The Early Church's View of Jesus

Much of the Jesus Seminar's view of Jesus rests on the hypotheses of what they believe the early followers of Jesus to have been like. Taking their radical view of the document Q (discussed in the articles on pages 4-5 and page 14), they postulate that there were two distinct movements in what became Christianity. The first movement, emanating from Jerusalem, they call the "Jesus movement," and it includes those who only believed Jesus to be a sage, a purveyor of wisdom. These wisdom sayings primarily concerned an emphasis on overturning the social customs of the day. Thus, Jesus is viewed as both a sage and a revolutionary. This group of followers, withdrew from society to form small communities. The connection between 1960s radicalism (from which many of these scholars came) and the similarity of the early "Jesus movement" to communism is not lost on most readers.

The second group of followers, more Greek in nature than the first, is dubbed the "Christ cult" and is credited with "fabricating" much of the New Testament's record of Jesus. The apostle Paul is the representative leader of this group, according to the scholars. In this way, much of the earliest New Testament documents (Paul's epistles) can be dismissed as deriving from the later, mythological "Christ cult." Again, the Seminar's scholars can be seen to be constructing history to fit preconceived notions.

These ideas are decidedly problematic, for they rely on the dismissal of all New Testament evidence regarding the early church. Therefore, it is necessary for us to review some basic evidence found in Acts (the only claimed history of the early church) and the letters of Paul (in which some of the history can be inferred) in order to then view these documents as definitive in establishing the history of Christianity.

First, a look at Acts finds some very credible historical documentation. While there are no mentions of the book prior to the first century, the historians Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian and Origen all refer to the book and its author as the apostle and frequent companion of Paul. Further, these second century historians references all are written in a way which presumes that Luke has been widely accepted as the author of the book for quite some time.

The internal evidence for Luke's authorship (and in turn, an early, first century, date) is even stronger. First, it is clear just from reading the book that the author was a companion of Paul. His recounting of Paul's history is confirmed in Paul's letters and Paul himself mentions Luke as his companion (Col. 4:14; Phile. 24: 2 Tim. 4:11).

A second internal proof of the early date for Acts is the ending of the book before both the death of Paul and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Would someone writing a history in which Paul is so central a character end it before his martyrdom unless it was written before that death came about? This is a particularly strong argument in view of the other martyrs mentioned in the book (Stephen, Acts 7:57-59; and James, Acts 12:2). In addition, since the gospel of the book of Acts begins from Jerusalem (Acts 2), is saved from division in Jerusalem (Acts 15) and contains the arrest of a central figure (Paul) in Jerusalem, what sense would it make for a second century author to omit the destruction of Jerusalem unless that destruction had not yet happened?

There is also Luke's detailing of the differences, settlement and desire for peace between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians (Acts 15). This would hardly have been a concern for a second century author. These and many other evidences point to a dating of Acts in the 60s.

As for Luke's accuracy, consider, for brevity's sake, this one argument. His knowledge of political titles in the first century is without flaw. "In Acts, the governors of senatorial provinces in Cyprus (13:7), Achaia (18:12), and Asia (19:38) are accurately termed 'proconsuls' (anthupatoi), whereas those over imperial provinces such as Syria and Judea are correctly termed hagemon (Luke 2:2; 3:1; Acts 23:24; 26:30). Relatedly, Herod is not called 'king' of Galilee, but 'tetrarch' (Luke 3:1; Acts 13:1), while other members of the Herod family, Agrippa I and II, are properly titled 'king' (basileus, Acts 12:1; 25:13).

" Similarly, Luke notes, quite incidentally, that Phillipi is a Roman colony (16:12) whose magistrates are therefore called 'praetors' (stratagoi) and whose officers are called 'lictors' or 'sergeants' (rabdouxoi) (16:35). In Thessalonica (17:6), however, the chief authorities are called 'politarchs' (politaxai), a term not found elsewhere in extant literature but six times confirmed by archaeological findings in Thessalonica."¹

All of this evidence points to Acts as a reliable early source for understanding the first followers of Jesus. That source says that the early church believed in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (2:38; 3:18), the resurrection (2:24, 32; 9:5), the ascension (1:9; 7:56), and the plan of God to bring all men together through His Son (Acts 10-11, 15). A clear portrait of the early church can be drawn from Luke's writing, and it is obviously not the divided Jesus Movement/Christ Cult of the Jesus Seminar.

Besides Luke's writing, the best picture we have of the early church is found in the letters of Paul. Here, we have documents which are widely accepted as dating from the first century, even among Seminar members. For argument's sake, we will only consider the four letters accepted by Seminar member John Dominic Crossan (see page 14): 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans.

In 1 Thessalonians, it is obvious that Paul is writing to those who not only accepted Jesus as the Christ (1:1,3), but also who were active in the spread of that belief (1:8). If the Seminar's beliefs are to be accepted, would this not have been far too early for the belief of a risen Jesus (1:10) to have been established? If the narratives of the teachings and resurrection of Jesus are myths, how is it that they were developed over so short a time? There is also chapter 4's concern with the resurrection of the saints, an idea which is shown to have been a core belief of the early church.

Galatians deals almost entirely with the idea of the sacrificial death of Jesus, the culmination of an Old Testament promise of the grace of God. This is hardly the idea postulated by the Jesus Seminar, but it is definitely the belief of Paul and his audience. It can also be seen from passages such as 1:1, 3:13-14, 4:3-6, 5:11, 6:12, that the story of Jesus being told in the first century is essentially the same one that the four gospels tell, thus adding to the credibility of those documents.

Romans too, is filled with documentation of a story of Jesus (with which Paul's readers were well acquainted) which is decidedly similar to the gospels (ref. 3:24-26, 4:24-25, 5:6-10, 6:9-10, 8:3-4, and 10:3-4), all of which further undermines the Jesus Movement/Christ Cult thesis.

Finally, there is the evidence of 1 Corinthians (outside of chapter 15, which is discussed on pages 12-13). Most impressive is Paul's discussion in chapter 11 of the Lord's Supper. Jesus Seminar members Crossan and Burton Mack make very much of their idea that the Lord's Supper was, in the original Jesus Movement, a meal celebrating "open commensality." The idea is that this meal was an outward manifestation of the breaking down of social barriers which had been proposed by Jesus. However, Paul shows that from the very beginning (i.e. before his letter), the Supper had been centered on the death of Jesus. While Crossan and Mack argue that the "Last Supper" of Jesus was a later addition to the gospels and is based on legend, Paul's description of Jesus "in the night in which He was betrayed"" (v. 23) is exactly as it is described in the gospels. If Crossan is willing to date 1 Corinthians in the 50s, he will have to admit that Paul's narrative was already an accepted fact of the early church.

The letters of Paul and the book of Acts offer us strong evidence that the early church, both in belief and in practice, was not decidedly different from the church today. The proponents of the Jesus Seminar will have to look elsewhere to find first century support for their position. They will not find it, for the picture of the church in these New Testament documents is one of a group whose roots were in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.