The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Al Kessel
Audiobook
11 hr 59 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

Rescuing John's Gospel from Its Creedal Captivity John Shelby Spong, bestselling author and popular proponent of a modern, scholarly, and authentic Christianity, argues that this last gospel to be written was misinterpreted by the framers of the fourth-century creeds to be a literal account of the life of Jesus when in fact it is a literary, interpretive retelling of the events in Jesus' life through the medium of fictional characters, from Nicodemus and Lazarus to the "Beloved Disciple." The Fourth Gospel was designed first to place Jesus into the context of the Jewish scriptures, then to place him into the worship patterns of the synagogue and finally to allow him to be viewed through the lens of a popular form of first-century Jewish mysticism. The result of this intriguing study is not only to recapture the original message of this gospel, but also to provide us today with a radical new dimension to the claim that in the humanity of Jesus the reality of God has been met and engaged.

About the author

John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal Bishop of Newark before his retirement in 2000, has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard and at more than 500 other universities all over the world. His books include Biblical Literalism, The Fourth Gospel, I>Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World, and Eternal Life.

Al Kessel is a full-time narrator and voice actor currently living in Arizona, where he works from his professional home recording studio.

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