The so-called Jesus Seminar (JS) illustrates the fraudulent nature of liberal biblical scholarship generally. According to the Los Angeles Times of November 25, 1978, when the Jesus Seminar was first organized it had only several members and hoped to enlist 12 to 15 biblical authorities to vote on every word of Jesus to decide which were the most authentic and which were "put into his mouth" by early church tradition. Project organizer Robert W. Funk, a former president of the Society of Biblical Literature, said the purpose of the seminar was to determine "what did Jesus really say?"

Harvard Divinity School’s George MacRae, one of the first members of the group, said that the real question the scholars would be asking was this: "What can we say Jesus said after 60 years of form criticism, of analyzing individual miracle stories and sayings?"

The Times pointed out that some evangelical scholars would be added to the Seminar (back then it was simply a committee) "but only those who use modern critical methods" according to MacRae. Eight years, later the impact of the JS was beginning to be felt.

An article in the April 27, 1985 Los Angeles Times, Part II, p. 8, by John Dart, "Skepticism of Many New Testament Scholars Clashes with Laymen’s Faith and Traditional Beliefs on Jesus" pointed out, "So far as the biblical historian is concerned, there is scarcely a popularly held traditional belief about Jesus that is not regarded with considerable skepticism" according to the chairman of Stanford University’s religious studies department, Van Harvey.

Harvey implied that the layman, i.e., the average Christian, really isn’t qualified to understand the Bible or assess its various claims! "The Stanford professor said that New Testament scholarship has become so specialized and requires so much preparation that many scholars feel ‘the lay person has simply been disqualified from having any right to a judgment regarding the truth or falsity of certain historical claims.’"

That’s like saying the average American has been disqualified from, and has no right to judge the truth of, certain specialized political claims.

Further, the author of the article, John Dart, reported, "The lay person unacquainted with New Testament research is no more in a position to have an informed judgment on the historical reliability of gospel accounts than a non-specialist would about ‘the Seventh Letter of Plato, the relationship of Montezuma to Cortez’ or other historical matters." So, most Christians really aren’t qualified to say anything about the words of Jesus. Only the liberal scholars are so qualified. (No scholarly papalism here!)

How did the Jesus Seminar vote on the words of Jesus? In the most scholarly manner possible. They voted on the authenticity of the words of Jesus by dropping colored balls into a box. A red ball meant Jesus made the statement or something very like it; a pink ball meant He probably said something like this; gray meant He did not say it but the ideas were close to His; a black ball meant Jesus never said it.

Nor did He think He was the Messiah despite John 4:25-26. Here, in response to the woman at the well who said, "I know that Messiah is coming," we read, "Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am He.’" And before the high priest himself, under oath, Jesus declared He was the Messiah, "The high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied. ‘But I say to all of you: in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’" (Mt. 26:63-64).

In addition, He never really claimed to be God despite claims like the following, "Before Abraham was born, I am" (Jn. 8:58); "I and the Father are one" (Jn. 10:30); and "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn. 14:9).

Jesus never spoke of heaven or hell despite Matthew 25:46, "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Jesus was not virgin born and did no miracles despite Matthew 1:22-23. In the former verse we read that the virgin birth of Jesus "took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son….’" That Jesus did miracles is also obvious. In fact, when John the Baptist was in prison, apparently discouraged, and heard about all the miracles Jesus was doing, he sent his own disciples to ask Jesus whether or not He was the Messiah. Jesus’ reply was that the miracles He did proved He was the Messiah. "At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses, and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me’" (Lk. 7:21-23).

Finally, the Jesus Seminar asks us to believe that Jesus never called for anyone to repent of their sins and, of course, He never rose from the dead, despite the unanimous testimony of all four Gospels and the verdict of history.

The kind of arrogance displayed in the Jesus Seminar, which actually votes on the accuracy and reliability of Jesus’ statements—Jesus was, after all, God incarnate!—or the assumption that only the scholars have the right to judge New Testament reliability represents the height of insolence. In his knowledge of New Testament reliability the informed Christian laymen is actually better educated than these "scholars" whose rationalistic, skeptical assumptions leave them speaking nonsense or in a hopeless muddle, uncertain what to believe. As one commentator noted, "If a vote were taken on the usefulness of the Jesus Seminar, is there any doubt what the outcome would be?"¹⁰

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine from the New Testament accounts that Jesus claimed to be God and that He said His words would never pass away. Nor does it take a Nobel Prize winner or a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Stanford to ascertain with a relatively small amount of study that the New Testament documents are historically accurate and that Jesus rose from the dead. What is noteworthy is the tremendous amount of legitimate scholarship the rationalistic theologians, liberals and skeptics will completely disregard in order to maintain their own biases.

But just who are the members of the Jesus Seminar? Are they the unbiased scholars who have dealt honestly with conservative biblical scholarship and found it wanting as they want us to believe? No, mostly they are liberal theologians with an agenda to ignore or discredit New Testament teachings.

The bias and, in fact, unscholarly approach of the Jesus Seminar and liberal biblical criticism generally is evident. They assume a priori that the gospel writers were so over-laden with "Christianizing" propaganda, their writings are useless for determining who Jesus really was, and, therefore are essentially worthless as historical documents. As we noted, according to the Jesus Seminar book, The Five Gospels, at most, 18 percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were actually spoken by Him. The book of John was entirely eliminated!! And only one sentence of Jesus in Mark survived their tests of authenticity. What bold arrogance! One can only wonder what Jesus Himself would think of all this—especially since He was the one who promised us, "Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away" (Mt. 24:35).