The Five Gospels?

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Has anyone here read “The Five Gospels: The search for the authentic words of Jesus” by the Jesus Seminar?

I just leafed through it at a bookstore the other day, and am curious to know if anyone has opinions about it.

Thanks, tomcmaj
 
Stay far away from the Jesus Seminar; they doubt all things Christian - including the Virgin Birth, Ressurection, Ascension, and even some of Christ’s sayings.

Unless you are prepared to read a book from people who attack, in essence, the very existence of the Son of God, then I recommend you stay away from that book.
 
I was visiting a seminary and the class on the Gospels was talking about it. They try to translate what Jesus “really mean”. Instead of “blessed are the poor in spirit”, The Jesus seminar would put “Congrats, poor!” Sounds like they won a lotto ticket or something. :rolleyes:
 
Tomcmaj said:
Has anyone here read “The Five Gospels: The search for the authentic words of Jesus” by the Jesus Seminar?

I just leafed through it at a bookstore the other day, and am curious to know if anyone has opinions about it.

Thanks, tomcmaj
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it is an openly heretical work by an openly heretical group which has been roundly condemned don’t waste your money.
 
Thanks for the responses!

I was hoping someone here had actually read the book.

One of the things that intrigued me was that the book is recommended by Elaine Pagels and Rev. Spong, two people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, but can’t ignore that they are both serious intellectual heavyweights…
 
Tomcmaj said:
Thanks for the responses!

I was hoping someone here had actually read the book.

One of the things that intrigued me was that the book is recommended by Elaine Pagels and Rev. Spong, two people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, but can’t ignore that they are both serious intellectual heavyweights…
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neither one of them are heavyweights in any department except ego, Pagels especially is a disgrace to the history professsion. Yes I have read all their books and yes my MA is in history.
 
Tomcmaj said:
Thanks for the responses!

I was hoping someone here had actually read the book.

One of the things that intrigued me was that the book is recommended by Elaine Pagels and Rev. Spong, two people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, but can’t ignore that they are both serious intellectual heavyweights…
Click to expand...
The 5 gospels specifically includes the so-called gospel of thomas. I say “so-called” because it is not really a gospel at all, just a collection of saying of Jesus. But it is dated around 120 AD at the earliest.
The 4 gospels (matthew, mark, luke, john) however, all date no later than 90 AD (latest date for John). So the gospel of Thomas just doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the 4 gospels as a reliable source.
 
puzzleannie said:
neither one of them are heavyweights in any department except ego.
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:bowdown:

Can’t deny the truth of that!

The editors are pretty clear that they’re translating text with the objective of history, not faith, so I HOPE they don’t think religious folks would use their book for explorations of faith.

Again, my assumption is that this is not unlike Northrop Frye’s examination of the Bible as Literature. Frye was a United Church minister, but he really made a career out of looking at the Bible in more than one way: not only as a book of spiritual value, but as a book of literary value as well.
 
I read their book and some other articles. I was not impressed. The Jesus Seminar more or less operates as voting by committee, verse by verse. They also seemed to suffer from a desire to be novel or controversial to gain attention.

Some of their ideas make sense but it was all wildly imbalanced. For example, they posit that things that might be interpreted negatively about Jesus or the Church are more likely to be true because otherwise believers would never have invented them. OK, fine, but you can’t take that one idea and hold it up over everything else.

It frankly was just not good scholarship.

The best one-volume book on the NT that I ever read was Fr. Raymond Brown’s “Introduction to the New Testament”. I think I read that book about four times because it was so good, so thorough, and so comprehensive. Just an absolutely fantastic book by one of the greatest biblical scholars of all time.
 
Tomcmaj said:
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The editors are pretty clear that they’re translating text with the objective of history, not faith…
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A book presenting an accurate look and history would lend itself to the Truth. Any document pertaining to “history” that contradicts this Truth is mere Historical Fiction.
 
Tomcmaj said:
Thanks for the responses!

I was hoping someone here had actually read the book.

