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, by N. T. Wright
Download PDF , by N. T. Wright
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File Size: 2612 KB
Print Length: 558 pages
Publisher: Fortress Press; 1st North American edition (January 1, 1992)
Publication Date: November 16, 2012
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00B1VG66Y
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In the closing pages of this remarkable book, the author writes on the question of God (or god, for which he makes the case in the Preface) -- the meaning of the word ‘god’ lies at the heart of his preceding account of first-century communities, mainly Jews and Christians but also various pagan factions. Reviewing briefly their competing claims, he says, “There is no neutral ground here. We are at the level of worldview, and here ultimate choices are involved.â€The New Testament and the People of God introduces a grand multi-volume project carrying the overall title, Christian Origins and the Question of God; but it can stand on its own as a work worthy of close examination. Author N. T. Wright, theologian, historian and at one time Bishop of Durham, mentions here and there that he could not go into full detail in a book of this scope, yet the study is surprisingly thorough in setting the stage for the following volumes. Looking forward, he explains the need to apply three disciplines in the study of the NT: literary, historical and theological, which he seeks to integrate, even as he recognizes that one or another may be the main applicable discipline, supplemented by the other two. Thus, “In a sense, the study of Jesus is first and foremost a matter of history, needing careful ancillary use of literary study of the texts and theological study of the implications.†Or, “the study of Paul is a matter of theology, needing careful ancillary historical and literary work.†And, “studying the gospels in their own right is first and foremost a literary task, but it cannot be done without careful attention to the historical and theological setting, context and implications.â€Before going into the core of the book, the parts dealing respectively with first-century Judaism and the first Christian century, readers would do well to heed Wright’s advice in the preceding section: “Those who are eager to get on with what they see as the real business are, of course, welcome to skip this section, but they must not mind if by doing so they run into puzzles at a later stage.†Here he discusses: the variety and problems of knowledge and his adoption of critical realism as his favored approach; the crucial role of stories as an expression of the all-important worldviews of communities -- worldview being the lens through which people perceive reality; the analysis of narratives (following the work of Griemas); the interplay within worldviews of stories, cultural symbols, social conventions and practice, and the answers to existential questions (who are we, where are we, what is wrong, what is the solution?); the impossibility of “mere historyâ€, all history being interpreted history; and the interrelation of worldview and theology, as he argues that “worldviews are in fact, from one point of view, profoundly *theological*†(author's emphasis). I have selectively gleaned these highlights from more than a hundred packed pages that aim to arm the careful reader with the necessary background for an intelligent reading of the rest of the book.In the next and longest part of the book, we see all these ideas and elements at play, as the author sketches the history of Israel from the Babylonian exile to the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, describes the diverse outlooks of first-century Judaism within the Greco-Roman world, and writes with considerable detail of Israel’s beliefs and hopes. He starts by asserting the necessity of the task: “To understand the origins of Christianity, and the terms in which the question of god was posed and answered within it … we must gain as accurate an understanding as possible of the Judaism(s) in which Jesus and Paul grew up, and to which they related in various ways during their active ministries.†As he tells it, worldview takes center stage. First-century Judaism’s main feature was a worldview that encompassed all aspects of reality, with a focus on expectations longed for but not yet realized. As in some of his other publications, Wright insists that most Jews of the period thought of themselves as still being in a state of exile, since the hopeful promises of the prophets had not been realized, and they still bore the brunt of foreign rulers and their surrogates: theirs was a story awaiting completion. (This view has not gone unchallenged by other scholars; the author himself acknowledges early in the book that some of his conclusions may well be provisional or controversial.) He goes over the centrality of scripture as the mainstay of Judaism’s worldview; Israel’s major beliefs of monotheism, election and covenant; and Israel’s hope of complete restoration, the kingship of their god, the renewal of everything, and the age to come. Early Christians shared with Jews the same biblical story; and it is here, Wright suggests, that fundamental continuity is to be sought. But the denouement was different. While Jews waited in expectation for the covenant god’s great act of liberation, Christians avowed that in the event of Jesus this same god had already done that -- though here I have run a bit ahead of the author’s ordered presentation.Wright thinks that Christianity spread because “early Christians believed that what they found to be true was true for the whole world. The impetus to mission sprang from the very heart of Christian conviction.