Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104258 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Synopsis
Argues that recent research into the historical Jesus should help believers reach a new and more sustaining faith.

Customer Reviews

Heresy to the bigot, fresh water to the disillusioned
It's easy for the evangelical-educated eye to see what those of young or narrow christian faith find offensive in Borg's accessible and readable book. Still, such views also miss the point in insightful humour like "Life of Brian" and social comment like "Brass Eye" (on British TV).

Borg tries to paint a word-picture of the real Jesus, asking what he personally taught and believed and what, based on his own sayings, lay at the heart of his ministry. The distinction is made between the pre-Easter Jesus - the flesh-and-blood man who taught by word and deed - and the post-Easter Christ, the focus of organisation of the new christian church. Borg asserts that Jesus' own view was of the need for compassion derived from a daily experience of the living God rather than legalistic purity derived from the rules of the religious status quo. He bravely asserts that Jesus was less concerned about what people believed than about how they allowed the rule of the Spirit and of compassion in their lives.

His careful, educated and well-supported analysis leads the tired christian to a new view of Jesus that can reinvigorate faith without demanding the legalistic focus of either liturgy or dogma. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has been involved in the christian church but grown weary of the limited scope of evangelicalism yet knows that God is and that the Hound of Heaven continues to pursue them. There are things to agree with, things to disagree with but the style is gentle and you, after all, are an adult who can make up your own mind...

A Radical New Way of Looking At Jesus
This book is aimed at any Christian whose belief has grown stale. The author describes a radical new way of looking at Jesus which may appeal to anybody who is sincere in a desire to grow in Christ but feels hopelessly stuck with an unsatisfactory image of Jesus.

An excellent introduction to recent scholarship for lay rdrs
Borg's book develops a powerful intellectual claim about the nature of the historical Jesus. His arguments reveal a Jesus who speaks not of a promised hereafter but who instead develops a powerful, radical critique of his own culture. Borg recovers a Jesus whose message was not about himself ("I am the way and the light") and the end of the world but about the renewal of the world through faith in our common humanity. The book seems to me to offer modern agnostics, fed up with the religious right and its claims for a God who damns sinners and rewards the conservative faithful, a new vision free of the superstitions of 2000 years. Borg's vision allows for the complexities that the right rejects. No need to check your intellect at the door: Borg, a New Testament scholar at Oregon State and a member of the Jesus Seminar, challenges the reader to read-and to believe--with reason and passion. It's an excellent book aimed at a general readership. Borg's _Jesus: A New Vision_ incorporates many of the same arguments made here, and I hope that he plans an in-depth, scholarly treatment of these materials. I begin to wonder if every member of the Jesus Seminar was writing a book in the course of the discussions, given the torrent of recent tomes: Borg's is the clearest and most convincing voice to emerge yet.