What Did Jesus Really Say?

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About 40 scholars, all specialists in the study of the historical Jesus, are seated around a table. They have just completed their discussion of a saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. The time has come for each to vote on a simple but complex question: Do you think Jesus actually said that? Or, to frame the question in semitechnical language, is this saying of Jesus, as reported in one or more of the Gospels, historically authentic to Jesus? Each scholar votes by casting one of four differently colored balls into a ballot box: Red means “Yes, almost certainly”; pink means “More 019likely no than yes”; and black means “Almost certainly not.”

The Jesus Seminar, convened by New Testament scholar Robert Funk in the spring of 1985, is committed to a five-year collective examination of the historical authenticity of all the words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament and other ancient Christian sources. The ultimate publishing goal, scheduled for 1991, is The New Red-Letter Edition of the Five Gospels,^a in which the words of Jesus will be printed in four colors, corresponding to the seminar’s voting. Such a systematic and collective study of the sayings of Jesus, without precedent in the history of scholarship, is part of a scholarly renaissance of interest in the question of what Jesus was like as a figure of history before his death.¹

The question, Who was Jesus? has recently become news in the broader culture as well. Not only has the Jesus Seminar received considerable national publicity, but major stories about historical Jesus research have appeared in The Atlantic and The New York Times Book Review.² The recent release of the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ put the question on the cover of Time and USA Today, as well as in scores and probably hundreds of newspapers. Those not unalterably opposed to the movie cite its most constructive feature as the creation of a reflective curiosity: “It makes you think about what Jesus might really have been like.”

To many people, it is puzzling that there should be any question at all. The very idea that scholars are voting on the sayings of Jesus strikes many Christians as outrageous or even blasphemous,^b as does the suggestion that the historical Jesus might have been somewhat different from the portraits found in the Gospels. For these people, what Jesus was like as a figure of history is simply identified with what the Gospels say about him, and “faith” means believing the Gospels to be not only theologically but historically true.

Many others (within as well as outside the Church) have not been outraged, but have wondered why there is reason to think that what Jesus was like as a historical figure cannot simply be identified with the Gospel portraits of him. They also ponder how scholars make judgments about the historical authenticity of traditions attributed to Jesus. How do scholars decide what parts of the Gospels are historical, that is, what parts accurately reflect what Jesus said and did?

To answer these questions, we must begin with a sketch of how the Gospels are viewed from within mainstream biblical scholarship,^c as it has developed since its birth two centuries ago. Very compactly put, the Gospels are seen as the developing tradition of the early Christian community. This simple statement has two immediate implications. First, the Gospels are seen as human documents, historically conditioned by their time and place, as all human documents are; they reflect the viewpoints of their authors and of the Christian communities for which they spoke. Second, they are not straight-forward historical reports of what Jesus said and did, but the Church’s memories of Jesus transformed and adapted—transformed by the Gospel authors’ experience of him as a living, spiritual reality in the decades following Good Friday and Easter, and adapted to the needs of the particular communities in which they were written. The 020Gospels are history transfigured.

To mainstream scholarship, the evidence that justifies viewing the Gospels in this manner lies in the Gospels themselves. A detailed comparison of the Gospel of John, on the one hand, and the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), on the other, reveals two very different portraits of Jesus. In John, Jesus openly proclaims himself with the most exalted tides known in his time; in the synoptics, on the other hand, Jesus is very reticent (even silent) about his own identity. Scholars have concluded that the Gospel of John represents a much more developed form of the tradition, clearly reflecting what the risen Christ had become in the experience of the early Christians after Easter. John’s portrait of Jesus proclaiming himself is very different from the picture we get from the synoptics.

