Key ideas from The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.
The Gospel of Mark provides no information on what happened the Saturday following the death of Jesus. Consequently, Borg and Crossan use this chapter to discuss Jewish theological concepts that influenced Mark's passion narrative. Among the topics covered are the descent into hell, apocalyptic eschatology, and God's justice and the bodily resurrection of the dead.
The authors suggest that the martyrdom of righteous Jews during the time of the Maccabees raised the problem of God's justice, which was eventually resolved by formulating the concept of bodily resurrection. God's justice would someday make things right and His "Great Cleanup" of the earth would begin with the resurrected bodies of the tortured martyrs.
With this conceptual world as background, Mark's Gospel affirms:
1. The kingdom of God has already begun.
2. The Son of Man (Jesus) has already arrived.
3. The bodily resurrection has already started.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Yesterday I read an article reporting that one archeologist maintains a different route for the Via Dolorosa based on a different location for the trial before Pilate. It was really interesting and fairly convincing. Then I followed another link that led to an article on proving the resurrection happened. Its premise was basically you can't prove it didn't happen. It was by Bill Bright. I kept thinking that name was familiar--then I saw Crusade for Christ. Interesting. I guess I need to go back and reread Borg and Crossan and also read Brown. But that book is soooo long. As I said before, so many books and so little time.
Post a Comment