The Trouble With Seminal Books on Topics Previously Unexplored

Kristzian Ungvary’s claims that his book, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II, is the first and best complete study on the siege of Budapest in World War II.[1] Ungvary had access to many sources previously inaccessible due to the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union. Further, he interviewed as many people as possible who experienced the siege of Budapest (both from the German, Hungarian, and Soviet soldiers as well as Hungarian civilians). His book then balances the formal sources with the first hand accounts of the events. I do not disagree that the book is the first and best description of the siege of Budapest (though in all fairness, I do not have the academic background in the history of World War II to truly weigh in on this). It is also engaging and thought provoking. However, what is striking about it, to me is the problem of these types of books which see themselves as seminal works in the field. While the book is well done and accurate, it has the weaknesses that any book has that tries to “tell you everything about a situation.” Further, my being a historian of the ancient world who tries to reconstruct the social world of a community using theory and pieces of evidence notes some of the strange character of a story that is one third military history, one third social world, one third expose, and somehow nearly no theory.

First, it is important to take a few minutes to describe the scope of the book. The  chronology of the book covers the immediate leading up to the siege of Budapest, the actual siege, and a brief conversation about the immediate aftermath. The scope of the book then, tries to cover “everything that happened” thin this time period. To do so, there are several topics that need to be considered. First is the military decisions and actions of the Nazi army, the Hungarian allies (or subordinates, depending upon how one thinks of it), and the red army. The discussing then discussed in detail how the city came to be encircled, the ensuing battles while the siege continued, and the eventual collapse of Budapest and the planned, but never executed evacuation attempts until the final one when it was far too late. Second, the book needs to cover the political decisions leading up to and explaining the siege of Budapest such as the strange relationship between the Hungarian government and Hitler (including the Hungarian government attempting to surrender to which Hitler responded by occupying Hungary itself and the government being replaced by the Arrow Cross government run by the S.S.). Further, political discussion is necessary for prolonging the siege when the city was already lost – with Hitler’s larger strategy of the war with Russia. Third, the book attempts to describe the social situation of the larger population in Budapest. This includes the awkward relationship Hungarians found themselves in during the siege – the vast majority of the people wanted nothing to do with the Nazis (and especially not the Arrow Cross government), but they wanted even less to do with the incoming Red Army and the consequences of the annexation to the Soviet Union. Further, it includes a strange place for Jews in any area occupied by Germans in World War II – while being persecuted heavily, the situation of Hungary for Jews was different than that of the larger empire governed by the third Reich. It was not until the Arrow Cross government arrived that there was any final solution being executed (and by this time in the war, the Nazis did not have the resources to deport them). Behind these last two points includes the background of the relationship with the Hungarian government with Nazi Germany in World War II. Hungary was one of the countries to ally to Germany with the idea that this war would restore some of their land lost at the end of the first world war. As a result, they were never occupied by the Nazis and the relationship was most amenable. Further, the fighting on the Eastern front mostly was not in Hungary itself and a strange type of isolation from the rest of Eastern Europe was developed. As one can see from this brief description (and it is about as brief as possible), this book is incredibly complex due to the breadth of its scope.

The first major critique of this genre of seminal books on a topic is that the arguments in them are not clear. Usually historians write books that argue a particular point. However, this book did not do that. It seems as if what it wanted to express is “this is what really happened.” As a historian of the early Church, this type of inquiry is often done when considering the life of Jesus. The study of the historical Jesus is making an argument as to what really happened in Jesus’ life rather than how it was portrayed later. However, in order to do that, good books on the historical Jesus then present a thesis of their picture of Jesus and then prove it. For example, John Dominic Crossan, one of the most famous (or possibly infamous depending upon the group) scholars of the historical Jesus in his big book on the topic argues that Jesus is primarily a social reformer.[2] His book then is to prove this point and shows the data at hand and why that picture is more accurate than others which he also produces. Ungvary, in his book on the siege of Budapest, does not do this. His picture of “what really happened” seems to revolve around what he happens to put together with no discussion of opinions and data to the contrary.

To refine the previous point, the problem is not necessarily that seminal books do not have a thesis, but that they have far too many. Upon reflection, Ungvary tries to prove all of the following theses in the book: 1). The naïveté of the Hungarian government in relations with Nazi Germany, 2). Why the siege of Budapest was different than other sieges in World War II, 3). Why the Hungarian populace fought so hard for the Germans for whom they were not supporters, 4). Why defenders had so little chance of succeeding while at the same time taking so long to complete, 5). Why Hitler did not allow any chance of a breakout and evacuation, 6). Why the liberators of Budapest were not very liberating, 7). The status of Jews in World War II Hungary, and 8). The odd isolation of Hungary as a whole for the major portion of World War II. As one can see, any one of  these topics would take an entire book to prove. Ungvary’s attempt to prove all of them doomed many to fail.

The second critique of the book is its seemingly unqualified use of data. As a historian of the ancient world, I often get amused when modern historians bemoan the lack of data for a project they are studying. Often, they are discussing evidences for a particular day or hour in time. In the ancient world, we simply do not have hardly any data at all for a particular region and we are left to reconstruct based on a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence to come to a conclusion. Ungvary does not have this problem – he has a tremendous amount of data for the siege of Budapest. There is not a day in the siege for which he does not know every military move that was made. Further, there is not any day for which he has not obtained either personal papers of survivors (or in many cases doing interviews himself with them). However, his weight of sources becomes a weakness for him when he does not critically use them. He presents so much of the source material he is “sure of” that the book begins to become a simple compendium of pieces of data rather than an argument about a particular social world. The data does not seemed to be judged or qualified in the manner that gives the reader the relevant data that completes a clear thought. If a book had less data, it might actually be more convincing (in a paradoxical seeming way). As an example for this phenomenon, consider Eberhard Bethge’s famous biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[3] The book, being over 1100 pages is the best-researched biography of Bonhoeffer likely to ever be produced. Recently, Eric Metaxas wrote a new biography of Bonhoeffer which was far shorter and in some cases had far wilder claims.[4] Bethge’s book should be the superior one by far (and in many ways it is), but Metaxas’s is more compelling to a reader who wants to be convinced of who Bonhoeffer is and why he became involved in the plot to kill Hitler. Much like Ungvary’s book, Bethge’s uses too much detail and includes so much data that it counteracts from the book’s main purpose.

The error of the weight of data is most illustrated by the special emphasis on the military operations of the period. A rough estimate finds at least 65% of the book to be the precise movements of the military during the siege. As the book does discuss a moment in a theatre of war, it might not surprise that so much of the book emphasizes this aspect, but in doing so, the data of the book on the social world is lost. The book’s strength are the personal papers and interviews of the actual people. In discussing military operations in such detail, it takes the time that could have been spent doing careful discussion of the development of life in the siege. The book becomes interesting to those who enjoy military strategy, but not as much for those who want to understand the other 7 theses that the author is trying to prove.

The final and most concerning critique of this book – and many books like it in modern history – is its lack of stated theoretical framework. As stated above, in ancient history the theory one uses determines how one presents one’s conclusion. This is due doubly to the integrity of admitting that theory determines data as well as a simple lack of data so that a theory has to tie together disparate elements. This book, like many works in modern history and theology, never states a theory at all. There is no real discussion about which personal papers ought to be trusted and which not (after all, eyewitness accounts are almost never consistent with each other). It seems as if Ungvary has simply put together “what makes sense” but that alone is a theory – only in this case it is not being done deliberately and thus the unstated theory has more of a chance of obscuring data than for those which are card carrying.

