Reading N.T. WRIGHT---- Leyendo N.T. WRIGHT

I am reading 3 of his books of the serie: Christian Origins and the Question of God ( are 6 books)

1. The New Testament and the People of God. Published 1992.

2. Jesus and the Victory of God. Published 1996.

3. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Published March 2003.

Nicholas Thomas "Tom" Wright (born 1 December 1948) is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and a leading New Testament scholar. His academic work has usually been published under the name N. T. Wright.

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/


An Example of a writer that differs from him:

SUMMARY OF
N.T. Wright's Jesus and The Victory of God: A review article
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society , Jun 2001 by Stein, Robert H

I. A WORD OF APPRECIATION FOR WRIGHT'S JESUS AND THE VICTORY OF GOD
For one, I am amazed at Wright's mastery of both the primary and secondary materials involved in the search for the historical Jesus.

Second, I appreciate the clarity and style of his writing. Wright writes with wit and perception, and one seldom, if ever, asks, "What does he mean here?" My only criticism is that I think he tends to be verbose and repetitive.

Third, as already mentioned, his critique of the New Questers, and especially those associated with the Jesus Seminar, is both succinct and penetrating.

Fourth, I appreciate Wright's and the Third Questers' insistence that Jesus must be understood in the light of first-century Judaism and within the framework of Jewish apocalyptic.

Fifth, I appreciate Wright's willingness to challenge "political correctness" in the interpretation of the life of Jesus.

Sixth, Wright has many helpful comments concerning the variation we find in various sayings and parables of Jesus.

Finally, I commend Wright for his attempt to provide an overarching, comprehensive interpretation of the life of Jesus.

II. SOME CRITICISMS OF WRIGHT'S JESUS AND THE VICTORY OF GOD

First, as with any overarching theological system, when Biblical texts get in the way, they tend to be squeezed to fit the system.

Examples:
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus
The parable of the soils
The parable of the prodigal son

These examples are but a sampling of the way that Wright interprets various texts. One gets the impression that Wright is obsessed with his thesis, and all texts are squeezed to conform to it.

This one-sided view of Jesus' ministry, second, also shows up in his discussion of Jesus' call to repentance and his announcement of the forgiveness of sins. Contrary to E. P. Sanders, Wright emphasizes the importance of repentance in Jesus' message. However, he understands this as referring less to individual than to national repentance.

A third criticism that must be directed against Wright's thesis is his interpretation of the "coming of the Son of Man." He argues that "The `coming of the son of man' is thus good first-century metaphorical language for two things: the defeat of the enemies of the true people of god, and the vindication of the true people themselves" (362).

I shall just mention briefly a fourth criticism. This involves Wright's understanding of the Jewish people in the first century. It appears to me that Wright is constructing a new version of a "normative Judaism." Whereas George Foot Moore characterized this Judaism as essentially a Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism, Wright portrays it as a "return from exile hoping" Judaism.

Another criticism of Wright involves his frequent affirmation that "no Jews whose opinions are known to us thought that their god was about to bring the space-time world, including land and Temple to a sudden end" (513). At times Wright even belittles and ridicules those who believe this. He states concerning the belief in the visible and personal return of the Son of Man, "This monstrosity, much beloved (though for different reasons) by both fundamentalists and would-be 'critical' scholars, can be left behind.... The truly 'apocalyptic' `son of man' has nothing to do with such a figure" (517).

My sixth criticism involves Wright's choice of the expression "the return from exile" to describe Jewish hopes in the first century and the core of Jesus' teaching and ministry.

Finally, I want to raise some questions as to the central importance placed by Wright and E. P. Sanders on Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his cleansing of the temple. According to Wright this is the "most obvious act of messianic praxis [found] within the gospel narratives" (490).