Table Of ContentPraise for
THE FIVE GOSPELS
"A bold and fascinating project ... Its editors are willing to take stands on the
difficult question 'What did Jesus really say?'"
-Elaine Pagels, Princeton University,
author of Adam, Eve and the Serpent
"The Five Gospels is a red-letter day for the ethics of scholarship, for the moral
demand that scholars of the Bible state clearly, openly, and honestly what are
their sources, their methods, and their results, and, above all, that they come
before the eschaton to conclusion and consensus. I am honored to be counted
among the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar."
-John Dominic Crossan, DePaul University,
author of The Historical Jesus
"This volume is filled with discoveries, surprises, and rich treasures."
-Ecumenical Trends
"A landmark work of exceptional quality."
-Encounter
"This is a bold experiment by leading New Testament scholars to penetrate
the gospel texts in search of the historical Jesus. It provides a powerful new
tool that future scholarship will ignore at its peril."
-Hershel Shanks, publisher of Bible
Review and Biblical Archaeology Review,
editor of Understanding The Dead Sea Scrolls
"The Five Gospels answers the question 'What did Jesus really say?' in a
comprehensive and knowledgeable way for those souls not sharing the
official church confidence in the Gospels' historical reliability."
-John Dart, Los Angeles Times
"One of the most significant religious books ever published is The Five Gospels."
-Christian Social Action
"Readers of this book will have received a magnificent education in the
methods and conclusions of serious biblical scholarship."
-Free Inquiry
ALSO BY ROBERT W. FUNK
Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium
THE FivE GosPELS
The Search for
the Authentic Words of Jesus
New Translation and Commentary by
RoBERT W. FUNK, RoY W. HooVER,
and THE JEsus SEMINAR
• -
HarperSanFrancisco
An Imprint ofHarperCollinsPublishers
•·
nEE cLAusE 800•1 HarperSanFrancisco and the author, in association with The Basic Founda-
tion, a not-for-profit organization whose primary mission is reforestation, will facilitate the plant-
ing of two trees for every one tree used in the manufacture of this book.
THE FIVE GOSPELS. Copyright© 1993 by Polebridge Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY
10022.
HarperCollins Web Site: http:/ /www.harpercollins.com
HarperCollins ®, IIIII ®, and HarperSanFrancisco™ and A TREE CLAUSE BOOK® are trademarks of
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
FIRST HARPERCOLLINS PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED IN 1997
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN CLOTH BY MACMILLAN PuBLISHING COMPANY
Designed by Erich Hobbing
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bible. N.T. Gospels. English. Scholars. 1993.
The five Gospels : the search for the authentic words of Jesus new translation and
commentary I by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar.
p. em.
"A Polebridge Press book."
Includes bibliographical references (pp. 538-541) and indexes.
ISBN 0-{)2-541949-8 (cloth)
ISBN 0-{)6-063040-X (pbk.)
1. Jesus Christ-Words. 2. Jesus Christ-Historicity. 3. Bible. N.T. Gospels-Commentaries.
I. Funk, Robert Walter, date. II. Hoover, Roy W. III. Jesus Seminar. IV. Gospel of Thomas.
English. Scholars. 1993. V. Title.
BS2553.S24 1993
226'.0663-dc20
93-26451
05RRD10987
This report is dedicated to
GALILEO GALILEI
who altered our view of the heavens forever
THOMAS }EFFERSON
who took scissors and paste to the gospels
DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS
who pioneered the quest of the historical Jesus
CONTENTS
PREFACE
THE SCHOLARS VERSION TRANSLATION PANEL
THE ScHoLARs VERsioN
ABBREVIATIONS
How TO UsE Tms BooK
INTRODUCTION
The Search for the Real Jesus: Darwin, Scopes, & All That
The Seven Pillars of Scholarly Wisdom
The Jesus of History & the Christ of Faith
Text Detectives & Manuscript Sleuths: The Gospels in Greek
A Map of Gospel Relationships
Rules of Written Evidence
From the Gospels to Jesus: The Rules of Oral Evidence
Beads & Boxes: The Jesus Seminar at Work
THE GosPEL oF MARK
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
THE GosPEL oF LuKE
THE GosPEL OF JoHN
THE GosPEL oF THoMAs
ix
xii
xiii
xix
xxi
1
2
5
8
9
16
25
34
39
129
271
401
471
ROSTER OF THE FELLOWS OF THE JESUS SEMINAR
SuGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER SruoY
DICTIONARY OF TERMS & SOURCES
INDEX OF REo & PINK LETTER SAYINGS
FIGURES
Representation of a Greek Manuscript
Map of Palestine
1. Two Portraits of Jesus
2. The Synoptic Puzzle
3. The Mystery of the Double Tradition
4. The Two-Source Theory
5. The Four-Source Theory
6. Independent & Derivative Gospels
7. The Growth of the Jesus Tradition
8. How the Gospels Got Their Names
9. Stages in the Development of Early Christian Tradition
CAMEo EssAYs & TEXTS
Feasting & Fasting: The Domestication of the Tradition
Son of Adam
Egerton Gospel3:1-6
God's Imperial Rule: Present or Future?
