Jesus:
Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance
of a Religious Revolutionary
byvMarcus Borg
Harper SanFrancisco, 2006
commentary
by John Tintera
The
New York Times recently reported the issuance by the Vatican
of renewed warnings against the works of John Sobrino, a “proponent
of liberation theology” based in El Salvador. The liberation
theology movement, which has given us such wonderful catch phrases
as “the preferential option for the poor” and inspired
the passionate works of modern saints like Oscar Romero, began in
Latin America in the late 50s and has gained momentum since the
Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council in the early 60s.
While
Catholic Church officials claim that the movement’s efforts
to relieve the sufferings of the poor and oppressed and to change
the societal structures that breed inequality are built upon Marxist
ideology, members believe that their work is just as inspired by
the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. One
need have only a cursory knowledge of the Gospels to know that Jesus
got into a lot of trouble with the religious authorities of his
day for associating with social outcasts, predicting a time when
the last shall be first and the first last, and disrupting the temple
in Jerusalem. By the same token, Jesus is also quoted
in the Gospels as saying “I am the way, the truth, and the
life.”
The
question at the heart of the debate over liberation theology is
“Who is Jesus and what is he all about?” In his latest
book, Marcus Borg gives perhaps the most inclusive and comprehensive
summation to date of what two centuries of Biblical scholarship
have to say about this important matter.
The
cover art for Borg’s new book —Jesus: Uncovering
the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary—features
a photograph of the famous statue of “Christ the Redeemer”
in Rio de Janeiro encased in scaffolding. Just as the giant statue
was built by dozens of workers who pooled their skills and talents,
scholars like Borg have shared their research with one another in
an effort to get to the heart of Jesus’ life and mission.
The results of this centuries-long project are just now starting
to leak into the general consciousness. In the end, the research
suggests that the Roman Catholic Church ought to go a little easier
on liberation theology.
In
the words of Marcus Borg:
Jesus
was from the peasant class. Clearly, he was brilliant. His use
of language was remarkable and poetic, filled with images and
stories. He had a metaphoric mind. He was not an ascetic, but
world-affirming, with a zest for life. There was a sociopolitical
passion to him—like a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, he
challenged the domination system of his day. He was a religious
ecstatic, a Jewish mystic, for whom God was an experiential reality.
As such, Jesus was also a healer. And there seems to have been
a spiritual presence around him, like that of St. Francis or the
present Dalai Lama. And as a figure of history, Jesus was an ambiguous
figure—you could experience him and conclude that he was
insane, as his family did, or that he was simply eccentric or
that he was a dangerous threat—or you could conclude that
he was filled with the spirit of God. [p164]
After
reading Borg’s book, I am convinced that this is what the
historical Jesus was all about. Perhaps even more significant, however,
is the evidence that Jesus never spoke of himself as being the Son
of God during his lifetime. To drive the point home, Borg explains
the differences between the pre- and post-Easter Jesus—the
Jesus of history and the Jesus of the Nicene Creed. As a believer,
what makes this book doubly exciting is that Borg accepts outright
and proclaims by faith both the pre-Easter and the post-Easter Jesus.
I know of no other major historian who does this.
To
anyone who has studied modern hermeneutics, there will be few surprises
here. Borg is fully in the camp of the “two source”
theory of the synoptic gospels, which states that Mark was written
first and that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a primary source,
in addition to a collection of Jesus’ sayings that no longer
exists. This position holds that most of what we can know about
the historical Jesus can only be found in these three Gospels. The
corollary to this theory is that little in John’s Gospel should
be thought of as factually having occurred. As I mentioned, Borg
also accepts the methodology scholars use to figure out which of
the sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus in the synoptics most
likely happened. It’s too much to go into here, but academics
have developed strict criteria with which they evaluate each event.
The result is a portrait of Jesus as a revolutionary reformer who
used non-violent methods to raise consciousness about injustice
and who proclaimed a radically inclusive vision of God’s kingdom.
At
the outset, Borg states that Jesus will be his last major
work and that his intention is to sum up everything he has come
to believe about the historical Jesus after 40 years of study and
contemplation. In the course of the book, Borg treats
his readers to a lively vision of the Nazarene who is both passionate
and compassionate. At the same time, he reveals the scholarly processes
he relies on for discerning the truth about Jesus. The result is
a book that is both learned and engaging. One comes away from it
with a fresh love for its subject and a fresh appreciation for the
men and women whose scholarship made possible this wonderful synthesis.
For
those who struggle, as many of us do, with such post-Easter concepts
as the blood atonement for human sin, Jesus retaining his physical
human body in heaven, or the notion that he went around saying things
like “I am the sheepfold,” Borg’s book will be
a breath of fresh air. And yet, the book is also about Jesus, the
Christ—the post-Easter Jesus who Borg clearly loves and experiences
in his own life today. The Christ—the resurrected Jesus who
the disciples experienced by the Sea of Tiberias, who appeared on
the road to Emmaus, and who lives within us as God’s expression
of love incarnate—is different than the man studied in the
academy. Borg’s explanation of the living Christ, along with
his portrait of the historical Jesus, captures as well as anything
I’ve read the reason why 2000 years later we are still building
huge statues of adoration in places around the world. Indeed, Borg
shows us that there is room at the table of Christ for the liberation
theologians and those who hold dearly the doctrine of Christ’s
divinity.
Copyright
©2007 John Tintera
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