Biblical Literalism, John Shelby Spong
Biblical Literalism, John Shelby Spong
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Biblical Literalism
A Gentile Heresy: A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel

Author: John Shelby Spong

Narrator: Bob Souer

Unabridged: 10 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/07/2018


Synopsis

A man who has consciously and deliberately walked the path of Christ, John Shelby Spong has lived his entire life inside the Christian Church. In this profound and considered work, he offers a radical new way to look at the gospels today as he shows just how deeply Jewish the Christian Gospels are and how much they reflect the Jewish scriptures, history, and patterns of worship. Pulling back the layers of a long-standing Gentile ignorance, he reveals how the church's literal reading of the Bible is so far removed from these original Jewish authors' intent that it is an act of heresy.

Using the Gospel of Matthew as a guide, Spong explores the Bible's literary and liturgical roots to explain how the events of Jesus' life, including the virgin birth, the miracles, the details of the passion story, and the resurrection and ascension, would have been understood by both the Jewish authors of the various gospels and by the Jewish audiences for which they were originally written.

In Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, Spong illuminates the gospels as never before and provides a better blueprint for the future than where the church's leaden and heretical reading of the story of Jesus has led us—one that allows the faithful to live inside the Christian story in the modern world.

About John Shelby Spong

John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal Bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000, has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard and at more than 500 other universities all over the world. His books, which have sold well over a million copies, include Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy; The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic; Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World; Eternal Life: A New Vision; Jesus for the Non-Religious, The Sins of Scripture, Resurrection: Myth or Reality?; Why Christianity Must Change or Die; and his autobiography, Here I Stand. Spong writes a weekly column on the web that reaches thousands of people all over the world. He lives with his wife, Christine, in New Jersey.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nick on December 09, 2019

The central thesis of this book is very interesting: the gospel of Matthew is not written as a literal, chronological account of the life of Jesus. Instead, it's intended as a liturgical text for the early Jewish followers of Christ. Now, I know very little about Christianity and less about Judaism,......more

Goodreads review by Robert on October 13, 2021

The quest for the historical Jesus has tended to devolve into an act of looking into a well and seeing one's own reflection. That was Albert Schweitzer's analysis more than a century ago and it still remains true to this day. The way in which this reflection is cast will change, but not necessarily......more

Goodreads review by Bob on July 23, 2017

Once again John Shelby Spong startles the fundamentalists and educates the intelligent with his latest and - I think - best book yet. In Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy: A Journey into a New Christianity Through the Doorway of Matthew's Gospel, Bishop Spong uses the Gospel According to St. Mat......more

Goodreads review by Cathryn on April 10, 2017

This book COULD do a lot of things to its readers. It could make you angry. It could make you throw something. It could make you change your views about religion. It could make you question everything you hold dear. Or it could make you say, "FINALLY!" This book WILL do one thing: It will make you th......more

Goodreads review by Eric on April 25, 2021

Almost he persuades me to be a (Spong) Christian. After going through a crisis of faith years ago I came to a place of non-belief in religion. It was something I thought and studied long and hard about, not a glib or uninformed conclusion. I had plenty of frustration and anger at how I feel like I'd......more