Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes – Bishop Spong's Remarkable View of Midrashic Stories and Their Power to Reveal Jesus's True Significance

by John Shelby Spong

In this boldest book since Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Bishop John Shelby Spong offers a compelling view of the Gospels as thoroughly Jewish tests.Spong powerfully argues that many of the key Gospel accounts of events in the life of Jesus—from the stories of his birth to his physical resurrection—are not literally true. He offers convincing evidence that the Gospels are a collection of Jewish midrashic stories written to convey the significance of Jesus. This remarkable discovery brings us closer to how Jesus was really understood in his day and should be in ours.

Genres: Religion, Christianity, Theology, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Judaism, History

384 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

About the author

John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000. As a leading spokesperson for an open, scholarly, and progressive Christianity, Bishop Spong has taught at Harvard and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He has also lectured at universities, conference centers, and churches in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. His books include: A New Christianity for a New World, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and his autobiography, Here I Stand.

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 1 out of 5]

A wolf in sheep's clothing overstates the harmony between biblical scriptures...

John Shelby Spong, an Episcopalian, attempts to frame the content and structure of New Testament scriptures with supposed Jewish style myth-making. For this process, Spong refers often to "midrash" and "lectionary" and would have the Gospels (plus, Acts) amount to little more than a public relations scheme undertaken to smooth the waters between Judaist tradition and the martyred Messiah, Jesus. A surreptitious swindle, perhaps.

Spong uses page after page arguing the explanation for what he sees as an apparent Jewish penchant for making up stories. Throughout this discourse, the author too often repeats his limiting assertions (as if they were hymns chorusing from his own church of presumption), and busily sets about dissolving Christian faith as if it were a Gentile stain while his wisdom were the remedial bleach.

Spong is unbelievable. And confused - which might be a predictable outcome for one who invests so much faith in scholarly opinion and so little in the teachings of the scriptures themselves; as Spong does, by scaffolding his theology to the walls of secular belief.

(According to the author, Luke copied from Matthew, and Matthew copied from Mark, and in fact, every gospel writer 'lifted' their express thoughts from Paul in the first instance, and then the manifold scribes which constitute most of the Old Testament. Spong is certain of this, and says his readers should be, too, because scholarly opinion says so).

Throughout his book, and somewhat humorously, Spong states outright that an entire array of particular events surrounding the Jesus story, and even certain figures (i,e; Joseph, among many) are fictitious - but then he'll reflect "Is this to say these things didn't happen? Well, no..."

Now: I can appreciate the value and employment of metaphor as much as anybody, particular as it may relate in the bible. Yet Spong does a derelict job of holding up that side of his reasoning, instead opting to describe anything that isn't literal as plainly counterfeit.

To claim so much of the Gospel texts as false and fictitious is to charge them with a lie, and after reading this book I found myself ruminating: who needs atheism when you have so called Christians like John Shelby Spong hard at work?..

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spong asserts that the Gospels were never meant to be history or biography, but rather were constructed to be used as liturgical texts for the original Christians. The Gospels have all the hallmarks of the methods of Jewish midrashic narrative: echoes of the Old Testament and deliberate reference to the Jewish patriarchs and prophets. The Resurrection itself wasn't a literal fact, it was the transition of Christ from human life to the spirit of the community's shared belief and ritual tradition. Millennia of institutionalized anti-Semitism has made Christians unable to recognize the way the original Christians would have defined such texts: as companion pieces to the Jewish liturgical calendar and the Torah. As a result, the monstrosity of literalism remains the only way most believers can define the Gospels.

This is a fascinating, painstakingly researched work. As a nonbeliever, I find Spong's approach to the Gospels both rational and sincere.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a wonderful discovery. I was fascinated to follow Spong's through the first four gospels of the New Testament as he places key parts of the Christian story and liturgy into their Jewish backgrounds.

