Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N. T. Wright (PDF)

Description

The letters of the Apostle Paul changed the world like no others before or since, and they continue to strike us afresh with their panoramic vision of human history and destiny.Preeminent New Testament scholar and churchman N. T. Wright here offers a fresh perspective on the Apostle Paul’s content and convictions. Wright ranks Paul as “one of the most powerful and seminal minds of the first or any century,” endlessly engaging and perennially elusive. Yet, with recent research, Wright argues, we can now sketch with confidence a new and more nuanced picture of the Apostle and the radical way in which his encounter with Jesus redefined his life, his whole thought-world, his mission, and his expectations for a world made new in Christ. The result: a masterful, engaging, and enlightening portrait that situates Paul in his time and for our own.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐A FIRST PHENOMENOLOGY OF SYMBOLISM IN PAUL; AS SCRIPTURE-BASED:N. T. wright is an intellectual who has a background in “pastoral care”. That automatically puts him a step ahead in the world of academic biblical exegesis. Wright has written two books here and combined them into one volume. The first book describes Paul’s phenomenological context for his development of a theological self-consciousness; primarily through the process of sign-translation and sign-transformation.It will take two combined reviews to do this volume justice; therefore consider this the combined offering, which addresses pages 1-82; the phenomenology; and then 83 to the conclusion.Here we examine the theological development of Paul’s self-consciousness concerning the Judaic-faith, the Christian-apocalyptic difference, and the re-birth of signs in “return”; we come away with much of the material we were already familiar with, but presented in a profoundly new way, which infuses it with “energia” & “dunamis”. The journey proceeds roughly in the following manner:1. Paul, the Pharisee, within the Judaic tradition; performing preliminary exegesis of the TORAH, as “Law”.2. Paul, as Pharisee, again; but this time with a “phronetic-stance” that takes him up into that anticipatory contemplation of the “AGE-OF-GOD’S-KINGDOM-TO-COME”, when God will return to his people, who currently suffer under pagan oppression.3. Paul, as convert; after the Damascus road experience; and as an intellectual, actually constructing a theology as “Soteriology”, which for a while, would co-exist alongside his Judaic-covenant-narrative. This soteriology followed the triad-construction of: 1. COVENANT: as depicted in the TORAH, as inauguration of the Abrahamic-family & the promise of land. 2. SARX; as depicting, primarily Israel’s “sin-of-presumption”, concerning their supposed exclusive favor in covenant. And 3. NEW CREATION; where Paul says “Jesus-as-messiah” offers individual forgiveness, but also a political trans-historical transformation of the world of Roman oppression.4. Paul, now taking his “soteriology” into the Greek and Jewish world as “APOCALYPTIC”, a “soteriology”, with a dramatic phronetic-stance of “apocalyptic”. Paul proclaims that the “AGE-TO-COME” has already come in “Jesus-as-Messiah”; therefore hope is transformed also into a new hope for the “FULL-ROYAL-PRESENCE-OF-THE-MESSIAH” to be made manifest. “Apokalypteo” is correctly translated as “unveiling” of the righteous and just covenant of god. An unveiling of “Intentionality”5. Paul, with his new apocalyptic-soteriology must configure that into an “ideology” that can be posited in the actual historical world. And for Paul this means a “CRITICAL” ideology that critiques both “Jewish covenant-narrative” and Roman “emperor-cult-narrative”. Caesar is stripped of his titles and the Christos is given the title of “KURIOS” or “Lord”.6. Symbolism has taken a journey through Paul in the following way:a. TORAH becomes “SUMBOLAIO”, or “covenant.b. SARX becomes “Apoluao”, OR “arrogant-presumption”c. CHRISTOS: is translated “Messiah”, rather than the proper name “Christ”d. APOKALYPTEO: is “unveiling” intentionality, not cataclysmic event.e. CROSS: goes from “Caesar’s-might” to “God’s love”f. APANTESIS: goes from the improper translation of “Rapture” to “meeting” or “encounter”g. PAROUSIA: goes from “return” to “presence” or “Advent”.So Wright gives us basically an introductory “LOGOS-OF-SYMBOL” which passes through: SOTERIOLOGY (in itself) through APOCALYOTIC (for-itself), to RETURN-NARRATIVE (in & for-itself). Where we finally reach “Parousia”; which is “PRESENCE”, right now, the life of spirit available right now.PART TWO OF MANUSCRIPT: PAUL’S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY:Beginning with page 83, Wright introduces us to the world of the actual articulated theological position of Paul; based on the previous Phenomenology. He breaks it down into a familiar order of: 1. THEOLOGY; 2. CHRISTOLOGY; AND 3. PNEUMATOLOGY. But; in Paul’s case we are to understand that all of the former doctrines are essentially versions of Paul’s “Christological-qualification” of all teaching. Briefly Paul is summarized in the following way:1. CHRISTOLOGICAL-MONOTHEISM:a. Christ is designated as KURIOS, equated with god himself; and represents God’s 2nd self.b. The co-creative power of WISDOM is equated with Christos & Pneuma.c. Jesus reveals God in a new way; that reveals Christ as the climax of Jewish narrative,2. CHRISTOLOGICAL QUALIFICATION OF “ELECTION”a. The STOICHEIA-gods are negated by the new-creation inaugurated in the messiah.b. The SULGOGEO-SUNAGOGE of an Israel-in-the-flesh is also negated by the revelation of the messiah.c. The new re-defined spiritual-Israel consists of all those who ae “in” the Messiah.d. PISTIS-CHRISTOU refers to the faithfulness-of-the-Messiah; not human faithfulness.3. CHRISTOLOGICAL QUALIFICATION OF PNEMATOLOGY:a. New creation has introduced cells and networks of new communityb. “Pastorate” is born as office for follow-up and maintaining this new community.c. The commission-to-serve is empowered by the DIKAIOSUNE of God’s faithful righteousness toward his people.d. Jesus-as-Messiah is proclaimed the efficacious fulfillment of this righteousness and is declared the universal HILASTERION, or mercy-seat, taking-on “form& content”, both.e. Eschatology is equal to RETURN-FROM-EXILE & has already occurred in Jesus-as-Messiah.f. DEFEAT-OF-PAGANISM, likewise has eschatologicaly been defeated already in Jesus-as-Messiah.g. And finally: the RENEWED-TEMPLE is equated with BODY-OF-MESSIAH.This takes Wright full-circle; but in a new way. Now, we don’t look for the AGE-TO-COME. We look toward the full royal manifestation of the Christ’s “PAROUSIA-PRESENCE” in the actual finite world.5 STARS OF COURSE!!!

