This Hebrew Lord : A Bishop's Search for the Authentic Jesus

Rating:
Summary: A must read...
Review: Another thought provoking book. Over the years I have faced the questions I have had about the myth vs the reality of the man people call Jesus Christ.

Like Bishop Spong I believe most of the message that Jesus taught, which was philosophical and not religious has been totally lost and in fact the very things that Jesus warned against have in fact become a reality. He warned people, or at least tried to warn people, to use their own brains and not rely on power hungry leaders be they secular or religious. That G-d and only G-d is our source and that all things work for good to those who love G-d. He never ever taught that there was a trinity. He never ever taught that some people G-d loved and some he did not.

The Jesus Bishop Spong discovered and who many of the rest of us have discovered is a fully human, passionate, and evolved person. Who respected women, who wasn't afraid of being with people that the pious types considered unworthy. The Jesus who said "What you do to the least of them you do to me".

It would be nice if the closed minded or fearful types would read the book and simply have their beliefs tested.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening book with a practical application
Review: Bishop Spong was one of the first authors to bring the "search for the historic Jesus" to mainstream, everyday Christians, and he does it in a way that opens many eyes to a fundamental, yet often overlooked, truth: Jesus, on whom Christianity bases its entire faith, was an observant Jew! This seems to be a very minor revelation, but centuries of oppression and discrimination against our Jewish brothers and sisters make this a fact worth repeating, and worth exploring in depth -- as Spong does here.

While I don't necessarily agree with all his conclusions, I find Spong's inquiry honest, sincere, and refreshing. The book is an interesting read, and will certainly expose almost everyone to some new questions and ideas about the ministry and divinity of Jesus (as related to his Jewish identity and the culture in which he ministered).

The practical application of which I speak [in the title of this review] is a more loving and understanding relationship between Christians and Jews, a recognition of our common religious roots, and a celebration of our common God (even if we do disagree about whether Jesus was the Messiah). Bishop Spong, in fact, presented a series of lectures with a rabbi friend, which was later transcribed into a separate book, and the realization by both groups (Christians and Jews) was that fear, stereotypes, and prejudice had replaced the love and seeking of truth for which both our faiths call.

I highly recommend this book to all.

Rating:
Summary: The Hebrew Lord by John Shelby Spong
Review: Excellent book. Bought a few more and had Amazon send to my family and friends who live in different states. It is a very different book I have ever read on the Messiah Jesus. It truly takes "a step into tomorrow." Easy reading for the average person to read and understand. It is a book for a "different way of thinking" but one does not have to be a theologian to understand the message. So very futuristic - keeping up with the 21st generation of readers who are seeking answers to their questions on Jesus' followers' claim to His Divinity. For instance: Was/is Jesus the true Son of God? Why should one worship or pray to Jesus, who was a human being after all? I simply "love" this book! It gave me answers to many questions I was thinking about but could never put into words.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I picked up this copy based on the title and subject matter. I was keenly interested in learning more about the historical jewish background of Jesus and chapters 5 thru 8 certainly covered the topic I was interested in.
However the overrall enjoyment of the book was negated by Bishop Spong's unbiblical paraphrasing of text and denial of Christ's divinity. His constant assertion that "Our World simply can no longer make contact with the thought forms in which the church originally defined its Christ in the early ecumenical Councils" (Chapter 15-The Nonreligious Christ) borderlines on absurd.
A glaringly obvious mistake is that while Christ is personal, he is not personalized. Like play-doh he can not be modeled to fit the ideal and interpretation of every individual. He is there and will always be there with one message of hope and salvation to bring comfort and peace to the masses. We don't need to change him to fit our needs, he can fulfill our every need as he is already. Rather then trust man's ability to fashion Christ to fit our life, God with his infinite wisdom and power has already done the work for us in his revelation as Jesus of Nazareth the Christ.
The Foundation of the Church and it's teachings, teachings that have stood tall for more 1940 years (From AD 33 to 1973 the original publication date) and on whom millions upon millions of people through spans of generations have rested their life and salvation on, are suddenly wrong and need to be changed to fit the whim of one secular generation? This generation and culture will perish but the revelation of God and it's teachings will continue. The argument that the definition and interpretation of Jesus needs to be changed to fit this generation and their secular minds is moot at best.

