Appendix A:
"Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time"
(The Historical Jesus & the Heart of Contemporary Faith)
a book by
Professor Marcus J. Borg
Published by HarperCollins, 1994
A Summary and Commentary
by
John W. Hawkins
Chapter 1
Dear Nanci,
The purpose of this letter is twofold: First, to thank you (and your sister and brothers) for a most memorable evening on the occasion of my seventieth birthday last month. All of you were very generous in thanking me in my role as a father during your formative years. It is rewarding as a parent to realize that your children halve successfully passed through the difficult phase of adolescence into the trials and tribulations of being mature adults; Second, to thank you for giving me Marcus Borg's book, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time". I have not yet finished it, but since you are reading it a chapter at a time in connection with your Lenten study group, perhaps you would like my comments on it a chapter at a time as well. (Otherwise, I might be tempted to write another essay which as you know might take a very long time to complete.) So here are some thoughts that occurred to me as I read Chapter 1:
1. This is an important book since it deals with the heart
and soul of what Christianity is all about. His first chapter reminds me of
Jesus telling his disciples why he spoke to the masses of people in parables:
"Unto you [the inner circle] it is given to know the mystery of the
kingdom of God, but unto them that are without [the masses], all things are
done in parables." (Mark 4:11) In
the same vein the writer of the letter to the Hebrews (circa 85-95 AD) tells
his readers: "You have need of milk and not of strong meat [which]
belongeth to them that are of full age [i.e. mature people]." (Hebrews
5:12-14). Similarly, St. Paul tells the Corinthians in that magnificent chapter
on the nature of love: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a [mature] man, I
gave up childish ways" (lst Corinthians 13:11)
2, This book is "strong meat". As such it is intended for mature readers who have given up "childish ways". His purpose is to tell you the life long process by which he came to know the real Jesus. (It is his life work.) As a young divinity student, he was shocked to learn that all the gospels were written by men who had never personally known the historical Jesus. Most of the stories told in the gospels had been transmitted orally and only much later were they committed to writing. In fact, much of the bible is a compilation of writings from oral traditions. (For example, the central experience of the Jews, the Exodus, which is believed to have occurred around 1290 BC was not written down until 800 years or so later.)
This does not mean that the events related were fictitious, but like any oft repeated story the details become interwoven with the teller's elaborations and personal views by the time it is finally written down. Even after that! significant changes were made in the manuscripts copied by the scribes to fit their own ideas and times. The problem of accurately describing historical events is further compounded by translation from one language into another. For example, there are dozens of translations of the Bible into the English language. Nonetheless, modern scholars have done a remarkable job in researching and comparing ancient manuscripts in the original tongues before tackling completely new translations such as "The Revised Standard Version". All in all, the New Testament gospels and epistles are much closer to the eye witness accounts than any of the Old Testament books is.
3. So what do we really know about the historical Jesus? Very little, in fact. We don't even know for sure the year of his birth (now estimated to be sometime between 4 and 6 BC and surely not on December 25th). Other than his miraculous birth by a virgin after being impregnated by the Holy Spirit of God (which is a theme repeated in many religious traditions), his being taken to Eqypt as a babe to avoid the edict of King Herod to kill all the Israelite male children, and his reading from the Torah in the temple when he was twelve years old, we know almost nothing until his baptism by John and the beginning of his ministry. All St. Luke tells us about his early life is summarized in one verse: "and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52)
4. Yet there have been more books written about Jesus than any man that has ever lived. The reason why I will save for a subsequent letter, or, if the Spirit moves me, perhaps even for another essay.
Chapter 2
What Dr. Borg means by "the Pre-Easter Jesus", as you will recall from Chapter One, is the historical Jesus -the man who was raised (and perhaps born) in Nazareth in southern Galilee about one hundred miles north of Jerusalem. We know almost nothing about him until he began his ministry around the age of thirty, which only lasted "perhaps as little as a year (according to the synoptic gospels) or as much as three or four years (according to John)." (p.31)
According to the gospels of Matthew and Luke (both written nearly fifty years after Jesus' crucifixion) he was born of a virgin, although neither of the two other gospels affirms this nor does St. Paul in any of his epistles. This does not mean that the virgin birth was untrue but merely that it was not central to the belief of the early Christian church.
