The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith

Fabulous book. If Jesus were taught to us this way from the begining, we Christians would probably struggle less with our faith and could explain it better to others. Borg has a writing style that is accessible to every level of reader, academic and spiritual.

Our small group from Saint Junia UMC is using this book for study & discussion. It is an excellent source for young adults to do just what the title implies. I highly recommend it for Christians & non-Christians alike, for any age group, to be read alone or shared.

Having been asked to teach a Sunday school class based on this book, I am even more enlightened about Jesus and my journey as a Christian.
Excellent writing about the meaning of Jesus`s ministry and how it US still very relevant to us today

It was what I expected and even more. Excellent writing regarding the historical, human Jesus. Satisfied many of my own questions which have not been answered in Catholic circles-- it was a feeling of validation to read Borg's answers to the questions I carry in my heart.

Reading lots of Jesus books over the years has made me skeptical to ever see any coherent image to Jesus. Borg gave me a whole new vision on Jesus, though not a savior of the world image, but a very intimate human one. A confidence in some transcendent compassionate God can be rooted in this Jesus, as a reflection of Him. A highly recommended read.

Marcus J. Borg, in his book - Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time- displays himself as a Heretic. Presenting the reader with his opinions of who Jesus is in his relationship with God (based on the research of the 'Jesus seminar') not as God incarnate but come down from heaven as a savior to redeem us sinners. He sketches an image of Jesus as a spirit-person who simply "knew" God.

A very limited and with poor to fair writing that dilute what the author had hoped to accomplish.

The initial few chapters were well done but the quality and research support for the later chapters are far too scanity.

JC - Maine

The book was from one of the affiliates of the store & showed the book to be "as good as new" & it shows no marks of torn pages, so it is as represented. The delivery was timely & I will continue to use the the store site to find books.

This is a curiously flat book. We enter it hoping for an encounter with the Jesus that we have missed, a chance to penetrate the masks of churchiness and myth and find the man/god that maybe we long for, because we once believed and then we lost that belief. (We used to have someone we could pray to, now we don't.) But what Mr Borg gives us are the driest, palest leafs of doctrine - never even a hint of a conjuring of a living (or dead) person. He begins promisingly enough, by relating his own journey into unbelief. He became aware while studying under Biblical scholars that as a historical account of a real person, the New Testament is a tissue of untruths, fabrications, borrowings and contradictions. He learned that the Bible was not written by someone named God and that Jesus (if he existed) never said he was the son of God and never intended to found a religion. So Borg abandoned most of that "factual" fabric, and was left with a contrarian teacher who used parables a lot. So far so good, but what we need is a novelistic portrayal that can make us see and hear and care about this person. Instead we get lifeless descriptions such as, "The dominant social vision was centered in holiness; the alternative social vision of Jesus was centered in compassion." This may be insightful, but it does not inspire. Then there is Borg's attempt to rebuild the edifice of the Christian religion which he has nicely demolished. What is God? The author basically says that God is what we access in moments of "nature mysticism" -- moments when we feel that the earth shines with a radiant presence. Okay, we can buy this perhaps, but feeling amazement while looking at a lake in the mist is hardly a vessel to which one can yoke a whole tradition of theism. Yes, there is mystery and wonder in the universe, but that doesn't mean there is a person called God to whom I can talk, a person with thoughts and intentions. Finally, we get to what is maybe the biggest, phoniest rationalization in the modern church arsenal: something called the Post-Easter Jesus. Even though Borg admits that the actual man (the "pre-Easter Jesus") wasn't God and didn't claim to be, and did not survive crucifixion, we are now supposed to imagine what that man can mean to us seen in the post-Easter light, and it turns out that all the junk that got jettisoned is smuggled back into the (leaky) boat. He lives, he guides us, we can talk to him, we can be fed by him, yes we can partake of the Eucharist. He is God after all. And don't forget about the Holy Spirit, that is a stowaway too -- our old nature mysticism dressed up as a third of the trinity. All reason is abandoned. We get sentences like these: "There is joy in his presence...eating at his table and experiencing his banquet." But always we get the dry and the abstract to undercut any "conversion" we might be tempted into: in his presence, "perhaps one might feel sadness, but not sadness about existence itself." Well that's a relief. I would hate to feel sadness about existence itself.

