CHRISTIAN ORIGINS AND THE QUESTION OF GOD

Volume One

THE NEW TESTAMENT

AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD

N.T. Wright

First published in Great Britain 1992

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

36 Causton Street

London SW1P 4ST

Copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 1992

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Unless otherwise stated, biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted © 1989, and are reprinted by permission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-281-04593-8

for Brian Walsh

Contents

Preface

PART I Introduction

1 Christian Origins and the New Testament

1. Introduction

2. The Task

(i) What to Do with the Wicked Tenants

(ii) The Questions

(iii) The History of Early Christianity

(iv) ‘New Testament Theology’

(v) Literary Criticism

(vi) The Task Restated

PART II Tools for the Task

2 Knowledge: Problems and Varieties

1. Introduction

2. Towards Critical Realism

3. Stories, Worldviews and Knowledge

4. Conclusion

3 Literature, Story and the Articulation of Worldviews

1. Introduction

2. On Reading

(i) Introduction

(ii) ‘Is There Anybody There?’

(iii) Reading and Critical Realism

3. On Literature

4. The Nature of Stories

(i) The Analysis of Stories: Narrative Structure

(ii) The Analysis of Stories: The Wicked Tenants

(iii) Jesus, Paul and the Jewish Stories

4 History and the First Century

1. Introduction

2. The Impossibility of ‘Mere History’

3. This Does Not Mean ‘No Facts’

(i) Critical Realism and the Threat of the Disappearing Object

(ii) The Causes of the Misconception

(iii) Wanted: New Categories

4. Historical Method: Hypothesis and Verification

(i) Introduction

(ii) The Requirements of a Good Hypothesis

(iii) Problems in Verification

5. From Event to Meaning

(i) Event and Intention

(ii) History and Narrative

(iii) History and Meaning

(iv) Conclusion

6. Historical Study of First-Century Religious Movements

(i) Introduction

(ii) Judaism in the First Century

(iii) Christianity in the First Century

5 Theology, Authority and the New Testament

1. Introduction: From Literature and History to Theology

2. Worldview and Theology

(i) On Worldviews

(ii) On Theology

(iii) On Christian Theology

(iv) Worldviews, Theology and Biblical Studies

3. Theology, Narrative and Authority

4. Conclusion

PART III First-Century Judaism within the Greco-Roman World

6 The Setting and the Story

1. Introduction

(i) The Aim

(ii) The Sources

2. The Greco-Roman World as the Context of Early Judaism

3. The Story of Israel, 587 BC–AD 70

(i) From Babylon to Rome (587–63 BC)

(ii) Jews under Roman Rule (63 BC–AD 70)

(iii) Judaism Reconstructed (AD 70–135)

(iv) Conclusion

7 The Developing ...