Reading Wright, NTPG, Parts 1-2 Summary

Before continuing to the next chapter in The New Testament and the People of God, I want to summarize my thoughts on the first two parts of this book (Chapters 1-5, pp 1-144). These chapters represent Wright's epistemology; reading with a critical realist eye, taking a both/and approach to many of the typically either/or debates. In my comments on the first chapter, I briefly mentioned the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern periods. Painting with very broad brush strokes, I want to illustrate the foundational epistemology of each (specifically in reference to areas of the New Testament: history, literature, theology).

In the pre-modern period, especially after the first century and those who received the New Testament, the Bible was knowable because of authority; that is, God had spoken it, He speaks truth, therefore, it is known. Some might call this knowledge through revelation. In classic Christianity, it was faith seeking understanding.

The modern period moved the basis of authority and knowledge from revelation (God has spoken) to rationality; Descartes "I think, therefore I am." The rise of the critical disciplines came and much of the Bible was questioned, some of the traditional interpretations were thrown out because the interpretation did not pass rational muster. In a way, the classic Christian model was reversed: now understanding was seeking faith. Yet some of this was good and necessary. To quote Wright, "Christians have often imagined that they were defending Christianity when resisting the Enlightenment's [Modern] attacks; but it is equally plausible to suggest that what would-be orthodox Christianity was defending was often the pre-Enlightenment worldview, which was itself no more specifically 'Christian' than any other." (p 9) 

We arrive at post-modernism and rationality is thrown out! What's left? The Self. Knowledge is now limited by one's experience and (in the radical view) cannot be shared among others. It is a hyper-empirical model. Authority and knowledge now rest in the self. "My truth, your truth, no absolute truth." Reading becomes reduced entirely to how it impacts me. It seems to me that the post-modern epistemology is self-defeating. Taken to its 'logical' conclusion (you can see how even the idea of logic in a post-modern view can't even make sense), nothing can be known or communicated. History is unknowable.

What Wright does with his both/and approach is attempt to take the wheat from each of these models, while discarding the chaff. One of the reactions of Christianity to the modern period was to double down on traditional interpretations, some of which needed to be abandoned. Unfortunately, Christianity has tended to get its interpretations mixed into its view of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Not to mention a lack of nuance of exactly what it means by those terms. The interpretation is not inspired or inerrant! Nor does inerrancy equal literal interpretation.

The following is my reading of the wheat/chaff in these early chapters by era (quite likely I have some categories mixed):

	Wheat	Chaff
Pre-Modern	Scripture speaks truthfully of God (p 128)	Interpretation by authority (p 7) History cannot question faith (p 9)
Modern	Reading the Bible historically (critically; p 60)	Separation of supernatural and rational/natural (p 10, 97)
Post-Modern	Rejection of positivism (hardline objective/subjective distinctions, p 97) Emphasis on narrative (p 38)	History is unknowable (p 54) Reading as only phenomenon (self-centered; p 59) Rejection of revelation (p 128)

An author, even a post-modern one, intends to communicate something to the reader, with the intent of changing or informing the reader. The best way to understand what is being communicated (especially in the area of the NT) is to become more aware of the author's worldview and that of the intended audience and see where it differs. What the New Testament authors are ultimately communicating is either a new or modified worldview to the reader--what God started with Abraham He has completed in Jesus. To the Jew, this is a modification. To the Greek, this is new. The goal is to change the reader's worldview, to begin to see the world through Jesus as Messiah. And so we must enter the world of the first century, which is where the next chapters will take us.