Moreover, within the three Synoptic Gospels themselves, a careful study of the many parallel accounts (that’s why they’re called synoptic) of the same incident or saying in two or more of the Synoptic Gospels often discloses differences that are most naturally explained as modifications introduced by the author or by the developing tradition.³ The meticulous study of patterns and themes in the Synoptic Gospels discloses the work of authors addressing and adapting their materials to different situations in the life of the early Church. In short, detailed study of these Gospels leads naturally to the conclusion that the traditions about Jesus developed. Indeed, in an important sense, everything in the Gospels is part of the developing tradition of the early Church: We have Jesus’ words and the stories of his activity only as preserved and shaped in the memory and experience of early Christians.

Given this, the historical question becomes, How does one decide what elements of the Gospel tradition accurately reflect what Jesus was like? When is the tradition quite close to reflecting his words and deeds, and when has the Church’s development of the tradition, gone considerably beyond what Jesus himself was like? To use the terminology of the Jesus Seminar, when should one vote “red,” and when should one vote “black”? Over the past 200 years, and especially in this century, scholars of the historical Jesus have developed criteria for making judgments about the question.⁴

Criterion 1: Multiple Attestation

The first criterion is multiple attestation in early tradition. Simply put, it counts in favor of the historical authenticity of a saying (theme, motif or action) if it is found in two or more early layers of 021the tradition. This criterion is based on the most widely held scholarly view of the development of the Synoptic Gospels. The two earliest sources are the Gospel of Mark and a source scholars call “Q.” A hypothetical document, Q is defined as the common source of about 200 verses found in both Matthew and Luke.⁵ To these two early sources (Mark and Q), some scholars would now add the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, recently discovered in Egypt among the documents known as the Nag Hammadi codices.⁶ A unit of tradition found in two or more of these sources must be regarded as early tradition.

However, this alone is not enough to establish historical authenticity, because even the earliest of these sources—presumably Q—is usually dated some 20 to 30 years after the death of Jesus. Though early, it still had considerable time for development. Moreover, multiple attestation (like the other criteria) does not work alone, that is, in isolation from other criteria. Some material found in early tradition is, as we shall see, historically suspect, whereas other material (especially parables) found only in one later source is commonly seen as historically authentic.

Criterion 2: Distinction from developing Tradition

A second criterion requires us to discount tendencies that are demonstrably part of the developing tradition of the Church. One of the best (and somewhat controversial) ways of illustrating this criterion is with the question of Jesus’ self-consciousness of his own divinity. Did he think of himself as divine or as the Messiah? Or, to put the question in a form that permits historical inquiry: How did he speak of himself? Did he speak of himself as divine or as the Messiah?

According to the tradition in its fully developed form (especially the Gospel of John), Jesus spoke of himself with the most exalted titles known in his time: Messiah and son of God. In John, there are many other epithets with this same divine denotation (the bread of life, the light of the world, etc.). One might therefore think the historical question settled, the only remaining question being whether Jesus was speaking the truth or was deluded.

But a closer look at the tradition suggests a more complex picture. Arranging the sources into a chronological development from early to late, we discover in the earliest sources that Jesus himself makes no public proclamation of his messianic or divine status. Jesus’ “identity” was not part of his own message in these sources. The sayings attributed to Jesus in Q and in the Gospel of Thomas do not make such claims. According to Mark, Jesus’ exalted status was not part of Jesus’ public preaching during his ministry; it was a secret known only to his disciples (Mark 8:27–30), and was to become part of the public message about Jesus only after Easter (Mark 9:9). As we move to later tradition, we can see that Matthew and Luke occasionally add exalted titles to passages that they take over from their sources. In John, the development reaches its peak. There Jesus not only speaks of himself as one with God, but, in the series of great “I am” statements, declares himself to be the bread of life, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life (John 6:48, 8:12, 10:30 and 11:25), even pre-existent: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). In short, there is an observable tendency in the tradition as it develops to add exalted titles to words attributed to Jesus.

