Product Description

Urges readers to embrace both science and faith, using Old and New Testament texts to show how this is possible, and explaining how such stories serve as a vital teaching tool for exploring one's relationship with God and Jesus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137071 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

Uplifting Experience
Borg repeats some of the opinions he has given in previous books. Most important is that being Christian is not about believing in the Bible or about believing in Christianity. It is instead about having a relationship with the God to whom the Bible points. The Bible itself contains a combination of history and metaphor. Critical thinking allows the reader to integrate the Bible stories into a larger whole. Although the Bible speaks with many voices, a major theme throughout is the conflict between the royal theology of pharaohs, kings and caesars and the prophetic protest against it by Moses, the prophets, Jesus, Paul and John of Patmos.

Borg never fails to provide an uplifting experience for me. It helps that he writes with so much clarity.

A God of Justice and Compassion
READING THE BIBLE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME gives the reader a fresh look at the Scriptures. Borg points out that the gospels make extraordinary claims about Jesus such as that He is one with God and the revelation of God. Jesus lifts the Christian out of death and into life. The Christian, according to Borg, can make such claims without saying that God is known only through Jesus.

Borg states the Bible can teach us that God is not only real, but knowable and He is a God of justice and compassion. Furthermore, our lives can be made whole by living in a conscious relationship with the mystery of the Lord. The latter is the most important benefit we can receive from reading the Bible again with a new outlook.

Social and Political Protest in the Ancient World
In many ways this book has the feel of a history of social and political protest in the ancient world. Borg's emphasis on what he refers to as 'opposition to systems of domination' is repeated often and he points out in his chapter on Paul that Christianity is the only major religion whose two most influential personalities were put to death by established authority. The clear implication then is that the messages of Jesus and Paul may be very threatening to systems of domination.