[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 2 –
Jesus and the Victory of God.]
Where the previous chapter on Symbols succeeded this chapter
on “big questions” of worldview and kingdom struggled. Wright attempts to
outline Jesus’ central question of the kingdom and frame it in an apocalyptic
setting. He argues that Jesus presents this apocalyptic setting in a way that
was distinct from the Judaism around him, most notably by shifting the enemy
from being a foreign military to being Satan an his minions – in this case the
religious leaders of Israel. While there are some critiques of this idea, what
is more troubling is the presentation. While focusing upon symbols is
heuristically helpful, here, his focus on “worldview” is heuristically
misleading. He does not show what the genre of an apocalypse is, and thus does
not frame well (he does not do this well here – he does do this in his previous
volume) the structure for why this idea would not have been ridiculous to a
first century audience. My concern is that he did not frame it in this way because
he wanted to show the uniqueness of Jesus rather than the continuity in
thought.
First, Wright frames this chapter around the question of
worldview. Wright explains that his interest is in the “big picture” that Jesus
presented in order to understand his general worldview:
There remain the key questions, the
questions which can characterize any worldview: who are we, where are we,
what’s wrong, what’s the solution – and what time is it? What answers might
Jesus have given to these questions?[1]
His question, then, is the very largest one – what was
Jesus’ message and why did it matter? That question is so large, it is not
tremendously surprising that his solution is difficult to follow. However, part
of the reason it is difficult to follow is precisely because he uses worldview
as his heuristic tool. While this is a fine set-up, for a heuristic guide,
something more specific needs to be used. Here, the obvious heuristic device to
use would be the apocalyptic, but Wright does not employ that here, and it
makes Jesus look on the one hand rather unique – but on the other hand, it
makes him look rather outlandish – more so than he needs to be.
Much like Wright’s entire book, he answers this key question
with Jesus’ claim that he and his followers are the true Israel and that they
make this claim over against other groups who also claimed to be the true
Isreal:
The short answer Jesus might have
given to the question of identity is: we are Israel, the chosen people of the
creator god. More specifically, we are the real, the true, Israel, in the
process of being redeemed at last by this god, over against the spurious
claimants who are either in power or mounting alternative programs.[2]
Jesus and the people around him,
his motley group of followers, either constitute the real Israel or they are
nothing. They are the returned-from-exile people, the people who at last know
YHWH and are known by him, the new-covenant people whose sins are forgiven, at
whose coming into existence the angels sing for joy. That is their whole raison d’etre.[3]
He argues that Jesus saw himself and his disciples as the true Israel. They were the ones who
were righteous and would be saved against all others. This view he had
expressed many time earlier. The arguments presented about previous chapters
ought to be considered here.
The issue that is new is the context of the coming battle
that needed to ensue in order to be Israel – the covenant people. Wright
explains that Jesus very much saw a cosmic battle coming (much like many Jews
of his day did), but that Jesus had changed the combatants. It is here, Wright
argues, that Jesus faced his firmest opposition:
As far as Jesus was concerned, the
Israel of his day faced a great battle. This, too, put him in the middle of the
map of first-century Judaism (and, indeed, firmly on the map of Messianism, as
we shall shortly see); but, as with the Jewish symbols we studied in the
previous chapter, Jesus radically redefined the battle that had to be fought.
It was because his fundamental agendas collided with those of so many of his
contemporaries, particularly Israel’s leaders, both de jure and self-appointed, that he found himself engaged in
controversies of various sorts. I suggest that he understood precisely those
controversies as part of the redefined
battle of the kingdom…It was because Jesus refused to fight the battle that
his contemporaries wanted him to fight that he found himself fighting, from his
point of view, the true battle – against them; or rather, he would have said,
against the real enemy, whom he perceived to be operating through them.[4]
Wright argues that Jesus argued for a new kind of battle
than was expected and in that battle he recast the leaders of Israel as in
cahoots with the enemy rather than fighting against him.
Wright argues that Jesus recast the apocalyptic battle so
that the combatants were no longer foreign nation contrasted with Israel but
instead were Israel (recast as his followers) fighting against Satan and his
minions.