Dr. Borg references the "Infancy Gospel of Thomas", which purports to tell some noncanonical stories about Jesus as a boy. Two of the most interesting books I have read on Jesus' birth and childhood are found in: "Edgar Cayce's Story of Jesus" by Jeffrey Furst and "The Aquarian Gospel" written as I recall by man whose last name was Levi. (I no longer have either book in my library.) The source material for both of these latter books was from the so called "akashic records" - i.e. information available to psychics by looking backward in time while in a state of altered consciousness. (Cayce described the place where he got his information as the "Hall of Records".) Not many people can accept this sort of information as authentic, but it makes for fascinating reading nonetheless. Modern man has invented a way to record his history using Camcorders and VCR's. Do you suppose that the Creator of the universe is any less resourceful?
The question of whether Jesus was merely a godlike man, who possessed remarkable powers, or God himself incarnate in a human body was the source of much controversy in the early history of the Church. Arius and his followers used the Greek word, "homoiousian" (from the Greek "homoios.- meaning "like') to describe Jesus' nature
as being similar to but not the same as the substance of the Father. The Council of Nicea, on the other hand, adopted the word, "homoousian", (from the Greek words, "homo" for "same" and "ousia", meaning "substance") to describe the nature of the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Their interpretation remains with us today in the wording of the Nicene Creed. I believe .. in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; Begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made." In Dr. Borg's terminology this declaration (made by the Council in 325 AD) clearly refers to what he calls "the Post-Easter Jesus".
I tend to agree with him that Jesus had a conversion experience at the time he was baptized by John in the river Jordan. For in Mark's gospel we read: "And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove.." (Mark 1:10) This conversion experience, however, was certainly not unique to Jesus. Among fundamentalist and charismatic Christians it is the "sine qua non" of what salvation is all about. St Paul tells us the greatest story ever told "is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27) and Jesus himself tells Nicodemus: "Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:5-6)
This anointing of the Spirit also occurred to many people who lived before the birth of Jesus. For example, in the book of Hebrews the author recounts a number of the patriarchs of Israel and others who lived by faith. He further tells us that "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Thus, faith is much more than mere belief. It is an assurance and a conviction born by the anointing of the Spirit of God. The coming of the Messiah, which is central to the prophesies of the Old Testament, means one who is anointed by God. (Both the Hebrew word, "Messiah", and the Greek word, "Christ", mean "the anointed one".) The Messiah (or Christ) comes therefore when one is anointed by the Holy Spirit. This is why Dr. Borg calls Jesus a "spirit person" or "holy man".
Many people today have also had this anointing of the Spirit, the so called conversion experience, but not many are what you would call "holy men" or "spirit persons". Jesus affirms this when he tells us that: "Many are called but few are chosen." (Matthew 22:14) That is why, for most of us at least, even after a born again experience that it takes a lifetime of struggle between the fleshly (Adamic) nature and the spiritual (Christ) nature in order to become mature Christians. St. Paul tells us about this battle with his dual nature in his epistle to the Romans:
"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want. I agree that the law [of Moses] is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. for I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh." (Romans 7:15-18)
Even Jesus, we are told, spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting in the wilderness until he overcame the temptations offered to him by Satan. (Mark 1:13) I elaborated on all this in my latest essay "Faith and Salvation" in the sections entitled "Faith in God" and "The Ultimate Destiny of Mankind" in case you want to know more about my views of the man Jesus and his claim to be the prophesied Messiah of the Jews or the Christ by the early Christian believers.
