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Robert W. Funk is the Founder of the Jesus Seminar as well as the Author of The Five Gospels. Given the controversy that surrounded him, I have to admit I was astonished to read the following portion from his book Honest to Jesus. Quite simply, I found it to contain one of the best examinations of Jesus that I've come across, and I wanted to share it with you in a rather edited form. Should you find it of interest, please seek out Honest To Jesus by Robert W. Funk, published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. You may have strong opinions pro and con about the various ideas you find in the book, but the part these lines are taken from is brilliant, well worth the price of the book.

Jesus was a comic savant. He mixed humor with subversive and troubling knowledge born of direct insight. That was also the technique of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. New truth is easier to embrace if it comes wrapped in humor.

His rhetorical skills bordered on the magical -- he was a word wizard. The combination of his style with the content of his discourse marked him as a social deviant. That may be the reason his mother and brothers thought him daft. It is certainly one of the reasons he was both feared and adored.

The topics Jesus discussed in his parables and aphorisms were persons and events in the everyday world. In spite of that act, and in seeming contradiction to it, Jesus taught his disciples nothing about the performance of routine tasks. His words offer no recipes for achieving mundane goals. His disciples were often puzzled by his lack of interest in pragmatic knowledge.

Because Jesus was concerned with a different kind of knowledge, knowledge that lies beyond the practical, he gave no practical advice, refused to be explicit, and avoided endorsements. His attention was riveted on his Father's will, on the order and purpose of creation, on the way things really are rather than the way they seem to be.

Explicitness is characteristic of an established world, of habituated society, where patterns of behavior are settled. In Jesus' own vision of the world, everything is in flux because its inhabitants are departing, crossing over to a new time and place. When Jesus is asked whether to pay the tax, he tells his listeners, "Pay the emperor what is due to the emperor and pay God what is due God." He advises them to set their own priorities; in sum, he refuses to answer the question for them.

The kingdom of God for Jesus was always beyond the here and now; it was the world being created anew. It was always outstanding. About that world one can never be entirely explicit. All one can say is this: If you think you know what it is, you are mistaken. That future will be a perpetual surprise. If it were not so, human beings would trust themselves and not God.

It (the kingdom) is announced and allowed to commend itself for what it is. Jesus does not attempt to impose his views on others. His Father is not a cosmic bully.

The first step in crossing the Jordan into the promised land is to transform the habituated world in fantastic ways. Jesus makes a Samaritan the hero-rescuer of a Judean; he has a landowner pay day laborers in the vineyard the same wage for twelve hours as for one hour of work; those who could not have expected an invitation to the state banquet are swept into the royal hall; the wayward son is given an extravagant welcome home to the dismay of the older son. Jesus' narrative parables are the primary vehicles of the new fiction.

Jesus associated with petty tax officials. He is seen in public in the company of women and engages in serious exchange with them. He welcomes children, the chattel of Mediterranean society. He belittles reality experts, like Pharisees and scholars, by calling attention to their need for recognition and privilege. He asks nothing for himself, other than bread for the day. He takes no thought for clothing or shelter. He has no place to sleep at night. He forgives everyone. He loves his enemies.

Jesus' discourse and deeds are filled with celebration. A woman celebrates the recovery of a lost coin; a shepherd ritualizes the finding of a lost sheep; a father solemnizes the return of a prodigalson. A royal dinner party is given for the homeless and the destitute. Jesus himself reclines at public table with toll collectors and prostitutes in defiance of the social code. His initial public meal took place at a wedding; his final meal was a celebration with his intimate followers. Jesus acts in accordance with the contours of his own vision.

Jesus employs language at the level at which word and act cannot be clearly distinguished. His pronouncements are often tantamount to acts, and his acts often "say" something striking.

A leper comes up to him and says, "If you want to, you can make me clean." Jesus responds, "Okay, you're clean." The fact is an integral part of the pronouncement. Whether Jesus actually altered the physical condition of the leper, we cannot say, but it is certain that he altered the social status of the sufferer.

To his audiences, Jesus remarks, "Congratulations, you poor! God's domain belongs to you." That assertion redefines their status.

Jesus awards God's domain to the destitute, he cures paralysis by forgiving sin, and he awards a leper a clean bill of health, all with his words.

There is a profound difference between a new theory of reality and a new reality; in the first, the distinction between word and act are maintained; in the second, that distinction is blurred. In theories of the real the old self that goes with the old reality is preserved, while the new reality is entertained as an "idea." When a new reality is truly actualized, the old self is transformed into a new self that corresponds to the new reality.

Jesus inhabited the world of his aphorisms and parables: in him word and deed were congruent.

The rhetorical tactics of Jesus reveal that he spoke with a fresh authority. He did not quote proof texts from the scriptures to prove his points. There are no "footnotes" in his discourse; he does not cite other authorities to endorse his claims. His knowledge is born of direct insight. He appeals directly to his audience, to their world, to their perceptions of their world, to the logic inherent in what he takes to be the true order of things. To him, the requirements of God's domain are obvious and endorse themselves. Jesus' vision of God's estate provides the standard by which all truth is to be measured.

Jesus told his parables as though he were hearing them. He gave expression to the vision of which he himself was the recipient. The demands of that vision were demands made on him. Rather than making assertions about the world, about God, about himself, he allowed himself to be claimed. The kingdom of God was announcing itself. He was transfixed by a vision that both captivated and liberated him. He was the victim, eventually, not primarily of the civil and religious authorities but of his own vision. It is very difficult to remember this reversal of roles -- Jesus as listener rather than Jesus as speaker.