|
Review Summary: Essential Reading |
Date: 2007-01-03 |
|
| |
Details: John Shelby Spong is an Episcopal Bishop and the author of several books, among them Born of a Woman, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, and This Hebrew Lord. In the current book Spong examines the most minute details about the Resurrection in an attempt to re-visit the "Easter" story that is at the core of Christianity. Spong's unique contribution to this analysis is his deep familiarity with Hebrew literature and the midrash tradition, the lens through which the all Jewish people of the first century interpreted the gospels.
Part One (Chapters 1-3) is a 40+ page introduction to the study of the gospels, the use of words, and the midrash method. Part Two (Chapters 4-9) is a detailed study of each of the gospels as well as the epistles of Paul. Part Three examines some of the major images present in the Resurrection story (e.g., the suffering servant, the son of man. In Part Four (Chapters 14-18) Spong provides his own interpretation of what the gospels really say, and in Part Five he provides us with an idea of what the resurrection story means to him on a personal level.
This book is a monumental work of scholarship and it will completely revise your idea about biblical research as well as the story of the resurrection. Literalists beware, this is not the book for you. But anyone with an open mind who has ever questioned the inconsistencies in the gospel accounts (e.g., did Jesus appear to the disciples in Galilee or in Jerusalem? Did one, two,three or more women go to the tomb?) or wondered about the strange and impossible to explain issues (e.g., cursing the fig tree, the cowardly disciple who becomes the Rock upon which the church is founded) will find this book a true eye opener.
The book is well written, but the notes are sketchy and far too few. There is an extensive bibliography and a detailed index of topics. The book will appeal to beginning students as well as the most advanced scholars.
Bottom line - there is no more engaging or provocative book on the resurrection. This book belongs in everyone's library. |
| |
|
Review Summary: The Resurrection versus Bodily Resuscitation |
Date: 2002-07-25 |
|
|
| |
|
Details: Do not be mislead by those who, upset at the arguments presented here, therefore give this book poor reviews. Spong does not, as they claim, deny the Resurrection. (Neither would Spong ever disrespect the Jewish religion, as one reviewer here seems to do.) Indeed, to deny the Resurrection is to deny Christianity; this Spong agrees. But he does differentiate between the Divine Resurrection and mere bodily resuscitation. Read the book to find out why. |
| |
|
Review Summary: A good read for liberal Christians. |
Date: 2000-06-23 |
|
|
| |
|
Details: This book has an unfortunate title. It must have been titled by the greedy publishing company in an attempt to sell more books. Most of the book doesn't directly address the dilemma "Myth or Reality". The book views the resurrection as the crowning moment for Christianity, but in a larger sense it examines the New Testament gospels as being understood as midrash--a Judaic form of sermon and storytelling. Indeed, one of the obstacles in my faith was the fact that so much that the traditional church views as "history" is merely copying from the Old Testament Torah. Unlike G.A. Wells, or Earl Doherty, Spong does not want to dispel the entire Jesus episode as legend or myth, but rather he wants to distill the non-literal spiritual "truths" of Christ from the sermons that are Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. From those truths, he looks back and reconstructs some historical possibilities, but still doesn't view the historical literalism as a good foundation for faith. All in all, this is a well-written book and will give the reader something new to consider. Although I suppose those who claim the literal resurrection as truth will mark Spong's theology as some sort of modern-day gnosticism, his viewpoint is a good compromise for those of us who find it intellectually irresponsible to view the New Testament as historical. |
| |
|
Review Summary: Spong Answers: Myth AND Reality |
Date: 2000-10-23 |
|
|
| |
Details: Spong attempts to distinguish between the myths surrounding Jesus' "resurrection" and the reality of what he calls "the Easter Moment," which the myths "point to." He quite persuasively reconstructs what may well be the actual sequence of events leading up to and following "The Easter Moment."
Jesus was probably crucified just before, during, or just after the Jewish festival of Passover. If the Jews had any input into the decision to put Jesus to death, their consideration of the matter did NOT occur during Passover. They may have concurred in the decision before Passover, or after Passover, or (most likely) not at all, but it would have been a major scandal for them to consider the question DURING Passover. They would have been horrified at the thought of desecrating the holy days of Passover by conducting such deliberations then, so it can be confidently asserted that they did not do so.
