The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics

by Robert J. Miller

Overview

The pioneering work of the Jesus Seminar has come in for high praise as well as searing denunciation from the press, the clergy, the scholars. Now a veteran member of the Seminar, Robert Miller, examines its agenda and its inner deliberations, dissecting the rationale of the Seminar's historical work and clearly explaining what its findings portend.In The Jesus Seminar and its Critics, Miller sets the record straight where necessary and even highlights the substantial points on which the Seminar and its critics agree. He weighs the major criticisms that have been put to the Seminar and exposes their hidden assumptions. He shows how critics use hostile rhetoric to duck uncomfortable questions that must be squarely faced in any honest assessment of the historicity of the gospels.

About the Author:

Robert J. Miller teaches Biblical Studies, World Religions, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Religion at Midway College in Midway, Kentucky. A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar since 1986, he has contributed many papers to its deliberations. He is the editor of The Complete Gospels, an anthology of twenty early gospels presented in Westar's innovative translation, the Scholars Version. He has published many articles and essays on Jesus and the in both scholarly journals and general audience books and periodicals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780944344781
Publisher:	Polebridge Press
Publication date:	11/01/1999
Pages:	154
Sales rank:	398,465
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.35(d)

What People are Saying About This

Mark Allen Powell

Provocative and controversial, The Jesus Seminar's research into the historical authenticity of sacred traditions has been condemned as "grandiose," idiosyncratic," and "reprehensible." With this book, one of its most prominent members seizes the offensive and responds to criticisms foul and fair. With varying degrees of passion and restraint, Miller lays out the significance of the Seminar's work for scholars, for society, and for the church.
— (Mark Allen Powell, author of Jesus as Figure in History)

Harold W. Attridge

Miller engages some of the most severe critics of the work of the Seminar...in a courteous but trenchant critical debate about the methods and aims of research into the "historical Jesus." Miller's work will challenge the sometimes facile critics of the Jesus Seminar, give its scholarly critics food for thought, and help the general public understand what the fuss is all about.
— (Harold W. Attridge, Yale Divinity School)