It seems both John the Baptizer and Jesus agreed the end of age was imminent. So it was, the destruction of the temple revolutionized life, certainly for Jerusalem Jews. Here we see a Jesus who made sense to a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King. The purity crowd had counted on the privileges of that system to maintain order under the authority of their religious practices; but the golden age lasted only so long. They had been enslaved and exiled before and would be again. What do we see in our own domination system? Crime, apathy, anger, hatred, confusion among the non-winners. The winners get lots of parties and chances to stab each other in the back along with their trickle down faith. This book argues that the work Jesus did is sufficient basis for a religious community practice. Paul was a loyal Jew who effectively preserved the tradition to this day. It is a hard saying that requirement number one is to love the Lord your God with all your heart. Even if you are merely attached, or love just a little, this book can help.

My life is now split into two distinct sections: Before I read Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and after I read Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.

This book has everything. Written by a scholar on the subject of the historical Jesus, the bulk of the book is Borg imaging his understanding of the historical Jesus based on his research, and he does so brilliantly. His sketch of the historical Jesus, a first century Jew, is brought together by four positive strokes: the historical Jesus was a spirit person (a person with an experiential awareness of the reality of God), a teacher of wisdom who used the classic forms of wisdom speech (parables and memorable short sayings) to teach an alternative wisdom that subverted conventional wisdom, a social prophet who criticized the economic, political, and religious elites of his time and advocated for an alternative social vision, and a movement founder who lead a renewal and revitalization movement within Judaism that not only challenged, but shattered the social boundaries of his day.

Borg also differentiates between the historical Jesus and the Jesus that his followers encountered after his death as the pre-Easter (historical) and the post-Easter (resurrected) Jesus. He uses this distinction to differentiate what Jesus likely said and believed about himself and what came to be said or revealed about him later. He shows how these images of Jesus are connected, and how they can shape and form the faith and journey of both the Christian and the Church as a community.

Beyond this, Borg explores the various Christolologies that existed in the minds and hearts of early Christians, including sonship Christologies, wisdom Christologies (Jesus as an incarnation and/or emmisary of the wisdom of God commonly referred to and personified in books of scripture as as Sophia (an alternative second person in the doctrine of the trinity? Implications of the Cosmic Christ, perhaps?)) and the implications and metaphoric understandings of these Christologies.

Finally, Borg explores the three meta-narratives found in the Hebrew Scriptures, how Jesus and the early Church understood and used those meta-narratives, and how they can be used by contemporary believers to define and better understand the Christian journey.

I can not rave about this book enough, and I absolutely cannot wait to read more from Marcus Borg, God rest his soul.

I read this little book several years back, and wanted to make sure it isn't forgotten. Marcus Borg is one of my favorite writers, and this is what I've always considered his "coming out" book. The one that lays bare Borg's understanding of the historical Jesus, and Borg's journey from blind belief into a more complete, contemporary appreciation for Jesus and what his message means for mankind today. In this book is a Christianity for the 21st century and a Jesus who can be embraced by everyone.

One quote sums up the book well: Borg describes Jesus as a "spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet, and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion." I'm uncertain if Borg would use precisely the same words today, sixteen years later, because the wheels of Jesus scholarship continue to turn, but I'll bet he wouldn't change much ... he has found the core Jesus. Meeting Jesus again for the first time, we are invited to appreciate Jesus' beauty against a backdrop of dominating religion, and share in Jesus' struggle to help compassion overcome purity. It was this very purity system of the Jews which led to social injustice, and which Jesus found most constricting.

This is one of those books everyone should read before giving up on Christianity.

Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time is a combination of things: lectures given at a 1992 meeting of the Northern California Conference of the UCC plus and other lectures given at various other places (vii-viii). Mixed in with this is other material to form enough for a book, from what I can tell. Borg describes himself as a “secular Jesus scholar and a Christian” and thus the book seeks to bridge these two factors (viii). What does Borg’s Jesus have to do for daily living, for example? How should someone incorporate what Borg believes to be Jesus’ fundamental teaching to their lives? More specifically, Borg writes to those who have grown up in liberal churches where at some point in life “their childhood image of Jesus no longer made a great deal of sense” (1).