In all, the book is excellent and deserves to be read. There are portions that simply need to be skipped and frustrations with the genre of the book. However, Ungvary’s work will hopefully be some type of “entrance” into the field (being a seminal book) so that more careful histories can be developed and real dialogue put forward about some of the aspects of the siege in a more academically acceptable format.   

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[1] Kristzian Ungvary, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II trans. Ladislaus Lob (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

[2] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (HarperOne, 1993).

[3] Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, Revised Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).

[4] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2011).

Review of Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ

Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, New York: The New Press, 2012, ISBN 9781595584687.

Daniel Boyarin’s newest book argues that Jesus was fully Jewish and that the gospels are equally fully Jewish. He argues that there were sects of Judaism that were expecting the Messiah to be both human and divine. He further argues that Jesus’ activities can be understood from the framework of second temple Judaism. He considers the Jewish background of the terms “son of man” and “son of God” and explains what these terms meant to some in the late second temple period. Further, he considers Mark 7 considering kosher law as an example to consider as it is often used to show discontinuity between Jesus and Judaism. Boyarin argues that Jesus’ argument in Mark 7, while being a critique of the Pharisee’s interpretation of Torah, was not in fact challenging the Torah (or food laws specifically) at all.  Boyarin’s work is a helpful book for all of those who are unclear about the Jewish background to the Son of Man and Son of God language in Daniel, or those who do not understand the difference between purity and morality in Judaism. The strength of the book is that his thesis is quite convincing – Jesus was surely Jewish and the Jesus movement, as expressed in the New Testament, was in the Jewish framework for the most part. The weakness of the book is that while the thesis is convincing, it is also mundane – most people who are careful readers of the New Testament are quite clear that Jesus was Jewish and this book only affirms what they already knew. However, some of the specific points that Boyarin discusses are quite interesting and the book ought to be read if only for these elements.

Brief Summary

Boyarin begins by arguing that not only was there not a “Christianity” during Jesus’ lifetime, there was not even a “Judaism.” Speaking of the terms as “world religions,” Boyarin is surely correct. Further, there is no evidence in the New Testament, save th[1]e book of 1 Peter, that the Jesus movement is seen as something distinct from Judaism. The authors of the New Testament are not imaging a new world religion – they believe they are expressing the truth in continuity with the truth they have always known – that of Israel. This aspect is not surprising. What might be more surprising is his argument that at this time there was no “Judaism.” He points out properly that “Iudaismos” – the Greek word meaning “Judaism” is not attested at this time period. The term Iudaioi (Jews) certainly was, but the “philosophy of Jews” (Judaism) did not yet exist. Boyarin’s point is that not only was there not a monolithic group of Jews (as most everyone knows about the sectarian differences in the first century – e.g. the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.), but there was not even a concept of a monolithic Judaism as a world religion. There were many Jews who believed many things with a mostly common tradition – but they were not necessarily part of a monolithic “religion.” They tended to identify with one another in meaningful ways, but this was due to ethnicity in practice rather than a formal “religion.”[2]

After developing this theoretical framework, then Boyarin shows what the titles “Son of Man” and “Son of God” meant in the first century. The Son of God language, he argues, is the language attributed to David and his descendents, showing the messiah to be a true king of Israel in the line of David. The Son of Man language, he argues is developed from Daniel as a divine being who acts alongside the “Ancient of Days.” This “one  like a son of man” is presented in Daniel’s apocalyptic section as the one who will come on earth, conquer, and rule it. He then shows how the idea of God having a plurality (both the son and the father being God) is not a problem in Judaism and that there was a longstanding tradition developed from the Canaanite idea of God as two (El and Ba’al) being expressed as one in the Hebrew Bible. The most famous example of this is probably the scene at the “burning bush” in Exodus 4, half the time the figure speaking is YHVH whereas the other half the time it is the “angel of the Lord.” Notwithstanding the origins of this text (as it might well have been a compilation), the final form of the text as it stands presents the idea well – what the Canaanites considered as two gods, Israel considers one. There is the idea of plurality and unity between these figures (this would be developed in the Logos, Sophia, Wisdom concept as seen in Proverbs 8:22).

Boyarin then argues that the concept of a Son of Man and Son of God being the same person was even understood in the late second temple period. He considers the similitudes in 1 Enoch 14 as evidence that the son of Man was messiah and a son of David. This is then corroborated by considering 4 Ezra which presented a new type of Messiah that would encapsulate both this son of Man and son of David motif.

After the discussion of the titles son of man and son of God, he discusses Jesus’ view about food laws in the Gospels. He argues that Mark 7, if understood correctly, actually is supporting rather than challenging kosher observation. He points out, as many have noted, that there is some evidence that the Pharisees believed that the special purity laws which the priests practiced ought to be practiced by everyone (though to be fair, evidence for what the Pharisees believed is amazingly scant). Jesus then was arguing against this interpretation rather than against food laws a whole. He points out that there are certain prohibited foods that all Jews are not to eat (pork, shellfish, etc.). There are also certain practices of eating that could make someone “impure.” However, this “impurity” is not the same as the forbidden foods. This impurity is that which keeps one from being able to enter the temple and worship before one goes through a proper ritual. Purity, definitionally, is a ritual rather than ethical category. The ritual washing discussed in Mark 7 is argued as to be relevant for one before they enter the temple to worship – it is not something that is simply forbidden at all times for all Jews. Jesus then is arguing that this understanding of food laws is problematic. He does not want to inadvertently make religion so hard for people that it becomes elitist (Jesus’ main critique is less “what is the kingdom of God” as much as “who can be included in the kingdom of God”).

Finally, Boyarin argues that the idea that the messiah would suffer can be found as a midrash (interpretation) of Daniel. The one like the “son of Man” is depicted as being crushed by the fourth beast before they rise up and conquer him on high. This has traditionally been interpreted to mean all of Israel rather than just the son of Man, but Boyarin shows that at least some people could interpret it this way in Judaism.

Merits and Critiques of the Book

Boyarin’s essential thesis is sound – of course Jesus’s message is rooted in and understood in a Jewish context. Further, his analysis of sources in the Hebrew Bible which inspired the theology of the New Testament is well done. He looks at one key text – the book of Daniel – in order to understand the apocalyptic role of Jesus, which is especially pronounced in the Gospel of Mark.

A further good discussion is his essential argument philosophically that readers must cease from thinking about the early Jesus movement as “Christianity” – meaning it had its own system as its own world religion. While Jesus was alive, there of course was no system – there was only a man. Even during the lifetime of Paul, there is no concept of a true “Christianity” separate from Judaism (see my earlier review of J. Albert Harrill’s book on Paul to see this issue and how it functioned in his life). Boyarin’s reminder that there was also no “Judaism” at this time is a helpful comment made for readers of the New Testament who at times forget that what they are characterizing is more than one thing.

The greatest merit of the book, however, is in the details. Boyarin’s discussion of Mark 7, the Son of Man, and the Son of God theologies is well done. As will be detailed below, I disagree with some elements of what he posited concerning the theology of “Son of God,” but the details are worth consideration. His interpretative priority of Daniel (rather than Ezekiel) for understanding Son of Man is well done (if into slightly reductive).

