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"A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume Two: Mentor, Message, and Miracles," by John P. Meier (Doubleday/Anchor,

1,232 pp.; $40, hardcover); "Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom," by Ben Witherington III (Fortress, 352 pp.; $35, hardcover); "The Gospel of Jesus: The Pastoral Relevance of the Synoptic Problem," by William R. Farmer (Westminster/John Knox, 240 pp.; $19.99, paper). Reviewed by Robert W. Yarbrough, associate professor of New Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, Saint Louis, Missouri.

In a cover story on "The New, Unimproved Jesus" (CT, Sept. 13, 1993), New Testament scholar N. Thomas Wright surveyed the most influential recent attempts to reconstruct the "real" Jesus. While sharply critical of some of the arguments he assessed, Wright concluded by affirming the value of historical study of Jesus: "Let us not be on our guard against learning more about Jesus as he really was. In dismissing maverick writers and rejecting unsound scholarship, we should not miss out on the possibility of a new vision of the real Jesus that could revitalize the church and challenge the world of the twenty-first century." Since Wright's piece was published, the output of scholarship on the historical Jesus has continued at a prodigious rate. Here is an update from the field.

Remember that playground ditty sung out by children jumping rope? Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief / Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief. Scholarly theories about the historical Jesus have by now multiplied to a tangled mass every bit as disparate as the characters in the jump-rope rhyme: Wandering preacher, zealot, activist, magician; / Cynic peasant, prophet, wisdom-logician. (The rhythm works out after about a dozen tries - honestly.)

In recent years, books have appeared presenting Jesus in all of these roles, and others besides. It is enough to make nonspecialists throw up their hands in dismay, or maybe brandish clenched fists. Martyrs once died for the sake of a faith staked (literally) on the authenticity of Jesus' words, but today's high-profile scholars, with their radically incompatible historical reconstructions, seem to agree only that Jesus never said or did most of what the Gospels report.

For some, it is tempting to give up hope that any new light - or, indeed, any light at all - could emerge from academic life-of-Jesus study. It is tempting to dismiss what biblical scholarship generates in its ongoing interaction with the wealth of ancient data that mediate knowledge of Jesus to us. Some have even asked, Why not ditch scholarly study of Scripture altogether?

This sentiment is not just the anti-intellectual impulse of a few on the Religious Right. Seminaries across the theological spectrum have reduced Bible and biblical language requirements in recent times. The reasons given publicly vary. One typically hears that practical skills, such as counseling and preaching, or contemporary topics in the areas of social science and critical theory, deserve more of the time traditionally devoted to technical biblical study. Few would question the value of practical and contemporary preparation. Yet the real reason for such curricular revamping cannot be separated from the apparently capricious nature and dubious results of much modern biblical scholarship. And if educational professionals are skeptical of the academic paper chase in biblical research, can the nonspecialist public be blamed for following suit?

Nevertheless, to be globally skeptical of academic Jesus-research would be a mistake. Just because some learned approaches to Jesus tend toward excess does not mean that all are useless. Reflection on three new books will indicate why.

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December 12 1994, Vol. 38, No. 14