What was (is) the Jesus Seminar? Prof. Sean Everton, assistant professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, returns to Research on Religion to discuss this ambitious scholarly project that sought to determine the authenticity of approximately 1,500 sayings attributed to Jesus Christ.
Our conversation begins with an outline of what the Jesus Seminar was, when it was created, and who was involved in it. Dating back to 1985 and emanating from the Westar Institute, the Jesus Seminar represented the “third wave” of scholarly attempts to get at the historical Jesus. (We learn later in the interview what the first two waves were.) Spearheaded by noted New Testament scholars Robert Funk and John Crossan, the initial goal of this ambitious scholarly collaboration was to determine the authenticity of sayings generally attributed to Christ and involved upwards of 200 different scholars, mostly affiliated with mainline Protestant denominations. Sean notes that while this was their main and initial purpose, the Jesus Seminar still continues to look at a number of other aspects of early Christianity including the Pauline letters and the origins of Christianity. We chat a bit about how people are selected into the seminar and how often they meet.
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