This is a book that is co-written by Marcus Borg and Bishop N. T. Wright. I found it on scribd and was very excited to read it. Marcus Borg is probably my favorite liberal theologian. I disagree with just about everything that he says about Jesus and the Bible, but really like the way that he says we should live our lives as Christians. Bishop N. T. Wright is my favorite conservative Christian theologian. I've read a number of his books.
In the introduction of the book describes how Bishop Wright read a book by Marcus called "Conflict, Holiness, and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus". Bishop Wright sought out Marcus to congratulate him on as well as to explore some "matters arising" and to ask why the book ended as it did rather than in certain other possible ways. A friendship arose out of the fascinating study of Jesus within his historical context. The result of that friendship is this book. It is a book that discusses the different ways that they see Jesus. The book is not meant to be scholarly, and both writers refer readers to other books it the reader is interested.
I first learned about Bishop Wright a few years ago when I learned about NPP, or the New Perspective on Paul. Bishop Wright wrote a book about that called "Paul: In Fresh Perspective." I liked that book and then found that Bishop Wright was a part of the so called "Third Wave of Historical Jesus Studies." Strangely enough Bishop Wright defends the Bible and interprets the historical Jesus as if they Gospels are historically accurate. Reading his interpretation was like a breath of fresh air. Also, his thoughts were deep and his arguments well thought out, not like the general popular treatments, like the execrable books by Lee Strobel. Although if you like his books I'm not saying that I think they're wrong, just that they're not very scholarly and they make what I feel are stupid arguments.
Basically Marcus takes the general scholarly interpretation of the Gospels and Jesus. In fact Marcus is part of the Jesus Seminar. As far as I can tell the Jesus Seminar thinks that Jesus was a historical figure, but that he didn't perform any miracles and all the miracle stories were made up about him by his followers. They try to go a little more in depth than that, but that's the gist of it, and this is the idea that Marcus defends. He talks about a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. He feels by careful study of the Gospel sources, which include the Synoptic Gospels but not John, the so called Q document and the Gospel of Thomas that he can tell what Jesus really did and said, which he calls history remembered, and what his followers made up about Jesus which he calls history metaphorized. However, while I totally disagree with what he says about Jesus and the way the Gospels were created, I really like the way that he teaches that we should live the Christian life.
So here's a great example about what I mean. Marcus doesn't think that there was an empty tomb on Easter morning. The resurrections accounts are history metophorized (made up). However, quoting "My position is that experiences of the risen Christ as a continuing presence generated the claim that 'Jesus lives and is Lord'". Marcus sees the resurrection as a metaphor for the fact that Christ's presence, or resurrection, ought to be a continuing presence in our lives. I agree that Christ's presence should be an ongoing experience in every Christians life, but I also think that it's important that there was an empty tomb.
Because I consider myself a conservative Christian I tend to agree more with Bishop Wright's portrayal of the historic Jesus than I do Marcus'. In fact I think that the ideas that Marcus shares is the reason that the mainline Christian denominations are losing members in droves. However, since Bishop Wright is an Anglican Bishop it's hard to account for him. It seems to me, as an outsider of the Anglican confession, I think there is a fight for the soul of the Anglican Confession between conservatives and liberal Christians. At least that was the view that I got when the controversy over gay clergy erupted a few years ago. I guess if it's true then Bishop Wright must be in the camp of the conservatives camp.
That being said I enjoyed both of the wrap up chapters that talk about the way that the ideas that were shared should effect the Christian Church and Christian life. That has always been the thing that amazes me about Marcus, I disagree with everything he says except about the way he says that a Christian should live. I guess I could disagree with a few points that he has but overall I very much like what he has to say about living the Christian life.
Marcus agrees with the findings of the critical scholars for the last 200 years as he constantly refrains. He also claims to want to find a Jesus that is able to fit in with the modern world. The question I always wonder about this is does he realize that if he were alive 100 years ago, or 50 years ago the findings of the critical scholars were very much different/mistaken about a lot of things. Does that mean Marcus would have different views about Jesus depending upon the most current ideas about Jesus Scholarship? That's just something that I can't countenance, a changeable Jesus, and that is all that critical scholarship gives you is changes.
Here is the state of critical Jesus Scholarship as I understand it. The Gospel of Mark came first. It's the shortest and seems to make the least amounts of claims for Jesus' divinity. Matthew used Mark as a source and expanded it to beef up Jesus' credentials. Luke used Mark and Matthew to again beef up Jesus' credentials. So here's what they're asking people to swallow.
1) Jesus was just another great teacher, or healer or whatever.
2)After he died his followers got together and make up stories so that he would appear to be more fantastic and people would believe that he was the divine Son of God.
However, what these people never answer, and Bishop Wright asks this question, is why would the followers of Jesus ever make this decision? That's not how any other messianic movement, or any other movement, ever works. When the leader is killed after making fantastic claims he is dropped as a movement leader and the followers look for other leaders or disband. Sometimes a leader that accomplishes a lot during his or her lifetime he is honored after their death, but they have to accomplish something, and usually they have many years of leadership under their belt. One recent example of this might be Ronald Reagan who is now a conservative political icon (and probably looks much better in retrospect than he actually was), but he was in politics for over 30 years and rose to the pinnacle of his profession and did things like spearhead an economic resurgence, and rebuilt the military and restored their honor. Buddha was a religious leader for 30 years and had created a following of monks called the sangha that followed and recorded his teachings. Mohammad, if he existed, was a military, political leader, and prophets for over 30 years and built up the ummah to follow after him and they recorded his life and teachings. Jesus didn't do anything like that. According to the synoptic gospels he was active for about a year, and in John he was active for maybe 3 years, then he was killed by the Romans as a traitor, by crucifixion the worst thing that could happen to a Jew. Why in the world would anyone follow such a person, especially when, by their own admission, they all scattered after Jesus' death, which is the natural thing to do and to be expected? There is no reason: unless there was a real resurrection, and other miracles to testify of Christ's divinity. Of course since there is no answer, except the obvious that Jesus really was the Son of God and a miracle worker, no one tries to answer it, they just come up with things that could possibly have happened and say this is the best idea that we can come up with and leave it at that.
This is a good book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in two divergent views of Jesus.
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