I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible,… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
There is no way that the Fourth Gospel was written by John Zebedee or by any of the disciples of Jesus. The… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Almost any poll of regular churchgoers will reveal that their favorite book in the New Testament is the Gospel of John. It… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, says, "From the rising of the sun to its setting, God's name shall be… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I live on the other side of Copernicus and Galileo; I can no longer conceive of God as sort of above the… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Pat Robertson said the feminist movement was just a bunch of lesbians who wanted to leave their husbands and kill their children.… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I don't make that decision [what next book will be] until I've read enough to know that I've got something different to… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
In my book, The Sins of Scripture, I traced the development of tribal religion, which included ideas like God's killing the Egyptians… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Matthew is the only gospel that uses the Sermon on the Mount, for example, because that's the new Moses making a new… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I began to read [Bible] as a critic, an in-house critic. So I got to a place where when I got to… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I've probably read maybe by now fifteen, twenty books on Matthew. I'd say the authors I like best are an English fellow… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I was raised pretty much a fundamentalist, but the one thing that fundamentalism gave to me was the love for that book… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The first command given by God when Adam and Eve were pitched out of the Garden of Eden in the Book of… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
One of my great experiences in life was to be interviewed on a late-night talk show by a guy named Tom Snyder.… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion.… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I could not believe that anyone who has read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The way that I see Christianity is that its role is to enhance the life of every person. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The Sins of Scripture is an interesting title; most people don't put sins and scripture together in the same title. It jars people. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
“When a human life is open to all that humanity can be, humanity and divinity flow together as one. It was and is a… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I don't see Jesus as rescuing the fallen; I see Jesus as expanding the potential of life. The primary reason the old idea of… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
My basis of morality is this: does this action enhance life, or does it denigrate life? Does it build up or does it tear… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
I want the traditional family upheld, but I don't want it upheld to the detriment of other people. — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
We live in a very pluralistic society today. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, atheists, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, and Christians like me. There are… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The Bible was written between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and it's filled with the knowledge that people had in that period of time,… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
We are in a survival mentality, and that's hard-wired into our humanity, because we are the winners of an evolutionary struggle of millions and… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
Some people think prayer stops bullets or rockets or land mines. It doesn't. That's magic, that's not God. Sometimes, you're just in the wrong… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
The Hebrew scriptures say it's okay to enslave anybody except your fellow Jews. It says you should enslave only your neighbors. I say to… — John Shelby Spong Copy Share Image
![“I don't make that decision [what next book will be] until I've read enough to know that I've got something different to say and I know how to say it.” quote by John Shelby Spong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/711/john-shelby-spong-1488_book_i-don-t-make-that-decision-what-next-boo_2973946.jpg)
![“I began to read [Bible] as a critic, an in-house critic. So I got to a place where when I got to the university, I just couldn't reconcile that book and some of its points of view with stuff I was learning in my academic career. And so then you have a choice: either you give up your academic…” quote by John Shelby Spong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c08/john-shelby-spong-1488_academic_i-began-to-read-bible-as-a-critic-an-in_1438471.jpg)
![“Another [book on Matthew] is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a Jewish woman who teaches New Testament at the Vanderbilt School of Religion. It's a group of essays by mostly womanly scholars looking at Matthew's gospel through feminists' eyes - very exciting. It opens up all sorts of things that I've never…” quote by John Shelby Spong](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6f2/john-shelby-spong-1488_amy_another-book-on-matthew-is-amy-jill-levi_2427880.jpg)
