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beejai's review
4.0
There are a few things I will always dislike about any liberal theologian's work on the gospels. Let's get them out of the way first...
1) The unquestioning acceptance of "the gospel of Q"Whenever someone is referring to this fictional "Q" what they are really saying is, "The things Matthew and Luke have in common that are not found in Mark". It makes much more sense to say Mark was written first. Matthew used Mark as a framework when he wrote his collection of the sayings of Jesus. Luke used both Matthew and Mark as well as other eyewitness accounts in writing his account.
2) The late dating of the gospelsThere are two real reasons why they hold to this dating despite the evidence to the contrary. First, they cannot accept the fact that Jesus' predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem came true. Obviously, they would say, this was history written in as prophesy. Also, in laying claim to a later date, they can get around the fact that contemporaries who actually knew of Jesus would not have accepted the gospels as they stand if they were not true.
3) The incredibly high level of scrutiny the gospels are subjected toThey will debate fact vs fiction back and forth over every single word Jesus supposedly said or action he supposedly did. Their choice to accept something as truly coming from Jesus or being a fictional creation of the early church community has little to do with history or truth and more to do with whether or not this little snippet fits into the ideological framework of the Jesus they are envisioning. Even though they are demonstrably far less reliable, these same scholars will often accept whole cloth the works of Plutarch, Polybius, Josephus, etc while denying the truth of large segments of the gospels. Hypocrisy at its finest.
4) The ignoring or denial of anything to do with the miraculous.At their best, some scholars will acknowledge that Jesus probably did perform some miracles and then completely ignore the significance of that fact while focusing in on his words. At the worst, they will outright deny the possibility of the miraculous. Trying to creating a picture of Jesus while doing this is like trying to put together a puzzle while insisting that any piece that has the color yellow must stay in the box. Good luck with that.
Marcus Borg is not surprisingly guilty of all four of these errors, but within that framework, this is an excellent work. When the first edition of Conflict was written (in '71) it was groundbreaking and has completely changed the direction of the discussion of Jesus within his social framework. One of my favorite works on Jesus (God and Empire) probably would never have been written if Borg had not paved the way.
How can the people of Israel fulfill their divine mandate while they are under the subjugation of Rome? Borg says that Jesus and the Pharisees had two very different ways to answer this and that most of the opposition that arose between the two groups centers on these conflict between these two answers. As Borg says, "Instead of a quest based on holiness, Jesus advocated a hermeneutic based on the conviction that God's primary attribute for emulation was compassion." Ultimately, it is love rather than holiness that should motivate everything we do.
There is definitely a lot of food for thought in Borg's look at these opposing views as shown through the gospels. If nothing else, it helps us move beyond our overly simplistic villainization of the Pharisees found in most church sermons today. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to go deeper into the historical and political context of the teachings of Jesus.
1) The unquestioning acceptance of "the gospel of Q"
2) The late dating of the gospels
3) The incredibly high level of scrutiny the gospels are subjected to
4) The ignoring or denial of anything to do with the miraculous.
Marcus Borg is not surprisingly guilty of all four of these errors, but within that framework, this is an excellent work. When the first edition of Conflict was written (in '71) it was groundbreaking and has completely changed the direction of the discussion of Jesus within his social framework. One of my favorite works on Jesus (God and Empire) probably would never have been written if Borg had not paved the way.
How can the people of Israel fulfill their divine mandate while they are under the subjugation of Rome? Borg says that Jesus and the Pharisees had two very different ways to answer this and that most of the opposition that arose between the two groups centers on these conflict between these two answers. As Borg says, "Instead of a quest based on holiness, Jesus advocated a hermeneutic based on the conviction that God's primary attribute for emulation was compassion." Ultimately, it is love rather than holiness that should motivate everything we do.
There is definitely a lot of food for thought in Borg's look at these opposing views as shown through the gospels. If nothing else, it helps us move beyond our overly simplistic villainization of the Pharisees found in most church sermons today. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to go deeper into the historical and political context of the teachings of Jesus.
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