Borg’s fundamental thesis shows a similarity between belief and action, specifically concerning Jesus. He asserts, “The foundational claim of this book is that there is a strong connection between images of Jesus and between images of the Christian life, between how we think of Jesus and how we think of the Christian life. Our image affects our perception of the Christian life in two ways: it gives shape to the Christian life; and . . . it can make Christianity credible or incredible” (1-2). He goes on to mention three basic ways to view Jesus. One is traditional and the other is classically liberal. Of the conservative view, which takes the Bible at face value, he notes that its primary focus is “believing.” Then he goes on to call this view “fideistic . . . one whose primary dynamic is faith, understood as believing certain things about Jesus to be true” (2). The “classically liberal” view (my own term) sees Jesus as a nice person or good teacher. Borg’s third view is his own that he sketches out in the rest of the book (3). I’d like to note here a small critique of his divisions of viewing Jesus. The conservative view is described wrongly. However, being as I fall in that camp, it is characteristic of some very nominal ways of how Christianity can be perceived. Second, I’m not sure what the actual difference is between his liberal view and his own. Of course, Borg would likely write that his view envisions Jesus as a spirit person (whatever that may ultimately entail) and not as just a nice person. Ok, fair enough. I might think it’s splitting hairs a bit but I can go with him a bit here.

Next, Borg tells his spiritual biography where he went from a child, believing his parents (and in their faith) to agnostic to interest in Jesus from a college course where he was taught standard liberal dogma on the gospels (late written, combination of church with Jesus message, not eyewitness accounts, John is different from the Synoptics, etc.) of this radical discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. He struggles with what he learns for a decade or so before experiencing what he calls “nature mysticism” (14). Whatever these mystical experiences might have been, Borg seems to think they imparted to him some type of knowledge about God (cf. 14). To Borg, God is ineffable and we are unable to put Him into words, but he can be experienced. He is “numinous” (15).

His view of God then affected his view of Jesus (cf. 15). He says, “I now was able to see the centrality of God . . . in Jesus’ own life” (15). He introduces his concepts of the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus. The post-Easter Jesus is the “Jesus of Christian tradition and experience” (16). He believes Jesus’ resurrection was some type of unusual, spiritual thing. In other words, the body was still likely in the tomb and the stories the disciples told about Jesus were metaphor pointing to the idea that Jesus was still able to be experienced in some way. And boom – John’s gospel. So, John’s gospel is “’true’, even though its account of Jesus’ life story and sayings is not, by and large, historically factual” (17).

The pre-Easter Jesus was just a “spirit” person, able to experience God “more” than us regular folks (like Mohammad, Buddha, etc.). Apparently they have different brain juices that flow in different ways (my words – but according to Borg). He simply wanted a reformation in Judaism, taught wisdom (but only a specific type of wisdom), was a social prophet and founded a spiritual movement. Of Jesus, Borg writes, he is “one of the many mediators of the sacred” (37).

Jesus’ cultural setting was a religion which was debating the concept of God in a culture of purity. Borg ultimately offers a Jesus who wanted a “politics” of compassion, as compassion is the primary attribute of God (so he believes).

As noted earlier, Borg says Jesus was a teacher of wisdom. One of the metaphors of Jesus was that he was the wisdom of God. He goes over wisdom’s place in Judaism and early Christianity and tries to argue for an almost existing Sophia imagery and compares them to the NT’S citations of Jesus as wisdom. He argues this is likely the earliest layer of Jesus imagery (109). But of course this begs the question of his starting points. His rather extreme claim that “all Christological language is metaphorical” is self-refuting and gives us no starting point to say anything at all about Jesus (including whether he was a spirit person). Borg seems to want to be able to give his own opinions literally, but won’t allow the same for God.

Borg holds that Jesus did not intend to die for anyone’s sins. “Rather, he was a spirit person, subversive sage, social prophet, and movement founder who invited his followers and hearers into a transforming relationship with the same Spirit that he himself knew, and into a community whose social vision was shaped by the core value of compassion” (119).

This is the gist of the book. There’s much in it that’s similar to some of his earlier works. And I have some things to say in way of critique. I would first notice that Borg’s Jesus has some similarities with himself, which is highly reminiscent of other Jesus scholars of the past 200 years or so. It seems these folks end up doing self-psychological profiles when it comes it to determining the nature of who Jesus is. There really has never been a scholar that has come up with a radically different picture of Jesus than who the scholar himself is. His Jesus is like him – Borg admits his nature mysticism led him to see God in new ways which led him to see Jesus in new ways (14-15). In the same manner Borg believes he came to understand new things about God, by the world of the “Spirit.” Thus, Jesus must’ve experienced the same thing Borg went through, no?! Indeed, Jesus must be “grounded in the world of the Spirit” (15).

