The Challenge of Jesus: A Book Reflection

Believe it or not, I had not heard of N. T. Wright before Husband and I started to talk in earnest and date. Since then, I haven't become as much of an avid reader as he has, but I have grown to appreciate the prolific and exegetical mind of this former Bishop of Durham. The first book I read by Wright was, last year, The Challenge of Jesus. I would love to share in this post some ways I immediately and later processed the material of the book. As a reminder, here's the general outline of this post: I will . . .

1. Contextualize the author's writings as a whole (bibliography)
2. Bring the author's major ideas to the present day
3. Comment on major sections of the book, or important chapters, depending on organization

Wright's Extensive Bibliography

Thus far, one of the best Internet-based brief biographies of this not-yet-late bishop can be found here. Writing-related highlights include the fact that he spent a solid 20+ years reading without any significant scholarly output. He also developed the exegetical worldview that one should interpret a text in its original language, then translate based on the interpretation--this means entering into the world of the text's author(s) and situating the text in its historical context.

With that in mind, what has he written? Short answer: an entire New Testament translation (NTFE or New Testament for Everyone) plus 80+ books of varying lengths and audiences. A selective bibliography can be found on Theopedia and a fuller one on NT Wright Page.

New Testament for Everyone

Over his dozens of books, Wright had included snippets of translated New Testament passages, to the extent that eventually he was asked to complete an entire New Testament translation. You can find the full translation on Bible Gateway. A distinctive about this version is that he interpreted the original Greek texts before translating them, rather than what most translations do by interpreting-in-translation.

Scholarly Books

The "scholarly" designation typically applies to Wright's longer works (often 600-800 pages) that are thoroughly sourced and which go into painstaking detail during analysis of the components of each book's argument. Here are a few of his scholarly titles.

• Christian Formations commentary on Galatians
• History and Eschatology (from Gifford Lectures)
• Paul and His Recent Interpreters
• Paul and the Faithfulness of God
• After You Believe (US title of Virtue Reborn)
• Surprised by Hope. I was quie surprised, but also heartened, to see this in the designation. Husband disagrees with the classification, since the book is on the shorter side and not as well footnoted, but the degree of reading challenge may make the book as good as scholarly for many readers from different theological backgrounds.
• Scripture and the Authority of God
• The Resurrection of the Son of God
• Jesus and the Victory of God
• The New Testament and the People of God

Popular-Level Books

Typically, these are under 250 pages and aimed at a wider audience. Here are a few samples to pique your curiosity:

• The New Testament in its World
• Paul: A Biography
• The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus' Crucifixion
• Surprised by Scripture
• How God Became King
• Evil and the Justice of God
• Simply Christian
• For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed
• The Challenge of Jesus
• Small Faith, Great God

Wright's Major Ideas

Most information on the names of Wright's big ideas is from the Theopedia link. Here, I'll discuss in more detail the New Perspective on Paul, the role of historical perspective in exegesis, and the meaning of resurrection in a first-century (Second-Temple) Jewish context. These, and many others, tie into The Challenge of Jesus.

New Perspective on Paul (NPP)

This being a highly charged topic, I chose Theopedia as the summary resource. The "old" perspective, in contrast, is the Reformation view that Paul viewed Judaism as a religion where works earned one's salvation and right standing with God. A key takeaway for understanding Wright's arguments is that some Jews strongly claimed that their "works of Torah" (fulfilling the law) demonstrated that they were God's people, in His family, and so they had to keep on doing them to show that they were still in the family.

Exegesis in History

Sources for this subsection include Britannica on exegesis, Biblical literature; Encyclopedia.com on exegesis; and Cahill (2000). I hope to present the basics that the sources agree on in an understandable way for you to get a sense of the background.

First--what is exegesis? Britannica defines it as "the critical interpretation of the biblical text to discover its intended meaning." Let's take this apart. "Critical" is actually a broad term that overall points to an organized, scholarly critique or analysis of the good, bad, and neutral parts of something. It should not be conflated with "criticism" (popularly, pointing out the flaws). "Biblical" typically refers to the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, but adding Apocrypha in some traditions. Last, "intended meaning" alludes to authorial intent prioritized over reader-response.