†Appropriately, then, the opening chapter of his reading of the first Christian century carries the title, The Quest for the Kerygmatic Church. But the quest was and remains problematic because of the paucity of ancient sources and other materials bearing on the subject. The author considers that much of the attempts to write a history of early Christianity using the accepted methods has been speculative or based on false assumptions. He resorts, instead, to studying the elements of the early Christian worldview, which he believes would yield clear impressions and some preliminary conclusions about the movement. His discussion of the praxis and symbols of the community, of questions asked and answered, and of stories told, all as expressions of this worldview, stretches over three chapters. A fifth chapter presents a preliminary sketch of early Christianity. It is impossible to go into the details here (as it is indeed the case for the other parts of the review). What emerges is a Christianity born of the first-century Jewish milieu and expectations -- yet the transformation in the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection was radical. The Jewish symbols, which Wright had discussed in the preceding section of the book, provide an example: Temple was now spoken of metaphorically; Torah was reinterpreted to show that through the story of Israel the one god had prepared for the coming of Christ; instead of Land, it was now the whole world; and the Jews' national self-understanding, that they were uniquely the people of the covenant god, became a matter of Jew and Gentile being one in Christ. Such a challenge to the Jewish symbolic world was bound to trigger a response that went as far as the persecution of early Christians. Wright comments: “Once we understand how worldviews function, we can see that the Jewish neighbours of early Christians must have regarded them, not as a lover of Monet regards a lover of Picasso, but as a lover of painting regards one who deliberately sets fire to art galleries -- and who claims to do so in the service of art.†We also get a quick view of the theology and hopes of early Christians, subjects that no doubt will be treated at length in the following volumes.The concluding part of the book includes a brief discussion of Jesus, then the NT and its authority. But the crux of the chapter deals with the question of god, which brings us back to where this review started. This is not the end, of course, but the start of a great effort by a distinguished scholar to answer two unavoidable questions that he has put forth: “(1) How did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape that it did? and (2) What does Christianity believe, and does it make sense?†Of the ongoing project, volumes on Jesus, the Resurrection, and Paul have followed this one; yet to appear are a study of the gospels and a concluding volume that presumably would summarize and tie everything together.
This is not the first Wright book I have read. I'm a "fan" of his writing and point of view. Therefore I was willing to wade through the first hundred pages in which he makes the obligatory academic defense of his method. For the reader who just wants to know what he has to say, skip it and start with his background of Jewish history and faith culture. Suddenly the New Testament makes sense in ways it never did before. We Christians are not Jews, but we get lost trying to understand our own gospels if we don't pay attention to the milieu and thought patterns of our cousins the Jews. I am more than happy to toss Bultmann out the window after reading Wright's approach. The shortcomings of many other academic approaches are also rightly exposed. Great stuff!
Tom Wright is a leading New Testament scholar and retired Anglican priest and bishop in Europe. His works have had considerable influence in New Testament scholarship in recent decades. This book is the first of his multivolume work on New Testament history and theology. This first book in the series deals mostly with setting the stage for the later volumes by laying the foundational groundwork by which Wright will proceed. Wright makes his aim for this volume (and the whole series) clear when he suggests that the New Testament “Must be read so as to be understood, read within appropriate contexts, within an acoustic which will allow its full overtones to be heard.†(6) This aim is clear throughout, as Wright seats the New Testament within its historical context. The book is broken into five parts consisting of sixteen total chapters. Part I is only one chapter long and serves as an introduction to the task at hand. In this chapter Wright discusses the four main ways the New Testament has been read in recent centuries: pre-critical, historical, theological, and post-modern, noting key characteristics of each. Wright determines that New Testament history and theology should not be separated and he aims to unite the two in this work. Part II consists of four chapters in which Wright attempts to lay out the “Tools for the Task.†He argues for what he calls a ‘critical-realist epistemology’ which tries to take seriously the premodern sense of the New Testament’s authority, the modern insistence on the value of history, and the postmodern emphasis on critically understanding the reading process itself and the reader. Wright says that his epistemological position acknowledges the “reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower, while also fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiraling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known. (35 italics excluded) Wright critiques the common idea of a ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ observer, noting that this is actually impossible and that everyone writes (and lives) within a certain worldview. Wright describes story as the basic category and characteristic of worldview. Worldview narratives compete for subversion of one another. Christianity as a public proclaimed worldview story aims to subvert other world views, begging the question of which worldview is best? Since everyone operates within a worldview, presuming their worldview to be right, we must abandon the ‘hard and fast’ distinction between the subjective and objective. The two are always combined and we therefore ought to hear other worldviews and try to determine which one is right. It is with the view of human writing as worldview articulation through story that Wright proceeds to a discussion of history. Wright points out that history is neither bare facts nor ‘subjective interpretations’ but rather “the meaningful narrative of events and intentions.