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Marcus J. Borg
Excerpt from "Me & Jesus: The Journey Home" "In seminary itself, I had planned to focus on social ethics. To my surprise, Jesus moved center stage, thanks to a New Testament course my first semester... the course focused on Jesus and the synoptic gospels, and I was there exposed to the central claims of modern gospel scholarship... "The effect was, for me, dramatic. I realized that the image of Jesus from my childhood -- the popular image of Jesus as the divine savior who knew himself to be the Son of God and who offered up his life for the sins of the world -- was not historically true. Moreover, I learned that scholars had been saying this for almost two hundred years. "This mind-boggling realization was based on the understanding of the gospels that has developed during the last two centuries. I learned that the gospels were neither divine nor particularly historical. They were not, as I had thought, 'divine products' inspired directly by God, whose contents therefore were to be 'believed.' And they were not 'eyewitness accounts' written by people who knew Jesus and who sought to report what they had seen and heard... "From that first semester came
some central awarenesses about Jesus and the gospels. These realizations
were, I think, the 'common property' of most of us doing graduate work
in the 1960s. Several remain foundational to my work on Jesus, though
some have fallen away. "1. The gospels are not primarily history, but 'proclamation'... "2. The oldest parts of the gospel tradition are Q (a collection of sayings) and Mark (the oldest narrative). "3. The gospel of John is highly symbolic and essentially not historical. "4. Even the material in the synoptic gospels is the product of a long process of development, shaped by Christian communities during the time of oral transmission, and further redacted by the evangelists. Using them as historical sources for Jesus is thus difficult. "The next six realizations were about Jesus himself: "5. Most (perhaps all) of the 'exalted titles' by which Jesus is known in the Christian tradition do not go back to Jesus himself. He did not speak of or think of himself as 'the Son of God,' or as 'one with the Father,' or as 'the light of the world,' or as 'the way, the truth, and the life,' or as 'the savior of the world.' Only two 'exalted titles' might possibly go back to him: 'messiah' (about which 'cutting edge' scholarly opinion seemed to be negative), and 'Son of man' (see '9' below). "6. It follows that Jesus message was not about himself or the importance of believing in him. "7. Jesus was an eschatological figure. He expected 'the end of the world' in his own generation. This expectation was quite literal, involving the coming of the Kingdom of God 'in power,' the gathering of the elect, and judgment. This expectation was central, not peripheral, to shaping and animating Jesus' ministry and message. This point, along with the next three, has fallen away as a foundation to my work. "8. His central message was the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, understood eschatologically. "9. Jesus also spoke of 'the coming of the Son of man,' whose advent would be associated with end of the world events. Scholars were divided about whether he was referring to himself (that is, to his own future role), or whether he was speaking about a figure other than himself (that is, though he expected 'the coming of the Son of man,' he did not identify himself with that figure). "10. Finally, we cannot know much about Jesus. Any very specific claim about him is highly problematic."
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Nationally
and internationally known in both academic and church circles, Marcus
Borg is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books, including