THESIS STATEMENT: This Paper attempts to analyze
and compare the work of John Spong in his book
“Born of a Woman” and Luke Timothy
Johnson in his book “The real Jesus”
and assess their writing styles.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JOHN SPONG:
John Shelby Spong was born in 1931 in Charlotte,
North Carolina. He graduated from the University
of Chapel Hill in North Carolina and received
his Masters degree in Divinity from the Protestant
Episcopal Seminary in Virginia. He was consecrated
Bishop Of Newark on June 12, 1976. Bishop Spong
has served as editor of the North Carolina Churchman,
Sports Editor for The Daily Southerner in Tarboro
and also as the President of the New Jersey Council
of churches. Bishop Spong has written fourteen
books. His latest books include: Why Christians
must change or die: A Bishop speaks to believers
in exile (Harper, 1998) and The Bishop’s
voice: A compilation of articles by John S. Spong,
1976 to 78 (The Voice, 1999)
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON:
Luke Timothy Johnson is a former Benedictine
monk. He received his PhD from Yale in 1976 and
was a teacher at Yale Divinity School before taking
over as Robert W. Woodruff’s Professor of
New Testament and Christian Origins in Chandler
School of Theology at Emory University. He has
written several books and the most recent ones
are: The Creed: What Christians believe and why
it matters (Doubleday 2003), and Living Gospel
Essays on Scripture and Theology (Continuum, 2004).
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK: “BORN OF A WOMAN”:
In this book, Bishop Spong challenges the validity
of many of the traditional beliefs of the church.
He particularly opposes the concepts of “virgin”
birth of Jesus and the consequent portrayal of
women throughout the Bible, as being sexist and
unreal. He is of the opinion that it is time for
the Church to “recognize certainty as a
vice and to dismiss it, and to embrace uncertainty
as a virtue.” He puts forward the propositions
that the Bible should not be taken literally,
as a naïve act of “faith”. He
believes rather, that traditional beliefs should
be questioned and a rational explanation discovered
for them. He states that many of the incidents
narrated in the Bible such as Jonah living in
the stomach of a fish and creation of the Earth
by a Fiat in seven days, for example defy credulity
and need to be re-examined in the light of the
scientific discoveries that have been made. He
feels alienated from the belief system of fundamental
Christianity in the world today – finding
it to be biased and prejudiced and with a predominant
view of the Bible as promoting a patriarchal,
masculine overview that does not incorporate into
it other elements of society, such as women and
homosexual or other sections of society.
But the main focus of Bishop Spong’s treatise
deals with the Biblical view of women as represented
by the Bible scholars. He states that the virgin
birth of Jesus raises many questions as to the
nature of the birth of Jesus. Why would God by
an ad-hoc decision suddenly interfere in the life
cycle of a human being to introduce his seed?
Bishop Spong is of the opinion that the portrayal
of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as having experienced
a virgin birth, undermines her identity as a woman
and casts her in an idealistic mould that is unreal
and unnatural – an ideal that no woman can
aspire to because such a woman as Mary has been
portrayed to be in the Bible cannot be real. If
therefore, she was a real woman, who was the father
of Jesus? If it was not Jesus, was Jesus illegitimate?
There is a lack of a reasonable explanation in
this matter. Bishop Spong concludes by saying
that literalism in all its forms must die and
this does not necessarily mean that God will die.
The voice of fundamentalism must be closed and
a more realistic view of the Biblical precepts
need to be propounded by the Church, so that its
structure becomes less rigid and sterile.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK: “THE REAL JESUS”:
This book was written by the author as a direct
reply to many of the questions raised about Jesus
by “The Jesus Seminar”. Many theologians,
including Jews and agnostics congregated to discuss
the biblical stories of Jesus and discuss their
validity in the context of present day circumstances.
Proponents of the Jesus seminar raised doubts
about the divinity of Jesus and the veracity of
the miracles that he performed ad his resurrection.