[Shereif Danial · Rating 5 out of 5]

The true biography of Jesus not as a messiah, but as a human being. The book is thought provoking and forces the reader to challenge the absurdity of what we were taught in Church.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding the context and purpose behind these first four books of the New Testament is fascinating! These were Jewish scribes, recording the life and messages of a man 50 to 60 years afterward, at at time when Jewish heritage was on the verge of dying out as a result of the First Jewish-Roman War. The author presents a hypothesis that these books were constructed for liturgical reasons, to be read each Sabbath, supplementing the weekly readings of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament and Torah), which provided a foundation for Jewish festivals and rituals. Regardless of whether or not the reader goes along with this claim, the author presents details about Jewish life at that time, and frames these books in a way that allows the reader to understand their context. As I read this book, I'm no longer asking, "How is anyone supposed to understand what is presented in the Gospels if we don't understand their original purpose?"

One note: The author takes a slow walk to bring the reader up to this point (presumably for people not brought up in Christian basics). If in the initial pages you find yourself thinking, "yeah, yeah, I know...", I suggest skimming the first chapter or two.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love John Shelby Spong and have read pretty much everything he's ever writteen.
Twice, I've tried to read Liberating the Gospels, but for me, Spong has gone a bridge too far. J S Spong is a great educator on the history and meaning of the gospels, but 'LIberating'tries to relate their stories to supposidly corresponding Jewish festival holidays. To me it's just a bridge too far.

No recommended.

[Myrivername · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book at a library book sale. It was ok in the beginning, but I really struggled to finish it. Towards the end, every other paragraph had something in it that would make me think, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense, you can't infer that, etc. In the first few chapters the author has a plausible argument, that the gospels were written to follow the order of the Jewish liturgical year. But after that he demonstrates a real lack of logic.

[Jake Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dry for cover-to-cover reading, but I'm gonna keep it around for reference because it offers some really intriguing interpretations of otherwise baffling passages.

[Bucky Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as a personal challenge, knowing that its content and author have strong liberal theological leanings which run contrary to my own convictions. As with most "challenge books", I was able to find some value, separating the wheat from the chaff.

The good: The author makes an intriguing case for his hypothesis that the gospel writers intended to structure their books in lectionary, liturgical form to supplement the weekly Torah portions read in First Century synagogues, rather than as historical narratives. He argues that seeing the New Testament through Jewish lenses is essential to proper interpretation, particularly for a people separated from its original context by two millennia and a modern Western worldview. He explains the biblical and extrabiblical Jewish Feasts and Festivals, along with their place in First Century Judaism, to illuminate deeper meaning behind the events, language, order, and structure we see in the gospels.

The Bad: The author totally jumps the shark from each of these points — and many more — in a desperate and oft-redundant frenzy of logical fallacies and eisegetical acrobatics to support his anti-orthodox and universalist "progressive" sentiments. Honestly, this could have been a good enough (and at least intellectually honest) book if left to the exploration of the lectionary form of the gospels and the Jewish culture into which they were born. But no; at every opportunity to emphasize how silly, woefully misguided, and intentionally-ignorant he thinks the Western Church has been until this post-modern moment (in which enlightened theologians such as himself have seen the truth), he takes such a leap.

For example: Spong's logic concludes that, because Mark was structuring his gospel as midrashic liturgy rather than as a biographical report, the whole narrative (with all of its events, details, and speech) must be manufactured and merely inspired by the effect of "the Jesus experience" on the early Christian community. That none of it is literally true, but is all legend and symbolic commentary woven together from Jewish tradition and Old Testament allusions in order to process and explain the spiritual significance of Jesus of Nazareth's ministry and apparent resurrection. He is certain that everything the Western Church believes about who Jesus was and what he said and did is factually incorrect. But that's not a challenge to Christianity, implies Spong, if we can all get woke and celebrate Jesus not as God incarnate who atones for the sin of the world, but as a cool guy who influenced a lot of people to be nice to each other and inspired them to experience God in a new, human-yet-spiritual way.

I must say, it is particularly notable how selectively dismissive this writer is of Pauline doctrine. He uses Paul when it's convenient for his argument, but leaves out pretty much everything the former Pharisee taught about the nature, history, and significance of Jesus and the power of faith in Him.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought-provoking study of the New Testament supposedly "through Jewish eyes." Being a Bishop in the Episcopal Church, Spong's eyes aren't really very Jewish, but I guess it's nice to see him try...

