[This is an ongoing project that is analyzing N.T. Wright’s 5
volume series, Christian Origins and the Question of God. This series is widely
read and bridges the gap between the academic and devotional world. It is
therefore worthy to be carefully analyzed so that all readers can understand
his key points while at the same time gaining a critical eye to some of his
rather bold claims. This series of posts are concerning volume 1 – The New Testament and the People of God.]
Wright’s discussion of Judaism is now focused upon one topic
– what it was that Jews believed in the first century. This chapter is helpful
because it is very typical of modern Christian understandings of Judaism. Because
it is very helpful to the study of Christianity to have a set of beliefs that
one can contrast, Christians often force themselves to find a single Judaism
with a single set of theological beliefs. Wright struggles with this,
recognizing that there was not a single Judaism and that a set of beliefs was
not the central organizing principle of any group calling themselves Jews.
However, his discussion of Christianity is so interested in this because this
is what he sees Jesus and Paul refining: “We must focus on the Jewish worldview
and belief-system because this was the feature of Judaism that was radically
redefined by Jesus and Paul.”[1]
Wright shows his interest – he puts a foreign set of constructs onto Judaism
because it is heuristically helpful. While there is nothing wrong with
presenting heuristic models, the problem is that Wright goes one step farther
than that and argues that while they didn’t hold these constructs, he wants to
argue that “they did really.”
Wright begins his discussion by setting the concept of
belief off rightly recognizing the challenges that come when one asks a
question about early Jewish “belief.” He first recognizes that Judaism is not
so easily defined as one thing:
We have already seen that the one
thing we can safely say about first-century Judaism is that there is no such
thing as first-century Judaism, and that it may be best to speak of ‘Judaisms’,
plural.[2]
He recognizes this aspect of Judaism at this time, but still
feels that there are common elements to create a single Judaism:
I simply wish to follow the many
Jewish and other writers who have recognized that behind the great variation
there is a broad family resemblance. It is vital that we understand this
belief-structure.[3]
Notice what Wright did – he argues that while there are many
groups there is really only one basic
belief structure. Therefore, the
thing that unites all Judaism is the very thing he wants to discuss – beliefs.
While this possible, it is far easier to think that Wright has created this
unanimity because of his original goal – to show how Jesus and Paul changed
Jewish belief. Therefore, he can create a category that will allow Paul and
Jesus’ argument to be universal.
This interest is made clear in a following argument where he
describes what these said beliefs are:
There is then, across the range of
Jewish writing that we possess, solid unanimity on certain major and vital
issues; and we have already seen good reason to suppose that this unanimity was
equally strong among those who wrote nothing and read little. There is one god,
who made the entire universe, and this god is in covenant with
Israel…Monotheism and election lead to eschatology, and eschatology means the
renewal of the covenant.[4]
These beliefs – monotheism, election, renewal of covenant,
and eschatology are all the key issues that both Jesus and Paul addressed. One
could go through Paul’s letter to the Romans, for instance, and address each of
these elements with sufficiency. What Wright has done is created a category of
Judaism that allows Paul’s response in Romans to be completely sufficient.
The second place wherein Wright recognizes that the concept
of beliefs is challenging is that organizing Judaism around beliefs is not usually done. He
addresses the issue,
Jews do not characteristically
describe the nature of Judaism in terms of ‘beliefs’. Indeed, Judaism often
contrasts itself with Christianity at this point, to the latter’s supposed
disadvantage. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to show, as many writers have
done, that within the varieties of Judaism there is a set of basic beliefs which are more or less
common to all groups, and that there are various consequent beliefs which, though they bear a family likeness to one
another across the groups, exhibit more variety.[5]
Wright explains that most think of Jews in terms far less
than beliefs but rather that it was considered far more a pattern of behavior: “Judaism
characteristically thinks of itself as a way,
a halakah, a life path, a way of
being-in-the-world.”[6] Here, Wright
shows what the problem is. If there is a commonality, one is hard pressed to
push it into being a group of beliefs. It is much more likely a standard way of
living.
Wright responds that thinking in terms of belief is
difficult, but possible. He argues that a worldview is the same as one’s
beliefs and therefore ought to be considered: “As a matter of phenomenological
analysis, it is simply the case that underlying worldviews are more fundamental
than even the most ingrained habits of life.”[7] Here Wright argues that one’s worldview
determines action, so it is thereby reasonable to consider “beliefs” proper.
This is something that seems rather reductive. “Worldview” is a very vague
concept that is difficult to define philosophically. Wright seems to be using
it in a way that makes it very rational. Most would create a “worldview” to
include both lifestyle and one’s
rationale. After all, many people do not understand the ethical background to
their actions. Again, this seems to be a secondary constraint placed upon
Judaism in order to create a platform from which Wright can contrast
Christianity.
What Wright presents as central tenets to Judaism is not
tremendously surprising – they are the standard viewpoints presented of various
groups in the first century. What makes Wright’s perspective difficult is that
he is trying to argue a universal category that he feels all Jews held in the
first century. The troubling aspect to me is not so much that he misrepresents
Judaism – he certainly does – but that he wants to create the same kind of
regularity upon early Christianity. To create a “basically unified” Judaism –
even though he will simultaneously admit wild differences sets him up to create
a “basically unified” Christianity with wild differences of opinion. That a
Christian scholar is using a heuristic tool to discuss Judaism enough to get to
a conversation about Christianity is not surprising – I admit to doing it
myself in New Testament class. What is far more troubling is what that heuristic
tool is doing for early Christianity –
it is forcing it into a very narrow field that could potentially have difficult
consequences for how one sees the development of the Jesus movement.
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