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Biblical literalism : a gentile heresy : a journey into a new Christianity through the doorway of Matthew's gospel / John Shelby Spong.

by Spong, John Shelby, author.

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New York, NY : HarperOne, c2016.

Bible. Matthew -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.

9780062362308 (hardcover) :

0062362305 (hardcover)

xxii, 394 pages ; 24 cm

PART I: How the gospels came to be written: the litrugical year of the synagogue as the organizing principle -- Stating the problem, setting the stage -- Setting Jesus into the context of history -- The oral phase: entering the tunnel of silence -- Discovering the clue that organized the synoptic gospels -- Matthew's dependency on Mark -- PART II: From after Passover to Shavuot: birth to early ministry -- Genealogy and birth -- Joseph: myth or history? -- The magi and their gifts: an original sermon? -- Herod and Pharaoh: Jesus and Moses -- The baptism of Jesus: Moses relived -- Into the wilderness: forty days, not forty years -- PART III: Shavuot and the Sermon on the Mount: Sinai revisited -- Jesus' return to the symbolic Sinai -- The Lord's Prayer: taught by Jesus or composed by the church? -- PART IV: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: miracles and teaching -- Jesus' journey from Shavuot to Rosh Hashanah -- Matthew's introduction of Jesus as a miracle worker -- Matthew's take on the work of the kingdom -- PART V: Yom Kippur: the challenge of atonement theology -- Introducing Yom Kippur: the Day of Atonement -- Demystifying the unforgivable sin: Matthew's story at Yom Kippur -- The curse of atonement theology -- PART VI: From Sukkoth onward: the new harvest -- The symbols of Sukkoth and the food that satisfies hunger -- The beheading of John the Baptist -- Loaves and fishes, walking on water: Moses stories expanded -- Two characters, two insights -- PART VII: Dedication-Hanukkah and Transfiguration: the light of God reinterpreted -- Dedication: the return of the light of God -- The Transfiguration: a Dedication-Hanukkah story -- PART VIII: Journey toward Passover: apocalypse and judgment -- Introducing the journey section of Matthew's gospel -- The heart of the journey -- Apocalypse now: the final judgment -- PART IX: Passover and passion: the climax -- The climactic events of the passion narrative -- Probing the passion narrative for interpretive clues -- The passion narrative as liturgy -- PART X: Matthew's Easter story: a new perspective -- Easter dawns: myth or reality? -- Matthew's call to life.

"In this profound work, bestselling author and the former Episcopal Bishop of Newark John Shelby Spong offers a radical new way to look at the gospels today. Pulling back the layers of misunderstanding created over the centuries by Gentile ignorance of things Jewish, he reveals how a literal reading of the Bible is so far removed from the original intent of the Jewish authors of the gospels that it has become an act of heresy. Using the gospel of Matthew as a guide, Spong explores the New Testament's literary and liturgical roots its grounding in Jewish culture, symbols, icons, and storytelling tradition to explain how the events of Jesus's life, including the virgin birth, the miracles, the details of the passion story, and the resurrection and ascension, would have been understood by both the Jewish authors of the various gospels and by the Jewish audiences for which they were originally written. Spong makes clear that it was only after the church became fully Gentile that readers of the gospels took these to be events of history, thus distorting their essential meaning."--Provided by publisher.

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