THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 18 Historical Method: Hypothesis and Verification
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 18 Historical Method: Hypothesis and Verification
by SPCK - N T Wright
Historical Method: Hypothesis and Verification (i) Introduction There is an important sense in which historical method is just like all other methods of enquiry. It proceeds by means of ‘hypotheses’, which stand in need of ‘verification’. As we saw earlier, a better way of puttin…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 21 History and Narrative
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 21 History and Narrative
by SPCK - N T Wright
History and Narrative The task of the historian is not simply to assemble little clumps of ‘facts’ and hope that somebody else will integrate them. The historian’s job is to show their interconnectedness, that is, how one thing follows from another, precisely by examining the ‘in…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 16 The Causes of the Misconception
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 16 The Causes of the Misconception
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Causes of the Misconception Why then the problem? In particular, why have so many scholars been coy, to say the least, about ‘events’ in the gospels being actual events, rather than simply fictions in the minds of the evangelists?…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 20 From Event to Meaning
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 20 From Event to Meaning
by SPCK - N T Wright
From Event to Meaning (i) Event and Intention History, then, is real knowledge, of a particular sort. It is arrived at, like all knowledge, by the spiral of epistemology, in which the story-telling human community launches enquiries, forms provisional judgments about which storie…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 22 Historical Study of First-Century Religious Movements
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 22 Historical Study of First-Century Religious Movements
by SPCK - N T Wright
Historical Study of First-Century Religious Movements The main focus of this project is nothing more nor less than the history of certain first-century religious movements. That description is, I think, as little likely to mislead as any other catch-all heading…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 25 On Christian Theology
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 25 On Christian Theology
by SPCK - N T Wright
On Christian Theology What then might a specifically Christian theology be? More, I take it, than simply an account of what Christians have believed in the past, or believe in the present, though those tasks will always be part of the whole…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 23 THEOLOGY, AUTHORITY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 23 THEOLOGY, AUTHORITY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT
by SPCK - N T Wright
THEOLOGY, AUTHORITY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT It should be clear by now that the task of reading the New Testament can never be a matter of ‘purely literary’ or ‘purely historical’ study, as though either of these could be removed from wider considerations of culture, worldviews, and…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 27 Theology, Narrative and Authority
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 27 Theology, Narrative and Authority
by SPCK - N T Wright
Theology, Narrative and Authority I shall now argue that the conception of the task, the way of reading the New Testament, for which I have been arguing in the last three chapters, enables us to do what pre-modern Christian readers assumed they could do without difficulty, and wh…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 26 Worldviews, Theology and Biblical Studies
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 26 Worldviews, Theology and Biblical Studies
by SPCK - N T Wright
Worldviews, Theology and Biblical Studies It will by now be clear that all study, all reading of texts, all attempts to reconstruct history, take place within particular worldviews. This could appear to force interpreters into a difficult choice, between (shall we say) a post- En…
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 29 The Sources
THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD - 29 The Sources
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Sources The sources which are particularly relevant for our purposes are those which reflect the situation in Palestine before the two great rebellions of ad 66–70 and 132–5, and particularly before the first of these…
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