Seattle Metro Church

Aaron put together the following summary of Chapter 6 of NT Wright’s New Testament and the People of God, which one of our small groups is studying on Sundays.

The Setting and Story – Chapter 6

Introduction

[W]e cannot bypass the attempt to understand ancient Judaism as a whole if we are to make any sense of the new movement which was conceived, born and initially nurtured in its midst during the first century AD. To understand the origin of Christianity, and the terms in which the question of god was posed and addressed within it, and to do so in obedience to the demands of what constitutes a good hypothesis, we must gain as accurate an understanding as possible of the Judaism(s) in which Jesus and Paul grew up, and to which they related in various ways during their active ministries. We must understand the worldview(s) and self-understandings held by the Jews of the time, and, within that task, must attempt to grasp Judaism’s sense of its own history, its belief in its covenant god, its aspirations, frustrations, hopes and fears. Looking wider, we must also understand something of the cultural milieu in which Israel, and Judaism at large, found itself, i.e. the Greco-Roman world of the first century of the common era (pg 147).

What emerges from this study may be outlined in advance as follows. The main feature of first-century Judaism, within Palestine at least, was neither a static sense of a religion to which one adhered, nor a private sphere of religion into which one escaped, but a total worldview, embracing all aspects of reality, and coming to sharp focus in a sense of longing and expectation, of recognition that the present state of affairs had not yet (to put it mildly) seen the full realization of the purposes of the covenant god for his people.

The Sources
Those most useful are those that reflect the situation in Palestine before the two great rebellions of AD 66-70 and 132-135.

• Josephus
  • The Jewish War
  • The Antiquities of the Jews
  • Life
  • Against Apion
• First two books of Macabees
• Rabbinic literature
  • Written later, but when read carefully, can reveal information about our time of study
• The Hebrew Scripture
  • They were read by Jews of our time of study, we must be aware that they were read from a specific perspective

The Greco-Roman World as the Context of Early Judaism

• Greek Rule (Hellenism)
  • Palestine was conquered in 332 BC by Alexander the Great of Greece and was added to the Greek empire
  • Alexander’s expansive rule brought a single language and unprecedented cultural unity
  • Palestine was saturated with Hellenistic culture
  • “Any idea of a hidden curtain between Judaism and Hellenism, in the sense of a geographical line at which it might be said that one stopped and the other began, must be completely rejected.” (pg 153)
• Roman Rule – a “blessing and a bane” (pg 153)
  • Blessing – a world a peace
    • No wars levies, no traveling soldiers, thriving trade and commerce, unified system of justice
  • Bane – peace was brutally enforced
    • “[Crushed] dissent and resistance with ruthless efficiency” (pg 154)

The Story of Israel

• Babylon to Rome (587 – 63 BC)
  • Exile to Babylon
  • Babylon conquered by the Syrians, Jews allowed to return to Palestine
  • Alexander conquered, well, the world
  • Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrates (reappropriates) the Temple
  • The Maccabean revolt drove out the tyrants, setup the Hasmonean “regime” of Jewish priest-kings.
  • Out of exile? The Hasmonean rule was divisive and led to several sects (more on this later in the book)
• Roman Rule (63BC – AD 70)
  • The new Babylon, the Kittim, the new great enemy
  • No leader arose to fight Rome, and Israel’s leaders compromised with Rome
  • Procurators were installed in AD 6 (a la Pontius Pilate AD 26-32) and Judea became an official Roman province
  • “Isolated protests were put down with sporadic violence, and the embers of potential rebellion smouldered on, ready to be fanned into flames of expectation and aspiration. Sooner or later, the covenant god would act once more to vindicate his name, to restore the symbols (particularly the Temple) which express his covenant with Israel, and of course to liberate Israel herself.” (pg 161)
  • The great rebellion of AD 66. Jerusalem destroyed in AD 70.
• Judaism Reconstructed
  • “For Jews, the attempt to reconstruct and maintain an authentically Jewish way of life in the absence of the Temple produced, as we have seen, a variety of responses ranging from revolutionary determinism to the study and debating of Torah. For much of Christianity, which by 70 had spread far beyond the borders both of Palestine and of the Jewish communities of the Diaspora, there were pressing questions and issues quite other than that of relationships with the synagogue community. It was a period of transition, when many ambiguities lived side by side; and many, on both sides of what was to become the great divide, seemed content to let it be so. We should not forget that early Christianity, claiming the high ground of Israel’s heritage, was first and foremost a movement that defined itself in opposition to paganism, and only secondarily in opposition to mainline Judaism itself.” (pg 165)

Questions

1. What information were you already familiar with?
2. What new information did you discover?
3. What did you find most fascinating?
4. Did you find anything troubling?

Elaine put together the following summary of Parts I & II of NT Wright’s New Testament and the People of God, which one of our small groups is studying on Sundays.

The New Testament and the People of God, Part I and Part II: Tools for the task of approaching the New Testament texts, Historical data of the first century, and Theological questions

In these first two sections, Wright places his work to look at the Gospels, the persons of Jesus and Paul, and the historical context of it all, within the context of intellectual knowledge since the Enlightenment.

He draws on what others have said and hypothesized regarding epistemology (how we know things) and movements within the last century in the fields of theology, literary criticism, and history. He wants us to understand the current state of things, and then from there he poses a new avenue forward that builds upon, but tempers and corrects the either/or thinking he feels is so prevalent in the scholarly world. He argues that to accurately get a picture of the subjects we hope to, we must not isolate ourselves in one field, but draw equally from literary criticism, historical analysis, and theology.

As there is a lot of information, I’ve just taken highlights of the sections that I feel will help us understand his “Critical-Realist” approach, which is the approach or method he plans to use as he approaches the New Testament texts and the historical data available in regard to the first century.