Chapter 3
Dr. Borg makes a distinction between the translation of Luke 6:36 as found in the King James and the Revised Standard Versions on the one hand and in the New English Bible, the Jerusalem Bible and the Scholar's version on the other. He prefers the translation in the latter versions: "Be compassionate as God is compassionate" over the former translations: "Be merciful even as your Father is merciful." In the notes to this chapter he also compares Luke 6:36 with a similar verse in Matthew (which evidently both came from a document forming the basis for the synoptic gospels known as "Q") which is translated: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). Also in this chapter he refers to a verse in the Old Testament which was a basis for the separation of the people of Israel from all other nations: "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." (Leviticus 19:2). In all these passages what is being addressed is an admonition for the hearers to be and behave like God Himself, which Borg describes as an "imitatio dei" - an imitation of God.
The question remains, therefore: What is the true nature of God after whom we are supposed to pattern ourselves: merciful, compassionate, perfect or holy? As Dr. Borg explains, the Jews in Jesus' time had adopted a set of ethical rules and laws (which he calls the Purity System) that pervaded every aspect of their daily lives derived from the Torah (i.e. the first five books of the Old Testament). The effect of these elaborate purity codes was to separate the Jews from all non-Jewst and even the richer and more influential Levites and Pharisees from their own less fortunate brethren. It was against this "holier than thou" climate that Jesus preached and practiced. He not only associated with the lower class Jews but also with known sinners and adulterers and non-Jews as well. He attracted the poor, the sick, the lame, the blind, and the lepers. In opposition to the purity code he preached that instead of following a strict dietary code one should pay attention to what came out of the mouth - not what went into it. He healed a man with a withered hand on the Jewish sabbath, the day on which any activity was prohibitedf in order to demonstrate that God's mercy and compassion operated seven days a week, that God is Lord of the Sabbath as well as the other six days. (Matthew 12).
The theme that he develops in this chapter was the compassionate side of God as demonstrated in the life of Jesus. The question remains, however, how we as Christians are to reconcile the contradictory admonitions found in the bible: To be perfect yet love your imperfect neighbor as yourself; to be holy and set apart from the unholy yet not to look down on unbelievers or refuse to associate with them.
Can we really aspire to emulate the characteristics of God - his holiness and perfection as well as his compassion and mercy? The answer is that we (i.e. our worldly, fleshly self) cannot. As Jesus responded to the man who called him "Good Teacher" ("Good Master" in the King James version): "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone." (Mark 10:18); and as St. Paul reminds us: "All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23). However, it is built into our very psyches that we must nevertheless do our best, imperfect and unholy as we are, to become the best we can possibly be, to live up to the image of the ideal person within us. It matters little whether we call that ideal God, Christ or what Sigmund Freud called the superego or ego ideal. In the field of psychology (predominately the Jungian school of thought) the goal sought in the treatment of their patients is wholeness. Even in the physical sciences you are hearing and reading more about holistic medicine and non-traditional methods of treating illness. It is not surprising then that the words "holy", "whole" and "holistic" are being used to describe our ideal spiritual, mental and physical nature. (All three words are derived form the same Anglo-Saxon root word meaning "hale", "whole" and "well".)
Therefore, to become whole or holy we must not neglect any part of our nature: body, mind, or spirit. Also we cannot shut ourselves out from the non-believers around us (and there are many). We must be in the world but not, however, of the world. Dr. Borg dwells at some length on the compassionate nature of God as displayed in the life of Jesus. I think he should also have pointed out that the word compassion not only means to have empathy with other people but from its original meaning "to suffer with" them. That means we literally have to place ourselves in the shoes of other people in order to understand what they are experiencing and how they are feeling in order to be of real assistance to them
Chapter 4
There are several books in the Bible and passages in some of its other books that scholars label "wisdom" literature. Briefly, these wisdom books and passages describe the nature of reality and how one should live one's life as a consequence. Perhaps the book in the Old Testament that best characterizes this label is the book of Proverbs. For the most part, this book describes what Professor Borg calls "conventional wisdom", that which embodies a culture's understanding about what is real and therefore how to live.
