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Review Summary: What about...? |
Date: 2008-03-31 |
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Details: This book should be read alongside Piper's response to it, "The Future of Justification."
Practically, this book does not apply to dealing with sin and being right with God. It borders on total arrogance to say that all other scholars for the last 1,500 years have been wrong about what St. Paul really said about the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of God.
N.T. Wright is a smart man and a great communicator. That doesn't mean we don't take the nuances of his definitions and the implications of them without a grain of salt. |
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Review Summary: Poor job from a brilliant scholar. |
Date: 2008-03-30 |
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Details: Wright begins with E.P. Sanders' conclusion that the church has misread Paul because they did not understand the nature of 1st century Judaism. E.P. Sanders however is consistent with his conclusion and his interpretation of Paul. He sees that Paul's view of justification would not fit into his findings on 1st century Judaism. Sanders concludes that Paul did not understand 1st century Judaism as well as he does. Arrogant but consistent.
Wright is not willing to go as far as saying he understands 1st century Judaism better than a 1st century Jew of Paul's status. Therefore Wright is forced to do extremely poor exegesis to come up with the trash that is in this book.
Wright states that the evangelical view of justification comes from the Reformation rather than from Paul. According to Wright we don't have a personal guilt before God and therefore we don't need to be justified in the traditional sense. It does not take someone of Wright brilliance to see that the "reformed view of justification" was present much earlier than the reformation. It takes little effort to find it in the early church fathers of the 2nd and 3rd century.
I feel Wright is more concerned with being recognized as a brilliant scholar than doing sound scholarly work. He longs for the status of being considered one of the top five theologians and realizes he can not support traditional views and obtain this status.
He is arrogant like Sanders to believe that he is the only one to get Paul right in almost 2000 years of interpreting Paul. Wright has demonstrated that he is capable of putting out great books but this is not one of them. |
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Review Summary: sheds much light, but be cautious |
Date: 2008-02-08 |
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Details: I enjoy so much of what Wright says, but he doesn't go far enough. We could all learn from his knowlege of second temple Judaism and what things were like during the times of Paul. It is a refreshing read that would be helpful to a much needed overly Americanized view of Christianity. But to say that the entire history of the church including the Reformers got it wrong and to say that the difference between Rome and Protestants shouldn't be there is, to put it bluntly, very arrogant and dangerous. To say that Christ came to redeem the whole world is correct, but to say that this has no bearing on individual salvation is inherently wrong. Paul said Christ came to save sinners of which I am the chief most. To say that first century Jews weren't legalistic by looking at external resources may be compelling, but if one takes Jesus and Pauls own words then all the external resources are irrellevant. Not to mention that if second temple Judaism had escaped the flaws of legalism then it is the only religion in history to do so and that seems to meet outlandish. Overall, I would recommend the book, but if you are not a discerning reader then it won't be helpful. There are more ambiguities than clarifications. Wright says correct things but stops short of saying the whole truth. |
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Review Summary: What St. Paul Really Said. |
Date: 2007-12-02 |
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Details: If there be a more gifted writer, more knowledgeable source, more scholarly person than N.T. Wright, that person is not known to me. He has undone what centuries of deceit and deliberate misrepresentations have accomplished to blemish the record of one of the GREATEST CHRISTIAN Apostles, bar NONE, in this book that upon finishing it, I immediately started re-reading it immediately.
On the darkest of nights in the world of current 'leading theologians', this man, with grace, brilliance, astounding fund of knowledge and incredible skill, stands as the single star in the heavens to lead people to truth. I remain in awe of this brilliant, yet humble soul, who seems only to wish to 'shed light' where there is immobilizing darkness.
He is specially gifted by God, not unlike Paul, to lead people safely and securely, to CHRIST, built upon a virtual unshakable foundation of truth and faith, so sound and strong as to be impervious to whatever 'tremors' modern theologians... or all of the old ones too, be capable of creating with their self-styled, so-called, "new insights" which do nothing but compound SIMPLICITY.
N.T. Wright stands as the guardian of the very humble, simplicity of the life and example which Christ put before us and which God expected nothing less of us to follow without distraction and obfuscation which leads ONLY to compound CONFUSION!
James E. Girzone |
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Review Summary: Insightul, but Off at Key Points |
Date: 2007-06-26 |
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Details: This book is a popular overview of the work that Wright has done on Paul up to his point (97'). Of course, Wright is a well known advocate of the new perspective on Paul. He is a regular whipping boy for many Calvinists. In reading this book, I have found that N.T. Wright is regularly either misunderstood, or misrepresented. This was a fun book to read, as Wright's theology reads like prose, although I do not recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a firm grasp on the doctrine of justification, or who is unaware of the surrounding controversy. Wright is a biblical theologian and historian through and through. He is well-read in the 1st century sources and Second Temple Judaism. He is a big picture guy for sure. Much of Wright's exegesis is insightful and stimulating, but at places one is left scratching his head as to how he is coming to his conclusions (cf. Rom. 7, Phil 3, 2 Cor 5.21). For the many good things that could be said about this book, I will focus on a few negatives. Wright wants to separate the gospel, and the doctrine of justification more that the Apostle does. In fact, Wright redefines the term justification, along with works of the law, and the righteousness of God (he considers Sander's proposal as established). This has obvious implications for the reformation doctrine of sola fide. On imputation, he writes "If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom." He redefines the righteousness of God as his covenant faithfulness. In my opinion he is unfair to the best of the reformation, and reductionistic at many points. I appreciate Wright's emphasis on Christ's resurrection as thou roughly eschatalogical. Many Calvinists have accused Wright of having ecumenical motives, which seems to me to be unfair. His conclusions are no doubt ecumenical (even calling the doctrine of justification the great ecumenical doctrine), but I truly believe that Wright's honest aim is to be faithful to the text. He just so happens to get fuzzy on the gospel in the meantime, limiting it to 'Jesus is Lord.' He overreacts to Western individualism (even found in Reformed circles) but doesn't do justice to Paul in the meant time. See Richard Gaffin's book "By Faith Not By Sight" for a refutation of such thinking. I think we have much to learn from Bishop Wright, but still think the Reformers had it right.
"As far as Paul was concerned, the most important eschatological event, through which the living God had unveiled (or, if you like, 'apocalypsed') his plan to save the whole cosmos, had occurred when Jesus rose from the dead. He wasn't just living in the last days. He was living in the first days--of a whole new world order." 50
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out of 43 Reviews
