Charting a New Reformation, Part XXIX - The Ninth Thesis, Ethics (continued)

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 28 July 2016 9 Comments
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Question

I’ve just started reading your book Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World and I’m finding it to be fascinating. I’ve always suspected that the Bible was a combination of folklore and revisionist history. Could you tell me how it is that you found that the virgin birth, the miracles and the ascension were all added 70-100 years later? Do you believe Jesus was the son of God or do you believe that this assertion was the product of years of embellishment? If you believe him to be the son of God, then do you think it’s possible that there were other sons and perhaps daughters of God?

Answer

Dear Keith,

When I read your letter, I want to say slow down, my friend. The questions you raise cannot be dealt with so summarily. Jesus lived between 4 BCE and 30 CE according to the best guess of the scholars. The first gospel, Mark, was written about 72-73 AD. The Virgin Birth story enters the tradition with Matthew in the middle years of the 9th decade (82-85 CE). The Ascension story enters the tradition with Luke about a decade after Matthew. Those dates can be pretty well demonstrated by internal references to such things as the fall of Jerusalem to the armies of Rome, which we know occurred in the year 70 CE.

Yes, I believe that God was in Christ, to use St. Paul’s words, but that does not mean that the external theistic God, who lives above the sky, somehow entered him and took over his humanity. Rather I think that his humanity became so full and so complete that the meaning of God could find expression in him. I think all human beings have that capacity. I deal with these and many other questions in my book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, but it took over 300 pages to do so. There is no shortcut to discovering the truth in, behind and through the Bible, but the God is real, I believe, that we always find at the end of our study.

My best,
John Shelby Spong

 

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