[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.]
This essay focuses on the final two chapters of N.T.
Wright’s New Testament and the People of
God. As such, this is a summative discussion of the values and challenges
of the text as a whole. The value arises in Wright’s insistence on the
continuity between Judaism and early Christianity. This is a valuable assertion
and helps to understand Christianity in a reasonable setting. This therefore
challenges the rather wild assertions that Christianity was amazingly unique,
fell from heaven, and is somehow different from all other religions on earth.
This view is commonly held these days arguing that Christianity is not a
“religion” – despite the fact that the term “religion” was developed from the
framework of Christianity. Wright’s emphasis on Jewish roots challenges that.
However, Wright’s emphasis on those Jewish roots can limit the comprehension of
the complex relationships with the Greco-Roman world that were separate from
Judaism.
N.T. Wright argues that Christianity survived and persisted because it was in continuity with the
Judaic worldview. He argues that Christianity uniquely grew in its pace and
form:
This sums up two fundamental things
about early Christianity. It spread like wildfire: as religions and
philosophies go, it was exceedingly quick off the starting-line. And it soon
made inroads into cultures quite different from that of its birth: the
Greco-Roman world was forced to come to terms with what was originally a Jewish
message.[1]
While it is not quite true that Christianity’s growth rate
was unique,[2]
it is true that unlike most new religious movements, Christianity did succeed
and was very viable early on. Wright argues that this occurred precisely
because of its relationship with Judaism:
The stories we have examined, and
the praxis and symbol that went so closely with them, only make sense if the
story-tellers believed that the great Jewish story had reached its long-awaited
fulfillment, and that now world history had entered a new phase, the final
phase in the drama of which the Jewish story itself was only one part...the
widespread Christian impetus towards what was often as risky and costly mission
can only be explained in terms of the belief that Israel had now been redeemed, and that the time for the Gentiles had
therefore come.[3]
Here Wright places his central argument – it is the hope of
Israel fulfilled which made the “story” of Christianity so compelling.
The value to Wright’s message is that it is a helpful
corrective to many historians of early Christianity in the 1880s-1960s who
viewed Christianity nearly outside its Jewish confines and instead only in
terms of the Greco-Roman world.[4]
However, there is concern that he has overcorrected to make his point too
robust.
Wright is certainly correct that Christianity developed out
of Judaism – it certainly did. Further, he is willing to make a bold claim
which can be helpful – that all of
early Christianity can be helpfully characterized as “Jewish” Christianity
given that this was its direct source. Therefore, he opposed the distinction
between “Jewish” and “Gentile” Christianity which is often presented:
For a start, all early Christianity
was Jewish Christianity. All early missionary work among Gentiles was
undertaken by Jewish Christians. The decision not to require circumcision of
Gentile converts has as much right to be labeled ‘Jewish Christians’ as does
the position of those who bitterly opposed it. Every single document in the New
Testament is in some sense ‘Jewish Christian’; the fact that Matthew, for
instance, acquiesces in the abolition of the Jewish dietary regulations does
not make his work any less ‘Jeiwsh.’ Paul’s theology, in which the Jewish
worldview he had embraces as a Pharisee is systematically rethought and remade,
only makes sense if it is still seen nevertheless as Jewish theology. It is
emphatically not a variant of paganism.[5]
While this can be challenged, it is important to recognize
that Wright shows some essential continuity. It is surely true that any view
developed in first century Palestine has to, in some way, be consistent with
Judaism.
The challenge is that such a view makes “Judaism” into such
a wide umbrella, that little can be said of it. For instance, if one is to
seriously argue that Hebrews is consistent with Judaism has to argue that a
theology of the replacement of Judaism is
in fact “Jewish.” This is where Wright’s understanding limits his creativity.
He is so interested in the relationship of Judaism with Christianity that he
ends up deemphasizing some of the Greco-Roman interests (particularly Platonic
philosophy) expressed by some early Christians. While it is certainly true that
there was room in Judaism for Platonism, the primary interest of some early Christians were Platonists and
Judaism was really secondary. Therefore, while they remained “Jewish” in some
sense, what motivated them was something different. This calls into question
the helpfulness of arguing that this was the essential relationship for all early Christians.
Wright shows this interest by suggesting that Jews and
Christians, after the temple was destroyed, were making a similar claim:
At the end of the day, we are
confronted with a striking fact: towards the end of the first century there
were two recognizably distinct communities [Jews and Christians], each making more or less the same claim [That
they were the heirs of the covenant].[6]
Here Wright is correct only in its widest terms – yes, it is
certainly true that both communities did see themselves as the heirs of the
same covenant. However, Wright’s further claims that this created a “double
community” of two groups makes it sound as if there was far more universal
agreement and dialogue than there often was. There are certainly clear examples
of strife between Jews and Christians in the first several centuries of
Christianity (one might note Augustine, Chrystostom, or Justin Martyr’s
argument with Jews); however, there were long periods where Jews were not in
any real relationship with Christian churches. There certainly was a “sense” of
them as a logical construct, but that should not always be misunderstood to
imply an actual dialogue with actual Jews.
Eventually, Wright’s first book is valuable for its emphasis
on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Its weakness is that it
does this – which is a very good thing to be doing – monothetically. It looks
so carefully at this one relationship that other relationships are not
considered as carefully. Because I happen to have interest in more Greco-Roman
philosophy, I am sensitive to that area. However, one could argue similarly
about Roman politics, social networking, or Greco-Roman religion.
Wright’s view is once again, fundamentally important because
it provides an excellent case study for what many Protestant Christians hold –
indeed many Protestants read Wright himself as a primary source. Therefore,
this entire series has not been an attempt to destroy the terrible N.T. Wright.
Instead, it is using Wright as a case study. We do so because Wright expresses
his ideas so well – not so poorly. Therefore, this should not be misunderstood
as an expose.
[1] NTPG, 444.
[2] See Rodney
Stark The Rise of Christianity: How the
Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the
Western World in a Few Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996).
[3] NTPG, 445.
[4] Perhaps most
notably in the work of R.P.C. Hanson and Adolf von Harnack.
[5] Ibid., 453.
[6] Ibid., 467.
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