N. T. Wright: Interpreting the Interpreter Collected Essays of N. T. Wright. Zondervan Academic and SPCK, 2020: Interpreting Scripture: Essays on the Bible and Hermeneutics (ISBN 978-0-310-09836-2), xii + 387 pp., hb £50 Interpreting Jesus: Essays on the Gospels (ISBN 978-0-310-09864-5), xii + 345 pp., hb £50 Interpreting Paul: Essays on the Apostle and His Letters (ISBN 978-0-310-09868-3), xi + 207 pp., hb £50
These thoroughly engaged and engaging essays invite reflection on Bishop Wright's practice and principles as an interpreter of Scripture and of the Christian faith in today's context. Wright wants to reground theology in a biblical narrative and considers that systematic theology has been...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2021
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| In: |
Reviews in religion and theology
Year: 2021, Volume: 28, Issue: 2, Pages: 122-130 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | These thoroughly engaged and engaging essays invite reflection on Bishop Wright's practice and principles as an interpreter of Scripture and of the Christian faith in today's context. Wright wants to reground theology in a biblical narrative and considers that systematic theology has been impoverished by forgetfulness of its roots in the story of God's Covenant with humanity. This story contains in concrete form all the truths that later theology painfully spelled out in categories that were not always appropriate. Systematic theologians might reply that doctrine, whether of the Fathers or of the Reformers, has allowed a penetrating interpretation of Scripture, which otherwise could lack its full existential and spiritual impact. Wright's over-arching biblical story tends to become drab and to generate biblicism rather than a repristinated biblical theology. His recommendation that we solve problems of modern life by recalling our roots in the biblical story may be a simplistic nostrum. Wright's theology is thoroughly incarnational. Salvation is the emergence of God's Kingdom on this earth. He claims to be a creational monotheist, not a Platonic dualist. He stresses the collective dimensions of salvation, sometimes sounding like a liberation theologian. While his sense for sacred times and sacred places is an incarnational emphasis, his focus on the sacral theme of the Temple in John and throughout the New Testament might be an idealizing construction that takes away from his effort to understand Jesus in his historical world. His hermeneutics could be more flexible and effective if he opened up more to the pluralistic open-endedness of the biblical texts (not just the eschatological openness at the end of the story), or if he were more ready to delight in the literary qualities of Scripture for their own sake. While he skillfully skewers some trendy movements in Jesus research and Pauline studies, his skepticism about Q and ascription of the hymns in Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians to the pen of the Apostle exemplify a literary conservatism that may generate a monochrome reading. In Christology, his repeated declaration that Jesus ‘embodied Israel's God’ hovers between a ‘high’ and a ‘low’ interpretation, indicating that his ‘early High Christology’ is not a stable and monolithic formation. Wright, an outstanding pastor and apologist, finally may lay claim to the watchword of ‘missional hermeneutics’ such as Paul practiced. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9418 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Reviews in religion and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/rirt.13963 |