The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesuss Final Days in Jerusalem by Marcus J. Borg

The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesuss Final Days in Jerusalem Reviews

• 
  Jan Rice

  We do not in this book intend to attempt a historical reconstruction of Jesus's last week on earth. Our purpose is not to distinguish what actually happened from the way it is recorded in the four gospels.... We intend a much simpler task: to tell and explain, against the background of Jewish high-priestly collaboration with Roman imperial control, the last week of Jesus's life on earth as given in the Gospel According to Mark. Both of us have spent our professional lives on the historical Jesus, but we work together here on this humbler task: to retell a story everyone thinks they know too well and most do not seem to know at all. (pp. viii-ix)

  
  
  Here is the first paradoxical aspect of this book: that the authors maintain they are not recounting history, yet aspects of the story that meet their needs or requirements, they allow to stand as history. For example, the framework of the story is on the days of the Christian Holy Week, Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, which in context seem like actual, factual history. Yet the days most likely likely represent a retelling to meet theological needs. Maybe even the time of the year required a theological revamp, as
  palm fronds are part of the fall festival of Sukkot, not the spring festival of Pesach.
  
  Generally, when the authors disagree with aspects of the story, they emphasize scripture-as-story. For example:
  
  

  Mark's gospel thus has an apocalyptic eschatology, a technical phrase that refers to the expectation of dramatic and decisive divine intervention in the near future, one so public that even nonbelievers will have to agree that it has happened. Whether this kind of eschatology goes back to Jesus himself is a separate question. We do not think that it does (my italics). We see it as most likely a post-Easter creation of the early Christian movement. In our judgment, Mark's gospel expresses an intensification of apocalyptic expectation triggered by the great war. But once again, our focus in this book is how Mark tells the story of Jesus and not the historical reconstruction of Jesus. (pp. 82-83)

  
  
  When the authors do agree, or when the plain sense is to their liking, they let it stand. For example they describe Jesus' riding into Jerusalem as an act of calculated political theater, without any reference to the Gospel author's having written the story that way.
  
  A quick glance at Goodreads reviews of this book will show that many readers are indeed taking the book to be history.
  
  This book gives a lot of misinformation. It also gives some information but since the reader may not know which is which, the overall impact is as misinformation.
  
  In reading about the book Zealot, which I haven't gotten to but will eventually, I found some reviewers who said there were so many errors that they would have to write reams to address every one. I feel the same about this book, and since I already am sufficiently long-winded without writing reams, I thought maybe I could look at the errors as falling into certain categories.
  
  One category might be pious alterations of the meaning. These authors have a definite religio-political philosophy, so for them the meaning needs to fit their political views. More about that later.
  
  Another category could be called simplification. When they deem explanation to be needed, these authors tend to give a simplistic one. As they say in my introductory quote, they are not doing a historical-critical study. There are only 27 footnotes, almost half of them on the last chapter, Easter Sunday.
  
  On second thought, there is overlap between the two categories I've proposed. In the examples I can come up with, the simplification serves the philosophy. Here's one: they want to present Jesus as more egalitarian toward women than the Jewish society of his time, so they describe levirate marriage as the abuse of women to serve the patriarchy. They don't bother to mention that in the reality of those times the practice protected the woman. (It's only in modern times that, with technology, economics, and a greater degree of order and safety, a woman doesn't need to live with a man.) Simplification can result in half-truths.
  
  Come to think of it, these authors asserted there is not a shred of evidence that Jesus was less than egalitarian toward women. Why, then, were there no women among the Twelve?
  
  The main category of error in this book might be called anachronism. A quote from a historian that has stuck with me goes something like this: While understanding past circumstances can help us understand the present, the reverse is not true. That's because there are subsequent social, cultural, political, and economic forms that didn't exist in the past, so retrojecting them into the past gives us a distorted view of the past.
  
  So Borg and Crossan give us a Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. type of Jesus--a political, social-justice Jesus. Several times throughout the text they insist that he--and Mark's community--were practitioners of non-violence. But even though others have thought Christians early on were non-violent (for example, Robert Wright in The Evolution of God), it was because they had to take that approach to avoid being squelched by Rome, not because they were practitioners of nonviolence in the modern sense--the methodology of which wasn't created until the 20th century.
  