The issue is not falsification or exaggeration, as might be supposed. We know that for the early Christians, after Easter Jesus was both Christ and Lord, that is, both Messiah and divine. This conviction, grounded in their own experience, affected the way they told the story of Jesus: they told the story of who he was in the light of the fuller perception given to them in the decades after Easter. The titles themselves are a testimony to the Church’s 022experience of the risen Christ.

Thus, using the criterion of discounting demonstrable tendencies of the developing tradition, one must strongly suspect that the proclamation of Jesus as both Lord and Christ was a post-Easter development, not part of the message of Jesus himself. Within the framework of mainstream biblical scholarship, such texts would quite properly receive “gray” or “black” votes by the Jesus Seminar. They must be viewed as most probably the voice of later tradition.

Criterion 3: Environment

A third criterion involves the environment reflected in a particular text. Into what environment does the text fit? Does it fit into a Palestinian environment around 30 A.D., or only into a non-Palestinian or later environment? In order to be judged authentic, the text must fit into the environment of Jesus’ time; if it fits only into a later environment, it cannot be authentic in its present form. Two illustrations, one rather minor and the other more significant, illustrate this criterion.

Both Matthew and Luke contain the parable of the wise and foolish builders (Matthew 7:24–27 = Luke 6:47–49), but with a small difference in the description of how each built his house (see the sidebar to this article). In both Gospels, one who hears Jesus’ words and does them is like a man with a strong house that withstands the floodwaters; one who does not do them is like a man whose house is swept away. In Matthew the contrast is between the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. In Luke, there is no reference to rock or sand; rather, the contrast is between building with a deep foundation. What is one to make of this difference? Matthew’s version reflects conditions in Palestine. There, building upon sand meant building in the middle of a dry and sandy stream bed (a wadi), which in the rainy reason became a raging stream. Luke’s reference to building with or with out a foundation reflects building techniques outside of Palestine. In short, Matthew’s version is at home in a Palestinian environment, whereas Luke’s version is adapted to the broader Mediterranean environment. In this case, scholars would be likely to judge the core of the parable in both Gospels as authentic, with Matthew’s form seen as closer to what Jesus actually said.

A second text illustrates this environmental criterion applied not only to the form but also to the substance of a text. According to Mark 7:19b, Jesus “declared all foods clean,” thereby abolishing the kosher^d laws of the Hebrew Bible. But did Jesus really do that? There are reasons for suspecting that the question of the validity of the Jewish food laws arose only after Easter, in the environment of the early Church as it became a movement including both Jews and gentiles. We know from the Book of Acts and Paul’s epistles that the validity of the Torah’s dietary laws was a controversial subject among early Christians. Early Church leaders struggle with that question, but not once do they appeal to Jesus as having spoken on the issue. Moreover, if Jesus had “declared all foods clean,” as Mark says; one would expect the Gospels to report conflict about that with Jewish opponents; such conflict is reported about Sabbath observance, 023eating with outcasts, tithing, etc. But no conflict with the Jewish authorities about eating non-kosher food is reported. In short, the statement found in Mark, about Jesus declaring all foods clean, fits much better into the later environment of the early Church.

Criterion 4: Distinctive form

In recent decades, a new criterion—the criterion of “distinctive form”—has emerged as a result of sustained study of the forms of Jesus’ speech reported in the Gospels. Two forms are especially prominent in the Gospels: the proverb/aphorism and the parable. Both are found in early layers of the tradition, thus satisfying the criterion of multiple attestation. In addition, however, these two forms function in a distinctive way. Both are invitational forms of speech: They invite the hearers to see something differently. Proverbs and aphorisms are short, pithy sayings that invite or provoke insight: “Figs are not gathered from thorns” (Luke 6:45), “No person can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24) and “The last shall be first” (Luke 13:30). Parables are narratives or stories that draw the hearers into the story and invite them to see through the lens provided by the story. In the teachings of Jesus, both are not only invitational, but also typically subversive: The insights they invite most often subvert or undermine conventionally accepted ways of seeing. They invite the hearers to see God differently, to see themselves and others differently, to see their own situations differently.