[Cedric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spong is a retired Episcopalian bishop and the author of many books on theology and Christian practice, a key figure in the liberal side of American theology. In this book, he tackles the gospels and convincingly provides an argument, derived both from careful textual and contextual reading and from the way the texts are organised in the earliest surviving manuscripts that they are to be read as products of the Jewish Midrashic tradition. That is they were composed as illustrations and stories to emphasise and convey teaching messages about the Torah and other Old Testament books. In the first century, Christian worship had not separated from regular Jewish worship (this did not happen Spong argues until after the Roman Jewish war of 70 AD when it became politically necessary for Gentile converts to distinguish themselves from Jews). Christians attended and participated in synagogue worship, meeting again separately afterwards or on the Saturday evening for worship specific to the Jesus cult. A feature of the Jewish liturgy at the time was that the entire Torah was read through over the course of the year and other texts were specified also for the various holy days and festivals. Spong carefully reconstructs this Jewish liturgical year, identifying which texts were read at which times. He argues that for the increasingly Gentile cohort of converts who were not familiar with the Jewish tradition and lacked the connection that came from growing up Jewish, the year of preparation before admission into the congregation required additional texts related to the Jesus story which could more clearly and pointedly illustrate and make clear the key features and teachings of the Jewish texts. By following the divisions of the gospels in the earliest manuscripts and correlating them with the Jewish liturgical readings. he is able to break down the gospels into the sections and read them against the section of the Torah or OT that would have been read at the same time. What emerges is that the gospel stories reflect, mirror and repeat key elements of the Jewish texts. Spong's conclusion is that the gospels were consciously written to provide such teaching materials to new converts under instruction.

This, of course, overturns the entire traditional theory of the composition of the gospels, which are assumed to be based on a lost source Q which was a collection of the sayings and words of Jesus, supplemented by local congregation's oral traditions of the eyewitness accounts by the disciples that founded those congregations. Instead Spong suggests these are conscious literary constructs written for teaching purposes, and furthermore, each gospel writer had the previous one(s) starting from Mark in front of them and either incorporated or edited out what they felt was of use to their purpose.

In other words, there were no sayings of Jesus written down. Indeed Spong shows that some of Paul's works actually predate the gospel of Mark and reveal very little knowledge about the actual life and teaching of Jesus. Spong interrogates the passion stories particularly closely, and using some hints in Mark and also comments from Paul's epistles, comes to the conclusion that all the disciples fled when Jesus was arrested and there were absolutely no witnesses to his execution, no one to collect the body and his corpse was most likely dumped into a shallow unknown grave and like most such bodies, dug up and eaten by wild dogs. The entire passion story is made up.

In Spong's telling then, the historicity of Jesus comes down to his existence, that he was a carpenter, probably an illegitimate son of a single mother, who had an epiphany, wandered around the badlands of Galilee preaching and practising a message of unconditional love, was seen as a political troublemaker by the Romans who then executed him. (Spong is very good on how post AD70 huge efforts are made by the gospel writers to excuse the Romans and blame the Jews for Jesus' death - the core origin of the virulent and traditional antisemitism of the Christian churches). Beyond that, there is nothing other than faith. All in all a fascinating exercise in biblical scholarship.

[Kevin Brubaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Spong’s insight into how the Gospels were written as liturgical texts meant to reinterpret the Jewish liturgical cycle of holidays is important, the book suffers several flaws.

First, Spong never makes clear how much this is his own interpretation and how much he is reporting the findings of others. Though the book has an extensive bibliography and footnotes, the footnotes serve almost exclusively to provide clarification to the text – presumably last-minute responses to an editor after the book was already typeset. There is only one section of the text – incidentally the clearest and most compelling in the book – where he explicitly summarizes the work of another writer. The reader is thus left with no idea whether he is reading a modern consensus amongst biblical scholars or the controversial ideas of a single author.

Second, it’s hard to know who is Spong’s intended audience. If he’s writing to Christians, he buries his message to the faithful so deeply it is easy to miss. (Namely, that early Christians came to their faith before the New Testament was written. They didn’t read the bible and become believers; they were believers who wrote the bible in an effort to share their faith.) If his audience is a wider lay audience, he fails by assuming his reader knows far more about Christian liturgical practice and Jewish midrash than is reasonable. And if his audience is academic, his lack of footnotes is inexcusable.

