INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE

Essays on the Bible and Hermeneutics

N. T. Wright

ZONDERVAN ACADEMIC

Interpreting Scripture

Copyright © 2020 by N. T. Wright

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Also published in Great Britain in 2020

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www.spck.org.uk

ISBN 978-0-310-09836-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-09861-4 (ebook)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the Old Testament are either the author’s own translation or taken or adapted from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, with Apocrypha, Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved; Scripture quotations from the New Testament are either the author’s own translation or from his published translation, The New Testament for Everyone (SPCK, 2019; US edn, The Kingdom New Testament, Zondervan HarperCollins, 2012) © 2011, 2019

Scripture quotation marked AV from the Authorized Version of the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, is reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press.

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Cover Design: Brand Navigation

For the principal, staff and students at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

Contents

Preface

List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction to The Language and Imagery of the Bible by G. B. Caird

2 The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer

3 God and Caesar, Then and Now

4 Christian Origins and the Question of God

5 Faith, Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom

6 Neither Anarchy nor Tyranny: Government and the New Testament

7 The Bishop and Living under Scripture

8 Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity

9 Revelation and Christian Hope: Political Implications of the Revelation to John

10 The Monarchs and the Message: Reflections on Bible Translation from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century

11 Joy: Some New Testament Perspectives and Questions

12 Pastoral Theology for Perplexing Topics: Paul and Adiaphora

13 Apocalyptic and the Sudden Fulfilment of Divine Promise

14 The Bible and Christian Mission

15 Wouldn’t You Love to Know? Towards a Christian View of Reality

16 Sign and Means of New Creation: Public Worship and the Creative Reading of Scripture...