph -- Doris: But without God, the universe is meaningless. Life is meaningless. We're meaningless. (/Deadly pause/) I have a sudden and overpowering urge to get laid. -- Woody Allen, "God (A Play)" [The Jesus Seminar has been mentioned in talk.religion.misc, but possibly not here. I should note that some of the publicity appears to be the sort that a publisher creates, to make his book seem more sensational than it really is. Among the passages listed as challenged was John 3:16. To understand how bogus this comment is, you have to realize exactly what the seminar is doing. They are trying to determine which passages are Jesus' actual words. So to say that they reject John 3:16 is no news, at least to me. I had always assumed that this was John's words rather than Jesus'. Because Greek doesn't have quotation marks, it's hard to know where quotations end. The overall pattern of John involves episodes with Jesus talking to somebody, and then theological reflection written by John, but presumably representing Jesus' views. I'd say in this case that the quotation ends somewhere before 3:16. NRSV suggests the end of 3:15. More generally, I question whether it's possible even in principle for us to determine what Jesus' words were. When you compare the Gospels it's pretty clear that paraphrasing has been done, for purposes such as conciseness, making them intelligible to Gentiles, clarifying their application in a post-resurrection situation, etc. Now the scholars participating in the Jesus seminar understand all of this very well. They realize that the fact that they don't print a passage in red is not necessarily an attack on its authority for Christians. None of their ideas are new. But by allowing their work to be presented a great challenge to Christianity, they are playing into the hands of ultra-conservative Christians who distrust all modern scholarship. There is a gulf between ordinary Christians and Christian scholarship. We need people to narrow this gulf (both by explaining more accurately to ordinary Christians what is actually being done, and by avoiding excesses of speculative methodologies), not to emphasize it. Frankly I wonder whether there is any useful purpose for this book at all. (No, I haven't seen the book. However I have read an article by one of the participants in the project in Bible Review, describing what they were doing.) --clh]
henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl airspace Henning) (04/02/91)
I thank the moderator for providing yet more information regarding the Jesus Seminar, by which recent conclave I find myself increasingly fascinated. I should mention that I didn't realize that the findings of this Seminar had been published in book form; and, since my initial posting included queries about a new book by Bishop Spong, I should pint out too that the two books are utterly separate issues/entities. The moderator discussed "a gulf between between ordinary Christians and Christian scholarship", and thereby hangs a tale. I admire men with the determination and strength of purpose to try to establish a dialogue between xian scholarship and the ordinary xian ... but I must confess that I see it as a nearly Sisyphian task. kph -- Doris: But without God, the universe is meaningless. Life is meaningless. We're meaningless. (/Deadly pause/) I have a sudden and overpowering urge to get laid. -- Woody Allen, "God (A Play)"
crf@tomato.princeton.edu (Charles Ferenbaugh) (04/04/91)
After reading the recent article about the Jesus Seminar, I'm confused. The newspaper account of the group's findings gave me a very different impression from the moderator's comments. In article <Apr.1.03.23.28.1991.7781@athos.rutgers.edu> henning@acsu.buffalo.edu (Karl random_middle_name Henning) writes: > [quoting a newspaper article -- crf] > "The group has stirred controversy since its first meetings in 1985, >when scholars participating in the group voted down the apocalyptic >voice of Jesus when he is quoted as saying he will return one day to a >world filled with turmoil. > "Scholars felt that the doomsaying words were put on the lips of Jesus >to bolster hopes of gospel writers about 30 to 60 years after his >lifetime." &c. >---------------------------- and our moderator comments: > ... you have to realize exactly what the seminar is doing. They are >trying to determine which passages are Jesus' actual words. So to say >that they reject John 3:16 is no news, at least to me. I had always >assumed that this was John's words rather than Jesus'. ... > >More generally, I question whether it's possible even in principle for >us to determine what Jesus' words were. When you compare the Gospels >it's pretty clear that paraphrasing has been done, for purposes such >as conciseness, making them intelligible to Gentiles, clarifying their >application in a post-resurrection situation, etc. > >Now the scholars participating in the Jesus seminar understand all of >this very well. They realize that the fact that they don't print a >passage in red is not necessarily an attack on its authority for >Christians. ... If I'm understanding the moderator correctly, his point is: okay, so maybe the biblical words of Jesus aren't direct transcripts like we would find today in the _New_York_Times_, say. But even when you take into account all the paraphrasing and so forth, they're still a reasonably accurate representation of what Jesus taught. If that's all these people are saying, I have no difficulty agreeing with it. (I should point out that I find no contradiction between that and my belief that the Bible is inerrant. Of course by "inerrancy" I don't mean the naive version that Karl Henning described in his article.) But the newspaper quote seems to be saying something quite different. Note that, in effect, it implies that certain of Jesus' words in the Bible are nowhere near anything Jesus ever said, but they were added later for other purposes. In this view, when the Gospel writers wrote "Jesus said", IT WAS A FLAT-OUT LIE AND THEY KNEW IT. Contrast this with the moderator's view, in which "Jesus said" actually means "Jesus said," with the understanding that it might be a paraphrase but he really did say something to this effect. If I may use loaded terms, these two approaches could be called the "bad- faith" and "good-faith" views, respectively. > .... There is a gulf between ordinary Christians and >Christian scholarship. We need people to narrow this gulf (both by >explaining more accurately to ordinary Christians what is actually >being done, and by avoiding excesses of speculative methodologies), >not to emphasize it. I agree wholeheartedly!!!! But it won't be easy. For many people the only exposure they've had to "modern scholarship" is the kind that says, we really don't like these parts of what the Bible says, but that's okay because we've now discovered that Paul was a bigot and the gospel writers were liars who put words in Jesus' mouth and... so we can ignore it. Until attitudes like that stop going under the name "scholarship", it'll be difficult to get some Christians to give real scholarship a real hearing. Grace and peace, Charles Ferenbaugh