On the other hand, there arise from time to time in a given culture those that teach an "alternative wisdom", one that subverts the prevailing "conventional wisdom". In China, Lao Tsu, the founder of Taoism, in India, Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, and in Greece, Socrates represent men who taught a form of wisdom that subverted their culture's prevailing view about the nature of reality and how best to live one's life. Among New Testament scholars there is a consensus that Jesus was also a teacher of an alternative wisdom that subverted the conventional wisdom existing in the Jewish culture of his day.
Like the book of Proverbs Jesus used short sayings called "aphorisms" to illustrate his alternative wisdom: e.g., "You cannot serve two masters", "You cannot get grapes from a bramble bush", If a blind man leads a blind man, will not both fall into a ditch?", Many are called, but few are chosen". Thus, Jesus was a speaker who employed a great number of (over one hundred) memorable "one-liners" or aphorisms to illustrate his teaching to the people who gathered to hear him during his short ministry (only about a year if the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are to be believed).
Jesus also effectively used short stories known as parables to illustrate some of his favorite topics about the nature of his Father and his Father's kingdom in heaven. Most of these parables, although also memorable like his aphorisms, are allegories that relate such topics as the nature of God or the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of the familiar, everyday experience of his hearers. For example, the parable of the sower (Luke 8: 5-18) sowing seed in various types of soil was analogous to the results of "sowing" the words of his gospel message among various types of hearers - some words fell on good "soil" that resulted in an abundance of life ( a good crop of plants) while some fell on "deaf ears" (barren soil or soil choked with weeds) that produced no increase in the lives of the hearers ( i.e., only a few or no viable plants). Similarly, the compassionate nature of God is illustrated in his parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15: 11-32). As you will recall, the prodigal son asks his father for all of his inheritance. He then goes to "a far country and there wastes his substance with riotous living" He is reduced to feeding swine (impure animals for the Jews), and when a famine hit the land, he almost dies from hunger. When, he comes to himself", he decides to go back to his father's house and ask his forgiveness for his sinful behavior. When he is still a great way off, his father sees him, has compassion on him, falls on his neck, kisses him, clothes him and kills the fatted calf to celebrate his return home. The moral of the story, the analogy, is that regardless of one's sins and separation from God, it is never too late to repent and return to the embrace of a loving Father and His heavenly home.
Professor Borg also makes the point that conventional wisdom in our world today is characterized by a culture that emphasizes conformity and how well we measure up to society's definition of success and other cultural values. In psychological terms he notes that we often internalize these central values of our culture in what Freud called the "superego". The superego then acts as a resident judge of all our actions and causes us to feel guilty anytime they are not in conformance with the social norms of our society. This conventional wisdom also appears today in religious form when God is imaged primarily as a lawgiver and judge. Among Christians it leads to an image of a life of requirements. In fact, he tells us, that "this happens so frequently [today] that
it is the most common form of Christianity."
Many of Jesus' teachings, on the other hand, portray God not as one who establishes a set of strict "do's" and "don'ts" but as one who is gracious, generous and compassionate. "Indeed, if we take this graciousness of God seriously, it completely undermines the world of conventional wisdom, whether in religious or secular form."
Because Jesus knew from intimate personal experience about this compassionate nature of God, he urged his listeners to learn about the reality of this nature not by reading what the scriptures or others said about God but to develop a personal relation with Him by loving "the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind."
Chapter 5
In the last chapter Professor Borg introduced the subject of "wisdom" literature in the Bible as found in various of its books and passages. He then differentiated what he termed "conventional wisdom" from that of "alternative wisdom" which subverted the prevailing culture's ethos and its standards of behavior. Jesus, he and other biblical scholars agree, was a teacher of alternative wisdom. However, not all of the wisdom literature in the Bible can be subsumed under one or the other of these two classifications. For example, in various passages in the Old Testament, as well as in the Apocrypha, wisdom is often personified as a woman since the word "wisdom" in Hebrew (hokma) is a feminine noun. Scholars, therefore, often use the Greek word for wisdom (Sophia) to emphasize the feminine nature of this personification.
