Remember the Jesus Seminar? They were those scholars who voted away all of Jesus’ miracles and much of what He said because it didn’t seem plausible to them. You know, things like the resurrection and that kind of weird stuff. They voted on whether they thought Jesus REALLY said that or did that. Pretty much, miracles and all that oogedy-boogedy stuff were scorned.
One of the more well known books coming out of the seminar was the infamously color-coded “The Five Gospels,” which had its own translations of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John from the New Testament but they also threw in the Gospel of Thomas for good measure. Jesus’ sayings appeared in red ink if the seminar deemed them historically reliable, pink if they were maybe a teensy bit reliable, gray if they were possible but pretty darned unreliable and black if they were improbable. Members of the Jesus Seminar used colored beads to vote on which kind of font would be used.
You might remember it was kind of a big deal for a while but year after year of demoting Jesus to a hippie from the Mideast only gets so much press nowadays as much of their “scholarship” has sadly seeped into the mainstream and they’re just not as radical or press worthy as they once were. So while bashing Jesus is so 90’s some of the Jesus Seminar folks have something new planned.
I don’t know if those folks are planning on getting their beads out again to vote on what Paul actually said and did, but according to Oregon Live Polebridge Press will be publishing “The Authentic Letters of Paul,” an original translation of some of Paul’s letters.
I’m thinking that Paul had a horse will get a pink text but falling off his horse on the road to Damascus will be downright gray and pretty much everything else that happened on the road to Damascus will get big fat black printing.
According to the website of Willamette University -the home of the seminar, the book claims that Paul did not write all the letters attributed to him in the New Testament.
I’m also thinking that all those things that Paul said about homosexuality might not make it to pink, never mind red.
You know, in the Bible there were those who walked away from Jesus saying “these teachings are too hard.” But somehow I think that’s better than those who pretend to stay and say, “Oh that’s not what Jesus really meant. Here’s what he really really meant.”
Those who hear but cannot accept still have a chance. Those who wont hear may be lost.
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Marcion lives!
To be fair, even among some conservative and/or Catholic scholars, certain authorships in the NT are disputed. (To nuance my nuance, I should note that at least seven of the epistles—I forget which exactly—are still accepted by consensus as being pretty much undisputed in authenticity, and that the Book of Romans is not one of those letters that anyone in their right mind ever seems to have disputed, including the incredibly liberal theologian FDE Schleiermacher.) Now I myself, without some actual reason, continue to defer to the tradition of authorship in the Catholic Church; but it’s not particularly revolutionary—at least, not Jesus Seminar revolutionary, to suggest that Paul may not have written every letter attributed to him.
Oogedy-boogedy makes a lot more sense when you color code it. Oh alright, fine. But at least it is pretty looking.
Whether Paul wrote his letters by hand, used a secretary, or even a trusted copywriter, is secondary to the basic fact that all the NT letters are Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit and most valuable for every believer (2 Tim 3: 16). The Jesus Seminar et al. have long thrown out the doctrine of inspiration. Welcome the Unitarian Church.
Matthew – No Catholic, and certainly not the Catholic Church, should ever be afraid of The Jesus Seminar. If what the Seminar says about Jesus, and, now, Paul, is not true – we should expose it. Merely criticizing The Jesus Seminar, or dismissing it, does not make The Jesus Seminar or their challenges go away. The Church found that out the hard way with The Da Vinci Code.
I remember our Pastor, a well-meaning fellow, said to us – “I have read The Da Vinci Code. It’s bunk.”
No one bought his story. We all read The Da Vinci Code. What effect it had on our Faith I don’t know. But, I do know our Pastor’s words had no effect on us. However, had he taken apart the main claims of The Da Vinci Code a lot more of us would have believed him, and the Catholic Church’s denunciation of the book.
We Catholics, and the Catholic Church, especially the Catholic Church, have to take apart The Jesus Seminars’ challenges and arguments meticulously, piece by piece. By this process not only is The Jesus Seminar diminished, if not demolished, but, we are enriched. In our knowledge. And, our Faith.
Your pastor was right. I suppose he thought people would actually take the trouble to look at the painting and count the number of chalices. Guess he didn’t count on the Barnum syndrome - even among faithful Catholics.
The real danger in Brown’s book is the anti-Catholicism plays right along with the political anti-Catholicism in the Anglo-Saxon world that beegan in earnest in Elizabethan England. A Catholic England would have delegitimized Elizabeth I and returned all the ill-gotten lolly to the Church - making many wealthy and influential families very unhappy.
As always, cui bono - the Knights Templar were destroyed for financial reasons. Brown and other professional Catholic haters/atheists such as Hawkins, Hitchens, and Pulliam make money feeding into centuries old fears and prejudices. They themselves don’t/won’t realize where their hatred comes from and how much it’s based on the ignorance and superstition they so freely accuse Catholicism of.
We need to pray that people who think this way may be free of their bigotry through the Holy Spirit and come to see the Catholic Church as the “truth-telling” (in the sublime words of Hadley Arkes) being She is. How indeed can the Body of Christ be anything else?
These people MIGHT try reading about anything written by the apostle of common sense..G.K. Chesterton.
Actually, the Scripture text itself does not mention a horse, though just about every depiction of the event shows St. Paul falling off one.
Every Bible translation is the result of a consensus vote with a range of scholarly opinions. Bible Study actually means “studying the Bible” and that includes the Preface, which usually explains the methodology used in a particular translation.
And not all Jesus Seminar scholars discount divine inspiration in Scripture.
My Christian faith does not prevent me from following the truth wherever it leads.
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