Wright’s public conversation about which god, if any, is the true God who made and is responsible for the world centers from beginning to end on the New Testament documents and how they can possibly be accounted for.
N. T. Wright introduces his subject by retelling the parable of the wicked tenants and the vineyard. The NT documents are the vineyard and the question is who are the proper tenants, who the proper landlord, and what the proper rent. (BTW, this is all massively based on memory; I simply don’t have time to do serious book reviews these days.) He spends a large part of the book dealing with philosophical issues regarding scholarship in general and the history of first-century Palestine in particular. He advocates “critical realism.” “Critical” refers to the fact that there are no “neutral” observers of brute data, contrary to the enlightenment myth of rational scholarship. “Realism” refers to the contention that the world really exists and that we all live in it and can, in principle, talk about it and even be challenged by one another. The consequence of “critical” is that we must not only allow, but expect, a scholar’s basic values and commitments to affect his perceptions and conclusions. The consequence of “realism” is that it is still worth talking to him about what really happened to Jesus.
There is some great stuff here about worldviews and how stories are basic to them, but I don’t trust myself to summarize it.
Wright’s basic question is, given what we know about ancient Christianity and ancient Judaism, how do we account for the birth of the Church? The idea is to work back to Jesus as a middle term between first-century Judaism and late-first century Christianity. Wright, thus spends a great deal of time analyzing the basic similarities and differences between Judaism and the Church.
One of Wright’s most helpful points is his summarizing of the Jewish worldview. He is able to reduce it to a few points without at all seeming reductionistc. The basic points are creational monotheism, eschatology, and election.
Creational monotheism distinguishes Israel’s theology from pantheism and polytheism. There is one God who created and is responsible for all things.
Several points strike me as memorable and worth passing on here.
First, this is a political slogan as much as a theological doctrine (think of the riot in Ephesus and the chant, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”). Monotheism means God is king and Caesar is not. (Thus the similarity and difference with the Church’s gospel, which is, “Jesus is Lord” and Caesar is not.) For Israel in the first century this entailed a variety of disputes, riots, outlaw bandits, and outbreaks, and ultimately outright war with the pagan world empire Rome (another note of dissimilarity: while we see similare accusations on the part of Rome against Christians, we see a much differnet view of social ethics).
Second, God’s unity never precluded the possibility of Trinitarian theology. It was a unity over against all other powers, real or imagined, not a unity within God’s substance or personality.
Third, it entails comprehensive providence. While God could do obvious miracles Wright shows that all Jews viewed ordinary events in history as also God’s work, including both natural occurences and human decisions.
Fourth, it entails that God is committed to doing something about the presence of evil in the world, which leads us to the next part of Israel’s world view.
TO BE CONTINUED