The Quest for the Gist of Jesus: The Jesus Seminar, Dale Allison, and Improper Linear Models

Studies have found that while experts can be quite good at identifying criteria related to a particular phenomenon, they are typically outperformed by improper linear models (ilm), which assign equal weights to criteria. In this article, using widely-accepted criteria for assessing the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus, we generate a new ranking of Jesus’ sayings using an ilm. Then, drawing on recent advances in text mining—semantic network analysis—we first compare our ilm ranking to that of the Jesus Seminar’s and then to one based on Dale Allison’s recurrent attestation (RA) approach. We find that our ilm semantic network projects a more traditional understanding of Jesus than does the Jesus Seminar’s, but it is quite similar to the RA network. We conclude by suggesting that biblical scholars could benefit from various forms of computerized text mining in their quest for the historical Jesus.

The “Reconstructed Mark” and the Reconstruction of Q: A Valid Analogy?

Described as a “thought experiment” by a number of scholars, Mark’s Gospel as reconstructed exclusively from its reception by Matthew and Luke has been repeatedly advanced as a challenge to the reconstruction of Q in recent decades. This essay analyzes the “Reconstructed Mark” argument, finding it to form a poorly calibrated analogy for the Q document. It will be shown that Matthew and Luke treat Q, which is a sayings collection, differently from the sayings of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, which are already valued by them more highly than Mark’s narrative. Further arguments in support of the feasibility of Q’s reconstruction and the attainability of its text will also be provided.

Innovation Asserted

This chapter traces the trajectory of early Christianity’s eventual embrace of the new, as articulated in the New Testament. Early sections probe the Gospels, illustrating how difficult it is to trace the word “new” back to the sayings of Jesus himself. Clearer evidence emerges in Paul, though he balances assertions of innovation with appeals to a prior covenant of faith. Other gospel traditions—above all, the Sermon on the Mount—seek to establish the novelty of Jesus’s teaching, a claim that sometimes entails denying earlier precedents for Jesus’s instruction. Going one important step further, the Letter to the Hebrews provides the earliest evidence for supersessionism, when the valorization of innovation is undergirded by a condemnation of the old. But an alternate discourse is also in evidence in texts like the Didache, which speak not of an old/new contrast but a timeless duality between good and evil.

Novels

The ancient genre ‘novel’ influenced early Christian composition and exegesis most purely in the Pseudo-Clementines, the only true ancient Christian novel. The original Pseudo-Clementine novel was idealistic: carefully constructed to work as a believable whole. Accordingly, it pursued exegesis of the Jesus-tradition in a realistic, or believable, manner, as displayed particularly in the explicit regulation of Peter’s lifestyle and mission by the sayings of Jesus. The Klementia (Hom. Clem.), a later version, transformed the idealistic novel into parody and introduced fantastic eye-popping exegesis that tended to break through the original realism and its consistent chronological framework. The other later version, the Recognition, was long the only form of the narrative known in the West. It sapped the vigour of the original novel and introduced the ‘authoritative interpretation’, in which harmonizing exegesis smothered exploratory enquiry.

The Gospel of Thomas

This chapter details how the Gospel of Thomas, like the Analects, is also the posthumous collection of a charismatic teacher. The sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas are difficult, obscure, and mysterious. They challenge the reader to discover the true nature of the world through the discovery of the self, both of which are imbued with the divine. Hermeneutics in this way becomes nothing less than soteriology—the discourse of redemption itself. To achieve this, the Gospel of Thomas advocates a radical independence: readers must decipher for themselves the text's meaning rather than rely on any sectarian doctrine or even the authority of Thomas the compiler. Indeed, the theory of aphorisms in Thomas is that one attains secret knowledge of a hidden God not from a congregation of believers but through the inward meditation on the words of Jesus.

Jesus as Philosopher

The main purpose of the book is to examine the possible ways in which the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, were inspired by contemporary philosophical traditions about the ideal philosophical sage in their description of their ideal human being, Jesus Christ. Questions that are raised and discussed in the study include the following: How does the author in question speak of Jesus in relation to contemporary philosophy? Do we see Jesus take on a certain ‘philosophical’ role in the Gospels, either by his statements and reasoning or his way of life? In what way are Jesus’ words and actions analogous to that of leading philosophical figures in Graeco-Roman antiquity, according to these texts? Conversely, in what way do his words and actions differ from theirs? While a number of Graeco-Roman sources are presented and discussed in the study, the emphasis is on the question of how these parallel texts help us better to understand the Gospel authors’ perception and presentation of the character of Jesus. While the fields of theology and ethics are often intertwined in these texts, the main focus of the study is aimed at the ethical aspect. It is argued that the Gospel authors drew in some ways on classical virtue ethics. The Gospel authors inherited stories and sayings of Jesus that they wanted to improve upon and recount as truthfully as possible, and they did so in part by making use of philosophical traditions, especially Stoicism and Cynicism, about the ideal sage.