A literary question, or problem that hits us first off is, “What is to count as an appropriate reading of these texts?” This is a relevant question when dealing with any text, but especially sacred texts where the issue of authority is a much weighty topic. On page 11, he states:

Looking at the methods of reading the New Testament that have become institutionalized and even sacralized over the years in the public and private devotion of the church, we are bound to ask whether such readings do justice to the texts: whether, for instance, a book like the Gospel according to Mark is well served by being read a dozen or so verses at a time, taken out of context. We are looking for an appropriate reading, and there is at present no agreement as to what might count.

Wright is, I believe, pointing out the lack of the church to incorporate textual/literary analysis in their quest to look at what these writings are all about. Even in a small way, we can see how just the notion of “genre” applied to the biblical texts is quite eye-opening. Wright states:

We have abandoned biblicistic proof-texting, as inconsistent with the nature of the texts that we have (and anyone who thinks that this means abandoning biblical authority should ask themselves where the real authority lies in a method that effectively turns the Bible into something else).

Can we let the text be what it is and not maybe what we expect it to be or say? What kind of things have we laid onto the text, expecting it to say something about, or be, only to find ourselves frustrated when it does not cooperate. Maybe this has been the case because of the theological nature of the New Testament that we expect it to be or say certain things. However, we wouldn’t be frustrated with Aristotle because he doesn’t say anything to us about how we should think towards a certain topic. Yet, I’ve had people say to me, I wish God had just written the Bible so we could know exactly what he wanted us to do. IT reminds me of the phrase: “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” Is this what the B.I.B.L.E. Is? Further, what claims do these texts make for themselves? Just some thoughts.

Moving on, Wright wants us to pay attention to the advances made in literary theory in regard to the “phenomenon of reading” as he calls it. This is found around page 51:
Reader Text Author Event

Highlighting the two extremes of how we read, Wright sets up two types of readers:

1) The Naïve Realist (or Positivist, as he sometimes calls them) -
These individuals believe they can read the text and get a clear access to the author who clearly and straightforwardly is relaying information about an event, or subject matter.

Question: What are some problems with this branch of thought?

2) The Phenomenalist/Reductionist -
These individuals, (probably only found to be this extreme in hyper post-modern circles) feels that because so much goes into selecting what to say about the event and how to say it, etc. all we really ever see is the author’s choices/biases/etc. and the event remains “illusory.”

Question: Is this too simplistic as well? Does it kind of play into the idea of a “pure” way to transmit information that cannot be colored by an author? They seem to suggest that because it has been colored by the author there is nothing we can really know about the event.

Wright believes that authors want readers to think about the subject matter of their works, not about them, or ourselves, for that matter. Phenomenalists tend to fall into the thinking that the truth or meaning isn’t reachable because of the inability for it to be simply or merely communicated, minus any filters/biases/etc. Wright refutes both the naïve realist and the phenomenalist/reductionist, and settles somewhere in between. He maintains that to avoid an overly-simplistic reading, we need to be aware/critical of the author’s (and our own) lenses/perspectives/biases/worldviews that are operating as we transmit and receive information. In being aware/critical we are able to “see through the glass less darkly,” and have an access, although limited, to meaning. Fortunately, our only options are not simply to choose between a pre-critical point of view, or for that matter, an overly critical one. We have another option…

A third option, (thank you Wright!) -

3) The Critical Realist - as seen on page 62:

What we need, I suggest, is a critical-realist account of the phenomenon of reading in all it’s parts. To one side we can see the positivist or the naïve realist, who move so smoothly along the line from reader to text to author to referent [or event] that they are unaware of the snakes in the grass at every step; to the other side we can see the reductionist who, stopping to look at the snakes, is swallowed up by them and proceeds no further.

The Critical Realist will be aware of the backlog of experiences, perspectives, etc. that we bring to the text and that we filter it through, but will also not simply give up that meaning is then forever illusory. However, meaning is not lying wide open either, and Wright feels this is especially true of texts like the Gospels, or other Biblical writings. These texts carry such a weight and importance sometimes that, Wright points out, it is too often too tempting or easy to read into them what we want them to say. Or, as he says, to make Jesus or God “in our own image.” When so much is at stake (church programs, lifestyles, etc.), it can be very easy to simply wish to highlight the evidence or data that supports the Jesus or God we want them to be. Thus, Wright is very committed to the idea that a Christian Critical Realist must also be committed to intellectual honesty, and to not allow his or her own motivations to lie outside the critical sphere.

My own thought is that we have experienced these texts so it is so easy to just read them a certain way, and not even know we are doing it. (Actually, this is Wright’s thought too, and probably was his first). I appreciate The Message sometimes for it’s ability to take a piece of writing, say the Beatitudes, and help me see it in a new way. However, I think by reading the texts critically, we can also come to perhaps renewed points of view even with less poetic and “loose” translations.

So what is an appropriate reading? One aspect is the approach we come to the text with, but less I think than .

Wright argues that we have to be willing to allow our world views to possibly be challenged by the story of these texts. He also strongly argues that the predominate usage of narrative by Jewish writers, and then Christian writers, is not because they just picked this style of story-telling as a whim, but because the drama of God’s actions and dealings with his people can only be told in such a way. We don’t need to strip the metaphors away to find the real meat of the message. He argues, the metaphors are as much an intrinsic part of the telling as anything else. I suspect we will see much more of this as we move ahead in this book.

On page 140, Wright states:

Since (a) stories are a key worldview indicator in any case, and (b) a good part of the New Testament consists of stories, of narratives, it might be a good idea to consider how stories might carry, or be vehicles for, authority. Stories may seem at first unpromising as a starting-point for authoritative exegesis. But we may be able to conceive of a working model that will make this point clear.