A more recent update on Middleton’s blog:
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As far as the practical work Christians are to do in the New Kingdom, I expect N.T. Wright will say that it depends on our gifts. Here is a quote from N.T. Wright’s book “Surprised by Hope”:
How do you answer someone who says, rightly, that the world will not be completely just and right until the new creation and who deduces, wrongly, that there is no point trying to bring justice to the world (or for that matter ecological health, another topic for which there is no space here) until that time? Answer, from everything I have said so far: insist on inaugurated eschatology, on a radical transformation of the way we behave as a worldwide community, anticipating the eventual time when God will be all in all, even though we agree things won’t be complete until then. There is the challenge. The resurrection of Jesus points us to it and gives us energy for it. Let us overcome our surprise that such a hope should be set before us and go to the task with prayer and wisdom.
Prayer and wisdom are always needed.
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- From the Mishnah, *Pirke Avoda": [Attributed to Rabbi Tarfon] “He used to say: It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
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And I asked if these considerations affect, even overturn, the doctrine of Israel’s election or a new covenant
I think one could say that Israel’s election was the ordained path God used to bring us all into this new covenant. The old covenant is indeed superseded, but that doesn’t mean it was invalid or didn’t serve a valid purpose. And if we wish to more fully understand or grow into the new covenant, that might be challenging to do without having any understanding of where it came from and how God brought it about.
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Thanks Mervin, and I agree entirely. My point a couple comments back was that Israel’s election and the salvation of the world through Jesus (ie. a new covenant) are vastly more important and easily discernible than the dating and authorship of Genesis.
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I would like to add, that I don’t presume we will all agree on God choosing Israel. Some people have very different starting points, epistemically speaking. My point was that it is far more important to consider that than the dating and authorship of Genesis.
John Walton’s 4 hour intro to the OT is an excellent starting point for beginning to appreciate what sets the story of Israel so far apart from every other story.
But I stand to be corrected as comparitive religion is not a core strength of mine.
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In providential apparent randomness1 I recently pulled up a book on my Kindle that I’ve been wanting to read ever since the “End of Apologetics” book discussion: Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism by James K.A. Smith. (I recommend it.) This bit struck me as apropos this discussion, and specifically Lecture 6:
To put it another way, unless our apologetic proclamation begins from revelation, we have conceded the game to modernity. On this score, I side with an even earlier Parisian philosopher and proto-postmodernist, Blaise Pascal, who adamantly protested that the God revealed in the incarnation and the Scriptures—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jesus Christ—is to be distinguished from the (modern) god of philosophical theism. But even more importantly, this new apologetic—which is, in fact, ancient—is one that is proclaimed by a community’s way of life. As Peter Leithart has remarked, “The first and chief defense of the gospel, the first ‘letter of commendation’ not only for Paul but for Jesus, is not an argument but the life of the church conformed to Christ by the Spirit in service and suffering.” The church doesn’t have an apologetic; it is an apologetic.
Smith, James K. A… Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? (The Church and Postmodern Culture): Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (pp. 28-29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
A number of us have mentioned that we’re looking forward to Wright fleshing out more, what the Church should be doing during the inaugurated eschaton. Smith points to it in the parts I highlighted in the quote above.
Often throughout these lectures, I’ve wondered about Wright’s views on Postmodernism, although he doesn’t seem to be a fan. Yet he criticizes some of the same aspects of Modernism that Postmoderns have done - utter dependence on rational certainty, “proven” results and the affect that has had on theology and therefore on faith. While the two similar forms of criticism don’t stem from similar philosophical structures, some problems with Modernism can be viewed from more than one vantage point and lead to some (likely not all) similar conclusions.
The point above, which I think Wright supports, I hope begins to carry more weight in the Church, particularly the parts of it that I am familiar with. Not only is the church an apologetic (or it SHOULD be) it is an apologetic for ONE thing, the Gospel. That’s it. Any other issue, person, fad, party, power structure, etc. is NOT the Gospel. If the Church is constantly distracting itself with other things it’s apologetic is no longer for the Gospel, but for something else.
@Terry_Sampson mentioned J. Todd Billings’s criticism of Wright’s book, saying that the Church’s focus in this inaugurated eschaton should be to glorify God, rather than focus on righteous “works” or “deeds”. However, if the church itself is the apologetic for the Gospel, righteous “works” or “deeds” that help people understand or accept the Gospel do glorify God.
I think this is also related to “sins of omission and commission.” Here (in my part of the world) and now, churches and individual Christians are not very invested in the kinds of works and deeds Wright is talking about. I don’t hear many churches or individual Christians protesting, for example, the horrible circumstances of foster children much less doing anything to make a substantial difference in the lives of foster kids. Yeah. We all know somebody who has done something. But giving from our suplus is not what Jesus tells us to do. It’s not what his Father commanded either – since some of the earliest texts we have.
The sins of commission are innumerable as well, and I’m not worried about the endless arguments related to gender and sexuality. Christian nationalism and engagement in the Culture Wars, rather than demonstrating the Gospel, is enough for me. The world can’t come close to seeing or hearing the Gospel for all the racket the church is making, drowning out it’s own core message.
