Product Description

This builds on and develops a new approach to Paul being formulated by a group of scholars (including Tom Wright). The book first outlines different angles that have been taken (accent on his Jewishness, his Citizenship, his approach to the Law, his determination to bring in non-Jews) etc. It then puts forward, as a coherent thesis, the new approach that will be expanded on in the next large volume in the Christian Origins and the Question of God series. The book is based on the prestigious Hulsean Lectures he gave this Spring at Cambridge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79565 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author
Tom Wright is Bishop of Durham, and author of many of our best-selling books, including the magisterial Christian Origins and the Question of God series, and the popular 'For Everyone' series.

Customer Reviews

The apostle Paul - from an acute angle
This is an engagingly-written, if not altogether convincingly argued, take on where the last twenty years or so of scholarship on the apostle Paul have led us. With his customary thoroughness, Wright presents Paul the faithful Jew very much concerned to show Jesus Christ as the sustainer and fulfilment of Israel's creation/covenant self-understanding, now reworked to include the Gentiles. In his life, death and resurrection (Wright argues), Christ embodies Israel's Messianic hopes and apocalyptic expectations. The author has has some thought-provoking remarks, too, on the debate - centred around Paul's letter to the Galatians - about what the central Christian concept of `justification' means, seeing it as being about membership of the community of believers: what it means to be in that community, as opposed to what you have to do to get in.

But Wright's account of Paul interpreting Jesus runs the constant risk of divorcing the apostle from Judaism, on the one hand, by his insistence that Jesus was doing something new (`not even the most devout Israelite believed it would happen like this' (54)); and from the Gentile context, on the other, by that selfsame insistence on a rigid framework that interprets Jesus solely in Jewish categories. Unanswered questions - for example, the significance of the largely irreligious masses is ignored in the quest for an all-encompassing Israelite story - and the fact that Wright is clearly condensing debate that has been conducted elsewhere at greater length (for example in his `The New Testament and the People of God') make this a work where clarity has to an extent been sacrificed to brevity. It's also one in which a number of question-begging assumptions loom large without being satisfactorily resolved. In summary, a good update on recent `Paul' scholarship - but by no means a rounded picture.

Is Wrights right? or is Wright wrong?
Wright's book brings into account the last 2/3 decades of Pauline scholarship. His work compliments and calls into question this work, and truly does give a fresh perspective on Paul. The book is well written, and highly readable, and has some thought provoking comments and questions littered throughout. As an undergraduate Theology student the book has been useful in my New Testament Studies as a whole. The book however, is theology specific. It is not entirely balanced, and will depend on your view of Pauline theology, and the the purpose of Christ. There is some interesting discussion on the Pauline doctrine of Justification. This cannot be overlooked by those wanting to engage will Paul at a deeper level, and will be highly useful to, Pastors, student, scholars, and interested persons alike.