Because of their frequency and distribution in the tradition, and their distinctive function, proverbs and parables are regarded as the most characteristic of the forms by which Jesus imparted his message. They are the bedrock of the tradition. In short, proverbs and parables are generally judged to be authentic, even if found in only one source.

But the criterion of distinctive form also provides a means of making judgments about the historical authenticity of the applications and settings given to the parables in the Gospels. Some parables as they are presented in the Gospels function to teach “doctrine” or to teach a “moral.” For example, Matthew sets the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30) in the context of teaching about the second coming of Christ and the last judgment, important doctrines in the early Church. Another example: Luke uses the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) to teach a moral, a story that shows what it means to be a neighbor. But these parables do not seem to have functioned originally as illustrations of moral or doctrinal teachings; rather, their original function was to invite the hearer to experience a radically new way of seeing, a way of seeing that reversed the conventional way of seeing. In this invitation to a changed perception, the voice of Jesus is heard. But the settings in the Gospel and the applications have most often been added by later tradition.⁷

We come now to a criterion about which there has been considerable dispute, controversy and uncertainty—the criterion of dissimilarity. According to this criterion, when we find material in the Gospels that is dissimilar to what we find in Judaism and in the early Church, then we are in touch with authentic Jesus material. The reasoning behind the criterion is quite simple: If a text is dissimilar in this way, then the preservers and shapers of the text in the early Church cannot have taken it over from Jewish tradition or from the emerging convictions of the Church; instead, the text must have come from Jesus himself.

Criterion 5: Dissimilarity

This criterion can be used in both a positive and negative way. In its negative form, it is used to exclude. Anything that does not pass this test is inauthentic. For example, any quotation of or allusion to the Hebrew Bible in the Gospels must be excluded from the historically authentic words of Jesus because the Hebrew Bible is manifestly part of the Jewish tradition and was also the sacred scripture of the early Church. Because quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible in the Gospels are not “dissimilar,” they are to be excluded from the category of authentic material, according to the negative application of this criterion. Similarly, any text in the Gospels that can plausibly be understood as a concern of the early Church must be excluded from the category of authentic. What is left after the strict application of this principle is what is most distinctive, without parallel. Not surprisingly, the result of the exclusionary use of this criterion is a very minimalist picture of Jesus.

Though the negative application of this criterion of dissimilarity makes logical sense in an abstract way, it is far too extreme. To suppose that there is no continuity between Jesus and the community out of which he came and the community that formed around him is unreasonable. The criterion unearths only that which is most distinctive, that which sets Jesus completely apart from his milieu. What is most distinctive about an individual, however, may fail to take account of much that is characteristic of him. Furthermore, when priority is given to the criterion of dissimilarity, as it frequently is, then nothing can be admitted to the category of historically authentic material, no matter how well attested it is when other criteria are applied, except that which is equally dissimilar.

In its positive form, the criterion of dissimilarity is used to include, but not necessarily to exclude. In other words, if material meets the criterion of dissimilarity, it is likely to be included. But if 024it does not pass this test, it is not necessarily excluded; if it does not pass this test, we look to other criteria to determine inclusion or exclusion. Thus, material that is dissimilar to known emphases of Judaism or the Church has a high claim to authenticity, but nothing is implied about material that does not pass this test; material is not excluded because it fails to meet the criterion. For example, the laws of Judaism regarding purity and impurity were a matter of concern for the early Church; the negative use of the criterion of dissimilarity would, therefore, exclude sayings about purity from the authentic words of Jesus. Yet purity and impurity issues are found in multiple sources (Mark and Q) as well as in multiple forms (parables, proverbs, controversy sayings). There is thus strong reason to think that purity issues were of concern to Jesus. The negative application of the criterion would thus lead to an incorrect conclusion. The positive use of the criterion of dissimilarity would not exclude these materials. In its positive form, the criterion of dissimilarity can be used discerningly with the other criteria: Material that does not pass the test of dissimilarity is not automatically excluded, but might still be accepted on other grounds.⁸

Criterion 6: Coherence

The final criterion we will consider here is the criterion of coherence. This criterion functions at two levels. First, it can be used in a “micro” way on individual sayings: A saying may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with an already well-established core.

