The First Christmas, Marcus J. Borg
The First Christmas, Marcus J. Borg
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The First Christmas
What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth

Author: Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 7 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperOne

Published: 05/24/2011

Synopsis

In The First Christmas, two of today's top Jesus scholars, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, join forces to show how history has biased our reading of the nativity story as it appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. As they did for Easter in their previous book, The Last Week, here they explore the beginning of the life of Christ, peeling away the sentimentalism that has built up over the last two thousand years around this most well known of all stories to reveal the truth of what the gospels actually say. Borg and Crossan help us to see this well-known narrative afresh by answering the question, ""What do these stories mean?"" in the context of both the first century and the twenty-first century. They successfully show that the Christmas story, read in its original context, is far richer and more challenging than people imagine.

About Marcus J. Borg

Marcus J. Borg (1942–2015) was a pioneering author and teacher whom the New York Times described as ""a leading figure in his generation of Jesus scholars."" He was the Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University and canon theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, and he appeared on NBC's The Today Show and Dateline, ABC's World News, and NPR's Fresh Air. His books have sold over a million copies, including the bestselling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, Jesus, The Heart of Christianity, Evolution of the Word, Speaking Christian, and Convictions.

About John Dominic Crossan

John Dominic Crossan, professor emeritus at DePaul University, is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time. He is the author of several bestselling books, including The Historical Jesus, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, God and Empire, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, The Greatest Prayer, The Last Week, and The Power of Parable. He lives in Minneola, Florida.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Donald

A very interesting book about bringing the stories of the First Christmas to one's life now. The last chapter is the most inspiring and a great recapitulation of the other chapters. The book discloses and analyzes the different and possibly not factual stories in the Bible of the first Christmas. Th......more

Goodreads review by Tanya

I didn't do research on the authors when I picked this book, so when it started out with the theory that the Christmas story is a parable and everyone in it a fictional character, that was a head scratcher. I hit Google and learned the authors are associated with the Jesus Seminar. Ah. That explains......more

Goodreads review by Joe

While the majority of the world are winding down for the year and planning their exciting holiday adventures over the Christmas period, those of us who work in churches are about to enter one of the busiest periods of the year. As exciting and joyous as Christmas can be for clergy and lay-person alik......more

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