Inspiration and it's Critics

During my studies at undergrad, I always struggled with such topics as 'The Search for the Historical Jesus' or some of the Jesus Seminar stuff.

For those of us who are quite unfamiliar, according to Wiki,

The Jesus Seminar is a group of about 150 individuals, including scholars with advanced degrees in biblical studies, religious studies or related fields as well as published authors who are notable in the field of religion, founded in 1985 by the late Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan under the auspices of the Westar Institute.^[1] One of the most active groups in biblical criticism,^[2] the seminar uses votes with colored beads to decide their collective view of the historicity of Jesus, specifically what he may or may not have said and done as a historical figure.^[3] In addition, the seminar popularizes the quest for the historical Jesus. The public is welcome to attend the twice-yearly meetings. They produced new translations of the New Testament and apocrypha to use as textual sources.

The seminar's reconstruction of the historical Jesus portrays him as an itinerant Hellenistic Jewish sage who did not die as a substitute for sinners nor rise from the dead, but preached a "social gospel" in startling parables and aphorisms. An iconoclast, Jesus broke with established Jewish theological dogmas and social conventions both in his teachings and behaviors, often by turning common-sense ideas upside down, confounding the expectations of his audience: He preached of "Heaven's imperial rule" (traditionally translated as "Kingdom of God") as being already present but unseen; he depicts God as a loving father; he fraternizes with outsiders and criticizes insiders.

While my classes and teaching on all this may not have been as extreme as the description above, I always got bothered with what they were saying fundamentally about the Bible and about it's inspiration specifically.

While I try to have a trampoline understanding of God rather than a wall (see Rob Bell), I feel that the inspiration of Scripture is a Truth I hold onto which I am not yet willing to really deconstruct or question seriously. For now, a bit like the trinity, not only am I quite content to trust those before me who have articulated such doctrine, but more importantly, I really don't worry about it all too much because for me, my relationship with God is more personal and experiential than it is logical or reasonable.

However, I was reminded of my Jesus Seminar frustrations when I agreed with Capon,

'As far as I am concerned, the Jesus of the Gospels is the only available Jesus there is and it is idle to postulate any other, no matter how likely such a Jesus may seem on the grounds of form criticism or historical surmise. For my money, it was over the literary presentation of this Jesus of the Gospels that the Holy Spirit brooded when inspiring the Scriptures; the same cannot be said for subsequent literary efforts on Jesus' behalf. If the presentation we accept by trusting biblical inspiration is in error, then not only are we stuck with it; we will never even (on any basis "inspired" or "factual") be able to say exactly what it is in error about'