Spong is at his best when he discusses the culture and historical insights of the Hebrew people. But when he attempts to explain Christ he falls as flat as his main contention-a contention that falls when he tries to demythologize the bible at the same time using it's verses to prove his point. I would recomend for readers of this book and for Bishop Spong himself to read 'Christ and Culture in Dialogue' (...)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book with a somewhat unique view on Jesus
Review: I will say right off that I write this review pretty much as an atheist. I certainly do not believe in much of what the Christian Scriptures have to say regarding miracles. I want to get that out so that any bias I have might be obvious.

That said, I think this is an excellent book. Spong writes very well, in a conversational and engaging style. You never feel you are being preached to and you have no doubt at all of this man's intelligence in his writing. Regarding the book, it seems to be showing you Spong's view of Jesus that he has come to accept in order to be an intellectually fulfilled person in this day and age and yet still be a spiritual one. Is this a redefinition of Jesus? To many, that is how it will be perceived. I think to Spong he feels that his view of Jesus is one that actually gets back to what Jesus represented and how the early writers (such as the Gospel writers) were actually representing him. To that end, I would say that Spong does a great job convincing me of the veracity of his vision in the sense that he presents a wonderful life philosophy. The book would do nothing to convince me to believe in the veracity of Jesus, per se, except in so far that one might call this life philosophy by "the Christ". Spong manages to do this, in some fashion, without believing in all the miracle stories of the Bible. At least I feel this to be the case. After reading the book I am not exactly sure where Spong stands on all the issues regarding Jesus' life (he refers you to his later books, which I will definitely read now) but I get the impression that he seems to feel Jesus was certainly more man than some sort of incarnation of the Hebrew Yahweh.

Regarding the book content itself, I like the idea of seeing Jesus through Hebrew eyes. I think that really was a mainstay of the book because you always have to look at people from the past in terms of what they represented in their cultural milieu. Spong makes a good case about the gospel writers (some of them, anyway) being influenced by Second Isaiah. That was interesting to me as I had never considered that. However, for myself, I disagreed (tentatively) with some of Spong's conclusions regarding how the gospel writers wrote. His interpretation of that, however, is definitely a good one and worthy of study. For myself, I do not think the gospel writers were as sophisticated as Spong seems to give them credit for but, then again, he does at least present the tendrils of a good case in that regard. I also do not feel that this book takes into account some of the notions that Jesus was part of the Zealots, which would undermine some of what Spong has to say.

However, one has to remember that this book is not meant to be a treatise on scholarship regarding the actual life of Jesus. So if one expects it to succeed in that realm, one would be missing the point of the book. The book is the story of how one man has looked at a definition of Jesus that he believes is relevant to the twentieth and twenty-first century. I highly recommend this book, particularly to those like myself who have little faith in religion. This book will probably not make you a believer but it will make you realize that it is possible to be very intellectual, very engaging, very articulate, as well as being very spiritual. I think that even if you abstract out the religious elements of Spong's book, the main theme still holds together. That is quite an accomplishment and makes it, in my opinion, well worth the read.

Rating:
Summary: A Message Full Of Hope
Review: In THIS HEBREW LORD Spong gives us a glimpse of Jesus of Nazareth and the example he revealed of a life being fully lived and shared. In order to appreciate Jesus, Spong believes it is necassary to look at him through first century Hebrew eyes. From this vantage point the meaning of spiritual is to be alive to both God and the world. To have faith is to have the courage to enter life where one is also able to find God. To the Hebrew in the time of Jesus there is no separation between God and the world as there is in Greek philosophy.

The author shows us a few Hebrew images from the Bible to help us observe Jesus in this new light. They are Jesus as a new Moses and new Elijah as well as the suffering servant from Second Isaiah.

Spong also discusses certain words attributed to Jesus in the fourth gospel which allow us to see Jesus more completely. These words refer to Jesus as Light, Life, Resurrection and the Bread of Life. In this gospel Jesus is given what the author refers to as "Christpower."

Spong provides a hopeful message for anyone who is having trouble relating to traditional Christianity but is still searching for meaning in religion. He writes with clarity and the text is filled with examples from his own personal quest for the truth.

Rating:
Summary: A book that is not to be missed!
Review: Like Bishop Spong, I have recently been on a personal search for the "authentic" Jesus. I have read a number of books grounded in theology that go into great detail to tell us who Jesus wasn't, but rarely have I found a book that provides a satiable explanation of who Jesus really was, and furthermore, what that means to us today. As a Christian, Jesus was supposed to be the focal point of my religion, yet until I read "This Hebrew Lord", I can now admit that I knew so very little about the man whose message was central to my faith.

