The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem
Book Review: A Holy Week Reader
Summary: 3 Stars
I just finished reading The Last Week as a daily reader during Holy Week. Unlike some readers, I really did not find it to be great. Borg and Crossan do a great job in unearthing the political tensions behind the events of Holy Week. This sheds a new light on Jesus' final week in Jerusalem. However, I kept wondering why a rebel against the Roman authority should be the center of our Christian belief. In overemphasizing the political Jesus, I really felt that Borg and Crossan de-emphasized the spiritual Jesus to too great a degree. If Jesus was no more than he is made out to be in The Last Week, he is not worth following.
I am glad to have a deeper understanding of the political Jesus, but am equally glad to experience the spiritual Jesus in the services of Holy Week - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the great Easter Vigil and finally Easter Sunday. These act as a counterweight to The Last Week.
The book is worth reading, but it is limited by the fact that it only speaks to a part of What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem (the subtitle of the book).
Book Review: Excellent Book
Summary: 5 Stars
The authors bring a new light to the Gospel of Mark. What did the Gospel of Mark say to the people in 90 C.E.? Jesus' story becomes even more powerful when studied in the time period it occurred. Book Review: Jesus is reduced to a Jewish Che Guevara
Summary: 3 Stars
I am in full agreement with the main premise of this book:
Jesus' last week was laden with the tension between 'The Kingdom of God' and Empire's Domination System.
On this point, the book is a good one. What is most disappointing about it is the writers' aversion to the miraculous.
The multi-dimensional Jesus is flattened out in order to fit their political-historical-rational mindset:
Jesus is reduced to being no more than a Jewish Che Guevara.
Jesus did/does embody the full spectrum of being-human, and that includes
his opposition and resistance to power-over-the-other; be it political, religious or personal.
By stoping there, the book falls short;
there is a lot more to this story and thus it is lamentable
that so much of that is left out or just simplistically explained away!
Good history, weak theology, nothing mystical.
For the whole story of the 'Politics of the Cross':
Jacques Ellul (The Politics of God & The Politics of Man) and William Stringfellow (Conscience & Obedience);
Dorothee Soelle (The Silent Cry) and John Howard Yoder (The Politics of Jesus);
Richard Rohr (Hope Against Darkness) and Walter Brueggemann (Peace);
Simone Weil (Gravity and Grace) and Christopher Blumhardt (Salt and Light), to name just a few.
Book Review: History vs. Parable
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a learned, very readable book which only at the end reveals - unfortunately - a sizeable hole in its head. On the question of Jesus' literal resurrection from the dead, the authors fudge, suggesting that the event's historicity isn't really that important, one way or the other. The "meanings" of the resurrection episodes, most likely parables themselves, trump any concern with the actual bringing back to life of a crucified corpse, now with a new, glorified body. These more important "meanings" have to do with Easter affirming "that the domination systems of this world are not of God and that they do not have the final word," "that we as individuals need personal and political transformation," etc. Without denying the centrality of such "meanings" to a mature Christianity, surely one has cause to wonder here whether the authors revere the bath water more than the baby. Early on, they adduce Flannery O'Connor's remark that "we live in a 'Christ haunted' culture." They would have done better in their final chapter to quote her telling words on the actuality of the Eucharist - "If it were just a symbol, I'd say to hell with it!"Book Review: Excellent historical and biblical scholarship
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is good reading for every professing Christian. It places Holy Week and Easter in a historical context and explores the Gospel of Mark to help determine what is actually recorded relating to this period in the life of Jesus. A person cannot read this book without coming away with a clearer and more thoughtful understanding of the Easter experience.