Not only does she speak words of wisdom similar to those of the prophets, but she even claims to be created by God when he established the heavens and even before the world was created. For example, in the book of Proverbs, Chapter 8 she says:
Yahweh created me at the beginning of God's work, the first of God's acts
of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of
the earth . . . . . When God established the heavens, I was there . . . . . .
When God marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside God as
a master worker.
In the intertestamental book of Sirach (written circa 180 bc) Sophia again speaks of her origin:
From eternity, in the beginning, God created me and for eternity I shall
not cease to be.
In another intertestamental book, the Wisdom of Solomon, written near the time of Jesus, she even takes on some of the attributes usually associated with God. Thus, she claims to be "the fashioner of all things" and the "mother of all good things." Then, in a remarkable passage, she is spoken of as:
. . . . a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile,
clear, unpolluted, loving the good, keen, irresistible, beneficent,
humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing
all, and penetrating through all spirits . . . .
Like God she is everywhere present: "she pervades and penetrates all things "and shares in God's omnipotence as a being who "is a breath of the power of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty" and "a reflection of eternal light".
The relevance of this personification of wisdom to Jesus arises from the fact that there are a number of passages in the New Testament that associate Jesus with the figure of Sophia. For example, in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) Jesus quotes her dircectly (Luke 11:49-50) and in another verse he speaks of himself as a child of Sophia (Luke 7:33-35). Further, since Jesus always emphasizes the compassionate nature of God the Father (which Professor Borg earlier relates to being "womb-like) he is really saying that God's nature is like a woman.
More than just identifying the nature of God as being compassionate, and therefore like Sophia, the apostle Paul speaks of Jesus himself as the Wisdom (i.e., the Sophia) of God. In his epistles Paul contrasts two radically different ways of living, by grace through faith, and under the law by outward works. In the first four chapters of 1st Corinthians he developed a strong contrast between the "wisdom of this world" and the "wisdom of God". Moreover, Paul directly identifies Jesus with Sophia (i.e., Wisdom) when he says:
We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). .... God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God. (1 Corinthians 1:30)
Paul not only identifies Jesus as the incarnation of Wisdom but also, like passages about Wisdom (i.e., Sophia) in the Old Testament, treats him as preexisting from eternity with God and, like her, as being active in the creation of the world:
There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist;
And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
(1 Corinthians 8:6)
In another of the epistles he expands the description of Christ's role in creation:
Christ if the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in [or by] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(Colossians 1:15-17)
Similarly St. John opens his gospel with the well-known passage that refers to Jesus Christ as the Word (Greek logos) of God with the same attributes that Paul identifies as the Wisdom (or Sophia) of God. Professor Borg reminds us that both Paul's epistles and the Gospel of John were written many years after Jesus' earthly ministry and resurrection. Thus they focus more on the post-Easter Jesus, the risen living Christ, than on the pre-Easter Jesus and his teaching.
Chapter 6
There is a close relationship between the images we have of Jesus and images we have of the Christian life and what it means to be a Christian. The pictures of Jesus portrayed in earlier chapters differ markedly from those most commonly held today by the average Christian. Professor Borg believes the principal reason for this is the way Jesus is portrayed in the gospels and in the epistles of St. Paul. Since these were all written down a number of years after his death and resurrection, this image of Jesus focuses more on the "post-Easter" Jesus than on the "pre-Easter Jesus. In contrast to this emphasis Jesus himself did not speak in terms of being the Son of God or of one whose mission in life was to die for the sins of the world. "Rather, he was a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion. Naturally, this image of Jesus leads to a quite different image of the Christian life."
In order to bridge the gap between these two very different images of Jesus, and the consequently differing images about the Christian life, Professor Borg says we need to broaden our understanding of the historical events that shaped the Jewish world into which both Jesus, his disciples and followers were born. "Both he and his followers were rooted in Judaism, and the sacred traditions of Israel - the Old Testament - shaped their ways of seeing, thinking and speaking." In the last two decades biblical scholars have called attention to the centrality of "story" in both Jewish and Christian scriptures since much of both the Old and New Testaments were transmitted by orally told stories years before they were committed to writing. For example, the first five books of the Old Testament comprising the Jewish law known as the Torah weren't written down until around 400 BC, 800 years after Moses led the children of Israel out of their captivity in Egypt.
