The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (Paperback)

-The Jesus Seminar and Other Charlatans-
As the word 'charlatan' derives from the Italian cerretano, meaning an inhabitant of Cerreto, a village near Spoleto, Italy, famous for quacks, perhaps Johnson would not object to using the word in connection with the Jesus Seminar, a 'village' as it were of historical Jesus research quackery. Johnson finds the Jesus Seminar lacking in integrity in both method and conclusion -- he finds irritating 'its indulgence in cute and casual discourse'. (p. 15) He finds their hunger for media exposure damaging to the overall enterprise of scholarship, and is deeply distrustful of the intention of their research and conclusions. The manner of determining historicity (the use of a coloured-ball voting mechanism, etc.), the exaggeration of prominence of the group of scholars who comprise the Jesus Seminar (a small amount given the large number of scholars in the world), and the tendency to depart from the stated purposes of finding an historical Jesus without theological taint and bias make the project a dubious enterprise for Johnson. 'The Seminar has not consistently followed the very criteria it established.' (p. 26) Their tendency toward rejecting anything canonical (and often completely ignoring Pauline and other epistolary sources), and instead elevating non-canonical sources to prominence, strikes Johnson as being as non-objective as the Seminar's members tend to make accusation of the canon.

Following his discussion of the Jesus Seminar, Johnson illustrates several recent offerings in the field of the historical Jesus (not necessarily by members of the Jesus Seminar) who illustrate current and popular trends. These authors include Barbara Thiering, Bishop Spong, A.N. Wilson, Stephen Mitchell, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Burton Mack. Johnson identifies patterns in each of these, many appearing as subtle trends rather than direct statements made on the part of the authors, such as rejection of the canonical Gospels and other scriptural sources as the most reliable source of information, as well as each seeming to have a theological agenda behind the 'historical' development. Because these are not explicit, the average reader in schools and pews will likely not notice, or only slowly notice, the bias in these so-called more objective works.

-Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up-
At the beginning of the year 2000, John Maclaughlin held on one of his broadcasts the 'Awards for the Faux Millennium'. Without getting into the debate over when the millennium really begins (or indeed if that is truly important), it was an interesting look back at the history of the millennium. However, I was intrigued by the award for the most influential religious figure of the past 1000 years. After several people on the panel offered opinions, the last person said that, in fact, the winner of the award should be Jesus Christ, who is just as real and alive today as 2000 years ago. And Maclaughlin agreed.

Johnson would have found this discussion edifying and consistent with his view of Jesus. Johnson throughout his career has devoted much effort toward defining what the word 'real' means. It simply is not the case that a Jesus that can be portrayed by a group of scholars as undiluted and well-researched by methods of historical criticism can in a definitive way be considered more 'real' than that Jesus who has been of influence and guidance to the church and world for the past 2000 years through scripture, creed, and inspiration. When the whole enterprise of finding the 'real' Jesus began in earnest in the scholarly sense, 'both the attackers and the defenders had accepted the same definition of truth...that empirically verifiable truth, in this case historical truth, was the only sort of truth worth considering'. (p. 60) Much of what is real escapes historical knowledge, Johnson argues, and much of what we consider to be the most important aspects of a person, event, etc. are those intangible qualities that can in no way survive into historical quantifiability.

-One Problem-
This having been said, there becomes a problem for those of us with a more modern, scientific/verification-driven sensibility, to think that if the resurrection is not a verifiable event, in what sense is it 'real'? Indeed, can it be 'unreal' in the historically-verifiable sense and still be 'real' in the faith-ful sense? And, is this faith something of real value even if it is tied to something 'unreal'? While there is a diversity in the text of images of Jesus both before and after resurrection, and this diversity should not be flattened but rather embraced and explored to make Jesus and Christianity a much more universal an all-encompassing possibility for all, this does not in the end answer the very basic question -- How can I believe this? -- that drives, and will continue to drive, people (scholars, clerics, and lay persons) who want to know how to reconcile something that is seemingly untrue with that which one must take on faith to be true.

-A Disclaimer-
I have never been offended or as off-put by the Jesus Seminar as has been Johnson, or indeed as have been many others. But then, I don't look to them for confirmation of my faith. Some Jesus Seminarians are good scholars and good writers, and I can find useful and valuable information from them regardless of whether or not I agree with their analyses or conclusions. Indeed, if my faith is such that it would be shaken by the Jesus Seminar or any such, then perhaps it deserves to be tested and shaken!

I heartily recommend this book.