Further, notice Borg’s complaint and implication that if God had only spoken to one group of people then he would essentially refuse to believe it (not based on any rational principle, but the will alone). And yet, his own philosophical replacement is only more exclusivist! At least in Judaism you have the entirety of the world that is eventual in scope – and at least it’s several types of people, writers, prophets, seemingly unimportant individuals, etc. For Borg, for someone to be “in tune” with God requires some sort of available brain capacity to experience this other spirit realm! This is much more exclusivistic than the former, traditional example! What percent of people have the brain wiring and capacity for their body to be able to “tap into” this other dimension?? Practically nil. And yet, he calls the traditional view too exclusive?!

Also troubling is Borg’s division of symbolic knowledge with historical knowledge. He further confuses me by arguing that God isn’t an article of belief but he’s an “experiential reality (38). Again, I’m just not sure about this strict bifurcation between believing something and experiencing it. It seems we both experience and believe things at the same time. However, I get his gist, I think. It’s just not enough to simply *believe* (in terms of an intellectual assent). The story is more than that. It’s relational. But one might ask Borg what it is that we actually know about God, then? Because, he at times seems to say that God is ineffable – i.e. – that we can’t make any statements of knowledge about God. If that’s so, then what epistemological grounds do we have for affirming that we’ve actually experienced God? What criteria can we set up to determine this experience and can we put it into no other words, etc.? I think Borg just bifurcates these two realities so rigidly because he just refuses to believe in a God who would only “speak” to one group of people (cf. 37; cf. that whole will thing vs. rationality thing). How is Jesus able to be experienced (cf. 16)? Borg doesn’t say. By the world of Spirit? How does Borg know that? Surely not by any written revelation. By his personal experience? Well, he would argue the disciples’ experience. But how does Borg know that his experience of God is the same of the disciples? And further, what does it matter – for Borg is really an inclusivist.

His inclusivism leads me to compare the simplistic renderings of seemingly different accounts in the gospels, yet his willingness to overlook much greater differences within religious traditions as a whole. He strains out a gnat to swallow a camel. So, forget about the VAST amount of experiential, historical and geographical differences between these random ‘spirit” people, they can be reconciled somehow. And yet, any smidgen of differences in a book containing written revelation is apparently impossible? Are there two angels in the tomb or one? Can’t entirely tell? Fine! Throw it all out! But God is both a trinity and a unity of being (Islam) and doesn’t exist (Buddhism) and these are fine?! Child please. As Borg says, he is his own ultimate authority: “. . . when the truth of the Christian tradition was tied to the claim that the revelation of God was found only in this tradition . . . there came a time when its truth became for me highly unlikely. What are the chances that God would speak only to and through this particular group of people . . . it became impossible for me to believe this” (37). And here I think we have the presuppositional linchpin for likely the entirety of Borg’s scholarly work.

Some of his arguments are just not really good – his idea that because Jesus (and Paul) “shattered” the purity boundaries that homosexuality should essentially be coequal with a normative sexual ethic. This, of course, misses the ultimate reference point of Jewish sexual ethics, which isn’t the Holiness Code, but Genesis 1. His footnote on the subject implies that because the OT Law says “little” about it, that it wasn’t taken seriously. Of course likely the opposite would be true in such fundamental important issues like humanity’s sexual purposes. There was little said about homosexuality because no one needed it said in the same way that no one needed explanation on whether or not to have sex with animals. The ethic was entirely so well-known and believed that it needn’t be repeated. Further, his arguments that somehow the wisdom tradition of Judaism can be rigidly divided into subversive and common wisdom are too simplistic, as well. But this division of wisdom is partially necessary for Borg to ferret out what Jesus *said* and didn’t *say*.