The detail about Mark 7 is incredibly well done, particularly for a modern American audience for whom “purity” is not a term that is understood well. Boyarin provides a perfect corrective by explaining what purity is and is not. Purity is a ritual category that prepares one for worship – it is not ethical. A women is not immoral for menstruating; however, she is impure, she must go through a cleansing ritual in order to prepare for worship. Morality is a separate issue that (possibly surprisingly) has nothing to do with worship. If someone is acting immorally, no ritual cleansing is going to help them – they need an ethical change (I am aware that atonement for immorality is a ritual, but essentially, they are separate if not connected). The challenge of this dichotomy that is probably most surprising to the modern reader is that if someone was immoral, not only did they not have to deal with purity rituals, that person would not necessarily be barred from worship. The idea is that it did not matter what one had done morally, if they were taking worship seriously and going through the proper rituals. Boyarin does an excellent job explaining this dichotomy as it pertains to food laws. Jesus is challenging the theology that it is better to remain ritually pure at all times (whether one is preparing for worship or not) in addition to the standard moral procedures.

The biggest challenge to the book is its scope. Boyarin argues that this book will show that both Jesus and the Gospels are Jewish. The challenge is that he does not show how he is reconstructing the historical Jesus. Further, he does not show how all of the gospels present the Jewish Jesus (he has little discussion of the Gospel of John, for instance, which is the one most involved in Greek philosophy).

His argument depends upon the “apocalyptic prophet” reconstruction of the historical Jesus. He views messiah through the lens of Daniel to create an apocalyptic figure who reveals his identity through a variety of means. I tend to agree with Boyarin on this point; however, his lack of discussion of it makes this work incomplete.

Secondly, the apocalyptic Jesus is not necessarily present in all four Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke/Book of Acts, the kingdom of God apocalyptic message means a radically different thing and 9in the Gospel of John it is absent. His argument is very good if relegated to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is a type of gospel with an apocalyptic message which makes most sense when understood through the lens of the Son of Man in Daniel. Had Boyarin made this claim, it would have been far stronger.

The next critiques are less in scope than in details. The first is his dependence upon the “son of Man” theology in Daniel that forgets the same theology in Ezekiel (where it simply means “human”). I would not at all be surprised for the Gospel of Mark to realize the term means both things and use both in tension. Jesus is both the “one like a son of man” and very much a human.

The second challenge is his argument about the “son of God” theology. He is not wrong in the least that the language of son of God depicts the kingly Messiah in David’s lineage. This is in keeping with the relationship of David to God as depicted by father to son in 2 Samuel 7. However, Boyarin tries to suggest that this makes some type of convoluted familial relation with God in the divine. If that were true, then David would also be divine – something that is not held by any Jewish group with which I am familiar. It seems that his interest to show that the concept of a divine messiah has influenced his reading of the data.

Finally, the chapter on the Jewish expectation that the messiah would suffer is relatively weak. He does point out that there were some interpretations of Daniel that could be understood as a suffering figure. He then hypothesizes that being crucified and dying would qualify. However, he does not discuss (as Paul does) that being crucified is a curse of the law. Serious question can be asked if crucifixion would fit so neatly into his “Jewish gospels.” Further, he does not have real evidence that the messiah was ever to die. Suffering is distinctly different than death and the gospels are quite clear that Jesus really died. This also challenges this basic argument.

As a whole, the book is valuable for Christians to read – it reminds them of some basic elements of the study of the New Testament. Further the precise arguments about the son of man, son of God, and Food laws are well worth the read. The book is written for a mass audience and as such is written in a highly entertaining and enjoyable style.

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[2] For more on the nature of Jewishness in the first century, see Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

Review of J. Albert Harrill, Paul The Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context

J. Albert Harrill, Paul The Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, (pb), ISBN 9780521757805.

Harrill’s book, Paul the Apostle, discusses Paul in his Roman context. He has as his counter argument discussions which couch the historical Paul with the historical Jesus and suggest both are politically revolutionary. Harrill presents this book about Paul and the way Paul was interpreted throughout early Christianity as completely Roman (and in fact more Roman than the Romans themselves). This main thesis of this book is convincing and deserves to be read. However, there are also several asides in the book which wander from the thesis. Some of these asides are well done (e.g. Harrill writes a brief biographical sketch of Paul informed from the New Perspective on Paul). Others, however, while perhaps being accurate only confuse the reader (most notably the conversation about Augustine and how the West understood Paul incorrectly).

This book bridges the gap between biography and an academic argument. In the preface Harrill points out that modern biographies take the life of a person and map it on a plot sequence used in literature. Instead, he chooses to write an antibiography which abandons the literary narrative of a biography and also does not attempt to find the fixed form of a person’s identity – Paul even says that he is many things to many people.[1] Rather, he spends time going through what is known about Paul and critically uses sources.

The most interesting element of the first two chapters for those who are already familiar with Pauline studies is that Harrill proves to be interested in the “New Perspective” of Paul. The “New Perspective” is the trend in scholarship which argues that Paul was fully Jewish, never felt that the relationship God had with the Jews had been abandoned, and that his statements about Torah and Israel are relevant to gentiles but not Jews. This idea developed when Krister Stendahl, almost 50 years ago, noticed that much of what the West considered to be true for Paul was not true for Judaism. Luther’s experience of a failure of the law (trying to keep it and simply not being able) is not found in Paul’s writing – he says that opposite – “In regard to observation of the Torah, I was blameless.”[2] Question then began to arise as to what was it that Paul was saying if it was not a law vs. gospel dichotomy? Several authors have proposed the view that Harrill espouses. It can be supported by comments found in Romans 9-11. For instance, after going through a long process of discussing why the Gentiles were saved, he then points out that “all Israel will be saved.” It is not clear how Paul considers this to happen – do they need to be Christian? Can they be saved as is? Is this only a portion of Israel? The New Perspective, then, would argue that Paul’s primary argument was not a new religious movement, but rather a new way for Gentiles to join a rather old religious movement called Judaism (as he argues they did not have to become proselyte Jews but could remain gentiles while being in relation with God). It is clear from looking at the text more critically than a traditional Protestant lens is necessary.

The view of the New Perspective in regard to the question of Judaism has not been persuasive to all scholars. The largest piece of evidence holding this back is that the book of Galatians seems to tend toward a problem with Judaism. The conversation about the New Perspective has been continuing for half a century and Harrill does not provide new information about the New Perspective as much as presents it in a new format. He presents a reconstruction of the life of Paul given the New Perspective framework. This life then avoids the biographical genre not just because of critiques of the genres as a whole but because he does not see a “climax” in Paul’s conversion (where biographies usually center). Second, he does not argue that there is only one Pauline thought – he is happy to admit that Galatians and Romans might be slightly different (after all, a person can change one’s mind slightly to suit different periods of their life). The first two chapters of the book create a compelling portrait of the reconstructed life of Paul. It does a good job explaining where he gets the information he uses for his conclusions and that alone makes it worth reading. If one does not agree with his reconstruction (as I found his discussion of Paul’s death somewhat suspect), it is very easy to consider his sources and analyze their value.

