A Gateway to the Research of the Jesus Seminar

Mahlon H. Smith
Rutgers University

2.1. Historical persona. It has become a commonplace to categorize Christianity as a ‘historical religion’ because of its preoccupation with the person known to history as Jesus Christ.  Many of the fundamental claims of Christian theology stand or fall on the issue of Jesus’ historical existence and its significance for other humans throughout history.  Yet, as any student of the history of Christianity knows, Jesus himself has not always been interpreted primarily as a historical person, conditioned by and interacting with a unique confluence of verifiable cultural circumstances.  While the impact that the figure of Jesus made upon subsequent human history is undeniable, attention to the eternal theological significance of what happened to him has overshadowed the significance of anything he said or did within his lifetime or even his historical persona itself -- i.e., the characteristic traits of a concrete individual that enable him to be distinguished from all others. (a) From storytelling to research. From a very early date, to be sure, stories about Jesus played an important role in shaping the Christian imagination.  But storytelling is not itself history./3/   Since prehistoric times there have been story-tellers adept at presenting vivid and even gripping tales involving the interaction of completely fictional characters in situations that never actually happened.  Classic myths and modern fantasies from Homer to Star Wars have amply demonstrated the ability of a good story to capture the imaginations of millions and even shape whole cultures. Such stories presuppose the power of some super-human Force.  The forces that shape history, on the other hand, are often far less dramatic or uplifting; and an accurate reading usually requires painstaking research. The primary role of historical research is to constrain rather than entertain flights of the human imagination, to keep one’s mind firmly planted on solid ground rather than send it to venture across a wine-dark sea or prepare it for a leap of faith into hyper-space. (b) From passive to passing creation. Fictional heroes like Odysseus or Luke Skywalker are passive creations, shaped by the active imaginations of story-teller and audience.  Historical figures, on the other hand, have a creative role in shaping their own stories by altering the world that others would have imagined without them.  It is the direction and duration of this creative energy that is crucial. A truly historical person, no matter how important, is always a passing force in the inevitable kaleidoscopic transformations that the space-time continuum imposes upon the social development of the human species. The things that s/he said or did may impact the minds and lives of millions for aeons thereafter. Yet that person’s creative role ends with a last breath. And that chapter in history is usually closed with interment. So, if Jesus is to be regarded as a real historical person, then his creative contribution to human history has to be limited to the impact of his interaction with others between birth and death, both on them and on subsequent generations.  The fact that Jesus’ burial was never the final chapter in the story told by his supporters is a clear sign that his life has been interpreted in a dimension other than history. 2.2. Problematic logic. In accepting Paul’s use of botanical germination as an analogy to explain the kerygmatic claim of Jesus’ resurrection to scientifically sophisticated Greeks (1 Cor 15:36-37), Dominic Crossan recently wrote: From seed to grain is a combination of something absolutely the same and yet totally different. So too with resurrection.  It is the same Jesus, the one and only historical Jesus of the late 20s in his Jewish homeland, but now untrammeled by time and place, language and proximity. It is the one and only Jesus, absolutely the same, absolutely different./4/ While these lines are powerful inspirational rhetoric, they are problematic in logic and deficient in historical analysis. For historical entities are always trammeled by time and place. Yet, like the Pauline metaphor that inspired it, Crossan’s description of resurrection above provides an excellent illustration of Jesus’ early metamorphosis into a person beyond any historical process within this world. (a) Individuality and generation. Like Paul’s grains of wheat, all humans everywhere share certain common generic traits; yet each historical individual is distinguishable from all others of its genus at least by its appearance at a different point in the space-time continuum.  The historical Jesus, moreover, is -- or rather was -- an individual rather than a genus; and individuals always display characteristics that differentiate them from other members of their own family.  Distinctive aspects of this individual’s life and death planted seeds that germinated in the minds and lives of other individuals whose personal traits and biographies remained historically distinguishable from his own.  No matter how perfectly those seeds -- both word and deed -- preserved the unique DNA of Jesus’ persona, it was not the same historical individual who was generated in those who digested and developed them. (b) Tracing distinctive traits. Paul is quite correct in stressing that what was sown -- by Jesus as by any other historical person -- is not identical with what was produced in the community that proclaimed his resurrection. The “one and only historical Jesus of the late 20s” died and (perhaps) was buried in his “Jewish homeland.”  The Jesus who was subsequently raised in the imaginations and activity of his comrades and later admirers bore features that are not traceable to the genetic code and spirit of the person whose name they celebrated. That is precisely why the quest of the historical Jesus always has to focus on separating the characteristic seeds that were sown by this particular Palestinian Jew prior to Passover in 30 CE from all that sprouted later and elsewhere.  Whether the genetic mutations between the historical Jesus and the persona projected by subsequent christology are extensive enough to constitute a “fatal flaw” for Christian claims of historical continuity depends entirely on whether that christology is attuned to instructions generated by Jesus himself. 2.3. Praise as forgetfulness. From earliest days the tendency of partisans to celebrate Jesus projected glorified images that were not only larger than one human life but transcended the spatial and temporal limits that circumscribe every human existence. Christian preachers and writers put no historical reins upon their rhetoric exalting Jesus’ reputation and role in the history of the cosmos./5/ Since there were no surviving portraits of Jesus by disinterested contemporary observers, throughout subsequent history it has been primarily this enthusiastic poetry of praise invoked in communal worship that has formed the impressions of Jesus in the minds of most of those who never knew him in the flesh.  Difficult features of the historical Galilean’s life that were not regarded as worthy of praise or worship were generally overlooked and soon all but forgotten. (a) Cosmic ruler or construction worker. Unfortunately, such unqualified praise of Jesus has historically contributed as much to social oppression as to justice.  