⭐A solid interpretation offering concrete scriptural references and historical context of the Roman and Jewish world explaining Paul’s narratives in the New Testament. I’ve read few religious books that delved in so deeply as this one did. Wright did a splendid job providing examples and expository reasoning behind Paul’s letters to the churches. Despite this being a required text for school, I enjoyed it and highly recommend it.On a side note, regrading the physical state of the book I purchased: I received a brand new book, perfect condition. However, upon reading the last chapter, the pages came unbound and are now threatening to fall out. I’m not that hard on books, though, I will fold the book back to read sometimes. While I do this to many different books, the glue just couldn’t stand up to this light handling in this case.

⭐In this book, which is really a writeup of a lecture series, NT Wright takes a brief look at some of the deep themes in Paul’s letters. First he sets the cultural stage, looking at Paul’s life as a Jew, living in a Greek-influenced world, controlled by a Roman government. Wright then goes on to show how Paul is driven by Jewish themes, but expresses them in terms relevant to both Jews and to Greeks, and fleshes out how what response those themes require in a world dominated by Rome.This is the kind of book that gives you information that you’re not going to figure out just by reading the Bible yourself. The background Wright includes is magnificent, as is his exploration of really deep religious themes. Wright isn’t trying a book-by-book summary, but rather an overview of Paul’s greatest motivations and goals that spans across all his letter. This short text doesn’t include nearly the academic sourcing and defense of his longer books in the “Christian Origins” series, and so I’m looking forward to when his Paul book in that series comes out later this year. But if you can’t wait for that, or just want a shorter book and don’t need all the academic defense of the themes, then “Paul in Fresh Perspective” is a very solid read.

⭐This was Wright’s follow up to

⭐What Saint Paul Really Said

⭐. While some of the topics covered broadly cover the same ground, this is a very different book which incorporates and references quite a bit of Wright’s other writings (excluding his New Testament For Everyone series). As such, if you are new to Wright, I wouldn’t recommend this as a starting point.The first half of the book looks at the background setting into which Paul’s theology was born. These are outlined in some detail (but not exhaustively, as Wright is keen to emphasize) under the titles `Creation and Covenant’, `Messiah and Apocalyptic’ and `Gospel and Empire’. The first of these echoes What St Paul Really Said the most, with Wright’s view on the New Perspective movement being that when references are made to the history of Israel that Paul had the whole sweep of that history in mind. So a reference to the Exodus necessarily entails a knowledge and understanding of all the nuances and symbolism that entails.This is a very interesting view which is fairly persuasive, yet not compelling. For example, the painting of the Forth Road Bridge was sometimes referred to as a Sisyphean task, yet I think this only refers to the part of the myth of Sisyphus which relates to his rolling the stone up the hill repeatedly, not necessarily the backstory as to how he ended up there. So it might be with Paul’s references to the Jewish theologies of monotheism, creation and covenant.In `Messiah and Apocalyptic’ Wright redefines these terms of how he thinks Paul understood them, which may be quite different to modern usage. So one is referred strongly back to