  The major anachronism in this book is the "domination system." Borg and Crossan have discovered that there was a bourgeois class dominating the proletariat--er, make that the Jewish elite dominating the peasant class. Although the authors start out talking about the high-priestly class who were collaborators with Rome, they soon revert to talking about "the Jewish leaders."
  
  Once the authors have separated the society of Jesus' day into the peasants and the elites, then it's OK to consider the leaders the enemy. In other words, it's OK to pick up with the usual Christian enmity toward "the Jewish leaders"--even though the authors state several times throughout that they are different and are not doing that. Nevertheless they rarely miss an opportunity to contrast the society of Jesus' day unfavorably with Jesus and Mark's community. In other words they love the Jews but hate their leaders.
  
  In short with this obfuscation they can proceed with the usual narrative.
  
  But it looks like they have retrojected Marx's system back into Mark. Marksism!
  
  That view reflected Marx's vision of the impact of the industrial revolution on the lower classes while the feudal system being replaced was in its death throes.
  
  These authors also retrojected the medieval idea of the divine right of kings, and of the ordered universe with everything in its divinely assigned place, back into Second Temple times, as well as calling the Zealots "freedom fighters."
  
  With the later Gospels (not discussed in this book), it seems that after it transpired that the Jews, already having a religion, weren't going to become followers of Jesus en masse, the polemic worsened, so then all the Jews were to be considered sons of the devil, etc.
  
  Now, even though I'm pointing out a subtext of anti-Judaism (despite the authors' protestations to the contrary), that isn't the main polemic in the book. The main polemic is that of a liberal, social-justice form of Christianity against a more conservative form of Christianity that still holds with divinity and miracles and that the authors charge with supporting a imperialist distortion of Christianity. That is the major theme of the last chapter.
  
  I hear these authors as wanting to reduce Christianity to a political message and Jesus to a political Jesus, and, yes, a "Marksist" one. They want Jesus' resurrection and vindication by God to mean he has been given authority over the political powers of his own day, including the political powers of any day and our day.
  
  The authors' system requires that their overall take on Judaism be off-target, because their system requires, not whatever was really, actually, historically the case, but a foil for their take on Christianity.
  
  One more thing about the authors' use of the term "domination system." They say it applies to every society, even now--this dominant, powerful elite and an exploited underclass. But they only apply it in a straightforward way to Jesus' society.
  
  They ask their upper-middle-class readers to look at their government and its allegedly imperialistic activities, but they do not ask them to look at themselves as at the top of the economic heap. In fact they distract from any such self-examination.
  
  Although by the authors' analysis today's economic winners in America would be the parallel to those in "any" society, including that of Judea and Galilee in Jesus' day, the polemic of this book will orient its most favorably-inclined readers toward seeing only their differences from the imagined Judean elite. And it would be the American lower classes/poor who would be analagous to the proposed peasant class that the authors envision in Jesus' society. But the American poor and lower middle classes are those more likely to be the self-same conservative Christians against whom the authors inveigh.
  
  Polemic!
  
  I would like to give this book two stars because of some occasional tidbits of truth, but even those tidbits are soon turned toward polemic. For example, they do acknowledge that it's Jesus' followers who give the meaning to his death. That is, there is not intrinsic meaning, there is only interpreted meaning. But, having owned up to that, they turn right around and, as per their subtitle, dictate what that meaning is.
  
  The only good thing is that I finally read one of these books all the way through, instead of going on hearsay or a chapter here and there.
• 
  Mark

  This was a really fascinating analysis of the Marcan account of Jesus' last week; the week Christians call Holy Week. Borg and Crossan broke open the gospel account day by day. (Mark's Gospel is the only one clearly dividing that week into the eight days of Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday). They do a wonderful job of gathering together historical and scriptural expertise and presenting it in a emminently readable but challenging series of chapters.
  
