This Hebrew Lord [Paperback]

John Shelby Spong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 9, 1993

In This Study I Found A Lord, a center for my being. Behind the supernatural framework of the first century...I discover a life I wanted to know; a life that possessed a power I wanted to possess; a freedom, a wholeness for which I had yearned for years."Illuminating the "figure who stands at the center of all the Christian Church is," John Shelby Spong explores Jesus under the light of the Hebrew tradition into which he was born. Candid, personal, and soundly argued, this is Spong's spiritual and intellectual pilgrimaged to the Christ he discovered in Jesus of Nazareth.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In this candid, impassioned, and soundly argued exploration, a provocative author illuminates Jesus by examining his thoughts, words, and deeds by the light of the Hebrew tradition into which he was born.

About the Author

John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark for twenty-four years prior to his retirement in 2000. Since then he has taught at Harvard University, the University of the Pacific and Drew University and he has been a visiting lecturer at universities and churches throughout North America and the English-speaking world. His books have sold over a million copies and he is regarded as one of Christianity’s frontier twenty-first-century thinkers. His bestselling titles include Eternal Life: A New Vision, Jesus for the Non-Religious, The Sins of Scripture, 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. He lives with his wife, Christine, in Morris Plains, New Jersey.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (April 9, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060675209
• ISBN-13: 978-0060675202
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #817,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Shelby Spong was the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey for twenty-four years before his retirement in 2000. He is one of the leading spokespersons for liberal Christianity and has been featured on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, FOX News Live, and Extra. This book is based on the William Belden Noble lectures Spong delivered at Harvard.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God's Love is Freeing, June 10, 2000

By 

Dr. Ron Ribble - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Hebrew Lord (Paperback)

This is not a world in which one reads and agrees on everything a mind like Bishop Spong's puts forth as proposition. If one did agree on every proposition, it would be agreement absent rationality and akin to the petrified belief structure of evangelical fundamentalism. As a catholic I am not bound to a literal interpretation of Scripture and in my past as mainstream and fundamentalist protestant, I could never bring myself succumb to such notions.

Spong causes anyone who is not frightened by the venture to explore the Jewishness of Christ. He was-despite the typical Aryan images of him foisted on us from an early age-a semite, a Jew well-grounded in Jewish culture and belief. To understand him as a Jew is to know better the Christ whose name we claim to reverence.

I cannot help but endorse Spong's conclusion that the mission of Jesus-ordained by God or otherwise-was to set us free to realize the fullness of life and in doing so to make our own choices. And I find his blend of existentialism with a freeing view of the meaning of scripture to be thoughtful and wholly palatable. Those who believe in the limitations of literalism, who accept the chains of fundamentalism, whose minds are threatened by demons of their own making, who stifle thought and make a jest of genuine goodness, will necessarily find Spong's book anathema. For them belief is a prison from which escape is impossible.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Message Full Of Hope, February 29, 2004

By 

Peter Kenney (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Hebrew Lord (Paperback)

In THIS HEBREW LORD Spong gives us a glimpse of Jesus of Nazareth and the example he revealed of a life being fully lived and shared. In order to appreciate Jesus, Spong believes it is necassary to look at him through first century Hebrew eyes. From this vantage point the meaning of spiritual is to be alive to both God and the world. To have faith is to have the courage to enter life where one is also able to find God. To the Hebrew in the time of Jesus there is no separation between God and the world as there is in Greek philosophy.

The author shows us a few Hebrew images from the Bible to help us observe Jesus in this new light. They are Jesus as a new Moses and new Elijah as well as the suffering servant from Second Isaiah.

Spong also discusses certain words attributed to Jesus in the fourth gospel which allow us to see Jesus more completely. These words refer to Jesus as Light, Life, Resurrection and the Bread of Life. In this gospel Jesus is given what the author refers to as "Christpower."

Spong provides a hopeful message for anyone who is having trouble relating to traditional Christianity but is still searching for meaning in religion. He writes with clarity and the text is filled with examples from his own personal quest for the truth.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book with a somewhat unique view on Jesus, March 26, 2002

By 

Jeff Nyman - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Hebrew Lord (Paperback)

I will say right off that I write this review pretty much as an atheist. I certainly do not believe in much of what the Christian Scriptures have to say regarding miracles. I want to get that out so that any bias I have might be obvious.

That said, I think this is an excellent book. Spong writes very well, in a conversational and engaging style. You never feel you are being preached to and you have no doubt at all of this man's intelligence in his writing. Regarding the book, it seems to be showing you Spong's view of Jesus that he has come to accept in order to be an intellectually fulfilled person in this day and age and yet still be a spiritual one. Is this a redefinition of Jesus? To many, that is how it will be perceived. I think to Spong he feels that his view of Jesus is one that actually gets back to what Jesus represented and how the early writers (such as the Gospel writers) were actually representing him. To that end, I would say that Spong does a great job convincing me of the veracity of his vision in the sense that he presents a wonderful life philosophy. The book would do nothing to convince me to believe in the veracity of Jesus, per se, except in so far that one might call this life philosophy by "the Christ". Spong manages to do this, in some fashion, without believing in all the miracle stories of the Bible. At least I feel this to be the case. After reading the book I am not exactly sure where Spong stands on all the issues regarding Jesus' life (he refers you to his later books, which I will definitely read now) but I get the impression that he seems to feel Jesus was certainly more man than some sort of incarnation of the Hebrew Yahweh.

Regarding the book content itself, I like the idea of seeing Jesus through Hebrew eyes. I think that really was a mainstay of the book because you always have to look at people from the past in terms of what they represented in their cultural milieu. Spong makes a good case about the gospel writers (some of them, anyway) being influenced by Second Isaiah. That was interesting to me as I had never considered that. However, for myself, I disagreed (tentatively) with some of Spong's conclusions regarding how the gospel writers wrote. His interpretation of that, however, is definitely a good one and worthy of study. For myself, I do not think the gospel writers were as sophisticated as Spong seems to give them credit for but, then again, he does at least present the tendrils of a good case in that regard. I also do not feel that this book takes into account some of the notions that Jesus was part of the Zealots, which would undermine some of what Spong has to say.

However, one has to remember that this book is not meant to be a treatise on scholarship regarding the actual life of Jesus. So if one expects it to succeed in that realm, one would be missing the point of the book. The book is the story of how one man has looked at a definition of Jesus that he believes is relevant to the twentieth and twenty-first century. I highly recommend this book, particularly to those like myself who have little faith in religion. This book will probably not make you a believer but it will make you realize that it is possible to be very intellectual, very engaging, very articulate, as well as being very spiritual. I think that even if you abstract out the religious elements of Spong's book, the main theme still holds together. That is quite an accomplishment and makes it, in my opinion, well worth the read.