Primitive Christian celebration of Jesus’ paradoxical exaltation to cosmic primacy created the awesome image of Christ the king: a victorious warrior who ruthlessly subdues all enemies./6/ Rather than serve as originally intended, as an icon for championship of those who had no other champions, this representation of Jesus has inspired Christian leaders -- ecclesiastical as well as secular -- to devote themselves to waging wars of conquest: from crusades against the “infidel” to subjugation, conversion and exploitation of “heathen” native populations around the globe, to contemporary blood feuds between fellow Christians. Overlooked, if not completely lost, in all of this devotion was the paradoxical wisdom of the unemployed construction-worker who, though himself a victim of military oppression, counseled fellow Israelites: “Love your enemies” (Matt 5:44//Luke 6:27,35). (1) Psychology of devotion. Despite Crossan’s statement cited in the epigraph to this paper, even from the beginnings of Christianity it has not been the historical man Jesus who really attracted the devotion of most fervent partisans./7/  It has rather been the aura of a super-historical colossus who transcends time: the right hand agent of the Creator who from the very beginning ruled all creation and at whose feet the whole human species is destined to bow in the end.  From the Pauline Christ hymns to the Orthodox Pantocrator to Michaelangelo’s Last Judgment and Handel’s Messiah this awe-inspiring Christ so dominated the rhetoric and artistic expressions of Christian worship that it is little wonder that only a dozen years ago the religion editor of TIME magazine concluded his condescending dismissal of current historical Jesus scholarship with these words: ...believers do care about the historical Jesus and urgently want him to square with the figure they know through faith.  They are not likely to be stirred by the less-than-robust Jesuses resulting from higher criticism... Even a clearer, more traditional Jesus of history is inadequate if he does not evoke spiritual awe./8/ While the logic of these lines is easily faulted, their insight into the psychology of popular devotion is (unfortunately) very perceptive.  The quest for personal inspiration often has a determining effect upon what people are prepared to recognize as true.  True believers always want their hero to manifest those qualities that they themselves regard as robust.  Hence, we all have a hard time accepting historical evidence that an individual we idolize -- be it a preacher, a teacher, a star or a president -- does not quite square with the figure we first believed him (or her) to be.  So, if the Jesus of history fails to fit one’s a priori model of a worthy leader -- not to mention a savior --, there are two easy courses of action.  One can always ignore or deny those historical discrepancies and continue to proclaim him to be the person one always believed he was; or one can recognize his inadequacies and look for another who would be a closer match. But in either case it is an ahistorical image that drives one’s quest, like a vision of the elusive Holy Grail, whose existence can be believed but never demonstrated. (2) Modified ideals. There is, of course, another possible reaction to the discovery that one’s hero has clay feet.  But it is more difficult, since it involves placing loyalty to a concrete historical person above adherence to an abstract ideal.  That is to modify one’s ideal model to fit the characteristics of the person to whom one is devoted.  This is easier to do with someone one has come to know and trust.  Parents do it all the time with their children.  To some extent this is what early Christians did in the face of the inescapable facts that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was crucified in Jerusalem.  Though for many Jews this was enough evidence that Jesus was not the hero they sought, for some these discrepancies from traditional heroic models could not destroy their faith in him./9/  Similarly, for modern scholars who have devoted their lives to Jesus research, the discovery that there is no firm evidence that the historical Jesus claimed to be either the Messiah or the unique Son of God or that he literally was born of a virgin or walked on water has not lessened but, paradoxically, only intensified interest in getting to know him better./10/  To that extent, at least, Crossan is correct in claiming that both before and after Easter the historical Jesus is one and the same.  But for others, whose interest in Jesus rests primarily on such extraordinary claims and stories, and who have not been gripped by the voice and logic of the historical man himself, these discoveries can be so threatening that they are quick to berate and even seek to silence anyone who questions the historical accuracy of the web of propaganda woven by two millennia of Christian devotion and public relations./11/ (3) Accepting historical parameters. The reaction from Christian conservatives to Crossan’s own massive historical study subtitled The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant proves that the figure that most people still envision when they use the name “Jesus” does not really preserve the peculiar features of this Jewish peasant from an insignificant hamlet in Roman occupied Galilee./12/  They do not think of him as a construction worker, known to contemporaries as Yeshu bar Yosef, who lived most of his life in secular obscurity until he caused a brief public stir as a vagabond in the wake of the execution of the real hero of the Jewish masses: a baptizing social reformer named Yohanan./13/  Nor is it yet generally recognized that Roman authorities made a public spectacle of his execution as a terrifying warning to other Jews who might also have thoughts of disturbing the status quo. Though traces of such parameters for this man’s life have survived in first-century texts we call “gospels,” those who describe themselves as “evangelicals” generally have trouble accepting them as historical fact.  While there can be no question that such self-styled conservatism is committed to continuing Jesus’ incarnation ever afterward, it is questionable whether it is really the actual details of the incarnation of this historical person that it is concerned to perpetuate. (b) Buried facts. Until rather recently the mundane markers of Jesus’ historical existence have been buried in the collective Christian unconscious and even deliberately obscured by the inevitable tendency of those who have admired -- or at least been fascinated by -- Jesus to idealize his image and inflate its universal importance.  Less than a quarter century after Jesus was crucified, Paul -- the missionary who probably did more to spread and promote Jesus’ reputation than anyone else in the first century CE -- had to remind Greek Christians of the public scandal inherent in the mere historical fact of his crucifixion./14/   Within that same first generation, the author of the gospel known as Mark repeatedly berated those who claimed to be Jesus’ closest associates (Peter, James and John) for imagining Jesus to be like the heroic divine agents of Israelite salvation history (Moses, Elijah and David) and forgetting that he “came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45)./15/ (1) Deification and poetic license. Yet, the impulse to venerate Jesus was so contagious in Hellenistic culture, where tales of gods appearing in human form and heroes being deified were commonplace, that it was relatively easy for early Christians to ignore the historical Jesus completely.  