The book then moves into its primary argument in chapter three which focuses on Paul’s Roman identity. Harrill argues, correctly, that Paul was not primarily an anti-Roman revolutionary and that he used Roman systems of authority and patronage in a rather standard way.[3] Paul further used the type of rhetoric to establish his authority the same way as notable politicians. For the best example of this, Harrill sets Paul’s discussion of his “humble acceptance of authority” (“We have not made use of this right (of authority over you), but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ”)[4] with that of the Emperor Augustus who famously would never take on the official term emperor (even though of course he had all of the power).

The second portion of the book is tradition about Paul after he died. Harrill considers several books attributed to Paul but not written by him. He considers the ones in the New Testament (2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles) as well as some that are not (Dialogue between Paul and Seneca, 3 Corinthians, Prayer of the Apostle Paul). He further considers works that are written about Paul – such as the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Paul, and the Martyrdom of Paul. He convincingly argues in chapter 5 that all of the works about Paul consider him as more rather than less Roman. In fact, in most of the cases, he is a better Roman than the Romans who are charging him.

The argument that Harrill presents about Paul’s Roman identity over against the idea that Paul was an anti-Roman revolutionary is the best part of the book and the heart of Harrill’s research and argument. His last two chapters seem an almost aside from that thesis. Because he was discussing tradition about Paul up until the fourth century, in the view of fairness, he has a chapter on Patristic interpretation of Paul up to the same time period. He goes through a number of figures in early Christian history who interpreted Paul’s works and may have even made a few comments about the man himself. The best portion of this chapters is Harrill’s fantastic job discussing Origen’s understanding (and frustration) with Paul. Harrill points out that Origen’s insights sound remarkably close to modern scholarship (not something usually said about any of the Father’s interpretation of scripture).

The final chapter, “How the west got Paul wrong” focuses on Augustine’s reading of Paul and the doctrine of original sin developed from Paul. He argues that Augustine had a poor translation of Romans 5:12 which led him to believe that in Adam’s sin, all sinned. This he sees as a watershed moment for Augustine because the idea of Sin versus Grace was introduced in a way that had not been previously. He does correctly point out that Augustine is not exactly Luther on this point, but the dichotomy between the two, as found in Paul, did originate in Augustine.

    

Merits and question for the main argument of the book

There is much that is laudable in this book. My main critiques that do not focus on the last chapter (see below for my critiques on that) are only questions I wish Harrill had discussed further so that his logic could be applied to differing ideas. Therefore, for this section, I will present what I thought was well done in the book and then supply a further study that could have made his point more convincing. 

The avoidance of writing a biography is a wise choice on the part of Harrill. This criticism of biography is quite apt. Most biographies force a person’s life into a plot sequence that has a climax. This is often not how the lives of people function – very few have a single moment when they “peaked.” For example, Walter Isaacson in his otherwise very good biography of Steve Jobs forces Jobs into having some internal change in personality between his periods of working at Apple, NeXt, Pixar, and then Apple again (with the Pixar/Apple job being the climax of the book). The problem is that any one reading the book will recognize that Jobs was the same challenging person throughout his life. When this same pattern is applied to Paul, his “call” becomes the climax of the narrative with his missionary journeys becoming the falling action and denouement. This emphasis forces the call to be far more than it is and to become the kind of conversion where he changes names (even though, as Harrill points out, there is no evidence that his name ever changed at any point). Harrill’s book is far better by describing what we know of Paul without falling into the genre of biography.

The major piece missing from his life of Paul was only his discussion of Paul’s mission. He does mention that Paul had such urgency in converting Gentiles to the Jesus movement because he felt the world was going to end so soon. However, this presents Paul as a philanthropist – he could sit quietly and his own salvation would be secure but instead he spends his time trying to help others. Rather, Romans 11:25 clearly states that the end has not yet come “until the full number of Gentiles has come in.” Paul’s motivation is completely selfish. He wants the reign of God to come as soon as possible. His missionary activity is attempting to hasten that day. The more gentiles he converts, the closer the coming of the kingdom of God is and his salvation is actualized.

The discussion of Paul’s Romanness is very well done as I intimated earlier. The idea that Paul uses Roman authority structures is convincing and clear. The one element that Harrill could have used was the idea of a Patron that Paul employs. Paul considers himself a Patron to all those he has converted as displayed in Philemon 11 and 17. Paul suggest that he has become Onesimus’s “father” in prison. The meaning of this is that Paul has converted Onesimus and now has authority over him. This was in full keeping with Greco-Roman patronage structures. The lower class would often adopt a “father” to take care of them (given that the state had almost no civic service whatsoever). This patron would then provide the subsidiary basic human needs in return for loyalty (which could well involve voting for that patron).

The only problem with the idea of Paul’s Romanness occurs that Harrill does not directly address the political implication of Paul’s language of “reign of God.” This is precisely the language that made Jesus’ message politically subversive. I do not think that Paul’s language is as politically challenging to the Romans as Jesus’ seemed to be for a few reasons. First, Jesus was implying (or at least the Romans felt he was) that he would be the king of the kingdom to come (though it is an interesting factoid that nowhere in the gospels does Jesus explicitly say this in this type of political language). However, more importantly, the precise nature of the reign of God might have a slight nuance between Paul and Jesus which made all the difference. Jesus’ discussion of the coming Kingdom was a kingdom on earth that would replace the “kingdom” that was already there (while Jesus was speaking globally, the Romans had no problem taking it personally). Paul, however, sees the reign of God slightly differently. The coming reign of God is the coming wrath upon the earth that will put an end to all the divergence among people. The earth will be under wrath while the righteous will be happily rescued and in communion “in the clouds.”[5] While it is possible that Paul then suggested a return to the earth, it is not quite explicit in that manner. While in some ways Paul’s view would be more bleak for the Romans, it also provided a way that did not suggest a replacement of one kingdom with another – thereby sounding politically dangerous. This conversation is missing from Harrill’s book and really is necessary if, as he suggests, he wants to show that the ideas of scholars such as Crossan, who hold that Paul was an anti-Roman social reformer, to be incorrect.

The final tremendous merit to Harrill’s book is how he uses the book of Acts. It is clear that Acts does not hold completely historical information about Paul – Harrill is hardly the first to note this issue. However, in discussion of Acts’ presentation of Paul, he shows some of the tension in Acts. He shows that in the flight from Damascus, Paul says that he left due to persecution from the state. Acts does not mention anything about the state and instead puts the persecution in the hands of the Jews. This shows one of the challenges of Luke-Acts. It wants to present the Jesus movement as being in full continuity with the Roman empire and Judaism. Here is an example when those ideas are in competition. Acts is willing to abandon its ties to Judaism for a moment in order to avoid its competing interest in continuity with the Roman state (similar to the way that in the parable of the good Samaritan Luke is willing to abandon continuity with Judaism in order to emphasize one of its other themes – care for the poor).

