The Last Week Quotes

“Importantly, the issue as we describe the wealthy and powerful is not whether they—in our case, the Jerusalem authorities centered in the temple—were “corrupt,” if by that we mean an individual failing. As individuals, the wealthy and powerful can be good people—responsible, honest, hard-working, faithful to family and friends, interesting, charming, and good-hearted. The issue is not their individual virtue or wickedness, but the role they played in the domination system. They shaped it, enforced it, and benefited from it. The high priest and the temple authorities”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

“The risen Jesus opens up the meaning of scripture. The risen Jesus is known in the sharing of bread. The risen Jesus journeys with us, whether we know it or not. There are moments in which we do come to know him and recognize him. This story is the metaphoric condensation of several years of early Christian thought into one parabolic afternoon.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

“We emphasize and cannot emphasize enough one point about this very, very prominent theme in Mark. His story of failed discipleship is his warning gift to all who ever hear or read his narrative. We must think of Lent today as a penitential season because we know that, like those first disciples, we would like to avoid the implications of this journey with Jesus. We would like its Holy Week conclusion to be about the interior rather than the exterior life, about heaven rather than earth, about the future rather than the present, and, above all else, about religion safely and securely quarantined from politics. Confronting violent political power and unjust religious collaboration is dangerous in most times and most places, first century and twenty-first century alike.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

“For Mark, it is about participation with Jesus and not substitution by Jesus.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

“Oberammergau in Bavaria.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem

“The first passion of Jesus was the kingdom of God, namely, to incarnate the justice of God by demanding for all a fair share of a world belonging to and ruled by the covenantal God of Israel”
― Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem