Quotes from Marcus J. Borg

I am not among the relatively few scholars who think that only that which is historically factual matters.

Oberammergau in Bavaria.

Two statements about the nature of the gospels are crucial for grasping the historical task: (1) They are a developing tradition. (2) They are a mixture of history remembered and history metaphorized. Both statements are foundational to the historical study of Jesus and Christian origins, and both need explaining

Moreover, the traditions about Jesus grew because the experience of the risen living Christ within the community shaped perceptions of Jesus' ultimate identity and significance.

Given all of life's ambiguities and the reality of impermanence and suffering, our existence is remarkable, wondrous. It evokes awe and amazement. We need to pay attention. Really pay attention. Lest we become blind to the awe and wonder that fills our days.

But Easter means that the powers of this world do not have the last word.

Jesus was deeply affected and concerned about the sufferings and inequities of his day. So much so that he dedicated his entire life to the welfare of others.

And I took it for granted that he knew all of these things about himself.

Moreover, I thought of him as having the mind and power of God. It was because he had a divine mind that he knew things and could speak with authority. Because he had divine power, he could do spectacular deeds such as multiplying loaves and walking on water.

Biblical inerrancy and the absolute authority of the Bible are thus a post-Reformation Protestant development. The first time the Bible was described as "inerrant" and "infallible" was in a book of Protestant theology written in the second half of the 1600s. Widespread affirmation of biblical inerrancy is even more recent, largely the product of the past one hundred years.

To affirm that Jesus is the decisive revelation of God does not require affirming that he is the only, or only adequate, revelation of God. Christians have sometimes thought so.

To put this second claim somewhat differently, the world of Spirit and the world of ordinary experience are seen as not completely separate, but as intersecting at a number of points.

A person who knows himself to be the divinely begotten Son of God (and even the second person of the Trinity) and who has divine knowledge and power is not a real human being. Because he is more than human, he is not fully human.

God is the one in whom "we live and move and have our being."6 Notice how the language works. Where are we in relation to God? We are in God; we live in God, move in God, have our being in God. God is not "out there," but "right here," all around us.

But the claim does mean that for us, as Christians, Jesus is the decisive revelation of God, and of what a life full of God is like. Indeed, I see this as the defining characteristic that makes us Christian rather than something else.

If we found the decisive revelation of God in the Torah or in the Koran, then we would be Jews or Muslims. But to be Christian is to affirm, "Here, in Jesus, I see more clearly than anywhere else what God is like.

John Dominic Crossan wrote in the concluding chapter, "Mine Eyes Decline the Glory," of his wonderful memoir, A Long Way From Tipperary [2000]. I'll just read this:

Classic Jewish monotheism, then, believed, first, that there was one God, who created heaven and earth and who remained in close and dynamic relation with his creation; and, second, that this God had called Israel to be his special people.

The first passion of Jesus was the kingdom of God, namely, to incarnate the justice of God by demanding for all a fair share of a world belonging to and ruled by the covenantal God of Israel

The change in my worldview has made it possible for me once again to take God seriously. I am convinced that the sacred is real.

5.  One text, though, does speak of a man's "womb" being moved: Genesis 43.30.

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them; so would I learn to attain free fall and float into Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.3

Paul is our earliest New Testament author. All of his genuine letters were written before any of the gospels; his earliest ones are from around the year 50, and they predate Mark by about twenty years. Yet Paul says relatively little about the historical Jesus, so he is not a major source.

Jesus's vivid experience of the reality of Spirit radically challenges our culture's way of seeing reality.