The Sins of Scripture (31 page)
Read The Sins of Scripture Online
Authors: John Shelby Spong
10.
The institution was Woodlawn School outside Charlotte, NC, a grades 1–8 school that counted among its alumni evangelist Billy Graham. Graham describes similar memories of this school in his autobiography,
Just As I Am
. See bibliography for details.
11.
Alex Haley,
Roots
. See bibliography for details.
12.
Suzanne Fonay Wemple,
Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900
. See bibliography for details.
13.
Both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have used this language in their attacks on the women’s liberation movement. Robertson seems particularly eager to suggest that “women’s lib” is lesbian-dominated and therefore antifamily.
14.
Karen Armstrong, a former nun, has emerged in the last twenty years as one of the most profound commentators on religion in the world today. See bibliography for details on her books.
15.
Thomas à Kempis,
Imitation of Christ,
p. 62. See bibliography for details.
16.
John A. T. Robinson,
The Human Face of God
, p. 233. See bibliography for details.
17.
William Boyd Carpenter, text set to the tune
St. Petersburg.
Hymn 435 in the Episcopal hymnal, 1940. See bibliography for details.
18.
Johann Heerman, text set to the tune
Herzliebster Jesu.
Hymn 71 in the Episcopal hymnal, 1940. See bibliography for details.
19.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
Science and Christ,
p. 64. See bibliography for details.
20.
Matthew Fox,
Original Blessing
. See bibliography for details.
21.
My next book has as its working title
Jesus for the Nonreligious
. I will address these themes there,
Deo volente.
22.
John A. T. Robinson,
The Human Face of God
, p. 43. Robinson gets this reference from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s book
The Christian Faith
. See bibliography for details.
23.
The title of John A. T. Robinson’s book on Christology. See bibliography for details.
Section 6
1.
September 1998 press release, Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas; Fred Phelps, pastor.
2.
Jesse Jackson in his quest for the presidential nomination in 1988.
3.
Patrick Buchanan in 1992 in his presidential campaign.
4.
Mahathir Mohamed, Malaysia’s prime minister from 1981 to 2003. This particular comment was made in late 1997.
5.
John Cornwall,
Hitler’s Pope.
See bibliography for details.
6.
Samuel Sandmel,
Anti-Semitism in the New Testament?
p. 166. See bibliography for details.
7.
As noted in the previous section, Isaiah 40–55, or Second Isaiah, is the work of an unknown prophet that was attached to the scroll of Isaiah. Zechariah 9–14 is also the work of an unknown prophet, written at least a century after Zechariah 1–8 and attached to the scroll of Zechariah.
8.
Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf,
p. 302. See bibliography for details.
9.
I have some genuine doubts about the Q hypothesis. That is why I have framed the words in this chapter with qualifiers such as “is assumed to be,” “has led to the assumption,” and “if this is accurate.” For those who want to pursue what I believe is the most significant challenge to the Q hypothesis, I commend the preface to Michael D. Goulder’s commentary on Luke, which is entitled:
Luke: A New Paradigm.
(See bibliography for details.) However, I must say that the vast majority of American New Testament scholars are committed to the Q hypothesis and assume the historicity and the reality of this early book.
10.
Quote from Karen Armstrong,
Holy Wars,
p. 510. See bibliography for details.
11.
The entire Joseph story is found in chapters 37–50 of the book of Genesis.
12.
There was a brief revival of the Jewish state in 135 CE, but it was only momentary.
Section 7
1.
David Tacey,
The Spirituality Revolution,
p. 11. See bibliography for details.
2.
Mircea Eliade,
The Sacred and the Profane,
p. 204. See bibliography for details.
3.
Kenneth Scott Latourette,
The History of the Christian Faith
. See bibliography for details.
4.
Reginald Heber, 1819. Hymn 254 in the Episcopal hymnal, 1940. See bibliography for details.
5.
George Washington Doane, 1848. Hymn 259 in the Episcopal hymnal, 1940. See bibliography for details.