  The chapters are linked of course by the common thread of the Lord's last week but stand alone also as essays on various aspects of Jewish, Imperial and early Christian reflection. The authors focus on the challenge of Jesus' kingdom being one of justice and non-violent opposition to the power of Rome and the collaborative tendency of the Jewish Authorities but they very clearly and, to my mind, definitively destroy any lingering anti-jewish feelings that might sometimes arise from misuderstanding or misrepresentation of the actual texts. Their stance is that though the leaders may well have sought the death of Jesus this was not a universal intent. Each day of the account they point to Jesus' popularity with the crowds and this scuppers that horrible 'God-killer' libel that enabled the horror of Pogrom and then the ultimate of the Holocaust to sometimes seek to claim legitimacy.
  
  Coincidentally, on Monday, finishing my trip to Israel and Palestine, I visited the Yad Vashem memorial. Very moving and, as a committed catholic, sobering but the children's memorial was absolutely beautiful. A really extraordinary inspired creation which managed to bring out the horror of the destruction of the lives of 1,5000,000 children whilst at the same time creating a quite beautiful sense of hope and light through one candle and myriad mirrors which reflected back and forth to create a river of light and a surround of flickering soul stars. Quite magnificent. I only rush off on this tangent because reading Borg and Crossan they are at pains to illustrate the hporrendous misreading of the Gospel accounts which stood as the definitive reading for so many years. They do it well.
  
  As i said each chapter reflects on the different stages of the week and therefore deals with all the aspects of the Christian faith. They hark back into His Ministry pointing out the self-evident but often forgotten fact that though His Passion is central to the world's Redemption in terms of His Death and Resurrection, the Passion can also refer to the thing for which He felt strongly and that is justice, the enabling of people to realize how much they are loved by God and His preparedness to continue to proclaim this always.
  
  Though they do give new insights and shed light in different ways on the Easter Story and indeed on the Lord's ministry as a whole and also on the history of Israel itself I think I found its real value was that it collected all sorts of things I already sort of knew but threaded them together and enabled them to enhance and enlighten just by being gathered in the same volume. There were new thoughts given to me by reading this book but even had there not been I found it a really intelligent and articulate reflection on the One I worship.
• 
  Amalia

  I read this book as our Lenten small group reading for church and had the opportunity to talk through each chapter on a weekly basis. I've long enjoyed the Biblical scholarship of Marcus Borg because of his emphasis on Jesus as a social revolutionary, and this view of the Last Week is no different in underlying premise. The gift that this book brought to me is that it moves through the focus on Christ's death and resurrection from the strict perspective of atonement for each of our sins; I've never been comfortable with the idea that we're all inherently sinful in nature. Instead, Christ's death and resurrection are presented as sociopolitical in nature, predicated on the idea of bringing God's Kingdom to the here-and-now. Again, the core principle that has to be accepted is that Jesus was a social and political revolutionary.
  I know this book isn't for everyone and I know that many consider Borg's teaching to be heresy (see Glen Beck's recent rants against Christianity as a tool for social justice). For me, Borg's view of Jesus resonates with my activist view of my faith. If you share that perspective, or if you're interested in learning more about that perspective, this is a wonderful reflective opportunity for the Lenten season.
• 
  Julie

  I've been a big fan of Dominick Crossan (The Jesus Project) and Marcus Borg (Reading The Bible Again for the First Time) for a long time. Their collaboration resulted in a work that sheds an important perspective on the political climate of Jesus' trial and execution.
  
  For instance, the procession into Jerusalem on a donkey wasn't just an act of humility or a demonstration of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled. It is set directly against the large and ceremonial return to Jerusalem by the Roman Authorities who have encamped to ensure peace during Passover.
  
  Tons of insight and information. Appropriately scholarly without being unapproachable.
• 
  Lee Harmon

  Beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through the following Sunday, resurrection day, Borg and Crossan lead us day-by-day through the events of Christianity's holy week. There are differences between the Gospel accounts, especially when it comes to John's Gospel, so the authors are at times forced to play favorites. Because Mark is the earliest Gospel, and because Mark goes out of his way to chronicle the day-by-day events of the Passion week, the authors chose Mark as their primary source.
  