They also questioned the authenticity of the Gospels
and whether any of the events actually occurred
as described therein. The general view was that
the Gospel of Mark was the first to be written
and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written
thereafter, drawing much of the material from
Mark with additional sources added. The general
conclusion of the Jesus Seminar was that the stories
of Jesus as propounded in the Bible raised many
doubts on their veracity.
Luke Johnson argues that the theologians at
the Jesus Seminar have approached the concept
of the Biblical Jesus from a flawed perspective.
He states that most members have come to this
table of discussion with the set notion that there
is nothing supernatural in the world today. There
is no chance for a balanced view to be reached
because in the consideration of the grand scheme
of events, the possibility that Jesus may have
actually been divine is not even accepted as one
of the hypotheses. Therefore, the Seminar naturally
precludes a balanced, rational decision that is
arrived at after a careful consideration of all
factors.
Luke Johnson goes on to state that it has been
documented that a man named Jesus was crucified.
But historically, future events may not been established
with iron clad certainty. However, Luke offers
the argument that even if the Gospel of St. Luke
was the first one written and the Gospels of Luke
and Matthew thereafter, the time frames under
discussion would only amount to a decade or so
and the writings in the Gospels cannot therefore
be construed as myth. He also criticizes the decision
of the skeptics to accept the Gospel of St. Thomas.
He states that this Gospel was written 150 years
later and is more likely to be Gnostic and heretical
in origin, as compared to the other Gospels. He
offers the argument that the Gospels of Matthew
and Luke were written within a time frame more
conducive to their authenticity and that several
other accounts of the deeds of Jesus are available
through the New Testament writings of the letters
of Paul, Peter and other apostles. Johnson compares
incidents in the four Gospels and demonstrates
that while the style of narration may not be the
same, nevertheless in substance, they are the
same, which corroborates their veracity. He goes
on to state that there is no evidence that the
deeds and words of Jesus were freely created by
some imaginative writers. Had this been the case,
there would have been many inconsistencies which
the early Christians could have resolved then
and there if they chose to but this didn’t
happen.
Johnson concludes by raising several hard hitting
questions about the origin of the Jesus story.
As contrasted with the view of the skeptics who
are of the opinion that the simple story of a
peasant carpenter was modified bit by it, generation
over generation to become the story it is today,
Johnson asserts with certainty that the story
of the divinity of Jesus originated very soon
after his resurrection and was not the made up
fable of someone down the line who sought benefits
from the creation of a myth. Since the belief
in the divinity of Jesus originated after his
resurrection and quickly gained ground, the possibility
that it may be true gains credence because this
was the generation of eyewitnesses.
Johnson concludes that there are some historically
known facts, from which certain assumptions may
be made. The resurrection of Jesus may not be
possible to prove through historical analysis
but on the scale of probability, it would rank
high on the list. He draws up a list of events
which did happen, which could have happened and
which probably did happen and in the light of
all these, draws the conclusion that the real
Jesus is indeed the historical Jesus of the Bible,
as would be further corroborated by the element
of faith. There is no distinction between them
as claimed by the skeptics.
ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON:
Bishop Spong’s writing style is lucid
and hard hitting, down to earth and one which
employs a no-nonsense approach. He clearly outlines
the unrealistic standards for women set by the
Gospels. He offers a convincing argument that
Mary, the mother of Jesus is portrayed as such
a saintly figure that she does not appear real
at all, but a saint. How can modern women today
emulate or match the women disciples as set out
in the Bible? Bishop Spong’s argument that
there were no women disciples also illustrates
the nature of the male dominated hierarchy of
the Bible. Rational thought would support the
contention that Mary, being a human being, must
have conceived a child by human methods and therefore
the “virgin” birth of Jesus appears
to have a degree of improbability about it. Bishop
Spong’s argument that the concepts and beliefs
enunciated in the Bible may reflect principles
that are not really divine but are more the male-generated
ideas of the position of women would also appear
to be a believable hypothesis. Through a series
of rational, clearly phrased questions, Spong
illuminates many of the Biblical events and assesses
them with the voice of reason. His analysis and
conclusion that the most harmful effect of the
portrayal of the ‘virgin’ birth in
the Bible is the fact that the identity of woman
has come to be associated with her sexuality and
that a premium is placed on her only if she is
a ‘virgin’ is brilliantly and cogently
presented and strikes a chord in every reader,
whether a concurring one or opposing.
