The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan is what I bought today and started reading after being reminded about it yesterday. As I prepared for the leading the Lenten Study and prepare myself for this "week of extraordinary importance for Christians" (Preface page vii), it seemed like the perfect book to use my Christmas gift card on. As I walked out of Borders, I make an impulse purchase with the rest of the money, The Story of Christianity - An Illustrated History of 2000 Years of the Christian Faith. I would like to become more familiar with Christian history. This appears to be a quality book that will be quite useful as a reference on the history of the Christian Church. Spong and others frequently point out that many beliefs were not part of Christian teaching till centuries after Christ. Funny since when I was hanging out with bible-bangers, we sang "Give Me that Old Time Religion" as if the practices came directly from the early church. Now I know more about what diverse beliefs existed until they were declared heretical and suppressed. Also that many of the practices and beliefs of fundamentalism are recent American inventions rather than being true to ancient Christianity.

I have been thinking about how I would like to reread some of my favorite authors from the years just after college. Like I said when I first heard about this book, it reminds me a bit of John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus in talking about what was happening in relationship to the Roman Empire. There is a whole dimension to the political impact of Jesus in a time when the Jewish authorities were allowed to rule as long as proper tribute was paid to Rome.