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Walter Wink
Excerpt from "Write What You See" "My greatest hesitation about the Jesus Seminar is the idea that it is possible to build, from the bottom up, a perspective-free, objective database. Such a neutral, 'pictureless' standpoint is impossible. Every analysis is value-laden. We cannot help projecting onto the texts our own unconscious needs and desires for transformation or confirmation, to say nothing of our socio-political location and biases. We need to take seriously the implications of the Heisenberg principle: that the observer is always a part of the field being observed, and disturbs that field by the very act of observation. In terms of the interpretive task, this means that there can be no question of an objective view of Jesus 'as he really was.' 'Objective view' is itself an oxymoron; every view is subjective, from a particular angle of vision. We always encounter the biblical text with interests. We always have a stake in our reading of it. We always have angles of vision, which can be helpful or harmful in interpreting texts. Every description of Jesus is a form of advocacy, whether positive or negative. All lives of Jesus are a kind of apologetics. "Thus liberals will tend to construct a liberal Jesus, conservatives a conservative Jesus, pietists a pietistic Jesus, radicals a radical Jesus, and atheists an unattractive Jesus. Scholars who believe Jesus was like a cynic philosopher will tend to reject as non-historical any data that suggests otherwise. When the cynic school prevailed, for example, in the voting at the Jesus Seminar, the apocalypticists quit coming; this further skewed the vote. The Seminar is denied the fresh perspective that liberationists and feminists might bring since there are almost no women or non-Caucasians in the group. So the picture that is emerging of Jesus is remarkably like that of a tweedy professor interested in studying Scripture. "I have abandoned the quest for the historical Jesus, conceived as an objective, value-free endeavor. Instead, I am in quest of the originative impulse released by Jesus, and will value traditions regardless of their source, so long as they are faithful to that originative impulse. So I intend to ignore the Seminar's database and voting tabulations when I begin to write on the Son of Man. "What I will value, however, are the remarkable collection of papers on individual pericopes that we have all churned out, and the invaluable friendships that have developed in the course of our work together. Despite my hesitations, the Jesus Seminar has been the most rewarding experience I have ever had with my colleagues in the biblical field, and I am grateful to Bob Funk for convening us."
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Walter
Wink is an internationally known lecturer and workshop leader whose
areas of interest have been the development of a participative style
of Bible study ("Transforming Bible Study"), an exploration
of the biblical theme of principalities and powers (which has led to
a trilogy of books and as many spinoffs), and Jesus' teachings on nonviolence.
He led nonviolence workshops in South Africa in 1986, 1988, and 1998.
In 1988, refused a visa, he entered South Africa without a visa, taught
nonviolence workshops, and turned himself in to the authorities, who
deported him. He and his wife June have also led nonviolence workshops
in (then) East Germany, Northern Ireland (twice), South Korea, Palestine,
and Mexico (around the Chiapas struggle). They have also lectured and
held workshops in New Zealand, Chile, (then) West Germany, Scotland,
and England. He and his wife June were United Nations election monitors
in El Salvador in 1994. In 1989–1990 he was honored by selection
as a Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington,
D.C.