The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: domination system, historical factuality, three prophecies, Good Friday, New Testament, Holy Week (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These controversial Jesus Seminar scholars provide lots to ponder." (The Kansas City Star )

"It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this volume[...]" (Barbara Brown Taylor, author of Leaving Church and Preaching Life )

"A readable and attractive reinterpretation of Jesus' death and resurrection. . . ." (Houston Chronicle )

"Borg and Crossan brilliantly chronicle the tension that forced everyone to pledge allegiance -- either to Rome or to Jesus." (Los Angeles Times )

"If there is.one book for the redemption of Holy Week, this is it. A must read." (Peter J. Gomes, Harvard University )

"[...] Borg and Crossan show one of the most careful and insightful readings of the Bible I've ever come across." (Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian )

Product Description

Top Jesus scholars Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join together to reveal a radical and little-known Jesus. As both authors reacted to and responded to questions about Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, they discovered that many Christians are unclear on the details of events during the week leading up to Jesus's crucifixion.

Using the gospel of Mark as their guide, Borg and Crossan present a day-by-day account of Jesus's final week of life. They begin their story on Palm Sunday with two triumphal entries into Jerusalem. The first entry, that of Roman governor Pontius Pilate leading Roman soldiers into the city, symbolized military strength. The second heralded a new kind of moral hero who was praised by the people as he rode in on a humble donkey. The Jesus introduced by Borg and Crossan is this new moral hero, a more dangerous Jesus than the one enshrined in the church's traditional teachings.

The Last Week depicts Jesus giving up his life to protest power without justice and to condemn the rich who lack concern for the poor. In this vein, at the end of the week Jesus marches up Calvary, offering himself as a model for others to do the same when they are confronted by similar issues. Informed, challenged, and inspired, we not only meet the historical Jesus, but meet a new Jesus who engages us and invites us to follow him.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060872608
• ISBN-13: 978-0060872601
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #101,422 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destined for Execution , February 17, 2007

By	Virgil Brown (White Oak, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. It was the beginning of the week of Passover." From the East came a peasant procession with Jesus of Nazareth riding on a donkey and cheered by his followers. From the West came the Roman governor of Idumea, Pontius Pilate, who had come up from Caesarea Maritima. That the two processions occurred on the same day is not recorded in the Bible and, in fact, the two processions may not have happened on the same day. However the Roman governor did travel from Caesarea Maritima for festivals such as Passover. Most of all, for Mark, the procession of Jesus was clearly counter to the procession of Pilate.

The inevitable confrontation may be described as the "domination system" which had developed in Jerusalem. Borg and Crossan explain that domination system is a shorthand for political oppression, economic exploitation, and religious legitimation. Jerusalem had become a society where only a few ruled, the monarch, the nobility, and the wealthy. A high percentage of the society's wealth came from agriculture. Structures of laws of land ownership, taxation, and indenture of labor, put between a half and two-thirds of all of the wealth into the coffers of the few. In ancient societies, these structures were legitimized by religious language: the monarch ruled by divine right and the social order was the will of God.

The day after Jesus made his procession into Jerusalem, he drove the moneychangers from the Temple and aroused the severe wrath of the temple priests. The next day, Tuesday, was a day of challenges. Jesus returns to Jerusalem. As he is walking Jesus is challenged by the chief priests, scribes, and elders who want to know the authority he has for committing his prophetic act in the Temple. Jesus parries and asks about the authority of John the Baptist. Most readers know the story and know that the priests lose face. If that were not enough Jesus counterchallenges with the parable about the vineyard. Borg and Crossan emphasize that the priests et al realize that that parable was spoken against them.

So was Jesus destined for execution? From the point of view of the will of God, Borg and Crossan maintain an emphatic negative response: "It is never the will of God that a righteous man be crucified." Judas did not
*have* to betray Jesus. The Temple priests did not *have* to seek execution. (There is a similar story in Josephus of another who preached against the Temple. Interestingly this other man was only flogged.)
Rather it was the inevitability of the domination system that sent Jesus to death. Borg and Crossan wonder what it was about Jesus and his followers that so provoked the authorities.