Although there are hundreds of individual stories told in the Old Testament, Professor Borg believes "that there are three 'macro-stories' at the heart of Scripture that the shape the Bible as a whole, and that each of these stories images religious life in a particular way." These "macro-stories", as he calls them, are: (1) the exodus story; (2) the story of exile and return; and (3) the priestly story. The first two are grounded in historical events while the third is concerned with the centrality of the temple, priesthood and sacrifice in the religious life of the Jewish people. The principal image that dominates the image of Jesus in the New Testament is that of "the priestly story".
This "story leads to a static understanding of the Christian life, making it into a repeated cycle of sin, guilt, and forgiveness. We are absolved each Sunday, only to sin again during the week, and the cycle repeats itself. The priestly story does not often generate the question 'You are accepted - now what?' . . . . The priestly story tends also to lead to an understanding of Christianity as primarily a religion of the afterlife. The crucial issue becomes being right with God before we die: believe now for the sake of salvation later."
Furthermore, "the priestly story images God primarily as lawgiver and judge. God's requirements must be met, and because we cannot meet them, God graciously provides the sacrifice that meets those requirements. God will forgive those who believe that Jesus was the sacrifice, and will not forgive those who do not believe. God's forgiveness becomes contingent or conditional. Not only is it only for those who believe, but it lasts only until sin is committed again, which can then be removed only by repentance. Thus, though the priestly story speaks of God as gracious, it places the grace of God within a system of requirements.. . [and one that] most often turns the subversive wisdom of Jesus into Christian conventional wisdom."
By contrast, the exodus and exile stories are journey stories in which God himself assists those who undertake the journey. The exodus story of the release of the Jews from bondage under Pharaoh by the mighty acts of God is the primal narrative of the people of ancient Israel. "It was the primary story shaping their identity, their sense of who they were, and their sense of God" This journey story is re-enacted liturgically each year by all observing Jews in their annual festival of the Passover. Importantly then, it is seen not simply as a story about "ancient Israel, but also about us too, the living. As a story about both the past and the present, it images the human condition and God's relationship to us in all times."
"Like the exodus story, the story of exile and return is grounded in historical experience. The exile began in 587 BC when after Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed by the Babylonians, some of the Jewish survivors were marched into exile in Babylon some eight hundred miles away. There they lived as refugees, separated from their homeland and under conditions of repression. The exile came to an end in 539 BC, some fifty years after it began, when the Babylonian empire was conquered by the Persians, whose imperial policy allowed displaced persons to return to their homelands.. Next to the exodus, this experience of exile and return was the most important historical event shaping the life and religious imagination of the Jewish people. It seared itself into their consciousness and became for them a metaphor for their relationship with God."
This story also speaks to all of us today. This generation is also exiled from its true
homeland, the place where God dwells, as He did for the Jews in the
As the words from an old gospel hymn poignantly remind us: "Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me" with its chorus, "Come home, come home. Ye who are weary, come home." It is also "central in the symbolism of the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis. The garden - paradise - is the place of God's presence, but we live outside of the garden, east of Eden. If our problem is exile, the solution is, of course, a journey of return."
"The story of Jesus, and our understanding of the Christian life are much richer and fuller when we see them in the context of all three of these stories, and not simply in the context of the priestly story. All three stories informed and shaped Jesus' own perception of the religious life and therefore his message and activity."
"The conventional wisdom that he subverted had characteristics of both bondage and exile. Egypt and Babylon. Conventional wisdom is life under the lordship of culture, which is both oppressive and alienating, and his message is filled with the theme of liberation and return. He came to 'set the captives free', language that connects to the imagery of both bondage and exile. The story of the prodigal is shaped at a deep level by the exile story: the prodigal goes into a 'far country', far from his home, and the solution to his predicament is a journey of return, a journey 'home'. The emphasis both in Jesus' teaching and in the gospels themselves upon a 'way' or 'path' also points to an understanding of the religious life as a journey. Jesus teaches a 'way', and the gospels are about 'the way'."