Finally, his comparison of “secondhand religion” with “firsthand religion” I found to be humorous. He says secondhand religion is that which we take because someone tells us (whether parents, church, doctrine, etc.). Firsthand religion if, of course, better! It’s the primary, raw and emotional experience of God. One wonders who first told Borg he could actually experience God? If so, wouldn’t it make his firsthand religion, really secondhand? Then one wonders how Borg learned the theological categories of immanence and transcendence that he seems often to allude to. Did he learn that secondhand? How has he figured those out firsthand? And how did he put them into words when God is ineffable? Furthermore, how do we put our experience of it into words from which we can’t draw categories? Could Borg’s whole system be purely an example of his “symbolic knowledge” that so failed Tillich?

So, summing up, I’m not really sure who I could recommend this work too. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone that hasn’t significantly studied NT history and theology. Borg writes this to an audience who is troubled by traditional pictures of Jesus, and so I suppose those who will only listen to certain types of scholars might find this useful, in the same way that a slaveholder might dismiss a sermon by a black preacher. There are some things I agree with wholeheartedly, but so much of it troubles me as well that I’m at a loss as to who to recommend this to.

The message which Borg conveys is vital to the spiritual well-being of humanity. He begins by sharing his own life experience from youth with religion. He starts to identify the images that have been constructed of Jesus. In the West, we are at a very young age taught about the fidiestic, eternal-life granting, Son of God Jesus. Unfortunately, the bulk of Average Joes either cling onto this image until the grave or abandon all forms of religion completely by finding this Jesus distasteful. What I liked most was that Borg identified Christ as a "spirit person" (a mystic, sage, what have you) and talked about mystical experiences rather than doctrine. He was someone intimately in touch with God (like a Son) and pure of heart, an incarnation of the Logos, united with Spirit. (He also analyzes Christ's position as "sophia", or wisdom) Also, all cultures have had their own similar spirit persons which call for a renewal from the Conventional Wisdom, unlike the many theologians who view Jesus as the only person to have ever known God truly. And Borg is in a sense doing the same thing, calling us to shed off the "conventional wisdom" implanted in us by our authority or church figures at child hood of Jesus, and shows us the real nature of things. Not only this, but uses the fruits of historical jesus scholarship to make a renewed image of Jesus as who he really was. Does this mean that the "pre-Easter" Jesus is ultimately more important than the "post?" Not at all. But what he was about was a relationship with the Pre-Easter risen Lord, not just a theological model constructed from literal hermeneutics and limited to its own self. So Borg has the qualities of a mystic, and not just a theologian. And this call to a unification with God, and not the authority of religious officials, is a jump from second-hand to first-hand religion. And in his conclusion he tells us that this is what it means to meet Jesus again for the first time...that jump. Personally, I've already opened my horizons and detached from the modern theology models of mainstream Christians, however this book may serve as an eye opener to some who are still trapped. Though, I feel, that those who refuse to change will find this work disturbing, and maybe to even a slim few heretical. For example Borg feels that homosexuality is not sinful, and to mention another admits that the Gospel's birth narratives may not represent historicity. But this fixation on biblical fundamentalism is just what needs to be shed of for Oneness and Unity, a relationship with God and with others.

I wish that every Christian would read this book. It goes far beyond the superficial and simplistic understanding that passes for modern American Christianity today and challenges everyone to a deeper and more meaningful spiritual walk.

When Marcus Borg discussed his own questioning of his faith, I felt that it captured the essence of my own struggles (and perhaps for a lot of Christians who practice their faith but seem to want more). As a result, I was able to read this scholarly but readable book and make it my own. At times, I agreed with Dr. Borg and at times I did not but most importantly, it reached the heart of my own questiosn about faith and move me closer to a relationship with Jesus. Whether, you believe or not, this book will be immensely interesting because of its excellent research and writing about the historical Jesus (Pre-Easter Jesus) and the message he brought to his contemporaries and for us. My only concern was in regard to the lack of any significant attention to the resurrection. So, I believe that I may turn to another of Dr. Borg's books (Jesus: A New Vision)for as more in depth discussion about that topic

Marcus Borg has struck gold again. Few writers are able to handle such emotive subjects with such a clear and dispassionate eye. His arguements seem balanced and do not ask us to accept his 'authority' on matters that he hasn't lucidly laid out. I find that Borg is one of the few writers , when dealing with the subject of Jesus, that doesn't patronise his audience. I recently read one other author who is perhaps even better than this and that is Richard G. Patton. Patton, in his inspiring "The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years", also presents us with a Jesus that is BELIEVABLE, whatever your outlook of faith. The more Pattons and Borgs there are out there, the more likely people are to seek truth for themselves, rather than have it morally foisted on them. Borg has touched the pulse of revelation and has laid it bare for all to read - AND it's a good read!