Critique of the final chapter of the book

As shown above, the book on the whole is a triumph. However, the last chapter can be critiqued primarily because it is so tangential. The last chapter, “How the West got Paul wrong” focuses on Augustine’s understanding of original sin. He argues that it was a misreading of Romans 5:12 from “Therefore, just as Sin came into the world through one man, and Death came through Sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” to “Therefore, just as Sin came into the world through one man, and Death came through Sin, and so death spread to all in which all have sinned.” The reading then would suggest that Augustine read that Adam’s sin was collective.[6]

While I do not disagree that Augustine probably did read this line in this way, Harrill does not mention why this reading would not have been surprising to Augustine. One thing that is missing in his entire book (as it really has little to do with the Romanness of Paul either way) is the platonic concept of  “in Christ” throughout his work. He believed that those who were part of the movement participated in the eternal form of Christ (who happens to be the actual Christ who came on earth). Therefore, when one became part of the movement, then they joined a new humanity in Christ rather than the old one “in Adam” (“As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”) This idea is developed in Romans 5 and not only is “Adam” a heavenly type that can be participated in, so is Sin and Death. He believed Sin and Death were cosmic forces that could enslave humans (and in fact had). He argues in the very passage Harrill accuses Augustine of misreading – that all participate in the cosmic power of Sin because all “have sinned” (note the difference between the capital and small letters here). The idea is that since everyone has erred at some point, then they are participating in the concept of Sin. This Sin is the thing that is connected with Death and therefore people will die (here it is fair to think this is spiritual rather than physical).

To be fair to Harrill, Augustine does make an error in the point – that is that Augustine considered original sin in many ways to be one of guilt – things a person actually had done (even though of course it was done before one was born) whereas Paul sees it more as a cosmic force to which one is enslaved (guilt is not a major factor in reading Paul). Harrill’s not bringing this point up makes Augustine look ridiculous. I agree that Augustine – much like all Patristic authors – used scripture creatively to meet his own ends (though in his case he does it openly with a laid out presentation in On Christian Teaching). However, the nuance is far more subtle when this “participatory model” is presented.

Harrill’s lack of presenting the participatory model shows why tangents are troubling. I do not think Harrill wanted to slander Augustine (though to be fair I have never met him). Had this chapter been at the end of a book discussing the participatory model, all of the material I felt needed to be supplied would have been supplied. The problem is that he presents this at the end of a book on Paul’s Romanness. However one considers Augustine’s presentation of Paul, I do not think any of the doctrine of original sin has anything to do with whether Augustine saw Paul as a good Roman or not. This is the real reason why this chapter stood out and was unclear – it simply did not flow with the argument of the book and as such, could confuse a reader.

Conclusion

This book is one well worth reading. It provides a very good reconstructed life of Paul and makes an important argument – that Paul was very much a good Roman. Further, the discussion of the tradition about Paul provides a new angle to a standard survey of Paul and has much interesting material. Further, Harrill writes the book so accessibly that anyone interested in the subject could understand it quite clearly (no matter how much they knew about Paul already). With the caveats listed above, this book is quite valuable and should be read.   

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[1] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 3.

[2] Phil. 3:2.

[3] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 80-88.

[4] I Corinthians 9:4.

[5] I Thessalonians 4:17.

[6] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 143-144.

Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity

Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), ISBN 9780300118841, (hc) $35.00.

Robert Wilken’s survey of the first thousand years of Christianity is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the field. Its greatest value and greatest challenge is that this survey beginning with the life of Christ and ending just before the great schism is only 359 pages. Wilken’s characteristic style of being both concise yet clear in exposition is the books greatest strength and its greatest weakness. This book is valuable to review for two reasons. The first is that it provides an illustration of the challenge of writing a survey of Christianity (the genre of surveys of church history is a much larger project I am studying) and how Wilken plays with the genre to do something different. The second is the very good data in the book that Wilken brings about and creates for an accessible and interesting read for students and laymen (scholars would also find this interesting, but due to some of the constraints discussed below, would find it too brief to be complete). Therefore, this review will stray from my usual format of showing the merits and then the critiques of the book. This book’s merits and critiques are really two sides of the same coin. Therefore, this review will first illustrate the strength and weakness of Wilken’s writing style by analyzing what is in my view his best and worst chapters. Then, a discussion will move into the genre of church history surveys and show how he falls into the problem of modern surveys of church histories and how he attempts to solve them (in some ways successfully and in other ways not so successfully). 

To illustrate how this book was written, an example can be taken from the first chapter. To begin the book, he wants to describe Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels (not only as a beginning ground of any survey of later Christianity but also due to his view that all theology is exegetical and therefore the Bible is quite relevant. In writing this chapter, he has all of 11 pages to describe the entire message, goal, and purposes of the four gospels. This is of course, ridiculous. To accomplish the task, rather than illustrating the gospels, he summarizes them to the point that the end of the chapter he can talk about the single character of the gospels.[1] This summary position is done in every chapter without long quotations of primary sources to show what the sources suggest. To consider the difference of this approach to other academic writing, it might be helpful to consider two of Wilken’s other very good books. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them goes to significant lengths to display what Romans felt about Christians. It even goes to the extreme of reconstructing the vast majority of Celsus’s argument against the Christians and presenting it for the reader.[2] In a mediating position to this is Wilken’s Spirit of Early Christian Thought where the long quotations have been mostly abandoned to save space, but the book is filled with example after example of quotations being put together to create a narrative.[3] The First Thousand Years book, however, to save even more space has cut down on even direct quotation in exchange for summary. Wilken’s summaries are often well done, but it is a distinct style that has distinct advantages and disadvantages. The greatest advantage is that when the texts can be summarized well, it allows him to move into higher order thinking quickly and he can do rather interesting things to gain interesting conclusions. When it is not done well, the summaries might not suffice and any higher order thinking is abandoned because a reader struggles to understand the summary.

To illustrate the strength of this format, consider his discussion of Ignatius of Antioch.  In the chapter, he only cites Ignatius 10 times. Of those ten, only one is longer than three lines. Instead of quoting large portions of Ignatius, he summarizes Ignatius enough to create an argument about the innovation that Ignatius represents – the spiritual unity of a variety of independent bodies as a single body of believers. He points out that Ignatius’s letters are a window into the inner-life of the church after the death of the apostles.[4] Ignatius not only considers a new type of church unity through the use of the bishop – but the transition is due to the lack of itinerate missionaries who stopped by these variety of places (such as Paul) to one where each church had their own identity, yet still found identity in the larger collective.[5] This type of simultaneous independent and communal identity is expressed through the development of a worship service and the practice of common sacraments – baptism and the Eucharist.[6] The usual discussion had about Ignatius – the role of the bishop (and subsequent church order) is quickly and efficiently discussed.[7] Here, Wilken has made a fascinating argument using Ignatius less as “the important development which must be illustrated” as much as he has described Ignatius enough in order to make a fascinating point about the nature of second century Christianity. This depiction is more profound than most depictions of Ignatius’s letters which usually describe a basic idea of the bishop, authority, and shift in thinking. Here, Wilken uses this in a way that makes the whole of Ignatius far greater than the sum of his parts.

