Off the cuff–Wright / Presocratics

Doing busy work at my computere, I’ve god my DVD player showing me Gaffin’s and Wright’s first face-to-face Q&A. Wright is asked if he has not neglected Genesis 1-11 (and the seriousness of the Fall and sin and the historical origin of both) in his concentration on Israel. Wright simply says he thought he dealt with that in pointing out the calling of Abraham was an answer to Adam’s Fall. And, of course, he had. In fact, he has always been clear that Adam is central to the problem with sin as well as the lost path to future glory (which he treats as a separate issue). Adam both cursed the world and his children with sin and also failed to attain to a goal. Israel was called to deal with the curse and attain to glory but because they were in Adam they could not possibly succeed, except in the person of their king Jesus.

Israel’s vocation was Adam’s vocation and they were also called to deal with a problem that originated in Adam. Wright’s view has always been centered on Adam precisely in beinging Israel-centered. Wright thus presents both an Adam-Christology (Jesus is the New Adam) and an Israel-Christology (Jesus is the True Israel).

I’m reading the Pre-socratics (some small paperback penguin edition) and it confirms my suspicion. Awhile back I wrote an unintelligible response to the second Matrix movie speculating that Plato’s philosophy was a “secularized” version of animism. There is no question in my mind now that I was on to something. The philosophy and metaphysic of the early Greek philosophers was often self-consciously built on pagan cosmogony. “All is water” because creation originated in a sea….

4 thoughts on “Off the cuff–Wright / Presocratics

  1. jkirk

    I wonder if Gaffin was getting at Wright’s non-stance on imputation of sin (worthy of a parenthetical comment only in his Romans commentary).

    Separately, after hearing some of the conference I began to wonder whether Wright’s etymological fallacy – sin as “missing the mark” – adversely affects his theology of redemption or whether the mistake is incidental to his theological constructions. Alas, no time to read him now.

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  2. Justin Donathan

    What is wrong with sin as “missing the mark?” If I remember correctly that is quite literally what one of the common words translated sin in the new testament means. (I can’t remember which one right now.) Also, my greek teacher mentioned a number of times that missing the mark was really the force of the idea behind words that we generally translate sin. (Keep in mind he is not a Christian, and so isn’t necessarily familiar with all the nuances peculiar to NT Greek.)

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