Abstract
This book is an expanded version of Wright’s 2018 Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Aberdeen. The Gifford Lectures are devoted to themes in natural theology. W. contends that the study of the person and work of Jesus can be understood as an exercise in “natural theology.” He also contrasts his proposals to an Enlightenment paradigm that W. claims has dominated Western theological discussion and the investigation of the life of Jesus since the eighteenth century.
The argument is framed in four parts: “Natural Theology in Its Historical Context,” “History, Eschatology and Apocalyptic,” “Jesus, Easter and the Jewish World,” and “The Peril and Promise of Natural Theology.” Each part consists of two chapters. The first part focuses on the Enlightenment’s impact on biblical studies in general and Christology in particular. According to W., after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Enlightenment thinkers adopted an Epicurean worldview, which applied to theology “Lessing’s ugly ditch between the ultimate truths of reason and the mere contingent truths of history” (68). The result removed God from the physical world. This worldview, which is foreign to that of first-century Jews and Christians, has provided the paradigm used by biblical scholars since the eighteenth century.
In the second part, W. critiques modern and postmodern historiography. He notes how historical research as practiced in the nineteenth century diverges from the perspectives of the biblical writers. The result is a lack of empathy for the worldview presented in the biblical text. Yet, despite its failings, we cannot retreat from history. Rather, “our job is to build on the altar of public truth, which emerges from responsible and careful historical work” (127). This task requires a proper reconstruction of the worldview of Second Temple Judaism. In particular, the accepted understanding of “apocalyptic eschatology,” which presupposes an anticipated “end of the world,” is inappropriate for Second Temple Judaeans and early Christians. Rather, the eschatology of both incipient Judaism and early Christianity anticipated the fulfillment of God’s promise to renew creation into what God originally intended it to be. Eschatology possessed both present and future aspects. Misunderstanding this perspective led modern scholars to presuppose a crisis of delayed eschatological expectation foreign to the actual worldview of the New Testament.
In the third part, W. explains what a proper understanding of history entails for a historical reconstruction of Jesus and his world. W. focuses on Second Temple Judaism’s sense of Temple and Sabbath. The Temple was the place where heaven and earth meet. Sabbath provides a foretaste of eschatological blessings, where humans are integrated into the divine order of creation. Early Christians held similar expectations but ascribed to Jesus the role traditionally reserved for the Temple. Understanding Jesus as “temple” or, perhaps more correctly, as “mercy seat” (see Rom 3:25) leads to a renewed appreciation of the Resurrection. W. contends that Jesus’s resurrection is rejected today less for scientific than for epistemological reasons. Whereas the Resurrection affirms God’s love for creation, Enlightenment thought rejects Resurrection, in part because it substitutes the Epicurean concept of the will with power for love. Thus, to understand the resurrection, one needs to employ a “hermeneutic of love” which recognizes God’s compassion for creation and humanity, and God’s desire to restore both.
In the fourth part, W. proposes an alternative to traditional approaches to natural theology. He contends that traditional approaches to natural theology have failed. Rather, it is only by “reading backwards” through the history of the cross and resurrection that we can create a functional natural theology. This proposal works because history is part of nature and Jesus ministered in a real, natural world. This theology is framed in the context of the faithful community. History and sacrament interact in celebration of God’s love and in expectation of God’s eschaton. “This is how history and eschatology come together at last” (277).
W.’s approach is more ecclesiastical than academic. Nevertheless, not all of his proposals should be rejected. It is proper to read the story of the Resurrection as a story of love. W. correctly notes that a certain amount of empathy with the New Testament writers is helpful in appreciating their worldview. At the same time, we must recognize the distance that separates us from the first century if we are to translate “what the text meant” into “what it means.” Furthermore, the observations of feminist and postcolonial scholars also help us avoid making the same mistakes of domesticizing the New Testament, which W. critiques as a failure of critical scholarship. In short, W.’s book may stimulate discussion, but his confessional solutions will not convince his critics.