In contrast to the way it works so well for Ignatius, one might consider his chapter on the Christological controversies at the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon (yes, indeed, it is only one chapter) that he entitles, “The Great Controversy over Christ.” First, this period in church history is very confusing. The discussion between Cyril, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Leo, the Tall Brothers, John, and even Shenoute shifts wildly over precise language. It is in fact confusing enough that part of the conflict was over a translation problem – the terms “ousia” and “physis” did not translate well into Syriac and it is quite probable that Nestorius and Cyril did not disagree as much as they thought they did. In essence, it is a confusing enough period, that even during the conflict they were confused. However, it is a watershed moment for the rest of Christianity with monophysites and diphysites continuing to disagree for centuries to come. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that this be a clear chapter that explains what is happening. Unfortunately, Wilken provides it only 10 pages and has the thankless task of trying to explain a doctrine in such a short space that will be referred to in nearly every chapter of the text after this one. However, in so doing, his “summarization” approach fails because the summary is too confusing to be understood and thus the subsequent arguments he presents based upon that summary get incredibly confused. For example, he argues that part of the issue was the political struggle the Bishop of Alexandria had with the Episcopal see of Constantinople exerting new influence. However, he notes that the primary debate between them was more theological than it was political.[8] After stating this – that it was not a political goal, the “argument” of the chapter, if there is one, is the initial triumph of the authority of Alexandria followed by the subsequent victory of Constantinople in its own political strength.[9] Therefore, precisely what he states is not the point, is what he suggests was the result (granted in a fascinating way by citing the fathers and other innovation in authority).[10] Further, his summary style gets compromised from the first line when he makes a blatant value judgment of Nestorius as being foolish: “Eloquence without wisdom is hazardous…Though fluent of speech, [Nestorius] lacked prudence and soon found himself at odds with the imperial family and monks in the city. The misstep that sparked trouble…”[11] One can observe that he seems to see Nestorius as making a poor judgment. It might be true he made one as far as political savvy, but the way he presents what comes next has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the doctrine of the theotokos. Therefore, the summaries that he presents are already compromised. This then gets egregiously confusing with new people introduced with new ideas and new ecclesiastical councils. This causes confusion and the clipped style of Wilken has obfuscated the data.

The probably difference between these two chapters is the simplicity of the content. In the discussion of Ignatius, he describes the theology of Ignatius relatively quickly and in a straightforward manner. The only other factor he discusses is evidence of Ignatius’s action in the New Testament. This works well because the point he wants to make about Ignatius’s role as a case study function very well with relatively brief discussion of Ignatius the man. The same cannot be said of the Christological controversies of the fifth century. When there are two church councils, at least 4 principle players, the addition of Rome for the first time attempting to get involved, the concept of an ecclesiastical council without the oversight of an emperor, and the subsequent failed councils which caused more harm than good, the content is simply too diverse to be quickly summarized and then leading to a single point. There is in fact no single one point that ought to be learned about the Christological controversies in the fifth century – there are at least half a dozen.

These analyses of these paragraphs are meant to show how and when the approach works and when it struggles. I am happy to admit that Wilken presents one of the best discussion of Ignatius (or the early second century for that matter) that I have seen in any survey textbook of Christian history. The chapter on the Christological controversies is not the worst (as this period of history is notorious for being difficult), but it is fair to say it is below average. A more standard approach would have been several chapters and would have described each figure deliberately and not tried to make such aggressive claims. It would not have had as many potential positive results, but it would have had more actual positive results.

Rather than looking at particular aspects of this survey of the history of Christianity as far as technical details which are a bit unfair (of course it won’t be as precise as it should be – it is a survey), here the conversation will turn to the challenge of what a survey is and how it functions – thereby Wilken’s book can be fairly criticized or praised within its own construct.

Genre of a Survey of Church History

The problem with a study of the genre of church history surveys is that it is not officially a genre. One will not find a course in “textbook surveys” in any literature conference. Rather, these are built as heuristic devices for different ends. In the English speaking world, church histories are all dependent (either in reproducing or opposing) on Philip Schaff’s 10 volume History of the Christian Church originally published in 1858. This history, following Hegelian philosophy of History, was interested in how Christianity developed (in a positive way) from the early origins to the height of understanding (of course with this ending in Schaff’s own day). It has a clear sense of progress behind it and it goes even farther by suggesting that God was behind the heresies and other events so that the church could “discover” what was already there all along – namely the divine truth. In this way, it is fair to judge Schaff’s interpretative method as a basic Heilsgeschichte (which is usually reserved for the interpretation of history in the Old Testament) to the church. Adolf von Harnack’s influential work did not use this idea of Heilsgeschichte, but it did employ a development of doctrine in a rather similar light. Heresies were the counterpoint to the single development of doctrine that led them to the next step. It was a very linear model which held the idea that “orthodoxy” was a continuous channel that responded to heresy along the way. Walter Bauer’s influential Orthodoxy and Heresy was a helpful corrective in the sequence of heresy or orthodoxy. Rather than the idea found in figures such as Schaff that there was an orthodoxy that was then corrupted by these heresies, Bauer observed that often the “heresy” came first and it was not known as heresy until well after the fact (and was happy to admit the power dynamic and fluidity of what was orthodox and heretical – the orthodox is always that which is in the interest of the stronger party). However, Bauer did not fundamentally challenge the idea of a linear history developed in a Hegelian fashion.

Current historians appreciate the contributions of this earlier generation of scholarship, but recognize that such a linear view of orthodoxy is simply inaccurate. The interest in the social world has shown a tremendous amount of diversity – not only in the heretical groups – as Bauer pointed out, but also in the orthodox groups. It is now the proper trope that there really was not a single orthodoxy (and more and more scholars are disgusted by the idea of a “proto-orthodoxy” as it implies it was a single group who had been there the whole time). There were not only a variety of groups competing with each other, but there were even more unaware of each other as competing groups implies that the groups were trying to “one up” the other. In most cases, the groups were so far from one another that communication was limited at best. A good example of this from my own research is that the larger people in Coptic Egypt were not overly concerned with the Christological controversies in Alexandria and went about their Christian lives centered around monastic ideals (in fact, according to David Brakke, it was Athanasius’s recognition of this gap and his ability to bring in the monastic movement into his theology which was his true genius).[12]

Scholarship for the most part, does not have a problem with this and one won’t find advanced studies on aspects of Christianity depending upon the old model of development of doctrine (though there are always exceptions as lazy scholarship finds the development of doctrine easier to deal with). The problem, however, is in church history textbooks. When one wants an overview of Christianity (a bit of a ridiculous venture in its own right), there is one central issue – there is no need to repeat where people agree with each other. Difference is highlighted in all surveys. The question then is different from what. Some books have attempted a type of “diversity collection” which simply has a collection of essays all independent of one another, because after all, that is what truly happened in the early church. A good example of this motif is found in The Cambridge History of Christianity volume 1 edited by Margaret Mitchell and Frances M. Young. This book has 32 chapters over 590 pages and over 100 pages of bibliography and indices. However, the chapters (as they are written by varieties of experts) do not directly relate with one another and reading it through cover-to-cover is a tiring enterprise. The book becomes more of an “advanced reference tool” rather than a survey for heuristic reasons.

The opposite end of the spectrum is those books that simply replicate the progress idea of Schaff without admitting it. While putting the quotation marks around orthodox, they tend to discuss all of the same issues that were discussed by Schaff in the same manner (heresy leading to a new idea) such as can be found in Justo L. Gonzalez’s The Story of Christianity (2 vols.). While being far more entertaining than Mitchell and Young’s work through the establishment of a master narrative which students can easily follow, the challenge lies in its relatively poor scholarship. It only provides discussion about types of Christianity that disagree with one another leading to the one type that “won out.”