If the individuals who make up the Church value the Gospel as words of life, Wright’s and the Postmoderns’ concerns about the Church as an apologetic need to be taken seriously. We need a reformation.
I’ll stop there. There’s a lot more to say.
1Dedicated to @Dale
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If I may reprove myself a bit for falling into the mode of Western individualism – individual gifts are important, but it’s also worth considering what sort of gifts your faith community has, and get involved with that. Doing things in the Kingdom should also be discerned in community.
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The Kingdom is made up of individuals who comprise a whole together. Each one has different gifts, skills, callings, to use together.
Ah, okay. I wasn’t sure if you were asking a question or raising an objection. Sorry for my obtuseness.
Israel’s election starts with God’s call to Abram in Genesis 12. Everyone recognizes a change in genre at that point. The narrative picks up the story of Israel’s ancestors and covenant with YHWH and continues through the Exodus, the conquest, the Judges and then Samuel, the kings and the writing prophets.
Since the Hebrew alphabet wasn’t invented until roughly the time of David (1000 BC), we can safely say the historical narratives prior to then were oral traditions about Israel’s origins that were written down many hundreds (Joshua-Moses) if not several thousand years (Abraham) after the events. (Leaving aside the proto-history of Gen. 1-11.)
Does this knowledge affect doctrine? Yes and no.
Yes: The doctrine of the image of God has been greatly affected by our recent understanding of the historical context of ancient Near Eastern mythology (see Walton & Middleton) that predated Hebrew writing and that all scribes in Israel were required to learn as part of their training before Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon (see Seth Sanders).
No: It’s an interesting historical and literary question to sort out various hypotheses about the composition of the Old and New Testaments, but one cannot build doctrine or praxis on such things. It’s impossible to recreate the theology of either the Yahwist or the Priestly source, let alone give one or the other priority, and it’s just as impossible to build a New Testament theology using only “authentic” Paul or somesuch. That’s why I fall back on a canonical approach, taking the “whole of God’s counsel” into account. It’s messy, but it rules out prooftexting.
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Jay, I’m not familiar with the idea of canonical interpretatiin, at least by that name. Can you point me to a good source for beginners?
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You responded to my comment about how I feel an issue like the dating of Genesis is a distant second to the issue of Israel’s election by saying issues with dating can affect doctrine, and I asked if dating issues can affect (even overturn) the doctrine of Israel’s election.
I reread your reply and it seems to not answer the question.
It’s a pretty simple concept. The canon is the whole of scripture in the form it’s come down to us. Understanding the history of composition and transmission can inform our interpretation of particular texts (hence my yes and no above), but on the whole it’s impossible to sort out every individual strand. As far as everyday Christian doctrine and practice goes, we have to take the whole of the text as we have it, interpret it as best we can, and put it into practice. It relates to what Wright was saying in the 5th lecture. I’ll quote it again:
Now here we must be careful. We don’t know … I don’t know, and actually I don’t think anyone knows in what sequence the relevant texts were written or edited. So we can’t easily say: ”Well, this one came first obviously. That one’s influenced by it”. And it would be easy to miss the all-important sense of a narrative, because Genesis 1 and 2 up are given to us as the start of a project. Eschatology or at least a telos , a goal, is in view from the start: this is going somewhere. What matters as far as I’m concerned, and I think we should be concerned, is: how reflective Second Temple Jews might have thought about the relevant texts, and then how the radically new proposals of the early Christians resonated within that world.
As I said previously, Wright’s “all-important sense of a narrative” reflects the canonical interpretation of scripture. Instead of atomizing scripture, understand the overall narrative.
Second Temple Jews in Jesus’ time received the “relevant texts” (the OT) as a whole and had already forgotten the “lost world” (to borrow Walton’s phrase) of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, not to mention the Sumerian King List and Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. Wright’s project is to help us recover the “lost world” of Second Temple Jews. My point is that each generation – from the original hearers to the 2nd temple interpreters to modern Americans – receives the relevant texts and must interpret them and put them into practice within their own culture.
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Oh well. I tried.
As did I and I do look forward to that great and glorious day
Thank you, Jay. That helps.
I was looking at a different thread a bit earlier today with your earlier post in mind and wondering if and how canonical interpretation is different from the idea that “scripture interprets scripture.” That might need to be a different thread, though.
If you think the differences or similarities apply to Wright’s lectures at all, and are worth discussing, please feel free.
I’ve run out of time tonight, too, but will try to come back soon with some thoughts from James K.A. Smith’s “Who’s afraid of Po…mo…?” that I think are related.
Thanks!
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Canonical interpretation isn’t hermetically sealed from outside influences or history. It’s simply interpreting the whole body of literature called the Bible as just that – a body of work interpreted as a whole rather than piecemeal.
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Thanks. That helps a lot.
I think your description of this way of reading includes a real acknowledgement of what does actually happen from generation to generation as well. It’s easy for people like me, who have grown up in the church to feel like theology and hermeneutics (if we are even aware of them or those words at all) just always been this way. That there is one right, best way to read, understand, believe and apply it – which by the grace of God – I (whoever the first person happens to be) have been born into or have figured out. And of course, that everyone else is wrong, at least to some degree.
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