Elaine Pagels, Min Jin Lee, John Shelby Spong

 It has taken me sometime to near the end of Bishop Spong's tome: The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. In between, I finished reading Elaine Pagels: Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas and a novel by the Korean American author Min Jin Lee. (I spent two years in the Far East as a young sailor.)

 

My thoughts on Pagels book first. Certainly well written. Pagels has a knack for making the profound understandable. While there is a chapter in the book comparing the similarities of John with Thomas, I found the book to be more about John. How John became canon along with the other 3 Gospels seems to be more of the theme of the book. (Funny, the members of the Jesus Seminar apparently thought there was more in Thomas that Jesus may have actually said than John.) That is at least after a quick read. As I said, Pagels really is an exceptional author in my opinion. I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

 

Min Jin Lee's book Pachinko will appeal to those with interest in Korea or Japan. It is a reminder of how we Americans are not the only ones with racial prejudices and outcomes. While South Korea was a poor country dominated by a dictator back when I visited, I am glad that is no longer the case. Yet, the book is about generations of a Korean family's struggles who immigrated to Japan and the challenges they faced living in a society that was not fully accepting of them. A family who migrated simply for a better and safer life caused by the 20th century's depression and wars. Sad that we Americans too struggle with similar issues for immigrants and too often overlook our brothers' and sisters' common humanity. 

 

Which brings me to Spong. Finally, a priest who does not preach John as if it was some sort of history book. I have often struggled with the notion that the Old Testament was somehow an oracle of Jesus and the New Testament. It seems to me more likely that the Jewish writers of the gospel searched for some obscure, some not so obscure passages of the Jewish scriptures in order to point those to Jesus and his disciples. Perhaps, their way of understanding Jesus and how he fit into their Jewish upbringings.

 

Not sure if Bishop Spong completely agrees with that, but his notion that John is a book written by a "mystic" seems to me to point out that the author of John was searching for a deeper meaning of the life of Jesus. 

 

Somehow Peter in John comes across perhaps like many of us searching but not fully understanding:

 

"There are no apparitions (unlike Mark, Matthew, and Luke) that appear in this episode (John 20:1-17) to move Peter along. There are no revelations designed to give birth to or even to confirm his struggling faith. All Peter sees is a grave that cannot hold Jesus, grave cloths that cannot bind him. That was enough for the "beloved disciple". Peter was, however, a harder case. Resurrection is not easy -- not for him, not for us."

• Bishop Spong

Have a blessed day.