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Title: The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem
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| The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne Scholarly insights for lay people | | Borg and Crossan do a remarkable job at sharing their insights from the Jesus Seminar group with their readers. What could be a very dry and academic explanation turns out to be an easy to read story-telling that sheds new light into old assumptions. This book (as well as others by Borg and company) will change the way you look at traditional Christian customs. If you want to hear Marcus Borg in person he will be speaking at the Mercy Center in St. Louis on June 13-14. | | The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne The Last Week by Marcus Borg | | I am now using this book in a group "Bible Study". It is a must read for students of the Bible. It gives a great comprehensive and inspirational study of Jesus' last week and is written with compassion and passion for telling "the story". While it is both challenging and thought-provoking, it does indeed hold true to the mission and meaning of Jesus' life and ministry. | | The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne Lenten Study | | I used this book for my Lenten Bible Study. It was the perfect choice. The indepth discussion of Matthew opened new paths of looking and understanding the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the week of the Passion Narrative. Once again Borg and Crossan bring my faith alive again. | | The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne They say everything and nothing | Borg and Crossan have always been lucid, enjoyable, and intelligent communicators. But it has never been clear what their actual message was, and when they write together, the message is doubly vague. Essentially, they are both masters of having their cake and eating it at the same time. So Jesus has always been all things to all men. There's nothing really to nitpick in this book, apart from the lack of insight into Jesus' purpose - indeed, like most authors, Borg and Crossan are loathe to suggest Jesus was a man with a plan. We already know the theological view of his life and death, but the authors fail to offer any convincing alternative to it. As ever, liberal Christians will love this, and evangelicals will loathe it.
Mark Gibbs
Author, The Virgin and The Priest | | The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne We are convinced that truth claims... matter most. | My title for this review comes from a paragraph that Borg and Crossan make near the end of this extremely interesting book. The authors start their conclusion of this book with, "We shall highlight their [Mark's narratives] meaning as parable, as truth-filled stories, without any intrinsic denial of their factuality. We are convinced that the truth claims of these stories matter most."
What struck me about this comment (near the end of the book) is that this is an odd stance given their circuitous route to convince the reader that these things did not really occur as the gospels claim. The overall implication is that there is a great degree of Jewish and Roman political upheaval occurring, and the man, Jesus, is more a victim of imperial terrorism, than a "ransom for many."
The authors claim that, "Mark's gospel has an apocalyptic eschatology," meaning that Mark expects, "dramatic and decisive divine intervention in the near future." This has important significance with respect to Jesus as the anti-imperialist leader of the Jewish resistance, but this event has little to do with either resurrection, or saving grace. Again, the political turmoil is of paramount importance. Additionally, with a leader committed to passivity, the turmoil should not be a savage war, like the future destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. Rather, "as followers of Jesus", this community was "committed to nonviolence," while being in direct "opposition to imperial domination."
This Markan position is purely conjecture. The authors don't analyze other motives, or possibilities. Indeed, the anti-imperialist role is the only possibility that Borg and Crossan explore. The authors chose wisely to avoid examining the endless number of possibilities that could result from random guesswork.
As the book progresses, Borg and Crossan continue in their preference for conjecture. In fact, several pages are devoted to promoting the possibility that Mark viewed participation in the death of Jesus as the main transformational goal in the lives of the disciples. "It is not by Jesus substituting for them, but by their participating in Jesus." Here, after all of this conjecture, I realized that even this phrase, "participating in Jesus" has no conceptual definition. What conclusions can the reader possible draw from such a vague sentence?
So, after all of this semi-historical evaluation, the reader is left considering whether these authors are convinced of their position, or not. Could they actually muster a strong denial of the historical veracity of these gospel accounts? Apparently not, otherwise, I'm sure they may have given it a whole-hearted attempt.
What they do succeed in accomplishing is asking enough questions and raising enough historical ambiguity to cast the reader into state of wonderment. All the way down to this closing comment - "the truth claims of these stories matter most." What could these men possibly mean by "truth." Either, there is historical truth, or there is not. To cast a Cinderella-like pall upon the gospels and claim that the story proves that "stepsisters should be nice to one another" makes the summary of this book a disappointing, although interesting, read.
| | The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by HarperOne Product Description | Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion. Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of Roman governor Pontius Pilate leading Roman soldiers into the city, symbolized military strength. The second heralded a new kind of moral hero who was praised by the people as he rode in on a humble donkey. The Jesus introduced by Borg and Crossan is this new moral hero, a more dangerous Jesus than the one enshrined in the church's traditional teachings. The Last Week depicts Jesus giving up his life to protest power without justice and to condemn the rich who lack concern for the poor. In this vein, at the end of the week Jesus marches up Calvary, offering himself as a model for others to do the same when they are confronted by similar issues. Informed, challenged, and inspired, we not only meet the historical Jesus, but meet a new Jesus who engages us and invites us to follow him. |
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