Certainly the death of Jesus stunned his followers. Borg and Crossan find various ways for the followers of Jesus to come to grips with this within the New Testament and in subsequent centuries. For example, many Christians believe that the real reason (substitutionary atonement) for the death of Jesus was best explained by St Anselm in 1097. But how soon did the followers of Jesus try to begin to explain his death as an atonement? Have a look at 1 John 2.2 and 4.10.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What the Gospels Really Say About Holy Week, July 6, 2007

By	Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Borg and Crossan, in this slim readable volume, set out a simple proposition: to understand Jesus and what was important to him, it is vital to understand the week leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection. And the only way to really understand that week is to read what the Gospels actually say, not what we've been told they ought to say.

In some ways Borg and Crossan are biblical literalists. They try to sweep away traditional interpretations that have accrued to the Bible stories and instead try to read them in the context for which they were written. To do this they bring to bear a knowledge of biblical history that makes clear some parts of the Gospel story, which appear opaque to modern readers who don't know the milieu. Especially when Jesus is preaching in the temple, this explication really helps clear up common misunderstandings associated with Christian teaching.

There are times when the authors veer from the strictly literal, however. This is most apparent when they write about the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. Since the Gospels slide over that day with only a fleeting mention, the authors fall back on legends of the Harrowing of Hell. There's nothing wrong with this in principle, but when the authors bring in references to the Gospel of Peter, which is little more than a late anti-Semitic forgery, they risk descending into silliness.

Also, many readers may object to the strongly political aspect of this book. Though the authors don't blow their noses on the spiritual importance of Jesus and his teachings, their emphasis in this writing lies on his anti-imperial politics. Some readers may balk and think the authors are devaluing the spiritual teachings; I think the authors are just shining a spotlight on a theme they believe has been neglected.

On balance this book is, for the most part, eye-opening. By peeling away later doctrine to couch the Holy Week story in its historical context, this book makes it possible to cast a clear eye on the spiritual and the social importance of Holy Week. For instance, I've never had anybody previously explain that Jesus' peaceful entry into Jerusalem on a donkey was a deliberate contrast to Pilate's military entry on the same day from the other direction. But I have seen many preachers who wrongly think the worshipful crowd on Palm Sunday is the same bloody-minded crowd on Good Friday.

This book is not without its flaws. The authors sometimes get caught up in trivia and lose sight of their central thread. And the authors' liberal politics may put off some potential members of their audience. But this book is definitely worth reading for both clergy and a lay audience. Not only is it a concise overview of Christian theology, it is also helpful to peel back the myth and obfuscation that has fallen over what the Gospels really say about Holy Week.

21 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The non-Orthodox Truth about Jesus, February 10, 2007

By	N. Ravitch (Savannah, GA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book about Jesus' last week on earth which can appeal to anyone not enmeshed in the orthodox delusions about Jesus being part of the Godhead, dying for the sins of men, and being physically resurrected on the third day.

Crossan and Borg are veterans of the Jesus Seminar, the general attempt of rational and scientific biblical scholars to prune superstition and and antisemitism from the story of Jesus and his life and death.

If only Christians would read it! They would, discover among other things, that Paul of Tarsus never speaks of Jesus' resurrection as a physical event; it was a spiritual event for him and for others who experienced. They would also discover that most of the anti-Jewish themes of the Gospels are either unintentional or intentional slanders: Jesus did not preach against Judaism, or the temple worship, or the commandments, or the Pharisees; he preached in the style of the prophets who found Judaism a pale reflection of what the patriarchs had believed. They would also learn that there is nothing in the Old Testament that predicts Jesus and his career: this was a technique of the Gospel writers to "historicize" prophecy so as to legitimize the teachings of the Christian sect, thus connecting them to the Old Testament and in the process damning the Jews as unpleasing to God, compared to the new Christians.

My only criticism of this book is that it is consciously politically correct: not wanting to offend orthodox Christians any more than necessary. I think that orthodox Christians are in the grip of massive delusion and insanity and need to be shaken out of their torpor. The greatest threat to our liberty today comes from Christo-Fascism -- that means groups like the Southern Baptist Convention and other fundamentalists, they are fundamentally wrong!