N.T. Wright on the Bible and why he won’t call himself an inerrantist

NTW likes to point out the typical failing of most modern bible readers: anachronism. Then he seeks to place Jesus in a non-biblical context of Jewish history (these are separate items). However, Christ fulfilled scripture and came in a prophetic biblical context whereas NTW wants us to relate other messianic figures who were not biblical (only Jewish) to Christ. This is a mistake. I think he makes too much of non biblical history. We have the pattern of Paul and the other apostles of how to frame the revelation of the priestly (first advent) Christ event. The apostles never appealed to non biblical events to contextualize Jesus.

NTW is a smart guy but not necessarily correct.

I find people’s reaction to this to be interesting. For some of us there is more concern about N.T. Wright’s departure from orthodoxy while others are more concerned with Wallace’s agreement with it. Both are correct responses IMO. For my own part I have already deemed N.T. Wright as outside of orthodoxy so I am more concerned by Wallace.

With respect to the rejection of Romans 5 as raised above what is done with sin? I often wonder what their view of the transmission of sin is. I suspect Wright does not have much of a problem here since he already denies imputation. Does anyone know how those who reject a historical Adam arrive at sin. Is it like a Pelagian thing where people are not born sinners but then become sinners?

[josh p]

I find people’s reaction to this to be interesting. For some of us there is more concern about N.T. Wright’s departure from orthodoxy while others are more concerned with Wallace’s agreement with it. Both are correct responses IMO. For my own part I have already deemed N.T. Wright as outside of orthodoxy so I am more concerned by Wallace.

With respect to the rejection of Romans 5 as raised above what is done with sin? I often wonder what their view of the transmission of sin is. I suspect Wright does not have much of a problem here since he already denies imputation. Does anyone know how those who reject a historical Adam arrive at sin. Is it like a Pelagian thing where people are not born sinners but then become sinners?

Josh you are correct. They feel that we are sinners because we sin. Not because Adam’s sin has been imputed to us. The problem, that I have had with these individuals, is that if you insert this into Romans 5, you can’t match this. If you change verse 18 with this view, it makes no sense. “Therefore as “individual sin” led to the condemnation for all men, so “individual righteousness” leads to justification and life for all men.” I have argued many times with these individuals, and it just becomes a circular discussion.

I had already written Wright off my radar screen a while back, after I read some stuff on the New Perspective on Paul and listened to 1.5 hr debate on justification he did with James White. I know some folks (not necessarily the SI crowd) seem to fawn over Wright, but I’ve never bothered. His latest 1700 pg. book about Paul, culminating in a “fresh assessment” of his theology, only made me yawn and roll my eyes. That may not be the “appropriate” reaction, and I know I ought to couch my opinion here in more neutral language, but in all honestly - N.T. Wright should get a life. I suppose we should be glad the Holy Spirit only now, by the grace of God, decided to enlighten us all about the true richness of Paul’s theology via N.T. Wright’s word processor …

As for Wallace, he concerns me more. I think it is indicative of a larger war in conservative circles on the issue of inerrancy. I encourage you to read Norm Geisler’s review of Five Views on Inerrancy in the Master’s Seminary Journal. He lays out the current state of this war, and it is a bit shocking. The revisionist camp, populated by “conservative” scholars, appears to have disdain and scorn for those of us who think the Chicago Statement actually reflects the Biblical teaching on this subject. Read Geisler’s review.

Oy. I don’t think I could make it through seventeen paragraphs of:

The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre [1]. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.

This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?

It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event [2]. The gospel passages about “the Son of Man coming on the clouds” (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus’ vindication, his “coming” to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11-27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.

The Ascension of Jesus and the Second Coming are nevertheless vital Christian doctrines[3] , and I don’t deny that I believe some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation. This is taught throughout the New Testament outside the Gospels. But this event won’t in any way resemble the Left Behind account. Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.

NT Wright, “Farewell to the Rapture”

Here’s my question to liberal scholars like this - if you don’t believe in a historic Adam, you don’t believe in the Bible, you don’t believe in Jesus’ miracles (or substitionary atonement) - then what are you doing in making a living as a “Christian” pastor, scholar, or theologian?