I first read the Bible cover-to-cover on my own as a youngster. This was probably not a good thing, as I mostly came away with an impression of an Angry God. And I certainly was in no position to understand at the tender age of 11 the cultural background of the world of the Hebrews or Jesus.
The trouble is that in some ways reading about the life of Christ is a bit like reading a mystery. Sure you can read the book again, but you already know whodunit the next time you go back to it, and having that knowledge changes the way you see things from then on. "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time" has clarified for me the difference between pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus. Before this when I reread the Gospels and looked over what Jesus said or did prior to his death and resurrection, I looked at it as though He was the post-Easter Godly Jesus the entire time, that He was always God right from the get-go. Now I am looking at Him more in the sense of His humanity as it was recorded in the first 3 gospels. When I stop to think about it, I expect He was a pretty normal kid, and I am not sure that He really saw Himself as God as that point waiting around to be worshipped. Rather I do think He was very much a man constantly in touch with His Father, so I am giving more consideration to the example He set where he showed me how to live and how to be in touch with the Father all the time. (Or at least try to be.)
Also, as a woman who was raised in a Baptist church, I was always hurt and angry at the way women seemed to be second class citizens, and folks always seemed to back up the reason for this with Scripture. But Borg's book showed me that there was a possibility that God has a feminine side (His Wisdom or Sophia) and that this idea of femininity was dropped in translations made from the Greek texts. Perhaps that does not mean much to some, but to a girl who heard most of her life how everything was Eve's (and therefore women in general) fault, it meant a lot to me.
I also appreciated Borg's information about purity codes and particularly about how Jesus confronted the Pharisees about their mile long lists of who was ok and who was not and how badly they treated those on the "not ok" list. I can see that this type of thinking is still present in many churches today, which is too bad. A relationship with God should not be about following rules, rules, and more rules but rather about his Grace. I wish I had known this years ago, so that I might have actually _felt_ God before now.
So I would recommend this book to people who feel that they are just going through the motions at church (or have given up on church altogether) but could use some fresh insight to get their search for God jumpstarted again. It's also good for folks who are just starting out on the path of Biblical scholarship. However, people who believe the Bible is inerrant may be uncomfortable with some of the ideas presented in this book. It doesn't mean they should not pick it up, but they should be forewarned that they may find their beliefs tested.
But the criteria by which Borg judges whether or not a given teaching really is from Jesus are shaky. Does the "Gospel" of Thomas have anything of value to say about the life of Jesus? I doubt it. Why does Borg assume that only material from the Christian "tradition" before 60 A.D. can be trusted? If I were to write about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, at a chronological distance equivalent to 93 AD, I could easily find eyewitnesses. Why should it have been so much harder for the Gospel writers in 70 AD?
Borg's chief weakness may be his habit of working alternatives into what look like false dichotomies, or trichotomies: holiness versus compassion, individual versus political virtue, "belief" versus "action" versus "becoming." (Why not all three? "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength!") Borg's method of exegesis is often to exagerrate one element in Jesus' teaching, then make that a principle by which to exclude other elements.
Borg identifies JS pronouncements with the "scholarly consensus." But many first rank scholars (Wright, Hays, Johnson, Meier, Jenkins, and others) find the JS way of working quite flawed.
Borg writes of "pre-critical" and "post-critical" naivitee; but he shows a great deal of what might be called "unidirectional" naivitee. He explains how, as a young man, he discovered Biblical criticism and lost his faith. He later recovered a faith, which, like John Blofeld's faith in the bodhissatva Guan Yin, seemed to have "nothing to do with belief." The problem is, while he learned to treat the Gospels critically, his seminary professors did not seem to teach him to treat their own ideas the same way. Thus, he makes little mention of another kind of Christian that might be called the "post-critical believer" -- the Christian who has read Borg, Crossan, Pagels, Mack, and more radical critics, and come to the conclusion that their methods and conclusions are badly mistaken -- not on theological, but on historical grounds.
We post-critical believers can only feel marginalized and a bit ghostly, not finding ourselves among Borg's typology of believers.
Borg also attempts to tie the radical compassion of Jesus to his alleged identity as a "spirit person" who experienced mystical unity with God: "There is an intrinsic connection between the boundary-shattering experience of Spirit and the boundary-shattering ethics of compassion."
As a student of world religions, I think not. "All we shamans know that the spirits are happiest when we kill people," one Yamonamo Indian is quoted as saying; and certainly the most active spiritism can coexist with the most brutal denigration of women. East Indian advedic gurus and tantric Buddhists often rigidly oppress their followers, and a rich heritage of mystical science did not prevent India fromo sinking into a sinkhole of caste and gender oppression. In fact, the true source of reform and breaking down of social boundaries has far more often come from a strict monotheism -- among the Jewish prophets, Chinese sages like Confucius, the anti-slave movements in the Middle Ages and the Modern West, and even in India and Japan.
In the end, as Dr. Borg shares his own story, he seems rather lost to me, following a "Jesus" who is a worthy enough sage, but incapable of inspiring the joyous songs he recalls with tears from his childhood. I feel for him. I think he is quite mistaken about the Gospels. The more I study world religions, the more I am persuaded that Jesus is the Lord of life, who died for the sins of the world, and rose from the dead. I think an honest assessment of the evidence leaves that as the most realistic assessment. I am tempted to echo Dr. Borg's own words, and say, "Dr. Borg, come home, and meet Jesus again, for the first time."
author, Jesus and the Religions of Man / christthetao@msn.com