The "Easter Moment," Spong argues, occurred not in Jerusalem, but in the vicinity of Lake Chinnereth (Galilee), quite possibly in a fishing boat on the lake itself. It occurred sometime during the summer following the Crucifixion, or possibly early in the fall.
Read the book to find out who experienced the Easter Moment, and led the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and when.
In the final pages, Spong says that he has led the reader to what he believes is the true beginning of Christianity, and that the reader must now decide for herself (himself) whether to answer as Spong has with a resounding "yes" and accept the reality of the resurrection as he has described it, or to answer "no" and walk away from it. This reader could do neither. While I am convinced that Spong's reconstruction of events is the most plausible account I have found, I cannot feel certain that Spong's interpretation of those events is correct, but neither can I feel certain that it is wrong. Spong's theology is certainly more plausible than the theology of those who insist that the lectionaries of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John are factually inerrant biographies of the life of Jesus. Spong's theology also leads him to "love wastefully" all of humanity, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on. But if Spong's "Christianity" becomes the wave of the future, how can it fail to be distorted and perverted by the commercial purveyors of "Christianity" (the "love Jesus and send me money" crowd), just as Jesus' message of all-embracing love was perverted to justify the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and more recently, the systematic raping of Islamic women in Bosnia?
watziznaym@gmail.com |
| |
|
Review Summary: Notes on: "RESURRECTION: MYTH OR REALITY?" |
Date: 2006-06-19 |
|
|
| |
Details: A common response we may have, after reading some of the radical conclusions reached by modern theologians such as Dr. Spong, is to recoil from their studied analyses. After wading through innumerable arguments that cast doubts on some of the most cherished of our Christian traditions, we often feel as though we'd like to ask them, "All right, if you don't believe all these things, just what is it you do believe?" If many of the things which we have been accustomed to identifying as essential to Christian belief are actually inventions of the early church rather than a heritage from Jesus, just what should define a Christian?
In this book, Bishop Spong reviews evidence that the passion narratives of the New Testament (which were written down from 40 to 70 years after Jesus' crucifixion) represent the views and interpretations that were evolving among fledging Christian communities rather than literal, eye-witness accounts of historical events. However, the passion events have become the basis for creeds of Christian churches; so, asserting that they didn't actually occur can be unsettling, to say the least. For instance, Spong raises the likelihood that Jesus was never placed in an identifiable tomb, there was no Easter morning discovery of an empty tomb, no heavenly messengers proclaiming his divinity, no post-crucifixion physical appearances of Jesus to his disciples and no later ascension witnessed by them.
Thus, none of the events cited by the early evangelists or accepted as dogma by the new church as proofs of Jesus' unique divinity actually occurred, according to Spong. I think we are justified, then, in inquiring whether or not Spong can explain 1) how, 40 years after the fact, most of those who were followers of Jesus accepted those stories as examples of what they believed about Jesus, and 2) how the transformation of the disciples came about from being a band of terrified followers of a shamefully executed leader to becoming the dynamic proponents of a charismatic gospel which declared faith in a God whose love made servitude, pain and even death bearable.
The dogma that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion was a later interpretation, according to Spong. He derives evidence from the scriptures that the disciple's conviction of Jesus' continued presence came to some of the disciples after they had returned to Galilee. It involved Peter as a central figure and was associated strongly with the common meal that Jesus had practiced. It was not related to any definite time period (e.g., 3 days) after the crucifixion and was unrelated to Jesus' burial or tomb, if any. So what could have brought this small band of frightened, leaderless disciples to the conviction of Jesus' continuing presence?
Spong's scenario of transformation goes something like this: Peter, Andrew, James and John return disheartened to Galilee and resume their livelihood of fishing. They share their sorrow and memories and find it comforting to be reminded of their dear friend -- his words, his actions, his stories, his understanding, his empathy. Gradually, or perhaps suddenly, the realization dawns on Peter (or all of them) that Jesus' way of living hasn't ended; Jesus' vitality is palpably present; this sense of power that characterized his life that cured the sick and brought peace to the afflicted could still be felt. Spong believes that Peter first got the insight -- he came to believe that the crucifixion was Jesus' ultimate parable. His death acted out the meaning of God's unconditional love. In giving love, we find love; in giving our lives, we find life. [I also think it is likely that Peter, perhaps in company with other disciples, had an experience not unlike that which led to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. These seminal experiences have occurred in the lives of others and descriptions of many of these were collected by Bucke who used his term for this phenomenon as the name of his book "Cosmic Consciousness". Those familiar with the literature on near death experiences may also recognize a kinship between these personal experiences which have the power to transform behavior.]