Johnson’s presentation on the other hand,
addresses the concept of the depiction of women
in the bible as being a function of the times.
He argues that it was unacceptable in Jesus’
day for a women to share the same ranking as a
man in matters of religion. Therefore, if Jesus
did not select women disciples, it was not because
they were inferior but because it was the custom
at that time. As regards the virgin birth of Jesus,
he groups it under his classification of historical
events that may have happened. However, through
his dissertation Johnson appears to be pushing
his own agenda and is not as convincing or as
cogent as Bishop Spong.
Johnson is not able to effectively address the
cogent arguments raised by Bishop Spong. His writing
style tends to be repetitive and toeing the church
line. He does offer some good arguments, but this
appears more in the form of a knee jerk, defensive
reaction. Critics have raised doubts about his
accusations against the participants in the Jesus
Seminar and his implication in his writing that
the conclusions of those at the Seminar were reached
in an ad-hoc manner, not supported by scientific
analysis, whereas many of the members of the Seminar
were respectable scholars and their methods were
neither far fetched nor idiosyncratic as Johnson
claims them to be. He has been accused of airing
many of the same doubts in his earlier writings,
but since the Jesus Seminar raised these concerns
and brought it out into the wider circle of the
public, he has written his tirade as a purely
defensive, retaliatory piece, which is not based
on actual fact.
Johnson does not appear to raise any new theory
or cogent evidence to support his contentions
in writing about the historical Jesus. There is
nothing new or fresh in his writing. He does not
attempt to construct a plausible and believable
Jesus based on the historical one, by making fresh
deductions on the shadowy evidence from that period
– instead he resorts to the hackeneyed line
of religious writers in advocating a leap of faith.
. Spong makes a clear distinction between myth
and reality – he states that just because
some of the incidents narrated in the Bible may
not be true in a literal sense, this does not
necessarily mean that they are completely false.
He emphasizes the dangers of a ‘literal’
interpretation of the Bible and a blind belief
in what it states, for it has been after all,
written by human hands. His thoughts are presented
so clearly and with so much conviction that they
cannot fail to impress the reader. His choice
of words and expressions only adds to the clarity
of thought and presentation of this skilled writer
and reveals the line of clear, logical thinking.
It is fundamentalism that Spong rails against,
not the truth about the message of Jesus. He merely
questions the events as they are explained in
the Bible and dares to seek an explanation that
is not a ‘literal’ one. He feels that
the winds of insecurity must blow through the
Church, matters in the Bible must be thrown open
to question, so that each person can discover
the truth in his own way for truth is after all,
consistent throughout the ages.
While Johnson attempts to present the historical
facts about Jesus and assess their degree of probability
to the nearest degree, he advocates that element
of ‘faith’ as being the redeeming
view of the Bible. In his article, he quotes:
“Faith starts from knowledge, even if it
reaches beyond it, and its character as faith
is not destroyed by its association with knowledge.”
However, his writing, while presented well appears
less factual and reasonable to the discerning
reader. Religious writing and the advocating of
the adherence to the Bible as the literal word
of God makes his work unlikely to really strike
a chord with the reader. The concurrence of the
Gospels and his assessment of probabilities is
well done, but the concerns raised at the Jesus
Seminar would need to be addressed from the point
of view of reason and logic, not faith. Johnson
offers us little that is new or striking, to compare
with Bishop Spong’s brilliant analysis of
the repercussions of biblical thought on the status
of women and other repressed sections of society.
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