Jesus of Jerusalem
Hard Saying Softened
Eleazar the Exorcist
I AM Sayings in the Gospel of John
The Resurrection of a Young Bride
The Greek Fragments of Thomas
The Discovery of the Gospel of Thomas
Thomas & Gnosticism
533
538
542
549
xi
xxii
11
12
13
14
15
17
18
20
128
48
76
103
136
263
295
309
419
437
470
474
500
PREFACE
The Five Gospels has many authors. It is the collective report of gospel scholars
working closely together for six years on a common question: What did Jesus
really say? The Fellows of the Jesus Seminar represent a wide array of Western
religious traditions and academic institutions. They have been trained in the best
universities in North America and Europe. Together and singly, they first of all
inventoried all the surviving ancient texts for words attributed to Jesus. They
then examined those words in the several ancient languages in which they have
been preserved. They produced a translation of all the gospels, known as the
Scholars Version. And, finally, they studied, debated, and voted on each of the
more than 1,500 sayings of Jesus in the inventory. The Five Gospels is a color-
coded report of the results of those deliberations. It answers the question '"What
did Jesus really say?" within a narrow range of historical probabilities.
The authors have functioned as reporters for the six-year process that led up
to this publication. They have endeavored to let the Jesus Seminar speak for
itself. In this process they have had the assistance of several Fellows who are
specialists. After reviewing the videotapes and the dozens of technical papers
authored by other Fellows, Professor Mahlon Smith of Rutgers University pre-
pared a draft of the comments on the sayings and parables in the Sayings Gospel
Q (Q has been incorporated into the gospels of Matthew and Luke). Professor
Stephen Patterson, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, sketched out the
explanations for the votes on the words of Jesus recorded in the newly dis-
covered Gospel of Thomas. Professor Julian V. Hills, Marquette University,
helped prepare the comments on the Gospel of John. Professor Daryl D.
Schmidt, Texas Christian University, a leading member of the translation panel,
took the responsibility for checking the accuracy of the Scholars Version; he also
discovered and corrected numerous errors of statement and citation. Both the
color-coded text and the commentary are truly a collaborative work.
The color-coding of the translation of Jesus' words draws on the traditional
red letter New Testament in which the words ascribed to Jesus are printed in red.
The Jesus Seminar has kept red for those words that were most probably spoken
ix
X
by Jesus in a form close to the one preserved for us. In those cases where the
Fellows were less certain that the words can be traced back to Jesus or were more
certain that the words have suffered modification in transmission, they em-
ployed pink (as a weak form of red). Words that were given to Jesus to speak by
his admirers (or, in a few cases, by his enemies) and are therefore inauthentic
Jesus words, the Fellows decided to leave in bold black. As an intermediate
category between pink and black, the Fellows employed gray: these words did
not originate with Jesus though they may reflect his ideas. The reader will be able
to tell at a glance which words are likely to have been spoken by Jesus and which
not.
The Jesus Seminar is sponsored by the Westar Institute, a scholarly think tank
headquartered in Sonoma, California. The support for Westar has been provided
by the dues of the Associate Members and the Fellows and by Polebridge Press.
The Jesus Seminar has launched a second phase in which it is considering the
question '"What did Jesus really do?'
Charlene Matejovsky, vice president of Polebridge Press, has been the
untiring majordomo of Seminar meetings. She has also been a pivotal person in
editing, proofreading, and typesetting, under the supervision of Macmillan
professionals. The Seminar could not have managed without the services of
Milfred Smith, who served as the faithful vote teller; his assistant was Wayne
Guenther, another Westar Associate.
The Fellows of the Jesus Seminar are indebted to Mark Chimsky, editor-in-
chief of Collier Books at Macmillan, for recognizing the value of this project. The
aphorism recorded in Thorn 39:1 all too often characterizes the way of scholars:
'"The scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and hidden them." Mark
Chimsky helped us fmd the keys and unlock doors too long bolted shut by a
combination of elitism and technical jargon.
PREFACE
REPRESENTATION OF A GREEK MANUSCRIPT
xi
Codex Sinaiticus was
discovered at St. Cathe-
rine's monastery in the
Sinai peninsula in 1844.
The lefthand columns of
New Testament folio 60,
containing John 20:1-18,
are reproduced here. The
Greek text is written
entirely in capital letters,
without word breaks or
punctuation, and con-
tains numerous marginal
corrections.