In 112 CE, just a generation after Mark, former Christians in Asia Minor confessed to the Roman governor, Pliny, that they used to gather to sing “a hymn to Christ as to a god.”/16/   Several of the oldest surviving Christian hymns, in fact, are so focused on describing Jesus’ eternal status as equivalent to that of the supreme Deity that virtually no attention is given to any historic detail of his existence other than his birth and death./17/   And even these were often described by Christian writers with such poetic license that the harsh historical circumstances of these events is seldom evident. (2) Incarnation or distortion. Thus, far from representing the person of Jesus as historical incarnation of the Jewish God of justice, as Crossan suggests, such glorification of his eternal cosmic status actually replaced recollection of practically all of the distinctive features of this particular man with contemplation of a disembodied and ethnically neutered primordial Power.  With the sole exception of references to crucifixion practically all of the classical liturgical language used to celebrate Jesus is drawn from traditional theological sources written long before his birth and, thus, could have been composed even if such a historical person had never existed.  Moreover, the fact that soon after the crucifixion Jesus’ death was represented as a traditional Jewish ritual slaughter of a sacrificial lamb rather than as characteristically Roman torture of a political offender tended to distort historical recollection of events and keep pious Christian minds from raising embarrassing questions about the actual historical circumstances that precipitated his execution.  As a consequence, for almost two millennia most Christians have confidently viewed Jews in general as enemies of the God represented by Jesus./18/ 2.4. Philosophical controversy. By the beginning of the second century even the abstract concepts of classic Greek philosophy had been pressed into service by Hellenized Christians to proclaim the divinity of Jesus. Whether the author of the gospel of John was himself indebted to Philo of Alexandria’s use of the Platonized stoic notion of a personified Logos that was a “son of God” (υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ) and a “second god” (δευτερὸς θέος) is debatable./19/ But it is certain that many generations of philosophically trained Christian teachers, from the martyred Samaritan Justin (ca. 100-165 CE) on, interpreted the claims for Jesus in the Fourth Gospel -- and the synoptics -- in terms of Hellenic philosophy rather than the socio-linguistic matrix in which they were composed.  Not only did that further divert attention from the original legacy of Jesus, it plunged Christian communities into more than five centuries of conflict over abstract definitions of the “nature” (φύσις) of his persona, with an almost endless string of councils convoked by church leaders to condemn each others’ declarations of faith as heretical.  Throughout all of this, those who posed as champions of the “true faith” simply ignored the ironic wisdom of the Galilean carpenter who mused: “You see the sliver in your friend’s eye, but you don’t see the timber in your own eye.  When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend’s eye” (Thom 26:1-2)./20/ (a) The Word’s words. The incarnate Logos mysticism of the Fourth Gospel stressed preserving the words (λόγοι) of Jesus./21/   It is therefore ironic that the transcendent Word christology of second century Christian philosophy became the vehicle for relativizing the historical Jesus’ own sayings.  For, once he was identified as the eternal divine Logos, Christians tended to find Christ anywhere in Israel’s scriptures, which were regarded not as a collection of compositions written over hundreds of years by different historical individuals but as a single work composed by the personified Word of God./22/  Words ascribed to Moses or any prophet were read as if they were the words of the same transcendent author who was identified as Jesus.  But this dehistoricizing tendency of universal Logos christology did not end there.  For, since the Logos was viewed as the author of all things (John 1:3), he was regarded as capable of speaking -- however faintly -- through any rational human being. In effect, virtually any true statement could be regarded as a saying of Christ./23/   While the words of the historical Jesus were still treasured, they could be homogenized with those of Socrates (i.e., Plato) and other sages and the logical processes of any Christian author’s own mind.  Thus, the uniqueness of the voice of that Galilean construction worker-turned-itinerant and the distinctive logic of the sayings that he had uttered were reduced to a momentary phase in the revelation of pure logic to which anyone had immediate access. (b) Definitions beyond Reason. The second irony of the legacy of transcendent Logos christology is that, while Jesus was viewed as the ultimate author of universal truth, his own persona was neither identified nor defined primarily by the words that took form on the flesh of his own lips. Rather, the structure of classical Greek logic and definitions of Aristotelian metaphysics were seized to analyze the personified Logos himself, both in his primal relationship to the supreme Deity and in his own incarnate existence.  Instead of being treated as the creative author of eternal Truth, Christ became a passive object, described and dissected by human authors, who invoked the influence of every political institution available -- secular as well as ecclesiastical -- to insure that their own original definitions of Jesus’ status both within and beyond all history would triumph over those composed by their competitors.  In effect, rather than being treated as a real historical persona, who creatively altered the way others viewed and interacted with their world, or even as the common universal Logos active to some degree in anyone -- even those who are regarded as atheists /24/--, Jesus Christ himself became the ultimate cosmic puzzle, the solution to which fewer and fewer rational beings could agree on. (1) Categorical confusion. A third irony of this long debate is that the logical formulations that triumphed -- at least penultimately -- present paradoxical definitions that are beyond common human reason: a God who is three personae (ὑποστάσεις) in one being (οὖσια) and a historical Jesus who is one persona (ὑπόστασις) with two distinct natures (φύσεις).   