Marcus J. Borg, Canon Theologian, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland OR. Renowned worldwide in academic and church circles as a biblical and Jesus scholar, he was Hundere Chair of Religion & Culture in the Philosophy Dept, Oregon State U. (For his books I've read, click on his name.)

A 4-pp Introduction to the Conversations with Scripture Series, Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars, by Series Editor Frederick W. Schmidt is summarized using four ‘Anglican descriptors’: “authoritative, illuminative, critical, and varied – these are not the labels that one uses to carve out an approach to Scripture that can be predicted with any kind of certainty. Indeed, if the word dynamic is added to the list, perhaps all that one can predict is more change!” I’m sure by change he means spiritual growth towards deeper understanding of Christian scriptures, traditions, and experiences.

For anyone not familiar with Marcus Borg, there is a 3-pp Autobiographical Note from which I have excerpted the following: “Much of my life has been about the relationship between these two commitments: the role of reason and the intellect in the life of Christian faith – that is, the relationship between faith and reason.” …”My teenage years were marked by experiencing faith and reason as rivals.” …”The rest of my life has persuaded me that faith and reason need not be rivals. Rather, they can be partners, indeed, need to be partners. Faith without reason can become fantasy and, at its extreme, fanaticism. Reason without faith can become arid and amoral.” …”Though I grew up Lutheran, I am now an Episcopalian.” …”The Episcopal Church has provided a nourishing spiritual home... I am grateful.” ...”… my passion is adult theological re-education. Such re-education needs to happen at the congregational level. It is a crucial task.” …”So we are fortunate to live in a time when another way of seeing Christianity is emerging.” …”In thousands of congregations, mostly in mainline Protestant denominations, this emerging way has been a means of revitalizing and deepening Christian understanding and commitment.” …”This book is a small contribution to this process of adult theological re-education.”

The Introduction begins by briefly describing importance (first written Gospel), distinctiveness, and perspective of The Gospel of Mark. Much of the Introduction explains the mainstream scholarly perspective, which Borg declares as “central to the theological foundation of what is increasingly called in our time ‘emerging’ or ‘progressive’ Christianity.” Its foundations include: (1) “The Bible as a human product, not a divine product” – it tells us how our early spiritual ancestors “experienced the sacred, saw the world, told their stories, and understood what life with God involved;” (2) “The Bible is not to be interpreted literally, factually and absolutely. Its language is often metaphorical, and its primary concern is not its factual meaning.” (3) “Seeing the Bible in this way does not deny its status as Christian sacred Scripture.” …”The Bible is sacred in its status and function, but not in origin.” As for memory and interpretation, “It’s clear that Mark and the other gospels combine earlier and later layers of material about Jesus.” …”Mark also combines memory and metaphor, as do the other gospels – and biblical narratives generally. In its broad sense, the metaphorical meaning of language is its more than literal, more than factual, meaning.” …”Metaphor is ‘the surplus of meaning’ language can carry.” …”Metaphor and metaphorical narratives can be profoundly true – meaning-filled and meaningful, truthful and truth-filled.”

Also from the Introduction: “How we interpret a biblical text matters greatly. To say anything at all about a text is to interpret it.” …”The historical approach to the Bible means setting a text – whether a narrative, a hymn or prayer, poetry or parable, legal or ethical teaching – in the historical context of the life of the ancient community in which it originated. Doing so has great illuminating power.” …The gospels “were written by ‘authors’ who knew the people they were writing for – they were Christians living in Christian communities who put into writing the traditions and convictions of their communities.” …”The names of the gospels were added in the second century when early Christian communities began to need to differentiate the gospels from each other.” …”Contemporary mainstream scholars seek to deduce what we can know about the gospel’s author, audience, location, and time from internal evidence within the gospel itself. Internal evidence is now the basis for making an educated judgment – that is, a historical judgment with some degree of probability.”

I quoted much from the Introduction since ‘digesting’ its historical-metaphorical perspective is essential for understanding what Borg says in the rest of this illuminating book. After the Introduction are five chapters: Ch 1: Overture and Beginning (Mark 1-3); Ch 2: Parables and Miracles (Mark 4-5); Ch 3: Rejection, Miracles, and Conflict (Mark 6-8:21); Ch 4: From Galilee to Jerusalem (Mark 8:22-10:52); Ch 5: Jerusalem, Execution, and Resurrection (Mark 11-16). There is one very important perspective that Borg explains and illustrates quite well – a perspective that should be of great help for those, both within and without Christianity, who have great difficulty in the credibility of miracle stories. Borg lays a foundation by discussing Jesus’ parables – the stories that have great meaning but are not stories of events and people in history, but were made up by Jesus to make important points. Using parables in this way was not unusual in Jesus’ time. Borg says that the miracle stories, except for some of the healing stories, could actually be parables made up by Jesus’ followers to provide meaning of things that Jesus taught to his followers. This perspective tells those who dismiss as false miracle stories to instead consider them from the parable standpoint. This provides both a powerful and a reasonable deflation of the idea that miracle stories are historical events. Do as Jesus tried to teach his disciples to do: understand by focusing on the meaning of, and reason for, parable stories. Borg does this well in discussing the miracle stories in Mark’s Gospel.

A very important feature of this book is the final 25-pp section called Study Questions (for the Introduction through Ch 5). In my opinion, the Study Questions make this book very well adapted for an adult study and discussion class for any group that wishes to know more about the ‘emerging’ or ‘progressive’ voices in contemporary mainstream Christian thought – or, to use Marcus J. Borg’s words: ”This book is a small contribution to this process of adult theological re-education.” It has made me look online at other books in the Conversations with Scripture Series by the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. I very strongly recommend this highly insightful book by Borg. Think six stars!