Spong believes that the authentic Jesus can be found by examining the motives of the Gospel writers. The primary motive of the writers was to show that Jesus wanted to fulfill the Hebrew prophecy of the suffering servant (Isaiah 40-60), and in that case, we would need to view Jesus from a Hebrew perspective before we could understand his message. Spong spends a large portion of the book examining Jesus's Jewishness, and in doing so, provides me with a whole new perspective that the Church has never taught me.

The Hebrew Jesus relied not on working physical miracles to spread his message, but by working miracles with the powers of both love and grace. Spong said that in order for Jesus to be the Messiah, it meant that he must bring love to the unloved, freedom to the bound, wholeness to the distorted, and peace to the insecure. Only in this way could Jesus overcome the sin of the world. For the only power that can ultimately save is love, and love was the deepest meaning of Jesus' life.

After I read "This Hebrew Lord," I felt like my thirst for knowledge about this Jesus had been satisfied tenfold. I now feel like I can understand the true message of Jesus . . . this book has indeed been life-changing! I encourage everyone with even the slightest wish to learn more about Jesus to read "This Hebrew Lord" - it is definitely one theology book that you will NOT regret reading!

Rating:
Summary: A book that is not to be missed!
Review: Like Bishop Spong, I have recently been on a personal search for the "authentic" Jesus. I have read a number of books grounded in theology that go into great detail to tell us who Jesus wasn't, but rarely have I found a book that provides a satiable explanation of who Jesus really was, and furthermore, what that means to us today. As a Christian, Jesus was supposed to be the focal point of my religion, yet until I read "This Hebrew Lord", I can now admit that I knew so very little about the man whose message was central to my faith.

Spong believes that the authentic Jesus can be found by examining the motives of the Gospel writers. The primary motive of the writers was to show that Jesus wanted to fulfill the Hebrew prophecy of the suffering servant (Isaiah 40-60), and in that case, we would need to view Jesus from a Hebrew perspective before we could understand his message. Spong spends a large portion of the book examining Jesus's Jewishness, and in doing so, provides me with a whole new perspective that the Church has never taught me.

The Hebrew Jesus relied not on working physical miracles to spread his message, but by working miracles with the powers of both love and grace. Spong said that in order for Jesus to be the Messiah, it meant that he must bring love to the unloved, freedom to the bound, wholeness to the distorted, and peace to the insecure. Only in this way could Jesus overcome the sin of the world. For the only power that can ultimately save is love, and love was the deepest meaning of Jesus' life.

After I read "This Hebrew Lord," I felt like my thirst for knowledge about this Jesus had been satisfied tenfold. I now feel like I can understand the true message of Jesus . . . this book has indeed been life-changing! I encourage everyone with even the slightest wish to learn more about Jesus to read "This Hebrew Lord" - it is definitely one theology book that you will NOT regret reading!

Rating:
Summary: Galilee means "land of the Gentiles"
Review: This is not a world in which one reads and agrees on everything a mind like Bishop Spong's puts forth as proposition. If one did agree on every proposition, it would be agreement absent rationality and akin to the petrified belief structure of evangelical fundamentalism. As a catholic I am not bound to a literal interpretation of Scripture and in my past as mainstream and fundamentalist protestant, I could never bring myself succumb to such notions.

Spong causes anyone who is not frightened by the venture to explore the Jewishness of Christ. He was-despite the typical Aryan images of him foisted on us from an early age-a semite, a Jew well-grounded in Jewish culture and belief. To understand him as a Jew is to know better the Christ whose name we claim to reverence.

I cannot help but endorse Spong's conclusion that the mission of Jesus-ordained by God or otherwise-was to set us free to realize the fullness of life and in doing so to make our own choices. And I find his blend of existentialism with a freeing view of the meaning of scripture to be thoughtful and wholly palatable. Those who believe in the limitations of literalism, who accept the chains of fundamentalism, whose minds are threatened by demons of their own making, who stifle thought and make a jest of genuine goodness, will necessarily find Spong's book anathema. For them belief is a prison from which escape is impossible.

Rating:
Summary: Discover the fake Jesus you always wanted to believe in.
Review: Unfortunately, Episcopal Bishop Spong's view of being "Hebrew" is probably unrecognizable to Jews or to anyone who doesn't share Spong's specific intellectual vision of 1st century Palestine. Unfortunately also, New Testament studies abound with the writings of people who have quirky visions of 1st century Palestine.

No doubt this book reflects Spong's own questions and spiritual search. I have a great deal of doubt whether it offers a *successful* search for "the authentic Jesus".