  The stage is set early, on the first day of the week, as Jesus rides a donkey down from the Mount of Olives, through the east gate of the city. On the opposite side of the city, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, arrives at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus' procession hailed the arrival of the Kingdom of God; Pilate's, the power of the Empire. It's not going to go well; this becomes clear early on, as Jesus plans his symbolic resistance. He arrives back on Monday and "attacks" the Temple, overturning the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
  
  The following two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, portray the disciples in their attempt to comprehend what is going on. The very first "Christian" perhaps appears during this time: An unnamed woman recognizes that Jesus is about to die, and anoints him for burial.
  
  Thursday may be the most theologically significant day, as we experience the Passover meal, the Gethsemane prayer, and the arrest.
  
  Good Friday needs no introduction. Jesus succumbs to the Roman machine, dies with a cry of despair, and leaves the disciples in a great state of confusion and sorrow through Saturday, the Sabbath. (Mark's Gospel itself says nothing at all about Saturday; the feelings and events must be inferred, or taken from elsewhere, such as the tradition of Christ descending into Hell.)
  
  Finally, Easter, and the joy of resurrection. By far, this is the most confusing day of the week. Again, Mark's Gospel leaves us with little to go on; the original ending in Mark is very abrupt. Three women discover an empty tomb, and run away afraid, telling no one. It is only in the unfolding legends of other Gospel writers that we can try to piece together what this day meant to Jesus' followers. Regardless of how we imagine the actual events, the message is clear: Jesus lives!
• 
  Clif Hostetler

  This is a thoughtful analysis of the Gospel of Mark's description of the last week of Jesus' life. It provides a view that most progressive Christians can feel comfortable with. It's a view that doesn't require the reader to suspend their understanding of life, history and reality.
• 
  Diane

  The authors focus on historically-based insights into the political and religious situation at the time of the original Holy Week, which lend additional insight to the Gospel narrative construction and content. Believers rarely get such a good sense of what it might have been like 'on the ground' during that momentous week--these authors supply that.
  
  Using verse-by-verse analysis primarily of the Gospel of Mark, they end the book with the conclusion that Christianity must give equal weight to the daily cross/crucifixion and to transformation/resurrection. Without BOTH components they do not see Christianity as being authentic: Christians must non-violently struggle for social justice in the face of the 'domination' systems; AND Christians must undergo personal transformation (which they pass over lightly--presumably dealt with by other authors), a transformation from non-follower/non-believer to follower/believer in Christ.
  
  The authors address but do not attempt to solve the Resurrection mystery: are we to understand Easter as having literally taken place (could we have videotaped it?) or do we understand it as parable? Instead they discuss the advantages of at least accepting that Easter has a parable-like message, which began with the earliest Christian interpretation: 'The Lord lives,' at least a metaphorical Lord. The authors contend that the point of the Gospel Resurrection is to assure us that the domination system does not win. And they insist that we too, with Christ, must enter into the struggle against all domination/social injustice systems in order to be authentically Christian.
  
  In a refreshingly original argument, several times the authors make a compelling case against the atonement or 'substitutionary sacrifice' theological interpretation of classic Christian belief [see pp. 36-38; 116-120;137-140:]. Well worth reading selected pages for this alone.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Christine

  An interesting account of Holy Week, based on the Gospel according to Mark.
  
  I am always fascinated by the Gospels, the life of Jesus and various interpretations. Although one definitive ideology can never be made, this book offers a good step by step analysis of the days leading up to Jesus' death.
  
  When analyzing the Gospels, I always like to keep in mind that historians claim they were written some 40-50 years after Jesus' death. They have also undergone many translations. The authors of this book are mindful of these facts and offer some good insights. For example, "repent" as it was written in ancient Greek, would have meant "to go beyond the mind that you have." So, "repent and believe the Good News" would have taken on a much different meaning for early Christians than it is commonly used today. Similarly, the word "ransom" had a different meaning. Christianity teaches that Jesus was a sacrificial lamb, his life a literal blood sacrifice for the sins of humankind -- he was offered as a "ransom" for sins. But in Greek the meaning of ransom was not as a payment for sin but as a payment to liberate people, often from slavery or bondage. These two insights alone really could change the whole way the Gospels are interpreted.
  
