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chapter 16 Jesus without Journalists: Miracles and Mysteries, Minus Media Reports In 1945,an Egyptian peasant unearthed an urn that contained what turned out to be one of the greatest finds in the history of Christian scholarship . But before the Nag Hammadi gospels came into the hands of authorities, a key, middle section of one of the discovered texts—the “Gospel of Mary,” ostensibly based on a vision of Jesus that came to Mary Magdalene after Jesus’ crucifixion—was found to be missing,apparently burned by the peasant’s family to kindle the breakfast oven.1 The missing parts of the “Gospel of Mary” will be forever tantalizing to scholars fascinated with the Gnostic texts that had been buried after they were declared heretical by the early church. In this text, Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ closest companions,was just beginning to recount to the disciples a special revelation she said she had received from Jesus when he came to her in a vision after his crucifixion.Without the missing sections,we get only a small sample of Jesus’ sayings, which were dismissed as “strange” and unauthentic by the disciple Andrew. Peter also was skeptical of Mary’s account and questioned whether Jesus would speak to her secretly.This position,as we now know,was to become a key element in the assertion of church authority by Peter and his successors in the apostolic tradition.2 When I first read the “Gospel of Mary,” I found myself wondering how a modern journalist trained in today’s reportorial methodologies would deal with the claims of the early Christians that seem such an affront to modern notions of science and logic? The question, I had come to realize while researching the relationship between religious and journalistic history, was not entirely an academic one. Journalists, as we have seen, are believers in “facts,” and it is often religion’s lack of the factual proof of its claims that makes journalists skeptical. 16.231-248/Unde 1/15/02, 9:43 AM 233 234 from yahweh to yahoo! A close examination of the methods of the mainstream press, however, shows rather conclusively that journalism reports not facts but only what people report as the facts. Nor does journalism apply any independent methodological examination to claims made by those who contend there are more things happening in the universe than can be verified by the empirical method. When it comes to coverage of the supernatural, mystical, or faith-based elements of religious experience, journalists grow particularly wary and cautious and avoid the issue of factual proof whenever possible. This question has become increasingly relevant for journalists who in recent years have been caught up in the controversy surrounding the “search for the historical Jesus,” as it has become known.The “Gospel of Mary”—as well as the discovery of the Gnostic gospels themselves—is only one in a cascade of new articles, books, research projects, archaeological finds, reinterpretations of old and newly discovered texts, and scholarly debates that have engulfed the Christian community in an unprecedented reexamination of the nature of Christian orthodoxy and the claims of historical truth attributed to the Christian gospels. Although the “historical Jesus” issue has been around practically as long as the Christian church, most explicitly since the publication of David Friedrich Strauss’s Life of Jesus Critically Examined in 1835, journalists have only recently begun to evince any particular interest in the historical questions surrounding the ministry of Jesus.3 Journalists have been especially fascinated by the work of the Jesus Seminar, an organization of liberal scholars and academics who practice what is known as the “historical-critical method” in analyzing biblical texts.As part of a high-profile challenge to the evangelical position on the inerrancy of the Christian gospels,this group has gained headlines with its dismissal of the historical validity of such claims as the virgin birth, Jesus’ proclamations of his divinity, his working of miracles, and his resurrection.4 Ironically, as journalists have covered the debate, they have found themselves —and their own practices and professional methodologies—dragged into the controversy. On a superficial level, the criticisms lodged against the press by the critics of the Jesus Seminar sound much like what is often said whenever the press finds itself caught between two highly polarized groups hotly contesting issues of deep emotional feeling. But the juxtaposition of the ways orthodox Christians and academic scholars debate questions of faith and historical...

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