In addition, the New Testament [as a whole] has a journey story of its own - the story of discipleship. The meaning of the word disciple ... does not mean to be 'a student or a teacher', but rather to be 'a follower after somebody'. Discipleship in the New Testament is, of course, a following after Jesus, a journeying with Jesus. . . . Like the macro-stories in the Old Testament, the story of discipleship is not just about the past, not just about 'them', but also about us. As a journeying with Jesus, discipleship means being on the road with him. . . It means undertaking the journey from the life of conventional wisdom, from our life in Egypt and life in our Babylon, to the alternative wisdom of life in the Spirit."
Professor Borg closes this chapter with a discussion of what it means to believe in Jesus and how this relates to the image of the Christian life that has emerged in this book. The word believe, he tells us, "did not originally mean believing a set of doctrines or teachings; in both Greek and Latin its roots mean 'to give one's heart to'. The 'heart' is the self at its deepest level. . . Believing in Jesus [then] does not mean believing doctrines about him. Rather, it means to give one's heart, one's self at its deepest level, to the post-Easter Jesus who is the living Lord, the side of God turned toward us, the face of God, the Lord who is also the Spirit."
"Believing in Jesus in the sense of giving one's heart to Jesus is the movement from secondhand religion to firsthand religion, from having heard about Jesus with the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with the Spirit of Christ. For ultimately, Jesus is not simply a figure of the past, but a figure of the present. Meeting that Jesus - the living Jesus who comes to us even now - will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time."
Appendix B:
Memorable Passages from the Epistles of
If I speak in the tongues of
mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as
to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my
possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is
kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the
truth. It bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophesies, they will come to an
end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an
end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy
only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an
end. When I was a child, I spoke like a
child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult,
I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we
will see face to face. Now I know only
in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these
three; and the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)
Finally beloved, whatever is
true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise, think
about these things.
(Philippians 4:8)
Who will separate us from the
love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in
all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans
8:35-39 passim)
We know that all things work
together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his
purpose.
(Romans 8:28)
Now the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness,
and self-control. There is no law
against such things.
(Galatians
5:22-23)
Be not conformed to this world
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
(Romans
12:2)
Let that mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus
(Philippians 2:5)
I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me
(Philippians 4:13)
Nothing can disturb me for
Christ is my peace and my poise.
I have been crucified with
Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the
life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
For God says “At the
acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of
salvation.” Behold, now is the
acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
(2 Corinthians 6:2)
I know a man in Christ [Paul
himself] who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven = whether in
the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – And I know that this man
was caught up into Paradise – whether in the body or out of the body I do not
know, God knows - and he heard things
that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
(2
Corinthians 12:2-4)
But whatever any one dares to
boast of – I am speaking as a fool – I
also dare to boast of that. Are they
Hebrews? So am I. Are they servants of
Christ? I am a better one – I am talking like a madman – with far greater
labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near
death. Five times I have received
at the hands of the Jews the forty
lashes save one. Three times I have been
beaten with rods; once I was stoned.
Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been
adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from
robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city,
danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil
and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often
without food, in cold and exposure. And,
apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for
all the churches. Who is weak, and I am
not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things
that show my weakness. The God and
Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed for ever, knows that I do not lie.
(2 Corinthians 11:21-31)
Appendix C:
Memorable Poems and Quotations
Truth
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect clear perception which is Truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh binds it,
And makes all error: and to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light supposed to be
without.
Robert Browning – from his poem Paracelsus
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou
canst not then be false to any man.
Polonius to his son Laertes (Hamlet Act I,
Scene III)
I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to
the Father but by me.
Jesus (John 14)
Reincarnation
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing Boy, But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.