Resurrection
Myth or Reality?
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- USD 7.99
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- USD 7.99
Publisher Description
Resurrection is an innovative examination of the foundational event of Christianity, and an inspiring vision for reconciliation between Jews and Christians.
Using approaches from the Hebrew interpretive tradition to discern the actual events surrounding Jesus’s death, Bishop John Shelby Spong questions the historical validity of a literal narrative concerning the Resurrection. However, Spong is not searching for the historical Jesus, either; he asserts that the Resurrection story was born in an experience that opened the disciples’s eyes to the reality of God and the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth. To fully understand the meaning of the Resurrection, it must be approached in the style of the midrash, or teaching tale.
Spong goes on to trace the Christian origins of anti-Semitism to the Church’s fabrication of the ultimate Jewish scapegoat, Judas Iscariot. He affirms the inclusiveness of the Christian message and emphasizes the necessity of mutual integrity and respect among Christians and Jews.
John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His books include A New Christianity for a New World, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Resurrection: Myth or Reality?, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and his autobiography, Here I Stand.
“This book will appeal to those wanting a reasonable, nonliteralist faith grounded in the mystery of reality beyond time and space. Highly recommended.” - Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Continuing his project of making Christianity viable in a secular world, Bishop Spong here pursues the mystery of Easter. The solutions he proposes are not grounded in a literal understanding of the Bible; nor are they based in a quest for the historical Jesus. Easter, for Spong, was not a supernatural event that occurred inside human history. He asserts that even though Jesus was of history, we will never know all that Jesus was or meant. Most especially, we will never know exactly what happened on that moment that is called Easter. What we can know is that the first Christians became convinced that Jesus did not die and, to express the intensity of their experience, they used the language and style of midrash. Thus, Bishop Spong believes that to enter the meaning of the Gospels, to enter the experience of Easter, it is necessary to enter the tradition of midrash. His book, consequently, is a long and complex journey into the images of the biblical texts, the midrashic vehicles employed to carry the transcendent meaning of Easter.