Photograph courtesy of
the British Library. Used
by permission.
xii
THE ScHOLARS VERSION
TRANSLATION pANEL
General Editors
Robert W. Funk
Westar Institute
Julian V. Hills
Marquette University
Translation Panel
Harold Attridge
University of Notre Dame
Edward F. Beutner
Westar Institute
J. Dominic Crossan
DePaul University
Jon B. Daniels
Defiance College
Arthur J. Dewey
Xavier University
Robert T. Fortna
Vassar College
Ronald F. Hock
University of
Southern California
Editors, Apocryphal Gospels
Ron Cameron
Wesleyan University
Karen L. King
Occidental College
Roy W. Hoover
Whitman College
Arland D. Jacobson
Concordia College
JohnS. Kloppenborg
University of Toronto
Helmut Koester
Harvard University
Lane C. McGaughy
Willamette University
Marvin W. Meyer
Chapman College
Robert J. Miller
Midway College
·Stephen J. Patterson
Eden Theological
Seminary
Daryl D. Schmidt
Texas Christian
University
Bernard Brandon Scott
Phillips Graduate
Seminary
Philip Sellew
University
of Minnesota
Chris Shea
Ball State University
Mahlon H. Smith
Rutgers University
THE ScHOLARs VERSION
The translators of the Scholars Version-SV for short-have taken as their motto
this dictum: a translation is artful to the extent that one can forget, while reading
it, that it is a translation at all. Accordingly, rather than attempt to make SV a
thinly disguised guide to the original language, or a superficially modernized
edition of the King James Version, the translators worked diligently to produce in
the American reader an experience comparable to that of the first readers-or
listeners-of the original. It should be recalled that those who first encountered
the gospels did so as listeners rather than as readers.
Why a new translation?
Foremost among the reasons for a fresh translation is the discovery of the Gospel
of Thomas. The scholars responsible for the Scholars Version determined that
Thomas had to be included in any primary collection of gospels. Early trans-
lations of Thomas were tentative and wooden; the SV panel has produced an
accurate version in readable English.
Traditional English translations make the gospels sound like one another. The
gospels are leveled out, presumably for liturgical reasons. In contrast, the Greek
originals differ markedly from one another. The SV translators attempt to give
voice to the individual evangelists by reproducing the Greek style of each in
English.
The translators agreed to employ colloquialisms in English for colloquialisms
in Greek. When the leper comes up to Jesus and says, "If you want to, you can
make me clean,' Jesus replies, "Okay-you're clean! ... (Mark 1:40-41). They
wanted to make aphorisms and proverbs sound like such. The SV panelists
decided that "Since when do the able-bodied need a doctor? It's the sick who do ...
(Mark 2:17) sounds more like a proverb than "Those who are well have no need
of a physician, but those who are sick. ... They shunned pious terms and selected
English equivalents for rough language. Matt 23:13 reads:
xiii
xiv
You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You slam the door
of Heaven's domain in people's faces. You yourselves don't enter, and you
block the way of those trying to enter.
Contrast the New Revised Standard Version:
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out
of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when
others are going in, you stop them.
"Woe" is not a part of the average American's working vocabulary. If a person
wants to curse someone, that person would not say "woe to you," but "damn
you.'" Moreover, the diction of New Revised Standard Version strikes the ear as
faintly Victorian. In sum, the translators abandoned the context of polite reli-
gious discourse suitable for a Puritan parlor and reinstated the common street
language of the original.
Modem translations, especially those made by academics and endorsed by
church boards, tend to reproduce the Greek text, more or less word-for-word.
English words are taken from an English-Greek dictionary-always the same
English word for the same Greek word-and set down in their Greek order
where possible.
In Mark 4:9 and often elsewhere, this admonition appears in the King James
Version: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'" In addition to being sexist, that
is the rendition of a beginning Greek student who wants to impress the
instructor by reproducing the underlying Greek text in English. One scholar
among the SV translators proposed to make this substitution: "A wink is as good
as a nod to a blind horse ... The panel agreed that this English proverb was an
excellent way to represent the sense of the Greek text. However, the translators
did not want to substitute an English expression for one in Greek. They decided,
rather, to represent not only the words, phrases, and expressions of the Greek
text, but also to capture, if possible, the tone and tenor of the original expression.
As a consequence, SV translates the admonition: "Anyone here with two good
ears had better listen!'" "Two good ears'" is precisely what "ears to hear" means,
except that it is said in English, and "had better listen" replaces the awkward
English "let him hear ... "Had better listen" sounds like something parents might
say to inattentive children; "let him hear" would strike the youngster like per-
mission to eavesdrop.
The New Revised Standard Version also sounds quaint by comparison: "Let
anyone with ears to hear listen." But then, the New Revised Standard Version is a
revision of the King James Version.
In addition, SV has attempted to reproduce the assonance of the Greek text.
The term ·here'" is a homophone of "hear": because the two words are pro-
nounced alike, one reminds the English ear of the other. "Anyone here with two
good ears" has the succession sounds -ere, ear, which suggests the assonance of
the Greek text, which may be transliterated as ota akouein akoueto (the succession
of akou-, akou- and of ota, -eto, with a shift in vowels). The panelists were not
always this successful, but it does illustrate what they were trying to achieve.
Grammatical form is also an important function of translation. The New
Revised Standard Version renders Luke 10:15 this way:
THE ScHoLARs VERSION
