Wright, N. T. The New Testament and the People of God. 1st ed. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1992.

Superb! What a great introduction to 2nd Temple Judaism and 1st century Christianity! N. T. Wright first lays out his epistemological presuppositions and then works through different elements of Israel’s worldview in order to understand Christianity’s self-understanding.  He maps out the worldview of first-century Judaism (or Judaisms), considering its symbols: Temple, Land, Torah, and racial identity. This worldview is explained in terms  of creational monotheism, election, and eschatology. The result is a highly enjoyable and challenging read that lays the foundation for his other volumes.

“The great story of the Hebrew scriptures was… inevitably read in the second-temple period as a story in search of a conclusion. This ending would have to incorporate the full liberation and redemption of Israel, an event which had not happened as long as Israel was being oppressed, a prisoner in her own land. And this ending would have to be appropriate: it should correspond to the rest of the story, and grow out of it in obvious continuity and conformity” (Wright 1992: 217).

A discussion panel entitled N.T. Wright and the Doctrine of Justification just came to my attention. The panelists are Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Dr. Denny Burk, Dr. Tom Schreiner, Dr. Mark Seifrid and Dr. Brian Vickers. I have expressed before frustration with the tone of such panels and surprise that people of the caliber of these scholars keep making distorted statements about what N. T. Wright has to say about justification. But, what I found particularly interesting was the quote below by Dr. Mohler which probably says a lot about the way some Evangelicals perceive N. T. Wright:

“In reading through his [Wright’s] work, listening to his lectures, having met him and having heard him, engaging in discussion with him, I think of the British meaning of the word “clever.” He is extremely clever. And, in this sense, I dare say that this cleverness is a real issue because it also comes hand in hand with an incredible, almost unspeakable, audacity because his claim is no less than that the protestant reformers and their heirs have misunderstood not only Paul and not only first century Judaism, but the doctrine of justification and thus the gospel.”

I wonder what the British meaning of the word “clever” is.

I am currently reading N. T. Wright’s book Justificaion: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision which is basically a response to John Piper’s book The Future of Justification. Although he interacts with Piper at various points in the book, it is not a point by point response which, in my opinion, makes it a much better read. I have read the first part of the book and gotten through his exegesis of Galatians. For those familiar with Wright’s work on this subject, there is probably not going to be a lot that is new, but I am finding that Wright is (re)explaining things in this book in a way that is proving to be extremely helpful for my understanding of justification and Paul in general. I specially appreciated his spending some time explaining exactly what he means by “covenant” (as in God’s righteousness being God’s faithfulness to the covenant). I won’t attempt to summarize it here because it is exactly within the context of all that he is saying in this book that “covenant” makes sense. All I can say is that people should read this book and try to listen to what Wright is saying.

Of course, this doesn’t mean people will get on board and change their worldviews or shift their paradigms. One good example is the Boyce College’s panel Assessing the Piper-Wright Debate on Justification. This was done before the book was released in the US, and I am already surprised at the comments from the panel (after only reading half of the book). As a matter of fact, I recommend that you read the comments at Denny Burk’s blog which, in my opinion, proved to be a lot more helpful than the panel itself. Now that the book has been released here, we are starting to see some helpful reviews, and one that may bring a little balance to this discussion is Scot McKnight’s review.
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