Wright, One Down
I know there are a lot of good blogs online, and I should limit my posting. But as I read the final pages of Wright's People of God last night I find myself needing to reflect. Call it inblog, blog for me, but here it is:
The Great Strength of Wright's entire approach (at least how I read him) is what I'm calling his non-presuppositional historic method. Or, since I don't want to sound like a pedantic goof, Wright's great strength is his desire to uncover as fully as possible the historic-cultural connotations of the language, metaphor, and genre of the NT documents apart from two millenia of Christian tradition. Does he always stick to this? I've seen essays outside this book where he may not. But in POG he appears to build from the ground up. (Is any human able to build purely within such clearly radical texts, especially a human who has already placed faith in God in reaction to the NT? No. And Wright says as much).
Now plenty of scholars will tell me they have done the same thing: Crossan, Mack, Spong, all the descendents of Bultmann and Schweitzer ("what, miracles? impossible!"). Revisionists are legion today (Wright included). But the fact is Wright (if I can say it) looks closer, into human motivation, Jewish expectation, tradition-formation, without accepting or rejecting the NT story a priori. He, for me, is not simply an 'elegant fundamentalist' (to near-quote Crossan). His historic-literary approach makes more sense to me than any I've seen.
Have I read Crossan's 'big Jesus-book' yet? No, and it's on my list. But even in his first volume Wright dazzles. He brings me close to the milieu of the gospel-world and hence initial textual-context. He reads the literature in the way that twenty five years of reading literature (though I admit the unique nature of the gospels) tells me literature should be read. When NTW critiques others, say those who maintain Gosp. Thomas is earlier than the canonical gospels, or that Q's earliest form (if Q existed) was similar to GTh, the force of NTW's common sense is like fresh air and cold beer on the deck in summer (even if the implications can be unnerving): what kind of Jewish community would have produced the Thomas Jesus? How did all the rest of the Jewishness (blatant apocalyptic, kingdom language, messianic proclamation, echoes of the OT throughout) get added and accepted later as the church spread beyond Palestine? For surely, the NT as we have it is as Jewish as Passover. Of course, it is also something much more.
In some ways, ironically, Wright fulfills Schweitzer's vision, but Schweitzer seems blinded to his own prejudices and assumptions (and he was so very good at seeing this in others);, also, Schweitzer had much less other scholarship to work with and was writing at a different time in critical history (Wright builds entire tapestries using other scholars' work). Wright has bias, as does any other reader, but the cases he makes (often briefly, even scantly) are compelling precisely because of his method, not because his conclusions necessarily comfort.
Now I feel like I'm writing an Amazon review. So here it is: if any reader is serious about saying anything at all about the gospels from a historic or literary perspective (including, "is this true?") POG must be high on the reading list.
Do I agree with Wright's perspectives? Give me a few years! Certainly his own bias needs to be considered further, his two other books read...for now, though, I've been nourished and moved.
The Great Strength of Wright's entire approach (at least how I read him) is what I'm calling his non-presuppositional historic method. Or, since I don't want to sound like a pedantic goof, Wright's great strength is his desire to uncover as fully as possible the historic-cultural connotations of the language, metaphor, and genre of the NT documents apart from two millenia of Christian tradition. Does he always stick to this? I've seen essays outside this book where he may not. But in POG he appears to build from the ground up. (Is any human able to build purely within such clearly radical texts, especially a human who has already placed faith in God in reaction to the NT? No. And Wright says as much).
Now plenty of scholars will tell me they have done the same thing: Crossan, Mack, Spong, all the descendents of Bultmann and Schweitzer ("what, miracles? impossible!"). Revisionists are legion today (Wright included). But the fact is Wright (if I can say it) looks closer, into human motivation, Jewish expectation, tradition-formation, without accepting or rejecting the NT story a priori. He, for me, is not simply an 'elegant fundamentalist' (to near-quote Crossan). His historic-literary approach makes more sense to me than any I've seen.
Have I read Crossan's 'big Jesus-book' yet? No, and it's on my list. But even in his first volume Wright dazzles. He brings me close to the milieu of the gospel-world and hence initial textual-context. He reads the literature in the way that twenty five years of reading literature (though I admit the unique nature of the gospels) tells me literature should be read. When NTW critiques others, say those who maintain Gosp. Thomas is earlier than the canonical gospels, or that Q's earliest form (if Q existed) was similar to GTh, the force of NTW's common sense is like fresh air and cold beer on the deck in summer (even if the implications can be unnerving): what kind of Jewish community would have produced the Thomas Jesus? How did all the rest of the Jewishness (blatant apocalyptic, kingdom language, messianic proclamation, echoes of the OT throughout) get added and accepted later as the church spread beyond Palestine? For surely, the NT as we have it is as Jewish as Passover. Of course, it is also something much more.
In some ways, ironically, Wright fulfills Schweitzer's vision, but Schweitzer seems blinded to his own prejudices and assumptions (and he was so very good at seeing this in others);, also, Schweitzer had much less other scholarship to work with and was writing at a different time in critical history (Wright builds entire tapestries using other scholars' work). Wright has bias, as does any other reader, but the cases he makes (often briefly, even scantly) are compelling precisely because of his method, not because his conclusions necessarily comfort.
Now I feel like I'm writing an Amazon review. So here it is: if any reader is serious about saying anything at all about the gospels from a historic or literary perspective (including, "is this true?") POG must be high on the reading list.
Do I agree with Wright's perspectives? Give me a few years! Certainly his own bias needs to be considered further, his two other books read...for now, though, I've been nourished and moved.
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