Marcus Borg, Leading Liberal Theologian And Historical Jesus Expert, Dies At 72
(RNS) Marcus J. Borg, a prominent liberal theologian and Bible
scholar who for a generation helped popularize the intense debates about
the historical Jesus and the veracity and meaning of the New Testament,
died on Wednesday (Jan. 21). He was 72 and had been suffering from
pulmonary fibrosis.
Borg emerged in the 1980s just as academics
and theologians were bringing new energy to the so-called “quest for the
historical Jesus,” the centuries-old effort to disentangle fact from
myth in the Gospels.
Alongside scholars such as John Dominic
Crossan, Borg was a leader in the Jesus Seminar, which brought a
skeptical eye to the Scriptures and in particular to supernatural claims
about Jesus’ miracles and his resurrection from the dead.
Like
other scholars, Borg tended to view Jesus as a Jewish prophet and
teacher who was a product of the religious ferment of first-century
Judaism.
But while Borg questioned the Bible, he never lost his
passion for the spiritual life or his faith in God as “real and a
mystery,” as he put it in his 2014 memoir, “Convictions: How I Learned
What Matters Most,” the last of more than 20 books he wrote.