  I would recommend this for anyone wanting to examine or delve deeper into the life of Christ.
  
• 
  Mark

  Borg and Crossan are two liberal theologians, one Lutheran and the other Catholic, who have been part of the Jesus Seminar, notable for its attempt to authenticate what Jesus actually said and did vs. what parts of the New Testament may have been fabricated or at least, unprovable. As you can imagine, this has not endeared them to evangelicals and fundamentalists. This slim book takes you through the last week of Jesus' life, and attempts in a similar way to separate fact from fiction. Full of good insights even if you don't agree with all of them.
• 
  Bruce

  Authors Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus' last week on earth, from Palm Sunday through his resurrection eight days later. Mark's gospel provides the framework for their analysis and reflection because, of the four gospels, Mark most clearly relates the passage of time from one day to the next. The narratives of the other three gospels are compared and contrasted with Mark's, the result (and authorial intent) being to disentangle the strands of the Passion narratives from one another. The book is more than Bible study though, as the authors engage in theological reflection about the meaning of these events as well. The authors emphasize participation with Jesus in his life and death over against the more common understanding that Jesus died to save us from our sin and make possible eternal life with God. Rather Jesus acted against the powers and principalities of this world that keep people in bondage, and died as a result. His resurrection represents God's vindication of Jesus and that these powers do not have the final say. An interesting, helpful, and inspiring book, especially during this (Holy) week.
• 
  Sonia Schoenfield

  I didn't read the whole book, I picked it up late in Holy Week, but I read enough to know that this is a book I will return to. Marcus J. Borg and Dominic Crossan look at each individual day of Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, through the lens of the gospel of Mark. They bring in the other gospels for comparison. Some of their assertions have made me think and ponder some assumptions that I hold. The death and resurrection of Jesus are examined from every angle, from every day, and, like any good book, then challenges the reader to take action. Recommended!
• 
  De Wet

  Interesting interpretation of the gospel of Mark. Of equal value to Christians and non-believers like myself who like learning more about the Bible and its times anyway, I would say.
• 
  Susan

  In many ways a helpful book, especially during mark lectionary years. Only downside? Substitutionary atonement.
• 
  David Moberly

  Best read during Lent
  
  This extraordinary work will forever be remembered for the significance of the Palm Session procession representing a mockery of the imperial domination system and a critique of injustice caused by the collaboration of the religious system. Victory over both is the climax of saying “Jesus lives” at Easter.
• 
  Erik Graff

  I have a friend who works for a Christian not-for-profit engaged in supporting educational projects in Haiti. Not having been raised as a Christian himself, yet one of the oldest core employees, he is uncomfortable with the religious affiliation publicly maintained by the organization and its directors. After finishing this little book today I gave it to him, thinking it would help him appreciate how it is possible to be a Christian wihout being crazy.
  
  Co-author Crossan, formerly of DePaul University, my friend's old school, is known for his socio-political take on the person of Jesus, identifying him as a radical bespeaking the concerns of the, then, mostly rural masses. What he and an Borg have come up with here is along those lines.
  
  Taking as their text the last half of Mark, the oldest extant gospel, Crossan and Borg trace the journey of Jesus and his followers to the events leading to his execution in Jerusalem, detailing in particular the last week of his life, in other words 'the Easter story', day-by-day. No concerted effort is made to unpack 'the historical Jesus'. Efforts are concentrated in performing a hermeneutic on the text in order to make it meaningful to modern readers.
  
  In this effort the authors are, in my opinion, quite successful. While not outright denying the miracles occasionally suggested by the text, they focus on the significance of the pericopes which make it up, on the meaning of particular events, not on their facticity.
  