One of the things that intrigued me was that the book is recommended by Elaine Pagels and Rev. Spong, two people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, but can’t ignore that they are both serious intellectual heavyweights…
Click to expand...
These are two “ear ticklers.” I have read more of Spong’s books, he advocates marrying gay couples, “consecrating” unmarried relationships (I promise to be monogamous as long as we live together), and thinks the Bible needs a modernization program. I encourage you to read the “Five Gospels” but also read “Jesus Under Fire” a collection of essays refuting the methodology and conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. I’ve nearly worn my copy out. It is pretty intellectual and may be hard to understand, but worth the effort.
 
stevekehl said:
These are two “ear ticklers.” I have read more of Spong’s books, he advocates marrying gay couples, “consecrating” unmarried relationships (I promise to be monogamous as long as we live together), and thinks the Bible needs a modernization program. I encourage you to read the “Five Gospels” but also read “Jesus Under Fire” a collection of essays refuting the methodology and conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. I’ve nearly worn my copy out. It is pretty intellectual and may be hard to understand, but worth the effort.
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Yeah, Spong is quite the character!

Thanks or the reading recommendation!!!

:tiphat:
 
AmericanMuslim said:
The best one-volume book on the NT that I ever read was Fr. Raymond Brown’s “Introduction to the New Testament”. I think I read that book about four times because it was so good, so thorough, and so comprehensive. Just an absolutely fantastic book by one of the greatest biblical scholars of all time.
Click to expand...
Be wary of anything authored by the late Fr. Raymond Brown. i cant personally give you any examples of errors, but some of his work isnt highly regarded in orthodox circles. Maybe his “Introduction to The New Testament” is OK… 🤷

Others on this thread may be able to fill both of us in…
 
Fink said:
Be wary of anything authored by the late Fr. Raymond Brown. i cant personally give you any examples of errors, but some of his work isnt highly regarded in orthodox circles. Maybe his “Introduction to The New Testament” is OK… 🤷

Others on this thread may be able to fill both of us in…
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I’m moving and my copy is packed, but I believe that book had the Imprimatur/Nihil Obstat. Most of his works did. Pope Benedict XVI was a noted fan of Brown and said he would be “very happy if we had many exegetes like Fr. Brown”.

I think it’s more accurate to say he was not that popular with very traditionalist Catholics but was certainly accepted among Catholic scholars. Indeed, he is one of the titans of 20th century Catholic scholarship.

Judge for yourself…Wikipedia seems pretty balanced on this one:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown
 
Tomcmaj said:
Thanks for the responses!

I was hoping someone here had actually read the book.

One of the things that intrigued me was that the book is recommended by Elaine Pagels and Rev. Spong, two people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, but can’t ignore that they are both serious intellectual heavyweights…
Click to expand...
Hi Tom,

I read it, quite a while back. Although I’m not well-versed in these matters, I have to say that their approach and methodology strike me as, to use a term beloved of Arthur Daley, ‘a bit dodgy’.

That said, there has long been a strong suspicion that some of the words placed in the mouth of Our Lord were either ‘tidied up’ versions of what He said that were put there by ‘editors’ who intended to make His message clearer to an audience, or are statements that reflect the struggles of the early Church with it’s ‘hostile critics’.

Given the observations made by some other contributors in sub-forums on this site concerning the origins of the Bible, I think that there is an audience out there for a group like the Jesus Seminar. However, at this stage, I’m not convinced.
 
AmericanMuslim said:
Unfortunately I’m moving and my copy is packed, but I believe that book had the Imprimatur/Nihil Obstat. Most of his works did. Pope Benedict XVI was a noted fan of Brown and said he would be “very happy if we had many exegetes like Fr. Brown”.

I think it’s more accurate to say he was not that popular with very traditionalist Catholics but was certainly accepted among Catholic scholars. Indeed, he is one of the titans of 20th century Catholic scholarship.

Judge for yourself…Wikipedia seems pretty balanced on this one:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_E._Brown
Click to expand...
The only negative thing I’ve heard said about Fr. Brown is that, by the standards of the most modern scholarship, his scholarship is ‘a bit old-fashioned’. I enjoyed his works on the early Church tremendously, his co-authored ‘Antioch and Rome’ in particular. In this instance, I agree wholeheartedly with His Holiness!
 
melbanglican said:
I read it, quite a while back. Although I’m not well-versed in these matters, I have to say that their approach and methodology strike me as, to use a term beloved of Arthur Daley, ‘a bit dodgy’.
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Yes, I would agree, but at least they are very upfront about how they’re approaching the task!

I picked up a used copy of the book and am enjoying it so far. A lot of their observations can be true but trivial. Others, they’re the first to note disagreement on the team.

I think the questions they ask are more important than the answers they come up with!
 
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