N.T. Wright describes the history of the Jesus Seminar in
the beginning of Jesus and the Victory of God. The Jesus Seminar was a group of biblical
scholars in the late 20th century whose collaboration consisted of
claims to say for sure whether various parts of the four gospels were authentic
or not – in other words, whether Jesus really spoke them, or if they were
merely attributed to him by later redactors.
Robert Funk, the chairman of the Seminar, called his fellow
scholars to, in Wright’s words, “fearless discipleship.” Funk: “We are about to embark on a momentous
enterprise…the course we shall follow may prove hazardous. We may well provoke hostility. But we will set out, in spite of the dangers,
because we are professionals and because the issue of Jesus is there to be
faced.” (Wright 32) Wright notes that
Funk’s call to his colleagues to take up the task is “strangely reminiscent of
Mark 8:34, which in the Seminar’s voting came out heavily black, i.e.
inauthentic.” In other words, Funk
invokes sacrifice-fueled integrity for the sake of a project that includes
debunking Jesus’ sacrifice-fueled integrity.
I had to look up Mark 8:34.
Here is how it reads: “Then (Jesus) called the crowd to him along with
his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.”
People as a matter of course should be careful about their
calls to mission with regard to debunking Jesus. If they aren’t careful, they could be seeking
to destroy the very fabric of mission that inspires them in the first place!
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