  Given that most Christians are born into the faith, not converts to it, this book is a salutory effort to make that faith relevant by means of skipping over the stumbling blocks of the miraculous and the supernatural while focusing on the socio-political message. While much of what Borg and Crossan claim is debatable, their arguments are all plausible, all well within the domain of contemporary scholarship.
  
  I made my friend promise to read this as a condition of handing it over. I'll be interested to hear his reaction.
• 
  Robert B. B.

  Borg and Crossan offer a thought-provoking alternative to the pious blather that surrounded (and still surrounds) Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Grounded in sound scholarship, "The Last Week" reminds that Jesus was a profoundly political presence in Judea -- not, of course, in the way that we think of politics, but in his embrace of the poor and his challenge of Roman authority. The authors run the risk of minimizing or ignoring altogether what I would call the personal dimension of Jesus's ministry -- how his teaching and example changed -- and continue to change -- lives. But "The Last Week" is a needed counterweight to the vast body of literature that confines Jesus and his teachings solely to individual salvation.
• 
  Andrew

  Certainly makes some pretty strong points about the uncompromising political nature of Jesus' ministry. Big flaw with Borg that I see in much of his writing is that where he wants to elevate Jesus to the position of a political radical and rebel over traditional readings (which never nullified such a stance) and tends to downplay to the point of denial anything theological about Christ. It's really that anti authoritarian appeal though that works; arguments to theology are ignored ("that's just stuff church leaders make up to corral us!") and so the book really feels like more of an emotional appeal, a Jesus middle class anarchists will like, than one which works on an intellectual or biblical level.
• 
  Marty Solomon

  Borg and Crossan bring their excellent scholarship to a focused study on the last week of Jesus's life. This review will be concise. It's excellent scholarship communicated in a way that is very accessible to the average reader.
  
  B & C use the gospel of Mark as their main text to examine the record of the last week. Sometimes comparing it to the other gospels and often diving into other parts of Mark, the read was both insightful and academic.
  
  As always, there are nuances I disagree with and their textual criticism will often go a bit beyond my comfort zone (not much though); however, this book represents the basic consensus of scholarship in the world of textual criticism and finds a way to do it in a way that is still inoffensive and compelling to reader. Wonderfully well done!
• 
  Margie Dorn

  Just a really good (not perfect: no book ever is) exposition of what we're about during this season, and on our own journeys. I strongly recommend.... AFTER ANOTHER READING this year for Easter, I need to add that while I very much appreciate the phrase "parabolic meaning" that they use to enhance the understanding of the Easter story, when they call the story a parable per se, I feel this is reductive. I finally figured out why I feel this way... parables always have unspecified actors, while the Easter story has very specified actors and is meant to reify, to bring God's story into history, however you interpret it.
• 
  Jan Anne

  Is it just a review and exploration of the Marcan gospel account? No, they do digress into comparison with other gospels & they do to an extent seem to discuss the historical Jesus. That makes the book all the more fascinating but makes me not able to give it five stars. But this is one of the best books I've read on Jesus & his religious-political agenda and ideas. Extremely fascinating & worth reading during the holy week.
• 
  Brent Wilson

  Short book, very readable, compelling message - just what you'd expect from the authors.
  
  The book starts out with Jesus arriving in Jerusalem that last week - ordering a donkey and coming in deliberately like a king. That shows his intentions to cause a ruckus - which he definitely did.
  
  Lots of insights regardless of your faith inclinations. Recommended.
• 
  Jan

  I was rereading this book for Holy Week, and it continues to inspire and teach me. It's a great look at what Jesus probably MEANT to do and say instead of the salvation theology that the church laid on him some years after the fact.
• 
  Tiffany

  Interesting walk through Jesus' last week before his execution. Rich with cultural and political explainations and comparison with the account as told by Mark.
• 
  Paul

  Disappointing. The book vascilated between prophecy and accuracy. Not too much scientific research went into this book. I was expecting somethin else
• 
  Jen

  This book puts Jesus in a more political perspective. I love it.
• 
  Barb Bethea

  This book makes you think but is very political. I really don't want to think of Holy Week in political terms.