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Did you know that the first meeting of the Jesus Seminar was held in Berkeley, California, in March of 1985?.
Roy W. Hoover is Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature and Professor of Religion Emeritus, Whitman College. He is a translator and coauthor of The Authentic Letters of Paul (2010).
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Gustav Niebuhr is Associate Professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications, and the Religion Department at Syracuse University. A journalist who worked at the NY Times and other major newspapers, he is the author of Beyond Tolerance (2008).
Lane C. McGaughy is the Geo. H. Atkinson Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies emeritus at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He is a translator and co-author of The Authentic Letters of Paul (2010).
Christine Shea is Professor of Classics at Ball State University. She has published widely on Homer, The Arthurian saga, Latin love poetry, and American popular religion.
Russell Shorto is the bestselling author of The Island at the Center of the World (2005) and Descartes’ Bones (2009). A contributing writer at the NY Times Magazine, he is the Director of the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam.
Stephen J. Patterson is Geo. H. Atkinson Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and author of Beyond the Passion (2004).
John Dominic Crossan is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, DePaul University, Chicago. He has written more than twenty books, including four national religion bestsellers.
October 13-16, 2010
Santa Rosa, California
Celebration
John Dominic Crossan, Chair
Victor Paul Furnish is University Distinguished Professor of New Testament emeritus at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas and author of The Moral Teaching of Paul (3rd ed. 2009).
Thomas Sheehan is Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He is the author of several books, including The First Coming (1986).
Arthur J. Dewey is Professor of Theology, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio and a translator and co-author of The Authentic Letters of Paul (2010).
John Dart is news editor for the biweekly Christian Century. A former religion news reporter at the Los Angeles Times, he is the author of several books including Decoding Mark (2003).
Bernard Brandon Scott is the Darbeth Distinguished Professor of New Testament at the Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, OK. His newest book is The Trouble with Resurrection (2010).
Pamela Eisenbaum is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. She is the author of Paul Was Not a Christian (2009).
Where did the resurrection come from?
Bernard Brandon Scott
Resurrection did not just happen, it emerged. It began with early Christians who searched the Jewish tradition for models to make sense of their conviction that Jesus was still alive. The first evidence for their experience of the risen Jesus comes from the letters of Paul and the Q-Gospel. Working from his new book, The Trouble with Resurrection, Brandon Scott will explore the emergence of the resurrection from the earliest pre-70 ad witnesses to the very different stories of the resurrection in John 20 and 21, which have dominated art and Christian views of the resurrection ever since.
Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
A short history of the Jesus Seminar, with key names, turning points, and personal reflections
Lane McGaughy, Charter Fellow
What led Bob Funk to launch the Jesus Seminar in 1985? What were its aims and accomplishments? How has the Jesus Seminar impacted scholarship and public discourse about the historical Jesus? This presentation will locate the Jesus Seminar in the context of contemporary cultural movements and illuminate the scholarly dynamics of the project. For newcomers and veterans interested in a firsthand version of what
happened and why.
Wednesday, 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Authentic Paul
Arthur Dewey, Roy Hoover, Lane McGaughy
Among those who have shaped the theology and history of Christianity no one comes close to Paul. Yet his image and voice have been blurred by those who inserted their views into his correspondence and wrote letters in his name, as well as by translations that have stumbled over his words and too often failed to convey his meaning. In this session, Art Dewey, Roy Hoover, and Lane McGaughy will tell the story of their remarkable collaboration in producing a new translation of Paul’s authentic letters that recovers the voice that once turned heads, turned on lights, stirred hearts, and just may impress readers once again.
Respondents: Pamela Eisenbaum, Victor Furnish, Christine Shea
Friday, 9 a.m. to 12 noon
Looking Back
The Jesus Seminar at 25
John Dart, Gustav Niebuhr, Russell Shorto
On November 11, 1985, the front page headline in the LA Times read, “Bible Scholars Vote: What Did Jesus Say or Not Say?” In October 1988, the Atlanta Constitution/ Journal announced that Jesus did not compose the Lord’s Prayer. In June 1994, GQ featured a story about the “controversial” Jesus Seminar. The authors of these stories join us to assess the impact of the Jesus Seminar.
Friday, 2 to 5 p.m.
What is (are)
the God question(s)?
Laurel Schneider, Stephen Patterson, Thomas Sheehan
The past several centuries of scholarship and social change in philosophy, science, history, and theology have altered the theological landscape, requiring new frameworks for answering the deepest human questions about reality, spirit, and meaning. How can we better understand the roles that ideas of God (or rejections of God) play in contemporary social imagination? What meaning can (or should)“God” have today? Finally, does the human race need God?
Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Interview with John Dominic Crossan
John Dart
In 1985, Dom Crossan and Bob Funk joined forces to lead the newly formed, controversial Jesus Seminar on a quest for the historical Jesus. But their paths crossed much earlier in the parables seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature that informed the early direction of the Jesus Seminar. It later diverged under the influence of the social sciences. John Dart interviews Crossan about the days before, during, and after the first phase of the Jesus Seminar.
Friday, 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Resurrection
John Dominic Crossan, Stephen Patterson & Fellows of the Jesus Seminar
Dominic Crossan will air a video of images of the resurrection in a presentation entitled: The Resurrection of Jesus in Eastern Christianity: A Challenge in Visual Theology. According to Crossan, Jesus rises individually, trimphantly but very much alone in Western Christianity. In Eastern Christianity he rises communally and raises with him "those who had slept." What, he will ask, are the implication of that very different theological vision?
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 12 noon
Thinking Ahead
Religion in America in 2035
Gustav Niebuhr
In politics, demographics and technology, widespread and remarkable changes have distinguished the last quarter century in the United States. Similarly, profound shifts have affected American religion, many driven by national currents within politics, demography and communication. Considering the various trends in religion that have arisen, accelerated or died out since the Jesus Seminar’s establishment in 1985, what might we expect to be discussing about that subject in 2035, when the seminar marks its 50th?
Saturday, 2 to 5 p.m.