Tim Hanchin
Critical Review of Luke Timothy Johnson, The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus
and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Luke Timothy Johnson drops a bomb that aims to demolish the popular frenzy surrounding the Jesus Seminar in The Real Jesus. The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. Throughout the work, he remains highly critical of the self-selected group of academics that "stands as a far better example of media manipulation than of serious scholarship"(1 ). Johnson' s critique begins by questioning the external makeup and procedures of the association and then moves to more substantial attacks on the philosophical assumptions, methodology and purpose of the Jesus Seminar. Ultimately, Johnson uses the narrow concern with the Jesus Seminar to lead the discussion towards a wider commentary on contemporary biblical scholarship.

Johnson, a former Benedictine monk and priest, defends the Christ of faith revealed throughout classical Christianity over and against more recent trends of skeptical historical-critical scholars that leave faith submissive to history. He argues, centered on the resurrection, that the "real" Jesus is a living person rather than a reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Thus, the author questions the relationship of history to faith and the false assumption that history as understood through modem techniques of historical reconstruction is the ultimate criterion of truth against which the Gospels must be judged. As a member of the historical-critical camp, he is very careful to recognize the insight offered by a historical approach, yet he remains constantly aware of history's limits in grounding Christian faith.

Luke Johnson begins his commentary on the Jesus Seminar by questioning its academic legitimacy. Although the Seminar publicist often remarks of 200 participants, the reality is that closer to 40 actually attend meetings and write papers. This contrasts 6,900 New Testament scholars who comprise the membership of the Society of Biblical Literature. Further, the roster includes no present faculty at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Union, Emory, or Chicago. Johnson does not raise this point to question the ability of members but to "deflate the sometimes grandiose claims" that the Seminar represents New Testament scholarship (3).

Next, Johnson launches a stylistic challenge. The distinguishing style of the Seminar has been deliberately provocative by public voting on the authenticity of Jesus sayings with the use of color-coded beads. (Red: That's Jesus! Pink: Sure sounds like Jesus. Gray: Well, maybe. Black: There's been some mistake.) This process is biased against the authenticity of the Gospels traditions and forces sayings to prove their authenticity. Johnson sees this procedure as a showy media hook.

Further, Johnson calls the social mission of the seminar into question. Robert Funk, the ringmaster, reported in the Seminar's publication that 'the religious establishment has not allowed the intelligence of high scholarship to pass through pastors and priests to a hungry laity' (6). Thus the Seminar's product, The Five Gospels, is an attempt to market an alternative Messiah to that presented in the canonical Gospels.

Funk has stated that he hopes The Five Gospels ends up in churches and on the bookshelves of the laity. With this agenda openly admitted, it is not surprising that the results of the Seminar aim to debunk classical Christian scholarship. Funk adds, 'If we are to survive as scholars of the Humanities, as well as Theologians, we must quit the academic closet. And we must begin to sell a product that has some utilitarian value to someone . . . or which at least appears to have utilitarian value to someone" (8). Thus, Johnson sees the Seminar movement as more concerned with the marketing of a product than honest academic exploration.

A more serious problem is the fundamental misuse of history. Johnson sees this gross error as a commonality uniting modem skeptical New Testament scholarship with literalistic fundamentalists. The more literalistic fundamentalists insist that the Gospels can be proven historically true, while modern skeptics argue that they can be proven historically false. Both see history as the ultimate guardian of truth. "The Seminar's obsessive concern with historicity and its extreme literalism merely represents the opposite side of fundamentalism. Now, other 'fundamental convictions' concerning who Jesus must be are taken to be 'historical accurate' and therefore showing the real Jesus. The portrait is different, but the technique in painting is the same" (27). Thus, Johnson begs for closer analysis of the connection between history and faith.

Johnson does not hesitate to name names. He individually challenges the scholarship of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Burton Mack. He sees throughout this scholarship, although differing in style and quality, certain constant traits. They reject the canonical Gospels as reliable sources for information on Jesus. The scholarship ignores other canonical sources as references to shape an image of Jesus. In particular, Paul's work is disregarded as irrelevant for historical knowledge since his inseparable link with the formation of the Church was an initial movement in distorting the Jesus movement. Further, the scholarship defines Jesus in terms of a social or cultural critique rather than a religious or spiritual figure.

The publicly proclaimed historical endeavor clearly carries a theological agenda. "They state in one way or another that institutional Christianity is a distortion of the 'real Jesus' and that institutional Christianity is a distortion of the 'Jesus movement'" (55). The shared assumption is that historical knowledge is the norm for faith and theology. Crossan remarks, 'If you cannot believe in something produced by reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in' (55). Thus this means that "origins define essence" such that the original understanding of the Jesus movement was obviously superior to its later developments (55). The result of this critical agenda is an attack on traditional Christian views. Johnson sharply comments, "If there is a 'church' whose rules and rituals are home to these authors, it is that of the academy. The ideals espoused in this 'church' provide the perspective for the criticism of the Christian 'Church,' which in all these discussions appears only as a problem and never as a mystery, always as a tragic mistake and never as a providential development" (55-56).

