Bible Q & A

What is "The Jesus Seminar"?

What is the "Jesus Seminar" and who appointed them "keepers of the Christian faith"? This question has puzzled many Christians and delighted the popular media for about a decade. In a recent article featuring the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar, TIME Magazine asks "What are Christians to Believe?" ("The Gospel Truth?," April 8, 1996) giving credence to this group of liberal "scholars" who have religious beliefs that can probably best be categorized as "atheistic materialism."

The fact that the opinions represented by the Jesus Seminar are in the minority does not stop the popular press from falsely lamenting over "the state of Christianity in light of this new evidence."

To put it bluntly, there is NO EVIDENCE for the conclusions of the Jesus Seminar. They represent yet another attempt to destroy Christianity. If Nero couldn't do it, one wonders how the Jesus Seminar expects to.

Contrary to their representation in the press, the Jesus Seminar does not study the Bible in any manner that remotely resembles scholarship. Using biased criteria, they have a clear and obvious goal to attempt to disprove anything that might be considered supernatural. To become a member of the Jesus Seminar, a "scholar" has to verify that he or she does not believe the basic tenants of the Christian faith.

Following are a few examples of the criteria the Jesus Seminar uses to judge the words and actions of Jesus in the Bible:

• A direct quote must be short and "punchy"

• A thought must run against the social and religious grain of the day

• An action must be in the style of contemporary "wise men" of the day

• Parables must not have explicit applications

• A word or passage must not contain Old Testament quotations

• A passage must not contain contextual connections

• Any prophecy is immediately deemed invalid

• Any miracle is immediately deemed invalid

There are more equally ridiculous and unscholarly criteria that underlie the Jesus Seminar's conclusions but to sum it all up, the criteria they use to judge the Bible is nothing but simply: Where the Bible claims to be more than just another ancient piece of literature, it must be judged inaccurate. Is it any wonder what such a biased, anti-Christian organization would conclude?

The Jesus Seminar totally ignores the fact that events in Jesus' life were prophesied hundreds and even thousands of years before Jesus was ever born and those prophecy fulfillments were witnessed by people who died rather than deny what they witnessed (see How do you know that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of in the Old Testament? for an amazing example of prophecy fulfillment). To believe that these prophecies were fulfilled by chance or that they were fulfilled through the efforts of a mere human being takes more faith then it takes to believe the basic tenants of the Christian faith.

As years pass, the evidence for the validity of the Bible's account of Jesus continues to mount. To the chagrin of the liberal "scholars" that make up the Jesus Seminar, it is becoming more and more evident that the Gospels were indeed written by the Holy Spirit through UNBIASED EYEWITNESSES. It is becoming more and more evident that modern, Bible-based Christian beliefs and the beliefs of the early Christian Church are identical. It is becoming more and more evident that the Bible has been faithfully copied over the centuries. It is becoming more and more evident that the scientific accuracy of the Bible is unassailable. One could go on and on but perhaps this mounting evidence is the subject of another article (or a tome).

Return to the Bible Q & A Main Page