Wilken’s book tries to bridge these two extremes ends. On the one hand, he does go through a type of development of doctrine for the first 20 chapters of the book. In fact when discussing Augustine, he explains his lack of discussing Augustine’s Manichaean debates because, “Augustine’s writing against them are important for understanding the development of his thinking, but for the history of Christian doctrine Augustine’s treatises and letters on the Donatists and the Pelagians are more consequential.”[13] He clearly is interested in the master narrative here about the development of doctrine. In that master narrative, he seems to focus on the red thread of authority and how it is meted out throughout the narrative (such as through monks, bishops, emperors, popes, etc.).

While Wilken seems to be presenting this master narrative, he then takes almost half of the book to present alternate Christianities as he is trying to present a global history. He has chapters on “Architecture and Art,” “Music and Worship,” “Egypt and Copts; Nubia,” “Syrac-Speaking Christians,” “Ethiopia,” “Armenia and Georgia,” “Central Asia, China, and India,” “Egypt and North Africa,” “Spain,” “the Slavs” and “Britain.” These chapters are basically asides and then he moves back to the master narrative for the rise and conflict with Islam. It creates an odd compromise between the extremes. These chapters do not have a single red thread that go through them (and often do not have any central argument of any kind), instead they tend to be just general descriptions reminding the reader that the master narrative is not the only thing in play.

My goal in this conversation is not to lampoon Wilken for trying to manage this compromised position – given the constraints of a general history of Christianity, he is doing what has probably been heuristically successful. The old “master narrative” technique is appealing to students. It is easier to remember a development of one key group rather than near chaos as implied (but not argued) by a works such as Mitchell and Young.

Wilken’s innovation is in the compromise – he realizes the value of a master narrative while reminding students that this is not everything that there is. This works very well during the Islamic invasions. He begins with the master narrative of Islam and what that means for both the Byzantine empire and Christianity. However, he then considers different regions and how those regions dealt with the issue, which regions acculturated to the Muslim rule and which maintained their Christianity and which did not. It is a helpful discussion that is well placed in the structure of the book (after the discussion of the invasion, then the discussion of regions is discussed to tell students that this is not the whole story). His compromise does not succeed as well, however, for the period before this. For 20 chapters he goes through the master narrative for the development of doctrine and then he circles back to discuss Syria, the far East, the North, etc. The problem is that in those discussions, one has to begin (as Wilken does) when those narratives began – often rather early – with Syria, for instance, there is no reason to think it is any later than 200 C.E. (and possibly earlier). This is difficult to imagine when one just finished a chapter about the council of Chalcedon.

There are some other cosmetic issues with the book which are not serious but do frustrate a reader. It is likely that these were decisions made at the publishing house and Wilken is not to blame. First, there are beautiful plates of Christian art in the center of the book. However, in the narrative when those images are discussed, there is no reference that the image is in the book. As such, most readers will attempt to find the image somewhere else (such as I did online) not realizing that they had it in front of them the whole time. Second, the lack of “for further reading” is a problem for a survey of Christian history. A survey is to bring into the forefront a concept that then can be explored more deeply. By not presenting a very helpful bibliography for each chapter (he does have a general one at the end of the book but it is unwieldy), this is much harder for the reader. 

As a whole Wilken’s book, while being idiosyncratic to his style of writing, is a very valuable resource. It would be an excellent textbook to use alongside a collection of primary texts (such as might be found by the Bettenson and Mauer collection of primary sources). On its own, it is a bit too clipped to be sufficient for the completely unaware, but to a general student who knows a little about the church history, the book is a perfect fit. It is accessible enough that anyone (either a layperson in a church or an undergraduate student) can understand it and keep from being too discouraged by thousands of pages of texts.

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[1] Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 9.

[2] Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, 2^nd Ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003) 94-125.

[3] Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

[4] The First Thousand Years, 29.

[5] Ibid., 31.

[6] Ibid., 34.

[7] Ibid., 32.

[8] Ibid., 197.

[9] Ibid., 204.

[10] Ibid., 202.

[11] Ibid., 195.

[12] Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism.

[13] Wilken, The First Thousand Years, 186.

Review of N.T. Wright, How God Became King

N.T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, New York: HarperOne, 2012.

N.T. Wright’s recent book on the nature of the message of the Gospels that has been ignored by both scholarly and ecclesiastical circles has some merit. It presents an argument which ecclesiastical leaders ought to hear. However, in trying to present the “gospel” of the gospels universally, Wright presents here a case study in the problem of trying to exegetically create systematic theology. The New Testament is not systematic theology (in fact it is 27 separate books) and most modern attempts to make it systematic do so by appealing to the historical Jesus – while the books might be diverse, there was only one historical Christ and therefore there is one consistent message. To his credit, N.T. Wright has done that very thing in his very popular three volume set: The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God. However, in this book, Wright explicitly argues that this argument rests upon the gospels rather than the historical Jesus. While explicitly this is accurate, the concept depends upon the historical Jesus – it just does not admit it.

Brief Summary of the Work

Wright begins his book with an apologia to the church – take the gospels seriously. He argues that protestant denominations are so focused on Pauline theology that the gospels are used as merely proof texts to present that theology. More specifically, he argues that it is not even the whole of Paul’s theology that Protestants preach, but merely the forensic justification (or judiciary model) in Romans 2-4. This model is the one in which humans have failed to follow God’s law and are therefore condemned to death. In order for these sins to be paid, then Jesus vicariously atones for those sins and dies on the cross to pay the penalty for others’ sins. Wright argues that this model is the theology preached in churches (and he admits is the one usually presented in the creeds). The observation he makes is that while Jesus’ birth and death are discussed, his life is usually skipped (except for cute little object lessons to explain Pauline theology).

He then turns his critique from the ecclesiastical world to the scholarly. He argues that scholars have attempted to dissect the Bible so that the whole of the message of the gospels is lost due to the atomizing effect of modern criticism. He does not quite condemn all scholarly analysis as unhelpful, but he does argue that the focus on small units of texts obfuscates the larger picture. He sees this as a result of the agendas of a historical critical agenda which was championed in the enlightenment who bring the premise that the whole of the gospels cannot be accurate.

Wright’s argument is that the heart of the gospels’ message (and he does think of all four gospels having one key message) is for Jesus to establish himself as a king in the sense of the Jewish Messiah. He notes that nearly all expectation of the messiah is a kingly role and that the gospels are both aware of that fact and they present Jesus as accomplishing this feat (though admittedly in a way no one expected). He argues that Jesus did establish the kingdom of God on earth (challenging the modern attitude about God’s reign as being something otherworldly) which begins in the present (rather than waiting on a future ideal) and will be completed in a new way at the end of days. Further, he argues that a major element of this message is political – Jesus was presenting a challenge to the Roman Empire as establishing a new kingdom (in short presenting that there really was a reason for the Romans to crucify him). The revolution was not the type of political revolution one might have expected, but it was very political nonetheless (which the gospels highlight).

Finally, Wright argues that there is nothing inherently wrong with creedal Christianity that does not mention this aspect of Jesus’ life. Wright merely argues that the creeds should not be the only aspect of the church’s view of Jesus. He argues that the creeds are very helpful in how the kingdom of God is established cosmically (as well as personally). He believes that the emphasis on taking the gospels seriously provides a rich resource for spirituality in the modern world which avoids the pitfalls of ecclesiastical laziness and scholarly skepticism.

