The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do?

by Robert W. Funk

An in-depth exploration of the life of Jesus explains that even though he was a healer, exorcist, and a compassionate person who took undesirables under his wing, there is no evidence of bodily resurrection or virgin birth, and also shows colored-coded parts of the Gospel detailing the historical authenticity.

Genres: Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction

608 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 1997

About the author

Robert Walter Funk (July 18, 1926 – September 3, 2005), was an American biblical scholar, founder of the controversial Jesus Seminar and the non-profit Westar Institute in Santa Rosa, California. Funk, an academic, sought to promote research and education on what he called biblical literacy. His approach to hermeneutics was historical-critical, with a strongly sceptical view of orthodox Christian belief, particularly concerning historical Jesus. He and his peers described Jesus' parables as containing shocking messages that contradicted established religious attitudes.

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to engage in a serious, scholarly study of Christianity and in particular, the Gospels, this is a great book! I borrowed this from the facilitator of a class I took on The Historic Jesus, and now that I've read through it, I think I'll have to get my own copy. This is the sort of stuff ministers and priests learn when they go to seminary...which makes me wonder why we don't hear more of it from our pulpits once they graduate. I think most people would find this information quite revolutionary, especially the fundamentalists who claim to be biblical literalists.

[Joseph Schrock · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so incredibly much that's unknown -- and from the human perspective, unknowable -- about the life of Jesus of Nazareth that it is highly risky business to set out to determine what he did and did not do.

The consensus of the Jesus Seminar seemed to me to have been to the effect that most of what is written about Jesus in the four canonical gospels consists of fiction. It is quite evident to me that the gospel accounts cannot intelligently be regarded as reliable historical sources. But to summarily rule out all miracles as being "unscientific" is to grant to science an authority to which it cannot lay claim. I, personally, believe in the existence of genuine miracles (events that are impossible according to strictly "physical laws"). This immediately renders me a skeptic concerning the audacious claims made by Robert Funk and his Jesus Seminar.

That having been said, I suspect that the analysis of "The Acts of Jesus" comes closer to the truth than do all analyses that treat the gospels as veridical accounts of the life, words, and deeds of Jesus. Where does this leave me? Maybe I am one of the rare individuals who are willing to honestly and objectively examine the picture before us and aim for the most rational account (unbiased by dogmas and preconceptions) of what it is that can credibly be ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth -- a man who played a huge role in the founding of Western civilization, which appears to be crumbling
into fragments under the influence of modern materialist science.

[John Bond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reference. In 100% agreement with their analysis. Impressive effort.