Third, Spong both overstates and understates his case. While some of his attempts to align the Gospels with the Jewish liturgy is brilliant, other texts fit so poorly as to strain credulity. (Indeed, in these places he reminds me of the scenes in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” where schizophrenic mathematician John Nash finds secret patterns everywhere.) Spong’s case would have been far stronger if he had argued that there are places where the text doesn’t fit is case – not because the Gospel writers were too dumb to do so, but because they were constrained by their efforts to tell the truth as they understood it. Spong misses this vital point and instead attributes every word of the Gospels to authors’ attempts to write good midrash.

Fourth, Spong spends so much effort breaking down the texts that he leaves almost nothing to building them back up. If all the familiar details are “merely” stories intended to convey Truth through the language of the Old Testament, what is that Truth? While such an answer can take a lifetime to discern, Spong provides far too little hint of what that might be.

I could go on. And perhaps that’s a tribute to Spong, as his work is serious enough and provocative enough to encourage at least this reader to curiosity, criticism, and frustration. In all, it is a volume well worth reading in spite of its flaws.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read by a top theologian of today, Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Starting from the premise that the gospels were Jewish books written by Jewish men for a Jewish audience Spong teaches an entirely new way to read these books. At that time Jews read the entire Torah every year with assigned portions for each sabbath of the year. Spong shows that the gospel writers used this same pattern, intending that their gospel be a liturgical document to be read sabbath by sabbath throughout the Jewish calendar.

Then Bishop Spong adds another new insight by introducing the "midrashic" style of writing used by Jews then. When I was a child I was taught that the events of Jesus’ life fulfilled prophecy. In truth, it is the other way around. Jewish scholars at that time trying to write about profound events turned to the ancient scriptures seeking details that could put recent events into historical and sacred perspective. Recognizing this process helps to account for many of the contradictions that exist between the gospels, and gives us deeper insight into what they were trying to share. Let the Bishop speak for himself: “The Jews who created the Gospels knew they were not history, but they also knew that their experience was true—not literally true, but profoundly true. The Gospels were midrashic interpretations of the meaning of Jesus told in the traditional way of the Jews.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 8th book by the late Bishop John Shelby Spong that I've read in the course of the last 3 months, and in hindsight I kind of wish I had read them in the order that he wrote them, because there is a thread running through them that over time is both expanded and distilled into one consistent message: the Christian Gospels were never intended to be read as a literal eye-witness history, but are interpretations of the life and teachings of Jesus as understood by the Jewish men and women who were his first disciples. Each of his books has a different focus, and the focus of this one is to connect the New Testament stories about Jesus to the annual cycle of Jewish holy days, and to the heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures. I think this will be a book I will reference many times.

A list of all of Bishop Spong's books in order of publication date: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sh...

[Ana Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faith expanding

As the 21st century has evolved and some of our world powers has become more transparent in their greed and hate, I wondered as I served in church if we were missing it. Was there a more we were bypassing bc living like we were in an American church was not truly growing people into deeper love and maturity. This book really is an amazing argument to the more that has been missed by those taking the bible literally. Some parts are very easy to read and others takes a few rereading to get it deeply. I shall go back and reread with my bible in hand to go even deeper. I loved the author's conclusions and look forward to more from him. Highly recommend this book especially if you struggle with past teachings from churches that were wrong or incomplete. If you struggle to see the Jesus you know that you know with the dogma the church has raised you in, give this book a try so it can help you go deeper and find true freedom.

[Bill Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought this was an interesting concept but reviews from the experts don't seem to place much credibility in it. Spong proposes that the four gospels were written by scribes or priests to provide worship and educational content for Jewish adherents to Christianity in the first century. Rather than being biographical or historical he sees them as stories intended to show jesus as part of the old testament traditions. Spong goes in to some detail showing how the stories in the gospels borrow elements from the Old Testament and how they are arranged to fit the liturgical calendar and major festivals of the Jews.
It seemed convincing to me but I did not know enough about the subject to look at it critically.

