What Spong and The Jesus Seminar are Telling You!

At first glance Christians, specially conservative one, think the modern historical-critical
New Testament scholars are attacking and even destroying the religion founded by Jesus
Christ. The likes of The Jesus Seminar fellows and Bishop Spong certainly aim to change
Church doctrine and our attitude toward scripture. (Too big a subject how they intend to do
that for this post) But changing, you could say reforming, is not the same as destroying the
faith. In fact, Bishop Spongsays quite openly, and I agree, if Christianity does not change
radically soon, it will surely perish in one or two generations. Or the conservatives accuse
Bishop Spong and other radical theologians of creating a new religion.

Let us look at the central affirmation of the Christian faith, the resurrection. As Paul says
at the beginning of his Letter to the Romans "Jesus Christ designated Son of God in power
by the his resurrection from the dead…"

Spong and The Jesus Seminar are not denying the Resurrection. Actually, they affirm it for
what it is a mighty act of God whereby Jesus is raised to eternity. And thus a living
presence with his people in Jerusalem, in Judea and to the ends of the earth intimately
experienced up to this very day by believers.

Yes, they do deny the physical resurrection. St. Paul never quotes the empty tomb story or any of the other physical resurrection stories at the end of Luke, Matthew and John.(Mark does not really have a resurrection story in its earliest version!?) So you can say the radical modern theologians are doing exactly what St. Paul did. The resurrected Jesus is a raised exalted Jesus right from the moment of his death. And the radicals are simply deleting myths told by the early Christians to dress up the greatest event of the universe a homo sapien enters glory thanks to the power of God. Instead of saying deleting the stories of the physical resurrection, it might be closer to the truth to say Paul, Spong and the Jesus Seminar are simply not interested in a physically resurrected Jesus even if all had heard the incredible stories of the empty tomb and post Easter appearances. For, perhaps the stories centered on visions which really happened in the minds of the followers. Visions that grew out of their great love for Jesus and also the trauma of losing their beloved Messianic leader. Perhaps visions that were induced in their minds, individually or collectively by the Holy Spirit. Who knows? And the radicals along with St. Paul say " we really don't care. As long as you don't try to foist a resusitated physical Jesus upon his followers." For, as Paul also says "flesh andblood does not inherit the Kingdom of God."

To illustrate and clarify, I quote from a recent book which discusses the research of the
historical-critical school of theology e.g. The Jesus Seminar. The book is Jesus at 2000.
Edited by Marcus Borg. Published by Westview Press in 1997. Unfortunately, the book is now out of print. But, may be in your local library or available from Amazon used. It's paperback.

"This is popular scholarship at its best. Originally based on lectures, this book has the
informality of someone sitting in your living room yet the scholarly depth of great teachers.
It unflinchingly asks the hard questions and suggests a variety of answers combining the
canons of historicity with the insights of faith."

Since the book is out of print, all the more important I get some of its insight out on the net.
Here it is..
 
 

In the varieties of the Easter experience, I also include the kid of experiences
that Dom Crossan talks about: After the death of Jesus, his followers continued
to experience the kind of power a t work that they had come to know through
him. Jesus could also be spoken of as a presence known in the ongoing activity
of the Spirit, in the community, and in the breaking of the bread.
It is these kind of experiences that gave rise to the claim that Jesus after his
death continued to live as a divine reality. Thus, in my judgment Easter need not
involve an empty tomb or anything happening to the physical body of Jesus.
Some scholars disagree. For example, N. Thomas Wright, as scholar poised on
the edge of becoming the most important British New Testament scholar of his
generation, and also a good friend, argues that the truth of Christianity depends
upon whether the tomb was really empty. Wright is not a fundamentalist but a
mainline scholar with conservative-evangelical leanings. So I want to recognize
disagreement among scholars even as I say, "I don't think that's what Easter, or
the resurrection is about."

Why do I not think that? A major reason is the crucial distinction between
resuscitation and resurrection: Resuscitation intrinsically involves something
happening to a corpse, but resurrection in a first-century Jewish and early
Christian context need not. Resurrection means entry into a different kind of
existence, not resumption of a previous existence. Moreover, I don't think the
Easter stories report videocam kinds of events. That is, I don't think they're
speaking about experiences that would have been observable by a disinterested
observer; I don't think they could have been filmed.

My favorite story for making this point (indeed, my favorite Easter story) is the
story of the Emmaus road ) Luke 24. 13-35). ……

Stay with us, for night is falling; the verse is the basis for the great Christian
hymn "abide with Me, Fast falls the Eventide." The stranger agrees to do so. As
they sit at table for the evening meal, the stranger "took bread, blessed and broke
it, and gave it to them." Then, we are told "their eyes were opened, and they
recognized him."

Then what happens? "He vanished from their sight."
Now with a videocam, how much of this could have been filmed? My strong
hunch is that it's not that kind of story. Rather, it strikes me as a metaphorical
or symbolic narrative that points beyond itself father that reporting a specific
event that happened a particular day. Dom Crossan's analysis of his text reaches
a similar conclusion: The story of the Emmaus road is "the metaphoric
condensation of the first years of Christian thought into one parabolic
afternoon." Crossan follows this statement with two short sentences that make
the point perfectly:

"Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens." Emmaus happens again
and again. Or. to echo the title of one of my books, Emmaus is a story about
meeting Jesus again for the first time.

To speak as a Christian about this story, the truth of the Emmaus road story is
that the risen Christ journeys with us whether we know it or not. Yet there are
moments when we do become aware of his presence. Moreover, this foundational
experience continues to this day. This, it seems to me, is the truth of Easter.
The truth of Easter is grounded not in whether the tomb was empty but in the
ongoing experience of Jesus as a living reality, as a figure of the present.

Marcus Borg pages 16, 17 Jesus at 2000