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he latest book from the Seminar came out in time for Easter-Passover:
Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for
the Authentic Deeds of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco, 1998, $35.00. A must
for liberal religionists and humanists of varied persuasions.

As most of you know, 200+ leading New Testament scholars have been
gathering annually for several years to vote on the relative
authenticity of Jesus� reported words and deeds. This report argues that
only 16% of the alleged elements in his life can pass historical muster.
Matters like a special birth, miracles, founding a religion, a physical
resurrection are relegated to ancient invention and interpretation.
Anyone who has been to a decent seminary in the past 50 years would know
this, but the public has seldom been let in on such dreadful secrets.

Why should this concern us? For one thing, it exemplifies the use of
reason in historical inquiry. While most of these screenings can be
found in individual scholars of the last century and a half, there has
never before been this kind of collective (and highly public) honesty.
So much for postmodern sneers that history is simply individual opinion,
where each opinion carries equal value.

More importantly, many in our circles may have de-divinized Jesus but
are still cherishing romantic illusions about what he may have said or
done. Such illusions can prevent an honest assessment of the actual
record of Christian centuries and the revolutionary impact of the
Enlightenment. A closer look at the role of human imagination,
creativity, and wishful-thinking in the period of Gospel legend-
formation should serve as a cautionary lesson to those among us still
tempted to think that god/goddess creation is salutary. In fact, it was
seldom even harmless in early Christian history�and that was a time of
primitive science when such projections were more understandable. In our
time, the consequences are usually baleful.

In short, the historical Jesus is not the model that most Christians
have believed, and even the �humanized� Jesus that many liberals and
humanists would like to claim turns out to be so sketchily known that
one is reminded of Schweitzer�s dictum that whenever we try to bring him
into our time, he recedes back into his own.

So, buy the book as one of the most available examples of reasoned
historical inference, and as a caution against taking Jesus� name in
vain.

Robert B. Tapp
Dean, The Humanist Institute