Even professional biblical scholars and theologians need a crash course in Aristotle’s Categories just to begin to try to understand such affirmations./25/  Adding to the confusion is the fact that even as defined by Aristotle the central terms (οὖσια and ὑπόστασις) were ambiguous, permitting conflicting connotations in their use in creeds that became the normative definitions of Christian orthodoxy./26/ To make matters worse, the use of this terminology to define the person of Jesus in the creed adopted at the council of Chalcedon violated a fundamental tenet of the Aristotelian metaphysical grammar on which it was dependent: the principle that individuals are identified by their nature, but without the individual that nature cannot exist./27/   Thus, the idea of a single person with two completely distinct natures “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” is an absolute paradox: an incomprehensible mystery, a philosophical freak totally unlike any other being in the universe./28/ Thus, far from clarifying popular understanding of Jesus’ place in the cosmic order, the philosophical terms invoked by church fathers simply contributed to mystification and further controversy. (2) Logical gap. The final irony of the centuries long attempt to define Jesus in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics and logic is that the categories that classical Greek philosophy used to analyze reality proved to be neither absolute nor eternal.  In all but a few academic courses required of philosophy majors, other ways of thinking and analyzing reality have become the norm for most educated people. Thus, today the gap between our perception of the universe in which we live and the logic of classical christology has become so great that even conservative theologians recognize that changes must be made in the way we think and talk about Jesus./29/ 2.5.Reflection of whom? A wide variety of new experimental christologies have emerged within the past century./30/  But with few exceptions they have taken their point of departure from previous models of Christian reflection about Jesus -- Chalcedonian two-nature christology, Logos-Wisdom christology, other New Testament affirmations -- rather than from logic traceable to the historical Jesus himself.  Assessing the christological achievements of the twentieth century in retrospect, one can say that there has been a tremendous increase in clarity regarding the complex historical origins and development of the terminology and logic used to describe Jesus in biblical and patristic texts, as well as promising attempts to find new significance and relevance for some of these classic forms. Yet, the basic critical question is not whether a revisionist christology can renew faith in Jesus but whether it is any more faithful to the historical Jesus than previous portraits of his persona. That is to ask: is this christology an adequate reflection of both the words and deeds that a neutral, critical historiography can demonstrate are traceable to this particular historical person rather than to someone else? (a) Appropriateness. In concluding his careful study of the origin of the doctrine of the incarnation, J. D. G. Dunn wrote: We cannot claim that Jesus believed himself to be the incarnate Son of God; but we can claim that the teaching to that effect as it came to expression in the later first-century thought was, in the light of the whole Christ-event, an appropriate reflection on and elaboration of Jesus’ own sense of sonship and eschatological mission./31/ The question of whether christological reflection is appropriate or not all depends on how one defines the whole “Christ-event.”  If one means simply Jesus’ transformative impact upon his immediate disciples -- those who knew him in the flesh -- and their own undying loyalty to the cause to which he committed his life, then it was entirely appropriate that they called him “Lord” even if he never thought of himself in that way.  If the historical parameters of that “Christ-event” are extended to a generation of Christian martyrs who, though they had never actually met the man called Yeshu bar Yosef, were prepared to risk their own lives just to live according to his egalitarian vision rather than submit to the autocratic claims of Roman imperialism, then it was indeed appropriate that they proclaimed him rather than a Caligula or Nero or Domitian to be the unique “son of God” even if Jesus never made such a claim for himself.  But the appropriateness of any claim always depends on the social and historical context in which it is made. For human language is itself a socio-historical phenomenon.  No definition -- no matter how time-honored -- is absolute.  There is always a historical dialectic built into the use of any words.  In first-century Palestinian Jewish culture where recognition of someone as God’s Anointed -- be it a ruler, priest, preacher or teacher -- meant acceptance of the authority of that individual’s leadership as normative, it made sense for Jewish partisans of Jesus to proclaim him Messiah rather than Antipas or Agrippa or Caiaphas or John the Baptist or the sons of Judas of Gamala.  Whenever contemporaries demanded recognition of and submission to the absolute authority of someone else, it was appropriate for early Christians to appropriate the terminology that opponents used to describe that individual in order to affirm their continuing loyalty to the historical Jesus.  But to perpetuate use of such terminology to describe his persona IS historically appropriate only if it is still in line with the type of person the historical Jesus presented himself to be.  (b) Commitment. If one interprets the “Christ-event” to be the commitment of generations of Christians to perpetuate the persona of the real incarnate Jesus “ever afterward” (as Crossan stresses in the passage cited in the epigraph to this paper) then determination of what was or is appropriate depends entirely on whether one’s present image of Jesus actually reflects what that historical person actually said and did.  It would be inappropriate to represent Jesus as another Nero simply because like Nero he was proclaimed to be filius Dei. It would be equally inappropriate to confuse Jesus with Simon ben Koseba (alias bar Kochba) simply because both men were claimed to be messianic sons of David.  Commitment to a particular historical individual -- in devotion just as in marriage -- necessarily involves dedication to a persona with peculiar traits that differentiate that individual from all others who may be described in the same terms.  For even in the post-modern world at least one Aristotelian definition is still valid: no generic description has any real existence apart from that of the concrete individual of which it is predicated. Thus, genuine commitment to a particular historical individual always requires not only faithful recollection but critical research to insure that one’s impression of that person is really accurate.

Commenting on his sixth thesis for a new Reformation, R. W. Funk wrote: Jesus pointed to something he called God’s domain, something he did not create, something he did not control... instead of looking to see what he saw, his devoted disciples tended to stare at the pointing finger. Jesus himself should not be, must not be, the object of faith.  That would be to repeat the idolatry of the first believers./87/ His eighth thesis reads: Give Jesus a demotion. We must begin by giving Jesus a demotion. He asked for it, he deserves it, we owe him nothing less./88/ I second both points and call the question, with but one added comment: undoing the exaltation and deification of Jesus would be finally to do what he himself said.  To take any person at his word is true fidelity.