[Deborah Schwarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A valuable and new perspective

John Shelby Spong has authored many a book. As a Bishop, he is quite willing to evaluate and reevaluate Christianity both through the Bible and through the eyes of its readers. In this text he opens the work up to the fact that the Jewish writers of the Old Testament and the earliest Christian writers were not working with a text of fact, but rather of vision and allusion. He is asking that the readers of this book be willing to accept that the God and his son Jesus of the Bible are more than the words contained in the stories of the text; both are images of a true Love that can continue on in the hearts of all believers. Let us live in that Love.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a helpful and challenging book for a 21st century American Christian like me. Spong is enthusiastic about "reading the Gospels with Jewish eyes," and provides a lot of interesting ways to see how the Gospel writers may have crafted the Gospels to reflect passages of Hebrew Scriptures and provide liturgical practices for the early followers of Jesus.

Sometimes Spong seemed to be force-fitting passages of Scripture into his interpretation to fit his thesis. Perhaps his way of looking at the Gospels is one way of interpreting them and not the only way.

Overall this was a good foray into reading the Gospels other than as biographies, histories, or memories of Jesus.

[Billy Emerson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me - Im glad Ive read it if only to be able to recommend that others dont waste their time!!
I would rename the book "Reading the Bible with Shelby Spongs tainted eyes"
The reasoning behind the narrative reminded me of a train journey where the engine driver has gone the wrong way at the first set of points - instead of retracing the journey back to where it went wrong the train continues down the wrong track getting lost further and further away from its intended destination!
Good Exegesis of scripture relies on having a solid base in the Hermeneutics used - both sadly lacking in this book and John Shelby Spongs rhetoric

[Lynn Bingaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book which links the Old Testament to the Gospels. Some of the material I knew and excepted, other material, especially the Jewish high holy days' links to the Gospels was new. The main problem with some of this book to me was that Spong took some of the Gospels literally and other parts he based his theory on was that they were made-up stories. His references to the crucifixion and resurrection stories were a bit of a stretch for me.

[Steve Deweese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is the premise of the book. If you believed Washington really threw a silver dollar across the Potomac, but later on figured out it was as story, then you would stop believing he was president. Also it requires a misuse of the word midrash over and over. There are interesting parallels between the OT narrative and the New Testament that are raised, but I don't agree with his assumptions for why those exist.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a Wealth of Knowledge

This book is truly a wealth of wisdom. I have been a student of the Bible for many years but I have never made such deep contentions and bridges between these stories of old. It is now refreshing to read the Scriptures with renewed eyes, an open heart, and a stimulated mind. This is a great book.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book that introduced me to John Shelby Spong. This is not a theological but a well written popular work. A helpful book if you are tired of hearing the Bible interpreted only from an Evangelical and/or Fundamentalist perspective. I recommend Spong.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched, compelling, heretical. Spong argues the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts or even transcribed oral history, but lectionaries - midrashic expansions of Old Testament stories written for use in the worship services of earliest Christian churches.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was reccomended to me as a story about life in Jesus's time. For me, it is not that at all. Even though it wasn't what I was expecting I decided to go ahead and read it.
I'm glad that I did. Spong presents many ideas to ponder.

[Jose-Luis La Torre-Cuadros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read It in a retreat and liked it

[Nadine Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top-notch. Mandatory reading.

[Tfahrenkrug · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Awaking.

Refreshing and enlightening. A modern day discussion of seeing God today through first century eyes with scales removed from modernity

[Charles Nickerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opening Christ to Me

A way to look at scripture and Christ that open my eyes to the heart of the Gospel, God’s Love expressed by Jesus.

[Kathy England · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book! Not having been raised in a religious household but spending my life in a search for God, I have always wondered about the deep mistrust of many Christians for Jews. After all, Jesus was Jewish. I don't think it's possible to understand the Jesus of the New Testament without understanding the Old Testament and how Jesus must have been brought up. Apparently John Shelby Spong had the same questions/thoughts that I have always had and explains his views here that the New Testament books were written by the early Christians, who were Jewish. He explains the New Testament stories as midrashic reinterpretations of the Old Testament in showing who Jesus was and trying to explain the God Presence in Jesus. I love his explanations and share many of his thoughts, although he does digress to political progressiveness in one section toward the end of the book. (And I'm sorry, but I don't think God takes sides with liberals or conservatives.)