Merits of the Book

Large portions of this book have much merit. First, I (as one can see very easily if one looks at my page on ministry related topics)[1] have argued that the church ignores major portions of scripture in order to read everything in light of their own theology (largely based on Luther’s reading of Romans 2-4). Here Wright and I are in complete agreement. The gospels are not usually taken very seriously on their own – they are used as object lessons for Pauline theology. I would go one step farther than Wright in suggesting that the odd nature of many churches is that they rarely preach on Paul’s letters, instead, they use the object lessons of miracles and parables to present that same idea.[2] This fundamental reason for Wright’s book is valid and very useful.

Second, his argument that the goal of the gospels’ presentation of the life of Jesus is to present him as establishing the kingdom of God in the context of Israel’s expectations of Messiah is very valid for the synoptic gospels. The main goal of the synoptic gospels is the kingdom of God. Every parable is describing the kingdom, the actions of Jesus are interpreted as fulfillment of prophecy concerning Messiah in Matthew, Jesus is the eschatological hero in the Gospel of Mark, and Jesus is the organizer of the new movement by being the exemplar model of the martyr to create a new community of God’s people (what Wright calls “God’s Renewed People”) in the Gospel of Luke/Book of Acts. This is the fundamental message that cannot be simply ignored as it often is.

Further, Wright is correct in arguing that the political aspect of the kingdom of God is ignored in the western world because it is bothersome to those who believe in a division between the political and the religious. John Dominic Crossan has gone to great length to show how Jesus was a complete social and political revolutionary while at the same time being a complete religious leader. The religious and political are equally present in Jesus’ message if one understands the first century occupied Palestine.[3] That this aspect is played down so much that it nearly disappears in the Protestant church is accurate and should be addressed.

Further, the emphasis on Jesus as king (establishing his reign over the earth) is not only present in the gospels but also is present as the main theme throughout the entire New Testament. Wright’s subject is laudable – Paul, who is used to deflect the reading of the gospels, has as his main message (if one looks beyond Romans 2-4) as eschatological – the coming reign of God over the earth. The kingdom/reign of God motif is a relevant study that ought to be taken more seriously as it is presented in the New Testament (rather than how it is presented by fundamentalist Christians who have a shocking message which unfortunately has little to do with the message in the New Testament).

Critiques of the Study

This book, while having some laudable elements (as described above), largely is a case study in how ecclesiastical scholars try to create a systematic theology on the historical Jesus while simultaneously denying that they are doing any type of study on the historical Jesus.

The study of the historical Jesus is one that has been taken up over the past several centuries to attempt to get beyond the messages of the gospels to the person who lived from 4 BCE to 33 CE. Most everyone is happy to admit that the gospels are pieces of literature and are not compendious. Therefore, there has been an emphasis to look beyond them to the person, Jesus of Nazareth. In the past 50 years, the scholars who work most diligently on this topic have been criticized as being reductionist. They have taken too much away from the message of the gospels by suggesting that some of the things Jesus does in the gospels are not historical. Most notably, the scholars are often lampooned for denying miracles (most notably the resurrection of Christ himself) and seeing Jesus as either a wandering prophet discussing the end of the world or as a social reformer attempting to start a social revolution.[4]

Conservative Christianity (which Wright is a part of) has taken some offense at the scholarship on the historical Jesus as they see the pictures of Jesus presented as being too reductionist to be helpful. They seem to believe (as Wright does in the book) that these depictions are products of the enlightenment with the agenda that Christianity is not true, and therefore the goal of the study will be to disprove Christianity’s main points.

In response to the study of the historical Jesus, much of conservative Christianity has denied the value of the study and insists that it will not be done. The problem with the study of the New Testament is that the church seeks what “the gospel” is in a book with 27 different authors with wide variety of messages among them. There is not a gospel, but many gospels if one were taking it seriously. This has been challenging to many, so they have sought a systematic theology that would provide identity to people over the years.

The field of systematic theology has done a good job of presenting consistent and exhaustive theologies which depict a full Christian identity. These studies have resulted in expansive works which have the kingdom of God as a concept that is tied very closely to the rest of their theology. Some, such as Schweitzer, Barth, Multmann, and Pannenberg have used kingdom of God theology as central to their systems of theology. The critique leveled against these thinkers, though (with the possible exception of Barth) is that systematics is more influenced by philosophy than it is by scripture.

If Christianity does not want to create a consistent theology from systematics and is nervous about creating one through history, it is unclear how a system of faith can be “biblical.” Wright falls into this trap and shows how it is practically solved – by pretending that the gospels are consistent through a Trojan horse approach to the historical Jesus.

Wright argues that there is a consistent message in the gospels concerning the kingdom of God. However, he knows that the term is only used twice in the Gospel of John (and used wildly differently – see John 3). Further, he must know that the nature of the kingdom of God is rather different between Matthew and Mark as compared with Luke. Matthew and Mark see it as the coming disclosure in the near future of God at the end of days. Luke sees it as that, but also as a present reality already present in the community of believers. Wright seems to have taken a “maximalist” approach and basically feels that Luke’s version must be Jesus’ because it includes more rather than less.

The discussion of Wright’s solution betrays his plan – he looks beyond the gospels to find “Jesus’ meaning” which then he expects all of the gospels to be presenting a central theme. Note that what Wright did was the study of the historical Jesus – his consistent theme that makes the gospels unite is what Jesus “actually said.” Here is the fine point of the critique – while denying that the book is depending on the study of the historical Jesus, it completely depends upon it.

As mentioned in the beginning of the essay, Wright has done extensive work on the historical Jesus and the view of this book is quite consistent with his picture of Jesus which he academically and thoroughly describes. However, the particular work discussed in this essay does not do that same thing. Unless one is already quite familiar with Wright’s corpus of work (which he does reference frequently throughout the pages of this book), it would be very difficult to understand his point of view.

The second main critique is his lack of sources for those he attacks. He creates two straw men which are unfair. The first is the ecclesiastical dolt who ignores most of the scripture that they say they believe. Using real sources from real people could substantiate this hyperbolic statement. However, the blanket statements are difficult to take too seriously. The second straw man is the vague description of “modern scholars” who are the enlightenment elite who want to destroy all faith. Again, next to no scholars are explicitly mentioned (much less the specific ideas that they present). This type of vague assault is helpful for presenting his own perspective, but it is not very fair to either camp. A more complete discussion ought to occur before lambasting the two groups to the extent that he does.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, this book’s merits do not outweigh its demerits. Its greatest interest to the reader is a case study revealing what type of argument is made to create a consistent message in conservative circles. Wright’s work as a whole is quite good and I would recommend to all his New Testament and the People of God series to see what he thinks about the gospels as they relate to the historical Jesus. That study is erudite and has much integrity (he spends a major portion of the first volume doing a fine job of showing how he will prove his points which he then uses consistently throughout the volumes). I do not agree with every aspect of that series, but it is a good study that deserves attention. This book, unfortunately is less valuable.  

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[1] www.bennickodemusministry.blogspot.com

[2] Wright does allude to this practice in recounting a conversation about this odd nature of the church’s use of Paul by suggesting they only preach Paul but oddly do not talk about Paul directly that often.

[3] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, (New York: HarperOne, 1993).

[4] For the view of Jesus as a social reformer, see Crossan, The Historical Jesus, for the concept of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet see Bart Ehrman, Jesus: The Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).