/1/ Birth of Christianity, p. xxx. /2/ Christology in the Making, 2nd ed., p. 254. /3/ So too Crossan: “History is not the same as story. Even if all history is story, not all story is history” (Birth of Christianity, p. 20). /4/ Birth of Christianity, p. xxx-xxxi. /5/ Cf. 1 Cor 15:20-28; Philip 2:5-10; Col 1:15-20; John 1:1-18; Heb 1:1-4. /6/ E.g. 1 Cor 15:24-27; Rev 19:11-19. /7/ Crossan’s argument is part of a study focused narrowly on the formative elements of Christianity at its birth, which he defines as before Paul (Birth of Christianity, p. xxi). Yet, he presents his point dialectically, as a correction of Pauline christology.  Therefore, I make my point dialectically as a corrective, to prevent Crossan’s analysis from being read as descriptive of the panorama of christology from Paul to the present. /8/ R. N. Ostling, TIME (August 15, 1988), p. 42. /9/ E.g., John 8:40-52; 1 Cor 2:22-25. /10/ E.g., M. J. Borg (Meeting Jesus AGAIN for the First Time, pp. 1-17) and R. W. Funk (Honest to Jesus, pp. 1-14). /11/ I use “propaganda” in the politically neutral sense of its root Latin denotation as in the Vatican’s congregation Propaganda Fidei: “what is to be planted, prolonged or promoted.” /12/ E.g., the noted christologist Gerald O’Collins, S.J. wrote: “John Dominic Crossan offers a further example of such bad biblical scholarship, hyped up into a marketing success... he ‘reconstructs’ Jesus as a Cynic peasant, akin to a magician, who practiced free healing, common eating and radical egalitarianism in the service of the kingdom of God” (Focus on Jesus, p. 10). /13/ John’s superior social reputation among Jews over that of Jesus is attested not only by Q (Matt 11:7-19//Luke 7:24-35) but by Josephus (Antiquities 18.117-119; cf. Into His Own, par. 37). /14/ 1 Cor 1:18-25. /15/ Cf. Mark 8:31-33;  9:4-6, 32; 10:35-38. /16/ Cf. Pliny, Letter 96 (Kee, NT in Context, p. 44). /17/ E.g., Philp 2:5-9; Col 1:15-20; Heb 1:2-4. The pseudonymous early second-century “Letter of the Apostles" (Epistula Apostolorum) provides an excellent example of this tendency to identify Jesus as the supreme cosmic power from eternity: “We know this: our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (is) God, Son of God who was sent from God, the ruler of the entire world, the maker and creator of what is named with every name, who is over all authority (as) Lord of lords and King of kings, the ruler of the rulers, the heavenly one who is over the Cherubim and Seraphim and sits at the right hand of the throne of the Father, who by his word commanded the heavens and built the earth an all that is in it and bounded the sea that it should not go beyond its boundaries, and (caused) deeps and springs to bubble up and flow over the earth day and night; who established the sun, moon, and stars in heaven and separated light from darkness; who commanded hell and in the twinkling of an eye summons the rain for the wintertime, and fog, frost and hail, and the days in their time; who shakes and makes firm; who has created man according to his image and likeness; who spoke in parables through the patriarchs and prophets and in truth through him whom the apostles declared and the disciples touched....” (Ep.Ap. 3 from Hennecke & Schneemelcher, NT Apocrypha vol. 1, p. 192). /18/ E.g. 1 Thess 2:14-16; Matt 27:20-25; John 8:39-47. The legacy of this rhetoric even in the third Christian millennium is demonstrated by responses to a nation-wide poll conducted by TIME and CNN after Albert Gore (a Baptist) announced Joseph Lieberman (an Orthodox Jew) as his choice for his vice-presidential running-mate. Asked whether they were concerned about “the fact that Lieberman does not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God” almost a quarter (24%) replied that they were “very concerned.”  Among those who identified themselves with the Christian right virtually half (49%) chose this answer (TIME August 21, 2000, p. 27). /19/ J. D. G. Dunn is probably correct in concluding that “the antecedents [of the Logos hymn] are mainly to be found in the Wisdom tradition [of Hellenized Judaism] rather than in Philo” (Christology in the Making, p. 242).  But his denial that Philo regarded the Logos as a personal intermediary distinct from God himself (p. 228) and his contention that the “revolutionary significance” of John 1:14 is that it “marks...the transition from impersonal personification to actual person” (p. 243) are questionable in the light of these passages from Confusion of Tongues : “For [the Logos] is the eldest Son, whom the Father of all raised, who elsewhere is named the First-born. And indeed, having been begotten, he imitated the ways of the Father; and by looking at his archetypal patterns, he formed the ideas” (63). “And if there is anyone who indeed is not yet worthy to be called a son of God, let him strive to be ordered [kosmeisthai] in relation to (God's) First-born and eldest Messenger [angelos], the Word: that is the multi-named Archangel (who was) at the beginning. For he is also called "the Beginning" and the ‘Name of God’ and the ‘Word’ and the ‘Man after his Image’ and ‘Israel the Seer’” (143) [from “Philosophy & Allegory” in my Into His Own, par. 306-307].  Such rhetoric does not represent the abstract allegorical interpretation of a biblical story but rather the transformation of philosophical concepts into a biblically based myth. It is precisely these elements of a pre-existent mythic persona who can appear in many guises that are absent from the Johannine Logos hymn. /20/ The non-judgmental Thomasine form of this aphorism was probably unknown to most Orthodox theologians. Yet, the more scathing Q version (Matt 7:3-5//Luke 6:41-42) presents even clearer reason for refraining from censoring minute flaws in the formulations of others. /21/ “If anyone loves me, he will treasure my word (τὸν λόγον μοῦ) and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make a home with him. One who does not love me does not treasure my words (τοὺς λόγους μοῦ). And the word (λόγος) that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me” (John 14:23-24). /22/ Justin wrote to the Stoic emperors, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius: “But when you hear the utterances of the prophets spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they are spoken by the inspired themselves, but by the Divine Word who moves them. For sometimes He declares things that are to come to pass, in the manner of one who foretells the future; sometimes He speaks as from the person of God the Lord and Father of all; sometimes as from the person of Christ; sometimes as from the person of the people answering the Lord or His Father, just as you can see even in your own writers, one man being the writer of the whole, but introducing the persons who converse” (First Apology 36; italics mine). /23/ Justin wrote: “We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably (μετὰ λόγοῦ) are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists” (First Apology  46). “For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word [λόγος]... For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was and is the Logic [λόγος] that is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets and in his own person....” (Second Apology 10; italics mine). /24/ So: Justin, First Apology 46 (cf. note 20 above). /25/ J. McIntyre wrote: “It is important that we should endeavour to grasp what Aristotle is saying [in Categoriae 5.2a.11-19].  