†(82) History writing always is by its very nature selective and interpretive. Ancient historians knew about being critical with their writing but did not share the impossible intention to be “objective.†For theses reasons the subversive stories of the New Testament should be evaluated comparatively with other worldviews. The bottom line here is that all history is in fact interpretive history. Most scholars want to dismiss the history of the gospels because the eighteenth century rationalist/enlightenment worldview excludes the possibility of other worldviews. (92) Wright states that worldviews involve “The presuppositional, pre-cognitive stage of a culture or society.†(122) A worldview is the lens through which every individual and society views anything. Further, all worldviews have theological elements embedded in them, highlighting the ‘God-dimension’ of the worldview. The theology of the Christian worldview sets forth a comprehensive and subversive worldview about all of reality as public truth. Wright goes on to argue that we need to approach the New Testament using the historical method and on the basis of hypothesis and verification. A good hypothesis should 1) get all the data, 2) be (relatively) simple, and 3) help to explain other related issues and problems. (100) The best hypothesis encompassing all the data of early Christianity and remaining fairly simple in relation to other hypotheses should be chosen. Part III is the largest part of the book and contains five chapters dealing with first century Judaism. Though Wright recognizes the great diversity found within first century Judaism, he still finds much to be characteristic of the vast majority. He discusses these similarities by looking at the stories, symbols, practices, beliefs and hopes of Israel. Wright posits that the all encompassing worldview of the first century Jew expected to see the purposes of the covenant God for his people realized. Since the Babylonian exile Israel had always had some type of overlord, leading to the expectancy of some type of full liberation from exile yet to come. These Jews did not expect some Western-type heavenly disembodies bliss, but longed for a real deliverance on their land and a liberation akin to the Exodus or Maccabean revolt. (170) The average Jew was waiting for a conclusion to their story. The primary symbols of the worldview were Temple, Land, Torah, and Racial Identity. The main practices of Torah observance were circumcision, Sabbath and kosher laws. Monotheism, election and eschatology are considered by Wright to be the three major beliefs central to the first century Jewish worldview. The average Jew would have also hoped for salvation (defined as rescue from oppression), resurrection, and idealized life under the proper reign of God. In part IV Wright finally spends five chapters looking at the first Christian century, reading their story(s) in the light of the second temple Jewish context laid out in part III. After laying some historical groundwork Wright evaluates the practices, symbols and stories of the early Christian movement. The three main practices of the early movement were missionary work, baptism, and the Eucharist. All three of which were firmly established in the middle of the first century. Early Christianity did not share the same symbols as their pagan and Jewish neighbors, but had as its major symbol the cross. Wright’s evaluation of the early Christian stories includes discussion of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul. He locates all of them firmly in the first century Jewish milieu but yet sees them as having redefined the central Jewish beliefs due to understanding Christ as the climax and continuation of Israel’s story. All five are telling a subversive version of the larger Jewish story which the world is to hear. Wright also discusses ‘shorter stories’ which is essentially a discussion of form criticism. Wright then provides a preliminary sketch of the early Christian movement, noting the missionary nature, symbols, familial and socio-political aspects of the community, and broad diversity. He also notes the nature of Christian theology as Jewish theology redrawn around Jesus and the divine spirit, with the hope of the return of Christ, resurrection and a new heavens and new earth to dwell in. This book is very dense and detailed and contains so many smaller arguments embedded within the large arguments that it would be difficult to discuss them all. The book seemed to me to be well argued and very thoughtful. It was unique how Wright proceeded on almost ‘secular’ type historical grounds and still worked his way to very conservative conclusions. The analysis of Judaism was very helpful and illuminating for New Testament study. His early chapters focusing on history writing as interpretation of events through a particular worldview lens provide an excellent foundation for New Testament studies which should have to be reckoned with. Though this book is somewhat laborious to wade through, I think it was well worth the effort and serious students of the New Testament should probably put in the hours to get through it.
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