Second, who did exegesis in the past? As it turns out, quite a few groups of people, namely including:

• Jewish writers during and after the Old Testament period--indeed, exegesis-based books in the OT include 1 and 2 Chronicles, Isaiah 40-66, and the latter prophets. An entire exegetical translation is the Septuagint (LXX) completed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. One notable 1st-century exegete was the Jewish philosopher Philo. In the Middle Ages, the Masoretes produced the Masoretic text.
• Christian writers during the New Testament period--most of the NT is, in some way, exegeting parts of the OT.
• Christians during later periods, exegeting both OT and NT (and sometimes Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha):
• Patristics - church fathers before and after the Council of Nicea. Notably, this formed consensus on some but not all aspects of biblical interpretation (e.g., one area that lacked consensus was how literally vs allegorically Genesis 1-11 should be interpreted . . .)
• Medieval period - heavily influenced by shifts in philosophical thinking and a widespread allegorical mindset
• Reformation period - facilitated in good part by Erasmus' work of translation
• Modern period - using further textual-critical methods and careful archaeology, but unfortunately including radical Protestants/Lutherans such as Rudolf Bultmann

Third, what are some of the methods used in and related to exegesis? Here's a not-necessarily-representative smattering:

• Hermeneutics - the study of exegetical theories, principles, and worldviews.
• Textual criticism aims at the original texts wading through scribal errors etc.
• Philological criticism studies the biblical langauges for accurate understanding/translation
• Tradition criticism looks for oral traditions behind the written manuscript
• Form criticism (1900s-2000s) assumes that use defines form. According to Richard Bauckham, form criticism is untenable and dead as a method.
• Redaction criticism looks at how longer works were assembled by ancient editors
• Historical criticism looks at history around the documents for clarity

Finally, why should one care about the history of exegesis? According to Cahill, who specializes in Latin commentaries in his field of Biblical studies, many diverse people and professions are interested in studying the history of exegesis (vs exegeting itself). Why? Perhaps perceived inadequacy of historical-critical methods; or integration of postmodernism into the fabric of society and thought. Therefore, Biblical and theological studies majors/scholars should incorporate history-of-exegesis in their studies, and the scholarly community should discuss what the aims of this history should be.

Resurrection for Second-Temple Jews

Wright does much better justice to this idea than I can. However, I found a decent summary of key points in Sigvartsen (2020). What you need to know before diving into Wright:Key points...

• There is less detail about resurrection beliefs in the OT than in other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) documents (a key OT passage is Daniel 12:2-3, 13). Unique and varied perspectives are in the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha.
• Everyone goes to Sheol (the place of the dead), but burial technique remains important
• There is little to no detail in any text, including rabbinic exegesis, on what would come after this life.
• The concept of a separate, immortal soul came in the Hellenic period from Greek influence; Jewish thought was mixed on whether the soul was mortal or immortal
• God rewards the righteous with bodily resurrection.

Highlights of The Challenge

I finished reading through this book shortly before Child turned 1 year old. Thus, while I had been exposed through discussion to some of Wright's ideas and had several months of Anglican worship under my belt, my mindset was still mostly lodged in an LCMS space. As context, the Small Catechism wih Explanation has minimal material on the humanity of Jesus. It states that Jesus Christ was shown to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. Furthermore, the LCMS as a whole carefully selects which historical-critical scholars to accept as orthodox.

Research and the Historical Jesus vs. Christian Gnosticism

Wright comes down firmly on the side of using historical (i.e., extrabiblical) sources and scholarship to further one's understanding of the Scriptures in general and Jesus in particular. He contends that the Enlightenment had the right question but the wrong approach--leading to many people's idea that history and faith are inherently opposed to each other, because the person and his/her knowledge are supposedly de-unified. To refuse to fully investigate the human side of Jesus and the Scriptures, he says, is Christian Gnosticism.

Since seeing this point, I haven't been able to un-see it in various contexts. Too often, for example, I will see comments on a Christian apologist's video claiming that (to paraphrase) "I don't need a commentary or any human scholarship to understand the Scriptures, since the Holy Spirit interacting with my personal reading will tell me everything I need to know." This is dangerous. A few short comments will try to summarize solid arguments against this flawed view:

• The Bible's manuscripts are written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, depending on what part one is looking at. It does not include its own lexicon or dictionary. If you, as an English language speaker, don't use (or trust translators to use) extrabiblical resources to figure out what the words mean, you cannot understand what the Bible says.
• To assume that devout scholars are unneeded members of the Body of Christ, by ignoring their work, is to assume a prideful attitude ("effortless superiority" on p. 13) which, by the way, is not Christian.
• God gave you a brain and did not remove it when you became a Christian. To refuse to use it in its fullest capacity is to disrespect one of the gifts He gave you.
• The Scriptures do not contain a text saying that the Church would figure everything out about correct doctrine at one specific time point in history. Therefore, it is possible to maintain orthodoxy while asking fresh questions and being open to change in one's understanding of the Scriptures.
• The Scriptures are inspired. Interpretations of them are not.

