Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship

by Marcus J. Borg

An accessible guide through the growing maze of literature and research on Jesus. Examines issues in contemporary Jesus research and looks at the potential of current research for helping rethink Jesus' identity and the implications for the reader and the church.

Genres: Religion

209 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1994

About the author

Borg was born into a Lutheran family of Swedish and Norwegian descent, the youngest of four children. He grew up in the 1940s in North Dakota and attended Concordia College, Moorhead, a small liberal arts school in Moorhead, Minnesota. While at Moorhead he was a columnist for the school paper and held forth as a conservative. After a close reading of the Book of Amos and its overt message of social equality he immediately began writing with an increasingly liberal stance and was eventually invited to discontinue writing his articles due to his new-found liberalism. He did graduate work at Union Theological Seminary and obtained masters and DPhil degrees at Oxford under G. B. Caird. Anglican bishop N.T. Wright had studied under the same professor and many years later Borg and Wright were to share in co-authoring The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, an amicable study in contrast. Following a period of religious questioning in his mid-thirties, and numinous experiences similar to those described by Rudolf Otto, Borg became active in the Episcopal Church, in which his wife, the Reverend Canon Marianne Wells-Borg, serves as a priest and directs a spiritual development program at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland, Oregon. On May 31, 2009, Borg was installed as the first canon theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

Marcus J. Borg is Canon Theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, OR. Internationally known in both academic and church circles as a biblical and Jesus scholar, he was Hundere Chair of Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University until his retirement in 2007.

Described by The New York Times as "a leading figure in his generation of Jesus scholars," he has appeared on NBC's "Today Show" and “Dateline,” PBS's "Newshour," ABC’s “Evening News” and “Prime Time” with Peter Jennings, NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, and several National Geographic programs. A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, he has been national chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and co-chair of its International New Testament Program Committee, and is past president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. His work has been translated into eleven languages: German, Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, and French. His doctor's degree is from Oxford University, and he has lectured widely overseas (England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Israel and South Africa) and in North America, including the Chautauqua and Smithsonian Institutions.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A KEY FIGURE IN THE "JESUS SEMINAR" SUMMARIZES MODERN "THIRD QUEST" SCHOLARSHIP

Marcus J. Borg (born 1942) is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, and former Professor at Oregon State University before his retirement in 2007; he has written/cowritten/edited many other books, such as 'Jesus: a New Vision,' 'Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time,' 'Jesus at 2000,' 'The Meaning Of Jesus - Two Visions,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1994 book, "The last fifteen years have seen a revitalization of the academic discipline of Jesus scholarship... A third quest of the historical Jesus is underway, replacing the old quest of the nineteenth century and the short-lived 'new quest' of the late 1950s and early 1960s... The essays in this volume ... speak of central directions, results, and questions within the discipline. In them, I report much of what has been happening in Jesus scholarship since 1980 and engage in a dialogue with it... The essays reflect two facts about Jesus. He is the subject of research by scholars working within the framework of the secular academy. He is also the central figure in a living religion. In various ways and to varying degrees, Jesus matters to Christians." (Pg. ix)

He recounts, "[A conviction] dominated the period of 'no quest.' The minimalist picture of Jesus' message that could be recovered was eschatological: Jesus expected and proclaimed the imminent end of the world. The eschatological core of his message was then made relevant by filtering it through an existentialist hermeneutic...

"The period of Jesus scholarship known as the 'new quest' did not really change this state of affairs. Inaugurated by Ernst Käsemann in a lecture presented in 1953 [reprinted in Essays on New Testament Themes], the 'new quest' quickly produced two book-length studies: Gunther Bornkamm's 'Jesus of Nazareth' and James Robinson's 'A New Quest of the Historical Jesus.'.. What made it 'new' was a theological concern: the question of the degree of continuity between the message of Jesus and the preaching of the early church." (Pg. 4-5)

Of the Jesus Seminar, he says, "Not only are its results interesting, but its twice-a-year multi-day meetings provide an extraordinary stimulus to scholarship. Though best known for its controversial procedure of voting on the sayings of Jesus... It is the first collaborative systematic examination of the entire Jesus tradition ever undertaken, unprecedented in the history of scholarship." (Pg. 6)

He argues, "It is important to realize how central the coming Son of man sayings are... Without them, there is very little in all the gospels which would lead us to think that Jesus expected the end of the world soon. The notion that Jesus did proclaim the end flows from the connection made in the texts between the 'coming Son of man' and 'supernatural' end-time phenomena such as the last judgment, the sending of the angels, the clouds of heaven... and the falling of the stars. If one did not think these sayings were authentic, most of the exegetical foundation for the eschatological Jesus would disappear." (Pg. 52)

He adds, "Nor do I deny the element of crisis running through the synoptics. But the crisis is not the imminent end of the world... Rather, the crisis is the end of the world of conventional wisdom as a basis for existence, as well as the threatened end of the 'social world' of Judaism..." (Pg. 59)

This is an excellent summary of recent Jesus scholarship, that will be of great interest to anyone studying the historical Jesus.

[Maxwell DeMay · Rating 4 out of 5]

1 / 4 : If your kind of thing, read

[Our pre-Easter Jesus might be less apocalyptic than once believed.]

A collection of essays contextualizing where the then-isolated scholarly pursuit of an "historical Jesus" stood in the 1990s. It might just be nostalgia, as Borg was the first theologian I was introduced to, but I find he writes in a sensible style, with a non-condescending stab at the vernacular.

"Root Images and the Way We See" probably could've been dropped from the collection. Got a little different there for a second.

[Zach Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of Borg's best work. Even after his death, Borg's scholarship is reclaiming the historical Jesus from the death trap of Albert Schweitzer, and is giving an informed, faithful alternative to the magical, pie-in-the-sky Jesus of fundamentalist evangelical writing. Highly recommended.

[Rick Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borg is at his persuasive best in this volume that dates back to 1993, a revision of a 1989 first edition. For me it was helpful in providing an overview of the very significant developments in Jesus historical studies in the almost two decades following my completion of seminary. He presents the evidence sustaining a third-phase historical Jesus (Renan et al were phase 1, Schweitzer phase 2) that came after six or seven decades during which the quest of the historical Jesus had quiesced. The new tools that had become available to supplement historical critical textual studies were those of socio-economic analysis. They permitted placement of Jesus and the movement he gathered within the framework of a far more nuanced take on ancient politics and culture than had been available to previous generations of scholars. In very brief summary, Borg concludes that Jesus was a "spirit-man" of the popular classes who propounded a subversive, alternate wisdom and a program of social and personal transformation. It's a fascinating overview, and I highly recommend it.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays, some more technical than others. If you are hard core history nut like me, you might like it, but it is not for everyone.