Summary and Conclusion
The Jesus Seminar has made no secret about its contention that the orthodox conception of Jesus is outdated and ought to be rejected. Thus, supernatural events such as the Gospel reports of Jesus’ miracles must at least be seriously questioned, and more likely repudiated.
Yet, seldom are any reasons given for such a stance. Mere theological assertion seems to be the order of the day. Appeals to peer pressure (in the name of the current state of modern scholarship) serve as the impetus and those who dare to disagree are sometimes painted as hopelessly backward. Nevertheless, it is certainly insufficient to simply state one’s view or claim a critical consensus without adequate evidence.
Even worse, informal logical fallacies abound in statements by the Jesus Seminar. Comments about the “secular heavens” start to sound less like reasoned responses and more like a priori preaching. The lack of careful argumentation begs the question on behalf of the assertions that are made. Rejections of Gospel texts based on author’s styles, ancient parallels, and a pre-modern temperament commit the genetic fallacy. Interestingly enough, some Seminar Fellows appear to recognize such dangers.57 Unfortunately, this seems to be a minority acknowledgment.
The Jesus Seminar apparently offers no challenges to the basic fact of Jesus’ death. But there are many reasons why Crossan’s doubts concerning the traditional burial of Jesus cannot be substantiated. His surmisals are confronted by almost a dozen items of data.
When discussing the resurrection of Jesus, we have attempted to isolate a single issue: whether Jesus actually appeared to his followers. Both Crossan and Borg might prefer to question the New Testament texts, satisfied with what they think we cannot know. But we insisted that, when attempting to ascertain the truth of what happened after the death of Jesus, such is an insufficient approach. Rather than be satisfied with this negative tack, we maintain that the minimal amount of historical data is still sufficient to establish the literal nature of Jesus’ appearances, whatever their actual form. These two scholars seem not to realize that their own writings establish a sufficient basis to confirm this truth.
Both Crossan and Borg admit at least the possibility of Jesus’ appearances, with Borg being more open to them. Further, neither scholar attempts to explain away the core factual data by employing naturalistic, alternative hypotheses. The early, eyewitness data supplied by Paul and admitted by both Crossan and Borg are sufficient to show that Jesus did, indeed, appear to his followers after his death. Additional details concerning the other witnesses drawn from Paul’s data, the Acts traditions, or even the Gospels, serve to greatly strengthen this conclusion.58
Although the Jesus Seminar has received much attention from its treatment of the historical Jesus, their conclusions must be apportioned to the data. As a result, their basic rejection of the supernatural events in Jesus’ life is unwarranted.59
1Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company and the Polebridge Press, 1993), Preface, pp. ix-x, xiii.
2Ibid., p. 2.
3For an extended discussion of the material in this section (often in edited form) see Gary R. Habermas, “Did Jesus Perform Miracles?” in Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, ed. by Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 125-129.
4Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, pp. 2-5.
5Ibid., p. 5.
6Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” p. 5.
7Ibid., p. 38.
8John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 82.
9Ibid., p. 95.
10Jarl Fossum, “Understanding Jesus’ Miracles,” Bible Review, Vol. X, No. 2 (April 1994), p. 50. It should be noted that Fossum is not listed as a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar.
11Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, p. 25.
12Ibid., p. 398.
13John Macquarrie, An Existentialist Theology, pp. 185-186.
14Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” p. 42.
15Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, pp. 19-35.
16Some instances are found in Ibid., pp. 199-200, 270, 399-400, 439, 468-469.
17After his above comment concerning “fundamentalist naivete,” Fossum explains that “raising the dead was not considered impossible in the ancient world” (p. 50), apparently considering this to be an adequate explanation. But this is an instance of the genetic fallacy. For all we know, every ancient, miraculous report could be true, or some false and others true. This approach fails to disprove the Gospel accounts.
18Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 85.
19B.D. Chilton, “Exorcism and History: Mark 1:21-28,” Gospel Perspectives, Vol. 6, ed. by David Wenham and Craig Blomberg (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), p. 263.
20Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 82, 95.
21Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, pp. 66-67, 70-71.
22Funk, Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, Five Gospels, pp. 126, 268, 397, 464-465.
23Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 145 along with pp. 154, 196, 201.
24Crossan, The Historical Jesus:, pp. 372-376.
25Borg, Jesus, p. 179; cf. pp. 178-184.
26Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 152-158, especially p. 158; also Crossan, The Historical Jesus, pp. 391-394, especially p. 394.
27Dialogue with Trypho, 108.
28On Spectacles, 30.
29William Lane Craig dates this pre-Markan testimony, at the latest, to AD 37. See his essay, “The Empty Tomb of Jesus” in Gospel Perspectives: Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. II, ed. by R.T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT, 1981), pp. 182-183, 190-191.
30See the discussion in chapter 7 for the significance of these early kerygmatic reports.
31Another possible indication in favor of the traditional burial of Jesus is the Nazareth Decree, a first century marble slab that warns that grave robbing is punishable by death, which may be a response both to the Jewish charges, as well as the reports of Jesus’ resurrection. Some think that the Shroud of Turin is at least an evidence of an individual burial for a crucifixion victim. For an overview of such reasons (including sources), see Gary R. Habermas, Dealing with Doubt (Chicago: Moody, 1990), pp. 43-45.
32Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 169. (The emphasis is Crossan’s.)
33Ibid., pp. 169-170; Crossan, The Historical Jesus, p. 404. For other texts that carry on this theme, see The Historical Jesus, pp. 396-404; Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 175, 181, 186, 190.
34Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 186.
35Ibid., p. 190. (The emphasis is Crossan’s.)
36Ibid.
37I am not agreeing with his suggestion here. I simply think that, at this point, whether or not his socio-political theme is crucial to our central thesis is moot.
38Crossan, The Historical Jesus, p. 397.
39Joachim Jeremias, “Easter: The Earliest Tradition and the Earliest Interpretation,” pp. 306-307; Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 34-42; C.H. Dodd, “The Appearances of the Risen Christ: An Essay in Form-Criticism of the Gospels,” More New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), pp. 125-126; Rudolf Bultmann, Theology, vol. I, p. 45. Bultmann also sees a probable parallel to 1 Cor. 15:5 and Luke 24:34 in Luke 22:31f.
40Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 190; cf. pp. 169-170.
41Jeremias, “Easter: The Earliest Tradition and the Earliest Interpretation,” p. 306. (The emphasis is Jeremias’.)
42Fuller, Resurrection Narratives, pp. 27-49.
43Ibid., p. 37.
44Of chief interest are Acts 2:14-39; 3:12-26; 4:8-12; 5:17-40; 10:34-43; 13:16-41. See Dodd, “Appearances,” pp. 124, 131; C.H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments, pp. 17-31 and chart after p. 96.
45Crossan, The Historical Jesus, p. 397; Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 165-166, 190.
46Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 190.
47For an example of such arguments, see the excellent treatment by William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.
48Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 190.
49Ibid., p. 169.
50On the absence of evidence for such phenomena, see Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Religious Studies, vol. 25 (1989), pp. 167-177.
51Borg, Jesus, p. 184.
52Ibid., p. 185.
53Marcus J. Borg, “Thinking about Easter,” Bible Review, vol. X, Number 2 (April 1994), pp. 15, 49.
54For details on what is nonetheless of fundamental importance, see Robert H. Gundry, Soma in Biblical Theology: With Emphasis on Pauline Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), especially chapter 13; Craig, chapter 4; Norman L. Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville: Nelson, 1989), especially chapters 7–8; Gary R. Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Immortality (Nashville: Nelson, 1992), chapter 9.
55These affirmations are found in Borg, Jesus, pp. 184-185 and Borg, “Thinking about Easter,” pp. 15, 49.
56Just some of the roadblocks to explaining Jesus’ appearances as hallucinations (or as otherwise subjective incidents) include the private nature of such psychological phenomena, thereby precluding group citings such as the three reported by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:5-7, the negative mental states of the recipients, the variety of persons, times, and places involved, the extent of the disciples’ transformations, the empty tomb, James’ conversion, and Paul’s experience on the way to Damascus.
57Chilton, “Exorcism,” p. 263; Borg, Jesus, pp. 66-67, 70-71.
58Crossan and Borg are not the only members of the Jesus Seminar who have published important works on the resurrection of Jesus. For two such older examples that may be interpreted as providing even more grounds for the conclusions we have reached here, see James M. Robinson, “Jesus from Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles’ Creed),” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 101; No. 1 (1982), pp. 5-37; John Kloppenborg, “An Analysis of the Pre-Pauline Formula 1 Cor 15:3b-5 in Light of Some Recent Literature,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, vol. 40 (1978), pp. 351-367.
59Several detailed critiques of the Jesus Seminar and related views have appeared in recent years. The interested reader might consult the following: Gregory A. Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton: Victor, 1995); Wilkins and Moreland, eds., Jesus Under Fire; Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1995); N.T. Wright, Who was Jesus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992).