Robert W. Funk

Robert W. Funk (July 18, 1926 – September 3, 2005), was an American biblical scholar, founder of the controversial Jesus Seminar and the nonprofit 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 skeptical 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.

Academic

Funk had a Bachelor of Divinity and Master's degree from Butler University and its affiliated Christian Theological Seminary in 1950 and 1951, a PhD in 1953 from Vanderbilt University and was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Senior Fulbright Scholar.

He taught at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, was chairman of the graduate department of religion at Vanderbilt University and executive secretary of the Society of Biblical Literature. He was founder and first executive director of Scholars Press (1974–1980).

Publications

• A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature: A Translation and Revision of the ninth-tenth German edition incorporating supplementary notes of A. Debrunner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961)
• Language, Hermeneutic, and Word of God (1966)
• A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek (1977).
• The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (1993)
• Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (1996)
• The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds (1998).
• A Credible Jesus (2002).
• Funk on Parables: Collected Essays (Polebridge Press, 2006).

External links

• Obituary in the Los Angeles Times 7 September 2005
• Robert Funk page at the Westar Institute
• Obituary in Boston Globe