6.
Percy Dearmer, 1929. Hymn 262 in the Episcopal hymnal, 1940. See bibliography for details.
7.
It was a Finnish theologian named Hannu Saloranta who helped me to see these two texts as staking out radically different perspectives. The second text remains appropriate for the world in which I live.
8.
Martin Buber,
The Legend of Baal-Shem,
p. xi. See bibliography for details.
9.
A column by Asra Q. Nomani on the op-ed page of the
New York Times,
May 6, 2004.
10.
It is of interest to me that the Jesus Seminar color-codes all three of these synoptic sayings gray, which means that “Jesus did not say this but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.” I would make Mark’s version pink, which means “Jesus probably said something like this,” and I would make Matthew’s version black, which means “Jesus did not say this.”
Section 8
1.
Book of Common Prayer (1979), p. 236.
2.
James Muilenburg,
The Way of Israel: Biblical Faith and Ethics,
p. 75. See bibliography for details.
3.
Text by D. Butler, taken from the Swedish Lutheran Hymnal published by Vanguard Press.
4.
I treat this brief hint much more thoroughly in my book
Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes.
See bibliography for details.
5.
I treat Paul’s view of resurrection in much greater detail in my book
Resurrection: Myth or Reality?
See bibliography for details.
6.
I treat the full meaning of the miraculous birth traditions in my book
Born of a Woman: A Bishop Rethinks the Virgin Birth and the Place of Women in a Male-Dominated Church.
See bibliography for details.
7.
Edwin Markham, the poem “Outwitted.”
8.
Malachi simply means “my messenger.”
Allport, Gordon.
The Nature of Prejudice.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958.
Armstrong, Karen.
The Battle for God.
New York: Knopf, 1993.
———.
Beginning the World.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
———.
A History of God.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.
———.
Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World.
New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1988.
———.
One City, Three Faiths.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
———.
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness.
New York: Knopf, 2004.
———.
Through the Narrow Gate.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980.
Ashcroft, Mary Ellen.
The Magdalene Gospel.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1995.
Batchelor, Edward J.
Homosexuality and Ethics.
New York: Pilgrim Press, 1980.
Berger, David, ed.
History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism.
Philadelphia, New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1986.
Berne, Eric, MD.
Sex in Human Loving.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.
Blackman, Edwin Cyril.
Marcion and His Influence.
London: SPCK, 1948.
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.
Letters and Papers from Prison.
Edited by Eberhard Bethge. London: SCM Press, 1953, 1991; New York: Macmillan, 1997.
Boswell, John.
Christianity, Social Tradition and Homosexuality.
Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980.
Bowers, Margaretta.
Conflicts of the Clergy.
New York: Thomas Nelson, 1963. Bowker, John.
Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975.
Breasted, James Henry.
The Dawn Of Conscience.
New York: Scribner, 1933.
Bridge, Anthony.
The Crusades.
New York: Watts, 1982.
Brown, Raymond.
The Birth of the Messiah.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977.
Buber, Martin.
I and Thou.
Translated by Walter Kaufman. New York: Scribner, 1970.
———.
The Legend of Baal-Shem.
Translated by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Bros., 1955.
———.
On the Bible: Eighteen Studies.
New York: Schocken Books, 1968.
Buchanan, George Wesley.
To the Hebrews.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Bible Series, 1972.
Buckley, William F.
Saving the Queen: A Blackford Oakes Mystery.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.
Bultmann, Rudolf.
The Gospel of John: A Commentary.
Translated by G. R. Beasley-Murray. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971.
———.
Jesus and the Word.
Translated by Louise Pettibone Smith. New York: Scribner, 1958.
Caird, George B.
St. Luke: A Commentary.
Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1963.
Campbell, Joseph.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1949.
———.
The Power of Myth
(with Bill Moyers). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988.
Carson, Rachel.
Silent Spring.
Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1962.
Childs, Brevard.
