THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 31 Judaism Reconstructed
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 31 Judaism Reconstructed
by SPCK - N T Wright
Judaism Reconstructed (ad 70–135) The period after ad 70 was, obviously, of great significance for the future direction of Judaism. It has also often been regarded as of great significance for the development of early Christianity…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 28 THE SETTING AND THE STORY
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 28 THE SETTING AND THE STORY
by SPCK - N T Wright
THE SETTING AND THE STORY We have no reason to think that Middle Eastern politics were any less complicated in the first century than in the twenty-first. On the contrary, there is every reason to suppose that there were just as many tensions, problems, anomalies and puzzles then…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 30 The Story of Israel
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 30 The Story of Israel
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Story of Israel, 587 bc–ad 70 The story of second-temple Judaism is one of tension and tragedy. The Babylonians had destroyed the first Temple in 587 bc. Ever since then, those who looked to Jerusalem, and its Temple, as the centre of their homeland, and as their very raison-…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 32 THE DEVELOPING DIVERSITY
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 32 THE DEVELOPING DIVERSITY
by SPCK - N T Wright
THE DEVELOPING DIVERSITY The period between the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans saw the birth of a fascinating and complex variety of expressions of Jewish identity and life. It is vital that we gain a clear idea of this variety, upon which…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 33 The Pharisees
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 33 The Pharisees
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Pharisees It is of course impossible to offer here a full history of the Pharisees. Others have laboured, and I have entered into their labour. My purpose here is to plot the main agenda of the Pharisaic movement in the last hundred years or so before the destruction of the T…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 35 The arrival of Roman rule in 63 bc
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 35 The arrival of Roman rule in 63 bc
by SPCK - N T Wright
The arrival of Roman rule in 63 bc and the rise of Herod in the late 40s and early 30s, curtailed the possibilities of the Pharisees exerting actual power either in any official capacity or through exerting influence on those with de jure power…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 37 The Essenes: Spotlight on a Sect
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 37 The Essenes: Spotlight on a Sect
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Essenes: Spotlight on a Sect Scholars will, no doubt, continue to debate whether or not the Pharisees were a ‘sect’. There can be no such debate about the group that lived at Qumran, by the north-west shore of the Dead Sea…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 36 The period from ad 70 to 135
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 36 The period from ad 70 to 135
by SPCK - N T Wright
The period from ad 70 to 135 We now turn to the period from ad 70 to 135. It might be thought that the events of ad 70 would have brought about that great change from political involvement to pious devotion that has been postulated to explain the difference between Josephus’ Phar…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 34 The Agenda and Influence of the Pharisees
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 34 The Agenda and Influence of the Pharisees
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Agenda and Influence of the Pharisees cntd It is beyond a doubt that for quite some time before 63 bc there existed a pressure-group, known at least by its enemies as ‘Pharisees’. This group, not necessarily numerous, seems to have arisen around or after the time of the Macca…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 40 STORY, SYMBOL, PRAXIS: ELEMENTS OF ISRAEL’S WORLDVIEW
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 40 STORY, SYMBOL, PRAXIS: ELEMENTS OF ISRAEL’S WORLDVIEW
by SPCK - N T Wright
STORY, SYMBOL, PRAXIS: ELEMENTS OF ISRAEL’S WORLDVIEW Within the turbulent history described in chapter 6, and amidst the pressure of parties described in chapter 7, there lived the ordinary Jews of the first century. It is difficult to tell what books, if any, such people read (…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 38 Priests, Aristocrats and Sadducees
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 38 Priests, Aristocrats and Sadducees
by SPCK - N T Wright
Priests, Aristocrats and Sadducees We could quite easily imagine first-century Judaism without Essenes or Scrolls. The same is emphatically not true of the priests in general and the chief priests in particular. Josephus, writing at the end of the first century ad, says that ther…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 43 Symbols
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 43 Symbols
by SPCK - N T Wright
Symbols (i) Introduction The stories which articulate a worldview focus upon the symbols which bring that worldview into visible and tangible reality. There is no problem in identifying the four key symbols which functioned in this way in relation to the Jewish stories. At the he…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 42 Conclusion
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 42 Conclusion
by SPCK - N T Wright
Conclusion How then does the basic Jewish story ‘work’, in terms of the analysis of stories outlined in chapter 3? As we shall see in the next chapter, the focal point of the worldview is clearly the creator’s covenant with Israel, and hence, in a period of political oppression a…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 41 The Smaller Stories
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 41 The Smaller Stories
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Smaller Stories Within this tradition of telling the large story, letting it point forwards in various ways to its own conclusion, there was a rich Jewish tradition of sub-stories. These can be seen in two forms, which criss-cross and overlap. On the one hand, there are expli…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Hagar: Mothering a Hero
The Women's Bible Commentary - Hagar: Mothering a Hero
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Hagar: Mothering a Hero The story of Hagar leads to a wider discussion of the major themes of this study: the barrenness of the patriarch’s wives, the annunciation scenes, and the wives’ positions as mother of the patriarch of the next generation…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother
The Women's Bible Commentary - Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother Genesis 38 begins as a story of Judah, who is left in the land of Canaan during Joseph’s ordeal in Egypt. In the Joseph narrative, Judah is one of the villain brothers. He does not actually want to kill the boy Joseph but suggests he be sold to a …
The Women's Bible Commentary - My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man
The Women's Bible Commentary - My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man The ancestor hero of Israel, Jacob, father of the Israelites, is smooth, whereas the founding father of the neighboring, related, Semitic-speaking people, the Edomites, is hairy. Particular cultural messages are encoded in such…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Rebekah the Trickster