The distinction he makes here becomes regulative...of the definition of orthodox theology some seven hundred years after he made it, and remained so...even until our time” (Shape of Christology, p. 87). /26/ οὖσια (lit.: “being”) may mean either “an individual entity” or an “essence” common to more than one entity of the same species. So the critical term in the Nicene creed -- ὁμοούσιος (“of the same being”) -- could be interpreted either as “of the same essence” (in which case Father, Son and Spirit would have to be conceived as three distinct entities with a common essence) or “of the same entity” (in which case Father, Son and Spirit would have to be conceived as three faces [προσώπα] of the same divine person).  Such ambiguity opened the formula to charges (by supporters of Arius) of heresy, since the term ὁμοούσιος had figured in the condemnation of the modalistic monarchianism of Sabellius a century earlier.  The problem with ὑπόστασις was that, though it had a technical connotation of “an individual existence” in philosophical circles, its literal meaning was “substance” (with secular connotations of “property” or “foundation”).  Further confusion was created by the fact that ὁμοούσιος was translated as “consubstantial” in Latin versions of the creed. /27/ Contrary to Plato’s conception of reality, Aristotle contended that the real world is composed of individuals rather than generic universals.  Therefore, the reality of any idea is totally dependent on its existence in concrete individuals: “Animal is predicated of man, and therefore of individual man; for if there were no individual man of whom it could be predicated it could not be predicated of man at all....Everything is either predicated of primary substances [πρώτη οὖσιαι = individual ὑπόστασεις] or present in them; and if these last did not exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist” (Categoriae 5.2a34ff cited in McIntyre, Shape of Christology, p. 88). /28/ Since according to Aristotle’s definition there is no nature apart from an individual (see n. 25 above), if Jesus did not exist as an individual human being he could not be really human, but if was a real human individual, then he could not be really God. Conversely, if his real existence was divine, then he could not really be human. By excluding the conception of any fusion of the two natures in Christ, Chalcedon left it unclear just how Jesus was to be understood as “perfectly” both divine and human. D. W. Odell-Scott concludes: “At the center of orthodox Christian belief, at the heart of Christian convictions, is an absurdity, a self-contradicting assertion, a gap in the conceptual terrain, a fault which runs the breadth and length of Christian theology, a hole or cut or lapse upon which christendom is built” (Post-patriarchal Christology, p. 81). /29/ In 1998 J. Macquarrie wrote: “The christology worked out in patristic times attained a classic status, and indeed is still the norm today.  But since the eighteenth century at least, that classic expression of the church’s belief about Jesus has made little contact with the modern mind. It speaks the language and employs the conceptuality of a former age....it is not liberating in the modern age, but has become almost a barrier to understanding.  So we in our time have to look for ways of communicating faith that will speak to the mentality of our contemporaries, just as the fathers of Chalcedon did in their time” (Christology Revisited, pp. 11-12).  The same year J. McIntyre wrote: “It will be my main contention that classical christology has come under severe strain in these new settings in which it has of late found itself and that a crisis has begun to develop which can only be resolved by a radical reassessment of the basic shape of this central doctrine of the Christian faith as expressed today” (Shape of Christology, p. 5). /30/ J. McIntyre proposes this typology for analyzing the theories of quite independent thinkers: (1) a psychological model (e.g., D. M. Baillie, God Was in Christ; L. Hodgson, And Was Made Man; H. R. Mackintosh, The Person of Jesus Christ); (2) a revelation model (e.g., A. A. M. Fairweather, The Word as Truth; E. Brunner, The Mediator; K. Barth, The Doctrine of the Word of God; (3) a process model (e.g., D. R. Griffin, A Process Christology; J. B. Cobb, Christ in a Pluralistic Age and Encountering Jesus); N. Pittenger, Word Incarnate and Christology Reconsidered; (4) neo-Chalcedonian (e.g., J. Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought; G. O’Collins, Christology). For inclusiveness this grid needs to be expanded to cover a wide variety of recent works by adding at least two more types of christological reflection that emphasize its socio-historical dimension: (5) a functional model (e.g., J. Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator; D. Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom of God); and (6) intellectual history (e.g., W. Pannenburg, Jesus - God and Man; E. Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology; J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making). /31/ Christology in the Making, p.254 (italics mine). /32/ H. S. Reimarus wrote: “I found great cause to separate what the apostles say in their own writings from that which Jesus himself actually said and taught, for the apostles were themselves teachers and consequently present their own views....” (“Concerning the Intention of Jesus,” p. 64). /33/ Despite conflicting views of Jesus, few in the guild would disagree with this statement by D. C. Allison: “Once we doubt, as all modern scholars do, that the Jesus tradition gives us invariably accurate information, unvarnished by exaggeration and legend, it is incumbent upon us to find some way of sorting through the diverse traditions to divine what really goes back to Jesus” (Jesus of Nazareth, p. 2). /34/ Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 7-10; quotation at top of p. 8 (italics mine). /35/ Jesus of Nazareth, p. 8. /36/ Jesus of Nazareth, p. 7-8.  Even if Jesus himself spoke of a coming Son of Man, it would not be distinctive, since it would only be an echo of a biblical text (Dan 7) that was used by other Jews (e.g., 1 Enoch & 4 Ezra). /37/ Jesus and Judaism, p. 4. /38/ E.g., Matt 11:27//Luke 10:22, Mark 14:61, John 3:16.  The primary reasons for not accepting such sayings as genuine Jesus sayings are that (a) they are found only in one source and (b) except for the first, they are indistinct from the christology of the author of that gospel. /39/ Five Gospels, pp. 549-553. /40/ See note 37 above. /41/ The principle that someone else may understand you better than yourself is a basic tenet of Freudian psychology that can be demonstrated in case after case.  But christology is not akin to psychoanalysis; and classical theological reflection on Jesus hardly qualifies as a parallel to the Oedipus theory. /42/ Jesus and Judaism, p. 4. /43/ E.g., Stevan Davies, Jesus the Healer. /44/ Birth of Christianity, p. xxx (italics mine). /45/ Jesus’ practice is the focus of liberation christology (cf. J. Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, p. 51). /46/ It has been argued that this is a circular argument from silence: an artificial and potentially false impression created by the fact that (a) the sayings preserved in the Jesus tradition do not represent all that he actually said and (b) those sayings in the gospels that do make claims about Jesus’ person have been methodically excluded as inauthentic.  Such an argument, however, ignores the fact that the latter group of sayings were identified as unreliable on the basis of theologically neutral historical criteria -- i.e., lack of witnesses or corroborating evidence, affinity to the language and viewpoint of the author of a Hellenistic Christian text rather than the voice of a Galilean Jew, and above all contradiction of logic inherent in statements credited to Jesus that are most probably genuine.  In reply to the first point, it needs to be stressed that any historical judgment can only be made on the basis of extant evidence. What someone might have said that was not reported is a matter of pure speculation.  To rest one’s case on that is really to argue from silence. /47/ Luke 6:20//Thom 54 received a weighted average of 91% in the Jesus Seminar voting (Five Gospels, pp. 549, 552). For a distribution of the votes see FORUM 6/3-4, pp. 301, 315. /48/ Matt 19:24//Mark 10:25//Luke 18:25 received a 67% weighted average (Five Gospels, p. 550). Vote distribution in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 307. /49/ Historical Jesus, p. 266ff. /50/ Matt 13:44(//Thom 109:1-3) received a weighted average of 71%; Matt 13:45-46//Thom 76:1-2, 68%. For vote distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 305-6. /51/ Matt 6:11(//Luke 11:3) received a weighted average of 60% (Five Gospels, p. 551). Vote distribution in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 309. /52/ Matt 8:20//Luke 9:58//Thom 86:1 was weighted 74% (Five Gospels, p. 550). Vote distribution in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 304. /53/ Matt 6:24a//Luke 16:13a//Thom 47:2 received a 72% weighted average; the part of the aphorism that declares slavery to wealth (Mammon) incompatible with service to God (Matt 6:24b//Luke 16:13b) was received a lower rating (59%) largely because it has no parallel in Thomas and was thought by some Fellows to be a hermeneutical addition by the author of Q. Nevertheless, it is compatible with Jesus’ view of wealth in general. See Five Gospels, p. 550. Vote distribution in FORUM 6/3-4, pp. 304-305. /54/ The long aphoristic cluster on anxieties was divided into its logical components for evaluation.  The segments received the following weighted averages: Matt 6:25//Luke 12:22-23//Thom 36:1 (“Don’t fret”) 75%; Matt 6:26//Luke 12:24 (“Birds fed”) 67%; Matt 6:27//Luke 12:25 (“Added cubit”) 54%; Matt 6:28-30//Luke 12:27-28//Thom 36:2  (“Lilies clothed”) 68% (Five Gospels, pp. 549-552). For vote distribution see FORUM6/3-4, p. 303-307, 313. /55/ The only parts of the missionary instructions the gospels ascribe to Jesus that received more than a 50% weighted average in the Jesus Seminar voting were the injunctions to itinerants to stay at whatever house offered them hospitality (Luke 10:7a) and to eat whatever they were served (Luke 10:8//Thom 14:4a). See Five Gospels, pp. 552-553. The Q form of the injunction to travel light, without any possessions (Luke 9:3//Matt 10:10a), fell just shy of a probable rating (46%) because of differences in the Matthean and Lukan versions. Yet it was still well within the range of sayings that possibly contained ideas formulated by the historical Jesus himself. For vote distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 314-315, 317. /56/ Mark 10:14//Matt 19:14//Luke 18:16 received a 52% weighted average (Five Gospels, p. 552). For vote distribution see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 315. /57/ Isa 6:1-5; Ezek 1:1-28. /58/ E.g., the authors of Daniel, 4 Ezra, the “parables” of 1 Enoch, and the Christianized Apocalypse of John. /59/ Mark 10:14//Matt 19:14//Luke 18:16 received a 52% weighted average in the Jesus Seminar voting (Five Gospels, p. 552); Mark 10:15 and parallels (Matt 19:15//Luke 18:17 and the analogous aphorism in Matt 18:3) were rated just less than probable (45%) but still high among the sayings in the Seminar’s data base that reflect ideas in line with genuine sayings of Jesus. For voting distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 314, 318. /60/ E.g., Prov 13:24, 22:15; Gal 4:1-2. /61/ Matt 5:45 received a weighted average of 53%  (Five Gospels, p. 552).  For vote distribution see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 313. /62/ Luke 15:11-32 received a weighted average of  70% (Five Gospels, p. 550). For vote distribution see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 305. /63/ Luke 10:21//Matt 11:25-26 received a weighted average of only 36% when it was first considered in 1989, which barely qualified for inclusion in the Jesus Seminar data base of sayings that possibly contained elements traceable to Jesus (see vote distribution in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 323).  Its low rating was largely due to the fact that it prefaces a christological statement that was overwhelmingly regarded as a post-crucifixion formula (Luke 10:22//Matt 11:27). When it was pointed out (in 1997) that the christological appendix contradicted the logic of the thanksgiving [see FORUM n.s.1/2 (Fall 1998) 462-463], the Seminar reconsidered the thanksgiving as an independent aphorism and accepted it as probably traceable to Jesus himself. /64/ Matt 18:1-5//Mark 9:33-37//Luke 9:46-48 (see Five Gospels, pp. 84f, 213f, 315). /65/ Mark 12:38-39//Luke 8:16 received a weighted average of 61%; Matt 23:5-7 received a lower rating (53%) because, in integrating it into a long tirade against Jewish teachers, that evangelist turned it from a warning into an indictment (Five Gospels, p. 551). For vote distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 308. /66/ Luke 6:32 received a weighted average of 56%; other versions of this logion (Matt 12:8 and Thom 55:1-2) were rated lower because of editorial redaction that softened its sharp edge (Five Gospels, p. 552). . For vote distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 312. /67/ Matt 8:22//Luke 9:59-60 received a weighted average of 70% (Five Gospels, p. 550).  For vote distributions see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 305. /68/ Birth of Christianity, p. xxx (quoted above; cf. n. 44). /69/ The Jesus Seminar accepted the historicity of the core story behind synoptic and Johannine accounts of Jesus’ cure of a cripple as probable (Mark 2:1-12 par and John 5:1-9). The only common wording in these versions is Jesus’ instruction to the cripple.  Since the only thing that Jesus does is tell the man to get up, this command must be considered part of that core.  It was not colored pink in the Acts of Jesus due to an editorial decision to print all of Jesus’ words in stories about his deeds in regular typeface (see Acts of Jesus, pp. 63-65, 382-383, 558,567). /70/ The Jesus Seminar was virtually unanimous in accepting Matt 5:39//Luke 6:29a as a genuine Jesus saying (92% weighted average; see Five Gospels, p. 549). The Matthean form specifies a backhand slap to the right cheek -- a traditional gesture for putting a social inferior into his/her place.  