The Book of Exodus: A Critical Theological Commentary.
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974.
Chilton, Bruce.
Judaic Approaches to the Gospels.
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.
———.
Rabbi Jesus.
New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Conzelmann, Hans.
The Theology of Luke.
London: Faber and Faber, 1960.
Cornwall, John.
Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII.
New York: Viking Press, 1999.
Crossan, John Dominic.
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990.
———.
Who Killed Jesus?
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995.
Cupitt, Don.
After God: The Future of Religion.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997.
———.
Christ and the Hiddenness of God.
London: SCM Press, 1985.
———.
Mysticism and Modernity.
Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1998.
———.
Radicals and the Future of the Church.
London: SCM Press, 1989.
———.
The Religion of Being.
London: SCM Press, 1998.
———.
The Sea of Faith: Christianity in Change.
London: BBC Publishing, 1984.
———.
Solar Ethics.
London: Xpress, 1993.
———.
Taking Leave of God.
London: SCM Press, 1980.
Darwin, Charles Robert.
The Origin of Species by Natural Selection.
London: Penguin, 1989. First published 1859.
Davies, Paul.
God and the New Physics.
London: Dent, 1984; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
———.
The Mind of God.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Dawkins, Richard.
The Blind Watchmaker.
London: Hammondsworth, 1991; New York: Norton, 1996.
———.
The Selfish Gene.
London: Granada, 1978; New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.
Delaney, Janice, Emily Toth, and Mary Jane Lupton.
The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation.
New York: Dutton, 1976.
Dickens, Charles.
Nicholas Nickleby.
Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1950. First published 1838–1839.
———.
A Tale of Two Cities.
Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1950. First published 1859.
Dobson, James.
A New Dare to Discipline.
Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1996.
———.
Temper Your Child’s Tantrums.
Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 1998.
Dodd, Charles H.
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1949.
———.
The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1953.
Durden-Smith, Jo, and Diane Desimore.
Sex and the Brain.
New York: Arbor House, 1983.
Eakin, Frank E., Jr.
The Religion and Culture of Israel: An Introduction to Old Testament Thought.
London: Allyn and Bacon, 1971.
Eliade, Mircea.
The Sacred and the Profane.
New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1959.
Episcopal hymnal. New York: Church Pension Fund, 1940.
Evans, Craig A., and Donald Hagner, eds.
Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Fineberg, Solomon A.
Overcoming Anti-Semitism.
New York and London: Harper and Bros., 1943.
Fox, Matthew.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988.
———.
One River, Many Wells: How Deepening Ecumenism Awakens Our Imaginations with Spiritual Visions.
New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.
———.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Santa Fe: Bear Publishing, 1983.
Freud, Sigmund.
The Future of an Illusion.
Translated by James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1975.
———.
Moses and Monotheism.
Translated by Katherine Jones. New York: Vantage Books, 1967.
———.
Totem and Taboo.
Translated by James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1956. Funk, Robert.
Honest to Jesus: Jesus for the New Millennium.
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996.
Funk, Robert, Roy Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, eds.
The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?
New York: Macmillan, 1993.
Gade, Richard E.
A Historical Survey of Anti-Semitism.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981.
Geering, Lloyd G.
Christianity Without God.
Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2000.
———.
Tomorrow’s God.
Wellington, New Zealand: Bridgett Williams Books, 1994.
Gomes, Peter.
The Good Book.
New York: Morrow, 1996.
Goulder, Michael Donald.
The Evangelist’s Calendar.
London: SPCK, 1978.
———.
Luke: A New Paradigm.
Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989.
———.
Midrash and Lection in Matthew.
London: SPCK Press, 1974.
Goulder, Michael Donald, and John Hick.
Why Believe in God?
London: SCM Press, 1983.
Graham, Billy F.
Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham.
San Francisco: HarperCollins/Zondervan, 1997.
Greven, Philip.
The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience and the Self in Early America.
New York: Knopf, 1977.
———.
Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse.
New York: Knopf, 1991.