Borg gives an incredible overview in a relatively short book about Jesus. He unpacks the historical (real) Jesus from the Jesus that was created by his followers and created by religious folks years later. He focuses on Jesus' prime messages about compassion and social justice and how to live in a way that we can all treat each other well and be treated well.

One of the most interesting facets of MEETING JESUS AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME is the author's treatment of the historical Jesus. Borg believes that the images of Jesus in the synoptic gospels are very different from that presented in the Gospel of John. Since John's Gospel was written at a much later date, he argues that the Johannine image of Jesus is nonhistorical. For the development of the historical Jesus, Borg relies on the early layers of Matthew, Mark and Luke as well as the Gospel of Thomas which was discovered in Egypt in 1945. There is much more to this book than just a discussion of the historical Jesus. However, for anybody seeking a highly readable introduction to the subject, Borg's description in the second chapter of his own quest for the historical Jesus will be very useful.

I actually decided to read Borg's books after reading some of John Crossan's books where Borg was referenced. I thought the set-up of this book was extremely helpful in illustrating what Borg was discussing. However, I think I had hoped this would be more of a "heart-felt" novel. I understand Borg had to get in all the historical information about Jesus (and he did an incredible job at that) but I had hoped he would speak of Jesus on more of an emotional level. I felt as I was more of an outsider looking in on the life of Jesus rather than a comrade right next to him. And perhaps that is the effect Borg wanted. All in all, a great book with great information. What I found most interesting in this whole book was the link between Jesus and Sophia (wisdom). Borg makes an excellent point to contrast the "Son of God" image of Jesus by saying Jesus was personified as Wisdom- a feminine term in Greek. He does this to stress the many metaphors used when defining Jesus and says we must not take them literally. All in all a great read with great information.

In his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg, a member of the Jesus Seminar, tells us rather candidly about his religious doubts. There is actually nothing wrong with doubts; they often help us discover truth. But doubts can also lead us from the truth, so in our searching we need to be careful about what we find, and where we go to find it. Borg tells us that what he was taught as a youngster in church about Jesus was contradicted in seminary. So he dismissed what he learned in church and believed what he was taught in college. In essence, he once again believed what he was told. Borg was taught that the Gospels were unreliable documents, and that they were the result of developing traditions that had no real historical foundation. Borg is admitting that just as he accepted what he was taught when a child, he took that same child-like faith with him to the university and believed what he was taught there. For Borg, one of the major tasks of the Jesus Seminar is to drive a wedge between the Jesus-of-history, the pre-Easter Jesus, and the Christ-of-faith, the post-Easter Jesus. I address this issue in The Zealot Myth and answer these erroneous statements by Borg and others, like Reza Aslan, Bart Ehrman, J.D. Crossan. Borg reduces the Apostle John to an ancient New Ager, and defines Jesus as a spirit-person who taught a spiritual wisdom that is connected to the universal life-power that some people call God. There is strong evidence that Jesus referred to himself as the Son of God, as God incarnate, who came as a love offering, an atonement for the world’s sins. But Borg reduces Jesus to a mere spirit-person, a social prophet, inviting any and all into a transforming relationship with the same “Spirit” that he himself knew. Borg actually sees Jesus through the lens of New Age ideology. He has not discovered the historic Jesus, nor does he write about the historical Jesus in this book; instead he has only found a mythical figure emanating from a popular spiritualist philosophy.

This book has the power to change your life. Marcus Bord presents a evocative yet touching synopsis of the present thoughts on Jesus in the theological world. He portrays, in eloquent yet readable English, the Jesus that was, and is today. I recommend that anyone with an interest in Jesus, whether educational, philosophical, or religious, read this book. For further commentary on the subject in a more scholarly approach, I suggest Jesus: A New Vision by the same author. But beware, these books will open the minds of many people to a new way of seeing Jesus that may not agree with what you were told in Sunday school. Strangely, it's the Jesus many priests and ministers were taught about in school but so many are afraid to reveal