Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

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	• Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary Marcus J. Borg HarperOne, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Magisterial Work

For twenty five years Marcus Borg has shared his understanding of Jesus and his relevance to our world. This book is his magesterial work. Exploring the different versions of the story of Jesus doiminant among Christians today, he presents what he terms an "emerging paradigm" as the lens for seeing and understanding the life of Jesus as shaped by the character of God as justice and compassion.The climax of the book focuses on the message and activity of Jesus challenging the political, economic and social domination system of his day and our day.

Jesus the Radical Hippie

Marcus Borg has done it again. He has painted Jesus in the kitschy clothes of a communist radical. There are many interpretations of what Jesus was up to in first century Palestine and Borg, like most of the Jesus Seminarians, seems to think Jesus was trying to start a new movement of radical inclusiveness and self-acceptance instead of being the fulcrum of history which I believe he is.

There is an author named N.T. Wright that Borg coauthored a book with called "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions." When I read the book I was firmly rooted in Borg's brand of Christianity. I glanced at Wright's work and remember that it was very dense.

Fast forward to this year, I've been reading a lot of Wright and he puts more flesh onto Jesus bones than Borg does.

Borg paints with broad strokes a five point sketch that he's written of in other works. It is interesting but he also considers Jesus an illiterate Jewish peasant when the bible actually speaks of Jesus reading a scroll from the Hebrew Bible.

This current book makes Jesus into a preacher of the social gospel. Which is all well and good but it doesn't address the calling Jesus felt or what he really believed.

I recommend N.T. Wright's "The Challenge of Jesus" for a good counterpoint to this work.

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Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

I found this book by Borg to be interesting, and very useful when teaching my Senior High Sunday School Class.
We have been discussing the miracles and parables of Jesus and [the kids] are also wrestling with whether they think/ feel that Christ has to be a god, god/ like, or a gifted human being for him to be meaningful to them.
Have several by Borg, and also am a fan of the literary inventions about Christ's life... such as Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and several lessor ones about the Shroud and some of the religious articles saved by the Knights Templar. All of these books help me build an historic image of the times and life of Christ.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to study secular history as much as religious history.
For those interested, the students have pretty much decided that Jesus was a full human Pre-Easter [Borg's definitions] and became god-like Post-Easter.

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An insight driven book

This particular book was outstanding. Very clear and simple Borg did not use cloudy or unclear language. You could tell he had a huge systematic model of how he views Christianity and the world at large. He does not appeal to any radical or extreme vision of what Jesus was like (although some circles could i guess could see it that way). The best aspect of his writing for me was his ability to honor many perspectives without really belittling any of them. He could clearly state big visions while not excluding other peoples visions. This kind of writing brings people and the wisdom traditions together rather then ripping them apart. Bravo!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

From top Jesus expert Marcus Borg, a completely updated and revised version of his vision of Jesus?as charismatic healer, sage, and prophet, a man living in the power of the spirit and dedicated to radical social change.

Fully revised and updated, this is Borg's major book on the historial Jesus. He shows how the Gospel portraits of Jesus, historically seen, make sense. Borg takes into account all the recent developments in historical Jesus scholarship, as well as new theories on who Jesus was and how the Gospels reflect that.

The original version of this book was published well before popular fascination with the historical Jesus. Now this new version takes advantage of all the research that has gone on since the 80s. The revisions establish it as Borg's big but popular book on Jesus.

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