Habel, Norman C., and Vicky Balabanski.
The Earth Story in the New Testament.
Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Univ. Press, 2002.
Haenchen, Ernst.
The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary.
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971.
Hahn, Thich Nhat.
Living Buddha, Living Christ.
New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.
Haley, Alex.
Roots: The Saga of an American Family.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.
Hall, Douglas John.
The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity.
Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 1995.
Hamilton, William.
The New Essence of Christianity.
London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966.
Hamilton, William, and Thomas J. J. Altizer.
Radical Theology and the Death of God.
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.
Hampson, Daphne.
After Christianity.
London: SCM Press, 1996. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 1997.
Harnack, Adolph.
The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries.
Translated by James Moffatt. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1959.
Hick, John.
God and the Universe of Faith.
London: Macmillan, 1993.
———.
The Myth of Christian Uniqueness.
London: SCM Press, 1987.
Hitler, Adolf.
Mein Kampf.
Translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston and New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1943.
Holloway, Richard.
Godless Morality.
Edinburgh: Canongate Press, 1999.
Horney, Karen.
Feminine Psychology.
New York: Norton, 1967.
Hoskyns, Edwin.
The Fourth Gospel.
London: Faber and Faber, 1939.
James, Fleming.
Personalities of the Old Testament.
New York: Scribner, 1955.
James, William.
The Varieties of Religious Experience.
New York: Random House, 1999.
Jones, Clinton R.
Homosexuality and Counseling.
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.
Jung, Carl G.
Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, Bollingen Series, 1959.
———.
Answer to Job.
London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1954.
———.
Memoirs, Dreams and Reflections.
New York: Vintage Press, 1965.
———.
On Evil.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.
———.
Psychology and Religion, East and West.
New York: Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, 1958.
———.
Psychology and Western Religion.
New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1960.
Kempis, Thomas à.
The Imitation of Christ.
Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1955.
King, Karen.
The Gospel of Mary.
Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2004.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott.
Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: The 19th Century—the Great Century in the Americas, Australia and Africa, 1800–1914.
New York: Harper and Bros., 1943.
Luther, Martin.
Lectures on Romans.
Vol. 25 of Luther’s Works. Edited by Hilton C. Oswald. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1972.
Mann, Jacob.
The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue.
New York: KATV Publishing House, 1971.
Marx, Karl.
Das Kapital.
Vol. 50 of
Great Books of the Western World.
Chicago and London: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.
McCourt, Frank.
Angela’s Ashes.
New York: Scribner, 1996.
McGaa, Ed (Eagle Man).
Nature’s Way: Nature’s Wisdom from Living in Balance with the Earth.
San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004.
McNeil, John J. “Homosexuality: The Challenge of the Church.”
Christian Century
104, no. 8 (Mar. 1987): 242–248.
Meier, John P.
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus.
New York: Doubleday, 1991.
Meredith, Lawrence.
Life Before Death: A Spiritual Journey of Mind and Body.
Atlanta: Atlanta Humanics, 2000.
Milgram, Abraham E.
Jewish Worship.
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1991.
Moltmann, Jürgen.
God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God.
San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985.
Morris, Joan.
The Lady Was a Bishop: The Hidden History of Women with Clerical Ordination and the Jurisdiction of Bishops.
New York: MacMillan, 1973.
Moule, Charles F. D.
The Origins of Christology.
Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977.
Muilenburg, James.
The Way of Israel: Biblical Faith and Ethics.
New York: Harper and Bros., 1961.
Nelson, James B. “Reuniting Sexuality and Spirituality.”
Christian Century
104, no. 8 (Feb. 1987): 187–190.
Nock, Arthur.
St. Paul.
New York: Harper and Bros., 1937.
Noth, Martin.
Exodus: A Commentary.
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962.
Pagels, Elaine.
Beyond Belief.
New York: Random House, 2004.
———.
The Gnostic Gospels.
New York: Random House, 1979.
