Marcus Borg on Jesus 


Quote from "Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary," pp. 143-144. 

Marcus Borg, in his 2006 book, develops a "big picture" of Jesus's mission and life based on his interpretation of the synoptic gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke. I found the point he makes about Jesus's life being: Not About "Heaven" to be worth sharing.

"I begin with a negative point. Jesus's mission and message were not about "heaven," not about how to attain a blessed afterlife. Though Jesus, like many of his Jewish contemporaries, affirmed an afterlife, it was not his primary concern. Because many Christians as well as non-Christians tend to see Jesus and Christianity within the framework of what happens after death, it seems important to realize at the outset that this was not what his mission was about. It wasn't about what you must believe or how you must behave in order to attain heaven. Rather, his mission was about the character of God, the way of centering in God, and the kingdom of God, all of which will be developed in subsequent chapters

"Our impression that it was about how to get to heaven is in part the product of centuries of emphasis upon and afterlife within Christianity, both as a sanction against wrong behavior and as a hope in the face of death. It is also due to two familiar phrases in the gospels, Matthew's "kingdom of heaven" and John's "eternal life."

"But Matthew's "kingdom of heaven" does not mean a kingdom in heaven, in another world beyond death. Rather, it is Matthew's substitute for the phrase "kingdom of God" in passages that he uses from Mark and Q. Matthew most often changes "kingdom of God" to "kingdom of heaven" not because he's thinking of an afterlife, but because of a common Jewish reverential practice of avoiding using the word "God" as much as possible. And the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is for the earth, as the Lord's Prayer in Matthew affirms. It is about the transformation of life in this world.

"So also John's phrase "eternal life" does not mean what we commonly mean by heaven. The Greek phrase translated as "eternal life" or "everlasting life" means "the life of the age to come." and for John, the life of the age to come—eternal life— is already available. As John 17.3 puts it, "This is eternal life: to know God." Note the present tense. The life of the age to come—eternal life—consists of knowing God in the present. This emphasis is characteristic of mystics and thus consistent with seeing Jesus as a Jewish mystic. That this may continue beyond death is not denied, but the emphasis is not on how to enter a blessed place beyond this life."

Marcus Borg goes on in this chapter (6. The Big Picture) to develop then and summarize the "pre-Easter" life of Jesus Christ as having these five characteristics: Jesus was a Jewish mystic, a healer and exorcist, a wisdom teacher, a prophet, and a movement initiator. 

Posted: Tue - February 24, 2009 at 08:22 AM          

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