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Make no mistake, says Jenkins, the Jesus Seminar represents a radical fringe of biblical scholarship (he estimates 6 percent of American religious studies professors). But it is taken very seriously by publishing houses and, especially, by the mass media. Many documentaries about the life of Jesus and the early church are virtually dictated by the conclusions of the Seminar and like scholars.

Middlebrow magazines that cover religion (like Time) often report on the Seminar's findings either uncritically or nonjudgmentally, as they would cover a political story (e.g., scholar A says that Jesus wore dresses; conservative scholar B feels threatened by this new idea).

One reason the Jesus Seminar annoys some evangelicals is its refusal to play by the rules of biblical scholarship. Though initially critical of applying the historical-critical method to the Gospels, evangelical scholars have in recent generations taken to it and unearthed a lot of information about the historical Jesus.

Evans uses ancient sources, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, to show that Jesus is very much a first-century man from Palestine. And then the Jesus Seminar claims that (a) Jesus didn't say much of what the canonical Gospels say he said, (b) he didn't mean what you think he meant, and (c) the books you've been relying upon are not the correct ones.

As Jenkins notes, members of the Jesus Seminar seem surprisingly immune to the field's normal methods of rebuttal because they are not trained to deal with the issues of authority. To Jesus scholars, what's so wrong with considering, say, the gospels of Thomas or Philip or Peter or James on an equal level with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? One can, of course, make dogmatic claims for those books, but dogma is so antiquated.

On one level, the Jesus Seminar and most other cheerleaders for "hidden Gospels" are profoundly ahistoric. They begin with assumptions about Jesus and then go about finding texts (like Thomas) to buttress their beliefs.

However, what serious historical-critical scholarship has shown is this: If we are ever likely to find any historic fact of Jesus, like it or not, the sources will have to be the four Gospels and the writings and traditions of the early church.

In the study of the historical Jesus, the tendency is all too often to sever the links between Jesus and the early church (the Jesus of history vs. the Christ of Faith). This same church, however, preserved the Gospels and handed them down to us. And it is precisely this church that so many are railing against by reaching for other, dubious gospels.

Jeremy Lott is a contributing editor to Books & Culture.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Who Was Jesus? A Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Hidden Gospels are available at Christianbook.com.

Online, the Jesus Seminar Forum is an introduction to the research of the Jesus Seminar

Related previous Christianity Today articles include:

Who Killed Jesus?After centuries of censure, Jews have been relieved of general responsibility for the death of Jesus. Now who gets the blame? (August 24, 2000)

The Jesus I'd Prefer to KnowSearching for the historical Jesus and finding oneself instead. (Dec. 8, 1998)

Reconstructing JesusThe rewards of N. T. Wright's historical recovery of Jesus are great—but he raises more questions than he answers. (August 27, 1998)

Doubting Thomas's Gospel |"Jesus said, 'Damn the Pharisees, for they are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger, for it neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat.' —Gospel of Thomas. (June 15, 1998)

In 1999, Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture was there when 6 scholars discussed "What Difference Does Historical Jesus Research Make?"

Issue 59 of Christian History, another Christianity Today sister publication, focused on the "Life and Times of Jesus." The issue included an interview with N.T. Wright who answered, "Why should Christians even care about what historians say about Jesus' life on earth?"

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April 22 2002, Vol. 46, No. 5