Within the worldview of
first-century Jews, and most certainly within the mindset of Jesus, there was a
fairly clear perception of an alternative enemy who might have to be fought, a
dark power who masterminded attacks on the people of YHWH. One of the key
elements in Jesus’ perception of his task was therefore his redefinition of who the real enemy was;
then, where this enemy was actually located; then, what this enemy’s strategy
was, and how he was to be defeated.[5]
Wright argues that Jesus redefined the expectation of this
final battle as not being about one nation fighting against another, but as God
fighting against Satan which would be waged on earth leaning to the final
destruction of evil for good. He argues this was in contrast to the expectation
that the battle from Daniel would be cast in the eyes of Israel as against
Rome:
But Rome, from Jesus’ point of
view, could be at most the penultimate enemy. The pagan hordes surrounding
Israel were not the actual foe of the people of YHWH. Standing behind the whole
problem of Israel’s exile was the dark power known in some Old Testament
traditions as the satan, the accuser.[6]
Essentially, Wright has attempted to make the final battle
actually final – he argues that it is a fight of all good against all evil
– this cannot occur unless one imagines it as cosmic.
Within this scheme, then, Wright argues that Jesus cast the
Jewish leaders as workers of Satan who had to be destroyed in this battle. He
argues that this is simultaneously why Jesus was in conflict with them, but
also was not primarily interested in their eventual arguments:
Jesus, I suggest, saw the present
Jewish rulers and teachers as dupes of the accuser, and himself and his
followers as the true Israel. He told Israel’s story, as prophets like Elijah
and Michaiah ben Imlach had told it many centuries before, with the present
rulers and their tame prophets as the opponents
of the true people of the covenant god, himself as the agent, and the divine spirit as his helper.[7]
Wright argues, then, again for his radical supersessionism
that is more reminiscent of the Gospel of Matthew than most people’s view of
the historical Jesus.
The problem with this whole scheme – aside from his
supersessionist ideas about the Jewish leaders – is that he does not frame this
well. He makes it sound as if Jesus was doing something hitherto unheard of.
However, a study of any apocalyptic literature from the second temple period
would of course recognize that the
final battle had to be truly final – evil had to be truly destroyed. To do
this, then the great cause of evil – satan – would equally have to be
destroyed. If one considers the Apocalypse of John, for instance, one will find
that all evil needs to be destroyed in a final cosmic battle. Paul saw a time
when evil would be eliminated and the Power of Sin and Death would be
nullified. That is the essence of apocalyptic thinking; therefore, it is a
little strange for Wright not to express that relatively common view in light
of the general Jewish view that would make good sense. He even admits that this
was a generally acceptable view in the Jewish worldview when he uses that to
show how it reaches his goal of “double similarity”:
It looms large in the gospels. It
is comparatively scarce in other early Christian literature, and is very
differently treated in non-Christian Jewish literature of the time. At the same
time, it is a thoroughly Jewish perception of reality, and makes excellent
sense as the presupposition of what we find in early Christianity. It thus
meets the test, which is of course only ever applicable in a broad-brush way,
of double dissimilarity and double similarity.[8]
Therefore, he does suggest that this was something that made
sense in a Jewish mindset – if that is true, why does he not make clear the
mindset?
Further, while Wright’s view of Jesus as having cast the
religious leaders as minions of evil sounds quite aggressive, it is actually
lightened if he would have discussed this as an apocalyptic. The apocalyptic
genre suggests that all people will be cast in a final combat on either the
side of good or evil. Given that, it is not surprising that the Pharisees would
be cast on the side of Satan. If they are, they are not specifically cast there – all
people not following Christ would be on that side. Therefore, even if
Wright’s perspective of selecting them is surprising, it is far less of an
anti-Semitic scandal if one sees it more carefully in the entire spectrum of all people who are not following this
monotheistic god.
In all, Wright is not wrong in that much of this chapter;
however, his perspective can be confusing. It is confusing because it makes it
sound like Jesus had no framework at all. In fact, however, Wright’s
characterization fits very well with the idea of Jesus as an apocalyptic Jewish
prophet (and indeed Messiah). All he needed to do was make this clear.
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