Reading Wright, NTPG, Chapter 11

This week I continue in The New Testament and the People of God with chapter 11 (pp. 341-58) as Wright begins his discussion of the rise of Christianity in its first century (roughly up to 130 AD). This chapter discusses the challenges in studying the history of the early church and notes a few points of reference.

Simply put, there are not many sources coming out of that first century. Wright calls the sources “tiny in comparison with the Jewish material: the Greek New Testament is dwarfed on a shelf beside the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Mishnah, and Scrolls.” (p 341) How does one explain the rise of Christianity? Scholars certainly have tried and the majority of them, especially in the recent couple of centuries, do not hold to an orthodox position—taking the text at face value. It is far easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a mainstream New Testament scholar to accept a resurrection.

Wright notes of the task, “The reconstruction of the history of early Christianity must attempt to make sense of certain data within a coherent framework. It must put together the historical jigsaw of Judaism within its Greco-Roman world, of John the Baptist and Jesus as closely related to that complex world, and of the early church as starting within that world and quickly moving into the non-Jewish world of late antiquity.” (p. 345) Wright will attempt this through his lens of worldview and beliefs in subsequent chapters. The remainder of this chapter is spent noting ten fixed points of reference on which the historical data are solid. These include the crucifixion, Claudius expelling Jews from Rome, Nero’s persecution, Fall of Jerusalem, and Ignatius’ letters and martyrdom, to name a few. These points provide the reader with some fixed places into which additional data must be placed. For example, we would be well warranted in questioning a piece of data arguing for Jewish temple worship after AD 70; the temple is destroyed by then. The point is to have the broad contours sketched out. Christianity must arrive in Rome with a sufficient following to cause a disturbance under Claudius. Ignatius writing letters to seven churches on his way to be martyred means there were churches existing there long before his trip!

The next chapter will begin with the early Christian worldview. What was their worldview, and how did it express itself in early Christian symbols and practices? That is the subject of the following chapter.