Bishop Spong also is convinced that some of the anomalies associated with the reports of the Palm Sunday triumphal procession into Jerusalem disappear if this event had its origin in the oral traditions which arose when Peter and other disciples returned to Jerusalem 6 months after the crucifixion (at the Feast of the Tabernacles) to proclaim "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord", and filled with the good news that Jesus' message and power still lives -- "God is a loving father, not a vengeful rule-maker" [my paraphrase].
If I may add my extension to the Bishop's scenario, I would guess that over the next few decades, as more and more followers found the ring of truth in the good news of the disciples, there were many attempts to put the experiences and convictions of Jesus and the disciples into words. It was inevitable that the most meaningful to the greatest number would have been cast in the thought forms and symbols of the Hebrew heritage.
Bishop Spong begins this book by relating the difficulties he encountered in accepting some of these symbols as literal accounts. One of the most useful insights to him in reconciling these matters was the realization that Hebrew authors writing theological histories of their times interpreted the significance of present events in terms of their relation to past important events. This method is known as Midrash and it is the main criterion for choosing the details worth reporting for any given event. Hebrew history was written to record the acts of God in the affairs of men. So, for example, since God was obviously acting through Moses in parting the Red Sea, when a similar parting of the waters is reported as occurring when Joshua or Elijah or Elisha crossed the Jordan on subsequent occasions, this was the historians' way of certifying in each case that God was at work among his chosen people. Parting of water was a symbol for God's care; it was irrelevant to Hebrew historical tradition whether the physical event had or had not occurred. Modern history is written under an entirely different set of rules. We like to know the who, what, when, where and why of events in factual detail and reasoned exposition, but we need to remind ourselves over and over that these were not of prime importance to the writers of the gospels.
Thus, in constructing histories of Jesus and the early disciples in the latter part of the first century, the paramount task of the evangelists was to evangelize -- to validate Jesus' life and acts by Midrash, citing events in his life that had significant parallels in Hebrew scriptures. If the evangelist felt that Jesus was the Messiah, the savior promised by Micah, then he must be a Davidic savior, born in Bethlehem. Almost all of the stories regarding Jesus' birth can be identified as originating from Midrash. I can not emphasize too often that this association does not mean that the events of gospel narratives are not true -- they express in the manner most appropriate for their authors the truth that God was active in Jesus -- but they open the possibility that we are missing the intended point if our faith depends on believing that they actually occurred.
In order for the good news lived by Jesus to have survived 2000 years, it may have been necessary for faith to develop its interpretations and creeds in just the way it did -- in the symbols and traditions that could be grasped and accepted by those under Roman domination, or by the "barbarians" who brought about the destruction of the Empire, or by the peoples living in the "dark" ages. But Spong points out that many of these traditions and symbols have lost their meaning for children of the Age of Science and it now becomes necessary to search for ways of expressing the truths of Christianity in terms compatible with modern ways of thinking.
My personal view is that we must be willing to separate the essential wheat from the now useless chaff and this type of winnowing is the objective of many modern theologians. We must also realize that our generation is quite literally intoxicated with science in that we have placed our faith only in the scientific method and expect that it is able to provide answers to all our problems and explanations for all our experiences. However, the scientific paradigm requires sharable experiences and any truly personal, unique experience can only be shared to the extent that our words and actions can convey. All other aspects of these experiences fall outside of scientific reliability, no matter how internally convincing the experience is to us. There are intriguing scattered findings that lead me to be increasingly convinced that human beings are evolving other faculties of apprehension and understanding. We perceive them in the nature of insights, imaginations, ideas and inspirations that come to us outside of "normal" sensory channels and are for the most part independent of being able to be put into words.
Rational analysis itself should lead us to conclude that it would be naive of us indeed to expect that this recently evolved human capacity for rational analysis was alone sufficient to explain all the varieties of experience that might possibly exist in our immense universe or that might impinge on our awareness. Poets tell us that life is a many-splendored thing and experiences such as cosmic consciousness or the disciples certainty about the empowering presence of Jesus might reasonably be argued to be intimations of other, more inclusive realms of reality of which we can become aware. |
| |
|
out of 37 Reviews