How to Understand the Kingdom of God

Since the Challenge's publication in 2015, I have seen popular views somewhat trending toward agreeing with Wright's points about this. Essentially, "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" were used synonymously in first-century Judaism, and "heaven" was a respectful way to refer to God Himself. Thus, both phrases refer to God's rule over all things from heaven (His "dimension", so to speak).

According to the first-century Judaism understanding of election, Israel was God's means to the end of redeeming creation; this redemption would occur at a moment in time (i.e., eschatology). In this religious context, Jews had 3 options, not including following Jesus: (1) separate oneself from the wider culture, (2) compromise with Herod or whichever human ruler was present at the time, or (3) engage in holy war against said human ruler.

An interesting distinction in this section is between apocalyptic and parable language. Apocalyptic language is intentionally non-literal and fills the Old Testament. This includes references to the "end of the world" which can distinctly impact several theological novelties, including rapture theology. Parable language, seen in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, mirrors the language used by Old Testament prophets from before and after Israel's exile. The Sermon, says Wright, should be interpreted as a description of a complete new way of life that follows from one's right standing with God.

New Perspective Corrections

Though Wright finds much in E. P. Sanders' perspective valuable, he notes four areas that need correction or fleshing out--these are mostly due to the historical information available to Sanders at the time, plus his worldview.

1. The Pharisees, rather than being rare, were actually fairly numerous and widespread.
2. The Pharisees' desire for national (i.e., political) purification was stronger than their desire for spiritual/personal purification.
3. This group was not quite the "thought police," but it wanted to be.
4. Jesus didn't speak (that we know of) about the connection between Gentiles and the kingdom of God, so Paul did to fill this theological void.

Another subsection here deals with symbols of Judaism and their reinterpretation in Jesus:

• Sabbath - Jesus acted like David did in "working" on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:3, Mark 2:25, and Luke 6:3)
• Nation and land - Jesus prioritized preaching the kingdom of God over filial duties
• Temple - Judaism wanted internal reform and re-staffing of the Temple building, but Jesus said that God would judge the situation, and further correlated the true Temple with His own presence
• Land and people - Jesus' healings paralleled the land-healing language of Isaiah 35 and were not primarily evidence of divinity
• Family - Jesus referred to His followers (disciples) as such
• Torah - Jesus correlated forgiveness with return from exile (this has a host of implications, including the role of Baptism in bringing people into the family of God)

What is Divinity in Jesus' Context?

This was the most challenging section for me, but also the most refreshing. Wright's central point here is that divinity is not associated with ideas of Messiah, Christ, son of God, or son of Man. However, the resurrection did solidify Jesus' divinity for a priori believers. To correlate with this point, Wright discusses Jesus' humanity (and self-awareness) extensively. Some interesting points:

• In first-century Jewish understanding, the Messiah would rebuild the Temple after winning a key battle. This occurred . . . during Holy Week.
• Jesus knew He would die by reading the signs of the times (i.e., common-sense interpretation of the political environment), hence His comparison of Himself to a mother hen (which protects her chicks during a fire).
• Many Christians, unfortunately, and "nones" think of God as distinct or detached from His creation; this makes pluralism "rational" to the social imaginary.
• First-generation Christians could still be Jewish monotheists, thanks to the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Jesus was aware of His prophetic vocation (see the Lutheran teaching on the state of humiliation). Two heresies are that He was instead an occasional watchmaker (semi-deism) or that Christ's body was not, in fact, human (docetism).
• The Bible is not the sole book on history. It does tell the story of God, but one does need extrabiblical sources to give us more complete historical knowledge of the Scriptures themselves.

To those who question this last point or its implications, Wright asks on page 93: "Is it after all Jesus we want to discover and follow, or would we prefer an idol of our own making?" This speaks against not simple faith, but deliberately simplistic faith.

Resurrection Reexamined

In first-century Judaism, the belief was that all the righteous dead would be raised bodily at the end of "this age" and the beginning of "the age to come." Yet, only Jesus was raised bodily on Easter. This historical event is the basis of Christianity's existence--that is, it is a core doctrine that helps distinguish orthodoxy from heterodoxy and heresy. Wright summarizes the meaning of the resurrection as physical reembodiment, fulfilling the Scriptures and indicating the God's kingdom is here! Thus, Easter is day 1 of the new creation (so we are currently living in the new creation and "the age to come).

The biggest surprise for me in this section, besides learning about the historical beliefs surrounding bodily resurrection, was that it did not, for Jews in their worldview, prove Jesus' divinity. That isn't is primary purpose. Other things, however, do demonstrate His divinity, but that is well beyond the scope of this post and the book.

If you're thinking about reading Wright's more scholarly New Testament work, but aren't quite ready for his magnum opus, start with this book!