Johnson develops a critical look at history that aims to counter the assumption that history is truth's trump card. He means to expose a popular use of the term historical that means "what actually happened" or "real" as opposed to "made up." "The Jesus Seminar exploits this popular distinction when it speaks of its historical deliberations delivering 'the real Jesus' in contrast to the 'Christ of faith,' who is by implication somehow less than 'real'" (81). Johnson reminds the reader that history is the result of human imagination and intelligence. It is an interpretive activity. "Historical knowing is like a sieve that catches big chunks but lets much fine stuff slip through" (82). Further, it is not value-free, because it invokes the interpretive creativity of the historian.

The fault of the Jesus Seminar is that it makes the logical movement that Jesus did not do A but did say B such that he must have been this type of person rather than the other. "Then they leap - completely without warrant - to the conclusion that this has implications for Christian belief. But the move from the indicative (that's the way Jesus was) to the imperative (this is the way you must believe) is not legitimate, for the simple reason that history - even the best and most critical history - is not the necessary basis for religious faith" (86). In sum, Johnson is charging certain contemporary New Testament scholarship for lacking a critical understanding of the fragility and limits of history. The most significant abuse by the Jesus Seminar is its employment as determining of faith. "The most destructive effect of the Jesus Seminar and recent Historical Jesus books has been the perpetuation of the notion that history somehow determines faith, and that for faith to be correct, the historical accounts that gave rise to it have to be verifiable" (141). Johnson is very careful not to argue the irrelevance of history for Christian faith. He sees its role as invaluable, but he consults it with a sober acknowledgment of its limits.

Therefore, for Johnson, the "real" Jesus is not an alternative proposed by historical reconstruction but the resurrected Jesus who passed beyond the limits of time and space when going to God in that non-historical event. The resurrection is non-historical in the sense that the event shattered the boundaries of time and space, but the living Jesus constantly continues to effect history in time and space. Johnson concludes, "The Jesus to whom Saint Francis of Assisi appealed in his call for a poor and giving rather than a powerful and grasping church was not the Historical Jesus but the Jesus of the Gospels. One must only wonder why this Jesus is not also the 'real Jesus' for those who declare a desire for religious truth, and theological integrity, and honest history" (177). This living Jesus of faith, which can never be historically reconstructed, is the "real" Jesus.

I have found Johnson's questioning of the relationship between history and faith intriguing. It is a discussion that, I think, ought to take place at the onset of any serious biblical scholarship. However, Johnson could have developed the discussion in greater depths. For example, the author is heavy on examining the dynamics of history while short on examining what is meant by faith. He rightly counters the popular obsession of verifying truth by means of historical data. Yet, I think this discussion begs for a philosophical look at what the author means as truth. Admittedly such an approach can quickly move beyond the scope of the task at hand; however, a humble attempt would be insightful.

Another term that is central to Johnson's argument but in need of further definition is the Jesus of classical Christianity. In particular, I refer to the author's use of "the Jesus that classical Christianity has always proclaimed" (177). He holds this image over and against the proposed historical reconstruction of the Jesus Seminar and company. He describes this Jesus as "the Jesus who truly challenges this age, as every age, is the one who suffers in obedience to God and calls others to such suffering service in behalf of humanity" (177). Indeed, Johnson's entire work culminates with the assertion that the "truly uncomfortable Jesus, the genuinely 'counter-cultural' Jesus, is not the one reconstructed according to the ethos of contemporary academics --whether it is Crossan's politically-correct revolutionary Jesus or Borg's charismatic-founder Jesus or any of the others -- but the one inscribed in the canonical Gospels" (177). However, Johnson makes this movement a little too quickly. Indeed, he seems to employ his enemies' technique. Namely, he is resisting development in a similar way that the Jesus Seminar protests Paul's work as developmentally distorting Jesus. In particular, my contention is not so much with Johnson's attack of Crossan and Borg simply because I am not versed enough in either to refute the criticism.

However, I do dissent as Johnson earlier applies this line of argument to liberation theology such that "Christianity is reduced to a critique of patriarchal, capitalist, homophobic society" (65). If Johnson allows for the spirit to breath life in the development of the Church, he must allow the possibility that liberation theology and other images set forth by Crossan and Borg are results of the spirit alive and active today. Indeed, throughout history different images of Christ have been emphasized and developed within the Church. Thus it is difficult for me to understand how Johnson employs an unchangeable Jesus "which classical Christianity has always held" (177). This seems to run contrary to his earlier defense of Christ's living spirit of development that he wants to use against the Jesus Seminar. I do not mean to argue that it is nonsense to speak of certain constant traits that remain throughout christological developments in the Church, but I do mean to suggest the possibility that the Christ of liberation theology and other contemporary scholars may someday be worked somehow into Church tradition. Indeed, John Paul II often borrows the liberation language of "preferential option for the poor" in contemporary encyclicals and apostolic letters.

Despite these small differences, I applaud Johnson's work. Its provocative thesis is necessary to keep contemporary biblical scholarship honest. The author's call to further examine the relationship of history and faith is insightful. Most significantly, I admire the movement by Johnson to remind contemporary biblical scholarship about the central role of the resurrection in the Jesus story and the primacy of faith within the Christian Church over and against the sometimes idolatrous pursuit of claims about history. I agree with Johnson that the "real" Jesus is the resurrected and living Christ of faith.