Review Questions

Chapter 1 Borg’s personal search for God

1. Borg suggests that what informs faith are "images". What do you think he means by this term? Is an image the same thing as a belief? (1-2)

2. What were the main elements of the "image" of Jesus that Borg grew up with? Do they sound familiar? (3-6)

3. How does he explain his growing doubts about the existence of God? (7)

4. College (at Concordia!) and seminary evidently did not help restore his childhood image of Jesus. What did he gain from his post-high-school education? (8-15)

What "consensus" image of Jesus did he absorb?

Why was the distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith important to him?

The Synoptic gospels vs. John as historical sources

What kind of experience enabled him to recover a faith-full image of God?

5. Borg redefined his understanding of Jesus: from Jesus of history/Christ of faith to "pre-Easter Jesus" and "post-Easter Jesus". In what way does the latter pair better fit his personal search search for God? How has his own understanding of faith changed?

Chapter 2 The pre-Easter Jesus

6. What two kinds of material do the gospels contain? (21-22)

Which is more helpful for developing an understanding of the pre-Easter Jesus? Why?

Where is such material to be found?

7. Which kind of material do the birth stories and stories of Jesus’ youth contain? How does Borg know? (23-28)

birth stories

youth

8. Borg’s sketch of Jesus includes four "strokes" or elements and several further impressions. Summarize, and before reading his explanations of each, offer your own opinion. Do his claims coincide with or contradict what you have learned? (29-31)

1

2

3

4

Further impressions:

9. Jesus as Spirit Person (31-36)

10. In what ways does this image of spirit person confirm or contradict the image of God that Borg had grown up with? (37-39)

Chapter 3 Jesus as movement founder—the politics of compassion

11. Why is "compassionate" a better term than "merciful" to explain how Jesus viewed God’s feeling for human beings? (46-48)

Why is compassion seated in the loins (womb or bowels)?

If mercy implies a relationship of superior/inferior, what kind of relationship does compassion imply?

12. The contrast between a "politics of purity" and a "politics of compassion" is central to Borg’s vision of seeing Jesus in a new light. Characterize each: (50-58)

politics of purity politics of compassion

who’s included?

who’s excluded?

what counts as

goodness?

role of women

center of power

how scripture is

interpreted

13. Borg brings the struggle between purity and compassion up to the present. How would a politics of compassion reinterpret the issue of homosexuality? (590

Your opinion needed here: Did Jesus intend to break down all purity barriers? Or is there Biblical evidence that he meant to leave some intact? If so, which ones?

14. How would the politics of compassion change the American political landscape? (60)

15. How did Jesus come to embrace compassion as the defining characteristic of God? (61)

Chapter 4 Jesus as teacher of alternative wisdom

16. What does a "sage" do? (69-70)

What two kinds of sages are there?

Borg first considers how Jesus taught.

17. How do we know that Jesus was a "storyteller" and a "speaker of great one-liners"? (70-75)

How did he deliver his lines?

What is an aphorism, and how does it work?

What is a parable, and how does it work?

How does a parable differ from the discourse of purity?

Borg next turns to the content of Jesus’ teaching.

18. Once again, Borg sets up a sharp contrast. What does he mean by "conventional wisdom"? What are its features? (75-80)

Why and how does it produce a world of "bondage"?

How does conventional wisdom portray God, and with what consequences for our relationship with God?

What similarity does Borg see between the conventional religious wisdom of his day, and that of ours?

19. How did Jesus undermine the conventional wisdom of his day? (80-85)

How does the language of "paradox and reversal" function to subvert conventional wisdom?

What conventional values did Jesus undermine?

What does the God of conventional wisdom want from us? (Illustrate with the parable of the prodigal son)

What image of God emerges when conventional wisdom has been stripped away?

Which kind of theology is concerned with how to get (eternal) reward: the conventional wisdom of purity or the alternative wisdom of compassion? Why?

20. What kind of "transformation" enables one to enter the "narrow way" of alternative wisdom? (85-88)

If this transformation is "necessary", how does it escape becoming a requirement of purity? Or does it?

Chapter 5 Jesus as incarnation of God’s Wisdom

21. Why should we not be surprised if Jesus did not understand himself to be simply the son of God? (96-98)

22. We tend to think of "wisdom" as a set of teachings—something which could be written on a page. How did Jewish traditions at the time of Jesus think of "Wisdom"? (98-102)

In what personal form did Wisdom take shape? Why does Borg use the name Sophia"?

23. What evidence does Borg present for his claim that the New Testament presents Jesus as the Wisdom of God? (102-108)

Synoptic gospels

Paul

Gospel of John

24. Are the images of Jesus as Son of God and as Sophia of God in opposition to each other, mutually supportive, or both? (108-111) Is it possible to embrace both, as Borg suggests?

Chapter 6 Where Jesus fits in the Bible seen as an integrated set of stories

25. Why does Borg interpret the Bible through the lens of "story"? What is so special about stories? (119-121)

26. Outline the dominant images presented in each of the three "macro" stories Borg sketches from the Old Testament, noting 1) how the story diagnoses the human condition, and 2) what solution it offers. (121-127)

Exodus

Exile

Priestly

Why are these stories "macro"?

Has he got the main ones? Did he miss other candidates for "macro" stories?

27. Which of the three dominates popular understanding of Jesus? Would you agree with his selection? What evidence does Borg bring forward? (128-133)

When this story is allowed to dominate, how does it ‘distort" the Christian life?

Obviously, this story remains powerful. How is its negative impact reduced if it is made equal with the other two stories?

28. Borg claims that the Jesus story was shaped by all three macro stories, particularly as they support the major image: that of a "journey" of discipleship. Contrast the features of the "journey" image with the fideistic and moralistic images Borg finds so prevalent but inadequate (see p. 2)

Journey fideistic moralistic

being a disciple

being on the way,

as a sojourner

being in the presence

of Jesus—relationship

with God

experiencing his

inclusive banquet

in the company of

other disciples

being compassionate

believing in Jesus