Writing in response to the Jesus Seminar and their The Five Gospels and other works, Ben Witherington III noted the following problems of their methodologies:
. . . some scholars place a great deal of emphasis on what is called the criterion of dissimilarity. This criterion basically states that a Jesus saying which stands out both from its Jewish historical background and from its early church foreground is likely to be authentic. In other words, such a saying is under no cloud of suspicion of having been invented by the early church or of being simply a quotation of something various early Jews, and not Jesus in particular, might have said.
If one uses this sort of criterion as an ultimate or final litmus test, one is bound to end up with only the distinctive or unique sayings and a Jesus who has nothing in common with either his Jewish heritage or his later Christian followers. Of course the idea of Jesus being totally idiosyncratic, without any analogy, is highly improbable. There never has been such a person in all of human history. What the Jesus Seminar people do not tell us is what weight was given to the criterion of dissimilarity and by whom.
While the criterion of dissimilarity can be used to help us discern what is apparently distinctive about Jesus' teaching (I say “apparently” because it is always possible that more evidence yet to be discovered about early Judaism or early Christianity could prove that one or another saying or idea was not in fact without parallel), it can hardly be used as the sole determinant of what is authentic among his sayings. If it is used as the only criterion it leads to a very distorted picture of Jesus, a Jesus who is both non-Jewish and has little or nothing in common with his Christian followers!
There are other criteria, such as the criteria of multiple attestation. Most Gospel scholars argue that the similarities between Matthew, Luke and Mark are explainable on a theory of mutual relationship. Typically, Mark is regarded as the first Gospel to have been written, with its influence being discernible in Matthew and Luke. The material that Matthew and Luke have in common that it is not dependent on Mark is attributed to a hypothetical source called "Q" (from the German Quelle, "source"). The material that is distinctive to Matthew or to Luke, material that cannot be attributed to either Mark or Q, is pointed as having come from sources "M" or "L" respectively. Thus the criteria of multiple attestation pertains to a saying that appears in more than one of these Synoptic Gospel sources, to which may be added John or some other independent source such as Paul. If this criterion were brought into play it would probably provide a more well-rounded and authentic picture of Jesus (on the use of historical-critical criteria see Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990], pp. 22-31). As Ben F. Meyer has put it, we cannot decide "historicity questions . . . in peremptory fashion by a single acid test . . . dealing with the data atomistically. . . . On the whole it is rare that a solid judgment of historicity can be made prior to and apart from a large frame of reference" (Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus [London: SCP, 1979], p. 84) . . . A further methodological problem arises from the assumption that, having stripped the sayings of Jesus from their narrative context, we can still know what they mean and decide whether Jesus is likely to have said them or not. Jesus was not just a talking head nor a sage who merely tossed out timeless aphorisms to the crowds. Rather, his sayings must be related, if possible, not only to their narrative contexts in the Gospels, but also to the events of Jesus’ life, including the deeds he performed . . . Yet another methodological problem [is] that Jesus’ sayings must be regarded as inauthentic unless they can be proved to be authentic. This is assumed to be the critical point of view. But in reality it is a perspective steeped in a negative bias, not a neutral or open stance. Behind this attitude lies the basic assumption that the early church recreated Jesus in the image it preferred, inventing many sayings and placing them on Jesus’ lips . . . Many critical scholars, both Christian and Jewish, and some of no religious affiliation at all, would simply reject this negative bias as neither historical nor scholarly. Too often scholars fail to be critical of their own motives and theological biases. Too often they assume they know better than the early Christians who preserved and collected the sayings of Jesus and composed the Gospels what Jesus was or was not likely to have said. This assumption is founded on hubris.
In contrast, James D.G. Dunn, on equally critical grounds, concludes that:
The earliest tradents within the Christian churches [were] preservers more than innovators, . . . seeking to transmit, retell, explain, interpret, elaborate, but not to create de novo. All of which means that I approach the Synoptic tradition with a good deal more confidence than many of my New Testament colleagues. Through the main body of the Synoptic tradition, I believe, we have in most cases direct access to the teaching and ministry of Jesus as it was remembered from the beginning of the transmission process (which often predates Easter) and so fairly direct access to the ministry and teaching of Jesus through the eyes and ears of those who went about with him. (James D.G. Dunn, “Messianic Ideas and Their Influence on the Jesus of History,” in The Messiah, ed. James H. Charlesworth [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], pp. 371-72)
In view of the fact that the earliest conveyors of the Jesus tradition were all, without exception, Jews, we would naturally expect them to treat the teachings of their master with as much respect as did the disciples of other Jewish teachers such as Hillel and Shammai. This is all the more likely if, as happened with Jesus of Nazareth, the teacher suffered an untimely and unexpected end and was highly criticized by some Jews. The need to remember, preserve and defend him against false charges would be acute (it is striking to me that almost without exception Jewish scholars such as David Flusser, Samuel Sandmel or Geza Vermes who have spent considerable time dealing with the Jesus tradition basically agree with this conclusion. It is necessary not only to understand Jesus in his Jewish context but also to understand the handing on of his teachings in this context for at least the period leading up to A.D. 70). (Ben Witherington III, The Jesus Quest: The Third Search for the Jew of Nazareth [2d ed.; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997], 46-48)
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