Author to Discuss Search for the Historical Jesus : Bible: Burton L. Mack says precursor of Gospels presents Jesus as a sage in tradition of the ancient Cynics.

Burton L. Mack, whose recent book about a long-lost source that many believe the Gospel writers used to produce their accounts of Jesus, will speak about the quest for the historical Jesus at the University of Judaism on Tuesday.

A professor of religion at Claremont Graduate School, Mack is an authority on early Christianity. In his book “The Lost Gospel: the Book of Q and Christian Origins,” Mack, like many previous scholars, notes that material common to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (but not Mark) appears to have originated from a common source of Jesus’ sayings.

This source became known as Q, short for the German word Quelle, which means source. To this day, Q has never been found. But Bible scholars say it emerges from a close examination of the similarities in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

What emerges, however, defies traditional Christian understanding of the man believers see today as the Son of God and Lord of their lives.

Mack has argued that these earliest sayings associated with Jesus have no connection with the symbols that dominate the versions of Christianity accepted by believers today. Rather, they present Jesus as merely a sage in the asocial, iconoclastic tradition of the ancient Cynics. He is seen as an itinerant philosopher who urged followers to live better lives despite social conventions and who found a wide audience in the Hellenic world during the tumultuous era in which he lived.

Jesus is not identified with divine wisdom, nor does he preach the eschatological (end time) renewal of Israel in light of God’s judgment. Mack contends that Jesus did not embody the suffering of the righteous ones of Israel and was not exalted to God’s right hand. Other scholars disagree.

Still, Mack said there was something more to the Jesus movement: Its followers were animated by the idea of belonging to a movement that transcended ethnic and political loyalty.

Mack will speak at 7:45 p.m. at Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive. His talk is one in a series on historical and mythical figures in the Bible sponsored by the California Museum of Ancient Art.

On Nov. 22, William G. Dever, a biblical archeologist, will speak about “Bar Kochba and the Second Jewish Revolt: Archeological Evidence on the Man and the Myth.”

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