There were no black votes and few gray votes on either version (see vote spread in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 301). /71/ Matt 5:40 was ranked equal to Matt 5:39 (see preceding note); Luke 6:29b which does not specify the context of debt collection was rated a bit lower (90%; see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 301). Surrendering one’s cloak would embarrass a creditor in a culture that took Deut 24:10-13 seriously. The Lukan version probably emends this gesture for a non-Jewish social context. /72/ John 1:18. /73/ While the voice from the cloud -- “This is my beloved son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7 par) -- in the transfiguration story is pure fiction, it is a true historical reflection of the tendency of even Jesus’ most fervent fans to confuse his voice with those of traditional authorities. /74/ Birth of Christianity, p. xxx (italics mine). See n. 44 above for fuller quotation. /75/ See my Excursus on “Abba, Father” (Forum n.s. 1/2, pp. 464-465).  The use of simply “Father” in the Lukan version of  the prayer that Q ascribed to Jesus was judged traceable to Jesus by more than three-quarters of the Jesus Seminar (77% weighted average; vote spread in FORUM 6/3-4, p. 301). /76/ Gal 3:26-4:7. /77/ Rom 8:15c-17, 29. /78/ The Seminar judged those versions of Jesus’ pronouncement regarding his true relatives that refer to “my Father” (Matt 12:50//Thom 99:2) to be probably closer to the original wording of this aphorism than those that have him refer to “God” (Mark 3:35//Luke 8:21) since the core logic of this saying involves the question of family relationships. For vote spread see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 309). /79/ The parable of the leaven (Matt 13:33//Luke 13:20-21) received a weighted average of 83%; the version of the mustard seed that realistically the plant as a shrub (Thom 20:2-4//Mark 4:30-32) 76% (Five Gospels, pp. 549-550; for vote spread see FORUM 6/3-4, pp. 302-303). /80/ See n. 54 above. /81/ The comparison between a human father’s inclination and God’s in Matt 7:9-11 received a 59% weighted average; the preceding injunction to beg & knock was rated a bit lower (51%).  Luke’s wording was judged less likely to be original (Five Gospels, pp. 551-552; for vote spread see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 310, 314f). /82/ Mark 2:27-28 received a 55% weighted average (Five Gospels, p. 552). The Matthean and Lukan omission of the premise -- i.e., “the sabbath was created for the human being not the human being for the sabbath” -- on which the son of Man statement is based caused these versions to be rated lower. For vote spread see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 313. /83/ W. Wink wisely comments: “...it is not Jesus but the disciples who take on the right to decide when the sabbath is being broken.  Such sovereign freedom, placed in the hands of the underclasses, inevitably strikes terror in the hearts of those entrusted with the tranquility of society” (“The Son of Man,” p. 170). /84/ Again Wink: “But when all authority is vested only in Jesus, what becomes of the sovereign freedom that Jesus evoked in his disciples?  What becomes of deciding for ourselves what is right (Luke 12:57)?  It is indeed awesome how christology has been used to avoid the clear intent of Jesus!” (“The Son of Man,” p. 171). /85/ Matt 12:27-28//Luke 11:19-20 received a 64% weighted average. For vote spread see FORUM 6/3-4, p. 307. /86/ In a proposed "Outline for a Book," one of his last papers, Bonhoeffer wrote: "Our relation to God is not a 'religious' relationship to the highest, most powerful, and best Being imaginable — that is not authentic transcendence — but our relation to God in a new life in “existence for others”, through participation in the being of Jesus. The transcendental is not infinite and unattainable tasks, but the neighbor who is within reach in any given situation. God in human form — not, as in oriental religions, in animal form, monstrous, chaotic, remote, and terrifying, nor in the conceptual forms of the absolute, metaphysical, infinite, etc., nor yet in the Greek divine-human form of “man in himself”, but “the man for others”, and therefore the Crucified, the man who lives out of the transcendent" (Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 381f). /87/ Honest to Jesus, p. 305. /88/ Honest to Jesus, p. 306.

 

WORKS CITED Allison, Dale. Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison. Ed. Eberhard Bethge (enlarged edition). New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing, 1972. Borg, Marcus J.  Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus & the Heart of Contemporary Faith. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998. _____. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992. Dunn, James D. G. Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996. Funk, Robert W. Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Funk, Robert W., Roy W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar. The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1993. Funk, Robert W and the Jesus Seminar. The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998. Hennecke, Edgar and Wilhelm Schneemelcher. New Testament Apocrypha. Vol. 1 (Gospels and Related Writings). Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1959. Jesus Seminar, “Voting Records Sorted by Grouped Parallels, by Weighted Average,” FORUM 6/3-4, pp. 301-352. Justin Martyr. The First Apology. In Ante-Nicene Fathers  vol. 1 [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-46.htm]. _____. The Second Apology. In Ante-Nicene Fathers  vol. 1 [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-47.htm]. Kee, Howard Clark. The New Testament in Context: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. McIntyre, John. The Shape of Christology: Studies in the Doctrine of the Person of Christ. 2nd edition. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998. O’Collins, Gerald and Daniel Kendall. Essays in Christology and Soteriology. Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 1996. Odell-Scott, David W. A Post-Patriarchal Christology. American Academy of Religion Academy Series 78. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Ostling, Richard N., “Who Was Jesus?” TIME August 15, 1988, pp. 37-42. Reimarus, H. S., “Concerning the Intention of Jesus and His Teaching.” Pp. 59-269 in Reimarus: Fragments. Ed. Charles H. Talbert. Trans. Ralph S. Fraser. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970. Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Smith, Mahlon H., ed. Into His Own: Perspective on the World of Jesus [https://virtualreligion.net/iho]. _____, “Israel’s Prodigal Son: Reflections on Reimaging Jesus,” FORUM n.s. 1/2 (Fall 1998) 431-466. Wink, Walter, “The Son of Man: the Stone that Builders Rejected.” Pp. 161-180 in The Once and Future Jesus. Ed. by the Jesus Seminar. Santa Rosa CA: Polebridge Press, 2000.

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