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. "...Miller deals one by one with the [mostly absurd] criticisms of the Seminar. ...[There] is plenty of room for specific disagreements with the published results of the Seminar [I have pleny of qualms myself], but that's not the sort of trouble that called forth this book. Miller addresses himself to [one often suspects] willful misunderstandings and blatant misrepresentations of the Jesus Seminar. Sadly, the polemic Miller addresses here is the sort of underhanded mud-slinging practiced by politicians, usually not by scholars. ...Miller makes quite clear that much [criticism] stems from two sources: orthodox apologists who despise New Testament criticism for [inevitably] rocking, no, sinking the boat of traditional faith; and fellow critics to whom the findings and methods of the Seminar must be old news, but who do not want the New Testament's dirty linen to be hung out for the Babbit-like laymen and harumphing clergy on seminary boards to see." -- infidels.org, February 2000 "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 Provocative and controversial ... 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 Robert J. Miller is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar since 1986, he was Scholar-in-Residence at Westar Institute in 2001. He is the editor of The Complete Gospels (1992), an anthology of twenty early gospels presented in Westar's innovative translation, the Scholars Version, and author of The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics (1999) and Born Divine (2003). "There are a few exceptions to the principle that history has nothing to say about the truth of religious beliefs because some of them depend on the literal truth of historical statements. If, for the sake of argument, the Qur'an were right and it were not historically true that Jesus died on a cross, then of course it would not be true that he died on a cross for our sins. To take another example, consider the statement that "Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill prophecy." This is a combination of an historical claim about where Jesus was born and a religious belief about the purpose of his being born there. The evidence for the historical claim is mixed and historians are divided. If it could be established that he was born in Bethlehem, this would still not confirm the religious truth of the belief about its purpose. However, if it could be established that he was not born in Bethlehem, it would mean that the belief that he was born there to fulfill prophecy was not true." (p. 43-44) Used Book in Good Condition