For example, the Gospel of Thomas includes a brief parable, attributed to Jesus, known as the Parable of the Assassin:

“Jesus said ‘The kingdom of the father is like a certain man who wanted to kill a powerful man. In his own house he drew his sword and stuck it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand would carry through. Then he slew the powerful man’ ” (Gospel of Thomas 98).

In this parable Jesus speaks of an assassin practicing his sword thrust at home to make sure he is strong enough. Many scholars are willing to accept this parable as authentic: It resembles other parables that speak of making sure one is able to follow through on one’s planned course of action (for example, Luke 14:28–32), or that use a reprehensible character to make their point (for example, Luke 16:1–8). This example is a micro application of the criterion of coherence.

The criterion of coherence also functions in a “macro” way, namely in the creation of a comprehensive picture of Jesus. Such an overall picture must obviously be coherent: The various elements in the picture must form an intelligible, noncontradicting whole. In addition, if the overall picture leaves out elements that have a strong claim to historical authenticity, then it cannot be said to make 025coherent sense of the evidence. At the macro level, the criterion of coherence thus moves toward comprehensiveness, which is the final test of any historical reconstruction: the degree to which well-authenticated data can be integrated into a coherent whole. In this sense, the historian’s work is very much like that of a detective: The convincing hypothesis is the one that incorporates as many of the clues—as much of the reliable evidence—as possible.

For example, the late 19th-century scholarly portrait of Jesus as primarily a teacher who spoke of the “fatherhood of God” and “the infinite value of the human soul” failed to take into account the element of crisis and urgency that runs throughout the Gospel accounts of Jesus. Similarly, the dominant 20th-century scholarly portrait of Jesus as one who proclaimed the imminent end of the world failed to take into account the large number of texts that reflect Jesus’ concern with the historical direction and future of his own people in his own time. And the somewhat eccentric picture of Jesus as a violent political revolutionary⁹ must disregard texts that indicate that he advocated nonviolence. All of these portraits fail to meet the criterion of coherence applied on a macro level: They do not permit inclusion of all the relevant data.

These, then, are the principal criteria by which scholars make their judgments about what Jesus was like. Though these criteria can be described separately, in practice they are both complex and interrelated. A computer cannot be taught to make these judgments, even by programming it with the criteria and all the available information. The process is much less mechanical; like all historical judgment, it involves a discerning eye and a sympathetic ear. It entails not only technical skills, but also imagination. One must be able to imagine a world very different from our own, and also to imagine coherent images of Jesus that draw the data together.

To some, the scholarly quest for the historical Jesus has seemed a wasteful and destructive enterprise, fruitless in its results and corrosive of cherished beliefs.¹⁰ In its more excessive and eccentric moments, it has sometimes been both. But its utility depends upon what one wants to know. If one is curious about the historical Jesus, and not simply about what the early Church said about him, then historical study such as that described here is the only avenue open.¹¹ Moreover, for many of us engaged in this pursuit, what emerges is not only fascinating but also compelling.¹² At its best, the historical study of Jesus gives us glimpses of what he was like and helps us to understand why he became the towering figure that he is.

About 40 scholars, all specialists in the study of the historical Jesus, are seated around a table. They have just completed their discussion of a saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. The time has come for each to vote on a simple but complex question: Do you think Jesus actually said that? Or, to frame the question in semitechnical language, is this saying of Jesus, as reported in one or more of the Gospels, historically authentic to Jesus? Each scholar votes by casting one of four differently colored balls into a ballot box: Red means “Yes, almost certainly”; […]