⭐The New Testament and the People of God: 1 (Christian Origins & Ques God 1)

⭐for detail on `Apocalyptic’ and to

⭐Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God: v. 2 (Christian Origins & the Question of God)

⭐for detail on `Messiah’.In Gospel and Empire, Wright looks at the royal proclamation element of the gospel for which he has been noted, not least in Jesus and the Victory of God and, more recently, in

⭐How God Became King – Getting to the heart of the Gospels

⭐. So if you have read either of those, there will be little new here, but it’s needed for completeness.The second half of the book gets into some of the real meat of the argument, although it is clear (and Wright acknowledges this) that this is a condensed line of reasoning, with much that either has been expanded upon elsewhere or will be expanded upon later. As such, I would warn potential readers of the book that even though it is less than 200 pages long, the content is very dense. If you gloss over a sentence, you will lose the thread. Also, Wright refers to some quite extensive passages of scripture without providing the reader much by way of including it. So have a bible to hand.Much of the point of view that Wright expresses is dependent upon his translation. I’m no expert in Greek so I could not help but wonder if his translation was influenced by his theology and not the other way around. While I intend to read some of the detractors to the `new perspective’ movement, I would be surprised if a similar point is not raised.The most contentious chapter, by some way, is `Reworking God’s People’ where Wright looks at the doctrines of election and `justification by faith’. He brings to the readers’ attention some of the passages of New Testament which many churches will tend to view only out of the corner of their eyes. While Romans 8 may be a favourite passage for many, chapters 9-11 of the same book may not be. He similarly notes that proponents of the New Perspective love the 2nd half of Ephesians 2, while its detractors like to focus more on the first half of the chapter.Wright tries to steer round this debate by saying that the approach needed is one that is all-encompassing. There ought to not be an either/or discussion, but rather a both/and way of viewing these doctrines. After all, if Paul put these next to one another in his own writings, it’s unlikely he intended to be being self-contradictory.The image that was cast in my head was that of a die. You cannot see all of its faces at once. Traditional theology has been entranced by looking at the six and catching an askew glance at some of the other faces, while others remain out of side, either on the opposite side, or face down on the table. Wright wants us to pick up the die and turn it over in our hands, looking at every side. For some, this may mean losing sight temporarily of the view they have grown up with and loved for many years. But Wright is not advocating throwing away any aspects of traditional theology. Instead, he wishes to cast a new light on it. But, to mix my metaphors, adding light can also cast a shadow elsewhere. So while the idea of justification by faith has been core to much reformed theology, the point put forward is that it is has been partially misunderstood and is also part of a bigger picture.In writing this, Wright did not set out to answer all questions about Paul and give an holistic account of his theology. Instead, this book should be taken as a thought-provoker, inviting the reader to re-examine Paul for themselves and to go further down the pathways which Wright has sketched out. It’s not an easy read, but it’s not impenetrable either. So, with due caution, proceed, learn and think.

⭐A clear and easy to understand review of the fresh perspectives on St Paul that has arrived in the theological consciousness since the second world war. People may disagree with Paul to find that it was only a stereo type they were disagreeing with and not really the man he was.To understand Paul in the light of this fresh perspective helps us to understand his thought and his theology. To understand that he was a Roman Citizen, a Jew and a Christian at the same time helps us to see what he meant and how his original hearers are likely to have understood him. Tom Wright enables the reader to enter Paul’s world and gain a deeper understanding of the letters he wrote and why which make up a considerable part of the New Testament. It is also refreshing to hear a scholar to argue that Paul wrote some of the letters that traditionally believers say he wrote but which scholars have previously argued that he didn’t.

⭐In placing Paul and his thought firmly in the context of the Old Testament and 1st Century Jewish thinking, Wright has – in my view – absolutely nailed the man’s theology. His views will be controversial in some circles, but for me this is the definitive book on Paul’s theology and how it fits into scripture. Highly recommended

⭐I found this easy to read but had to keep going back to take in the ideas that were coming at me thick and fast out of it. Everyone should read this who is studying Paul – it not only opened up a whole new world for me of thought but left me thinking – I really have found the real basis for my life in Christ Jesus

⭐As usual Tom Wright has the ability to translate hius years of scholarship for the general reader in no technical terms while the book is so written one is encouraged to return again and again to read Paul.

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