N.
T. Wright is a giant in New Testament studies. It has been 20 years since he
published What Saint Paul Really Said, a book which made him
internationally famous and changed the way countless pastors and students
viewed the New Testament. To be fair, E.P. Sanders and James Dunn had been
teaching what came to be called the New Perspective on Paul for many years, but
they were mostly confined to “scholarly” circles. N. T. Wright, while not
identifying fully with the NPP, popularized many of the ideas associated with
that line of reasoning.
Tom
Holland has been researching and writing in the same areas as Wright since the
1970s, and, while appreciating many of Wright’s contributions, thinks that
Wright has set in place some bad ways of reasoning and doing biblical studies
that have the potential to cause major damage in the realm of biblical
theology. So this book, Tom Wright and the Search for Truth, is
an interaction between two thinkers: from one Tom to another, as it were.
Holland
writes: “In the end, I suggest that he [N. T. Wright] has given us ‘What Saint
Paul Ought to Have Really Said’ rather than ‘What Saint Paul Really said’. This
claim is the burden of this book…” p. 17
Holland
is clearly uncomfortable to have to write this book. He seems to find it
distasteful to write an entire book as a critique of one person. However, he
believes that it is necessary that someone point out Wright’s methodological
and theological shortcomings, as they have been so influential on the course of
New Testament studies. Despite the critical nature of this book, Holland does
appreciate the many helpful contributions made by Wright. He says, “I do not
deny that Tom Wright has done some truly excellent work, introducing millions
of people to a greater knowledge of Christ and challenging many cherished ideas
that needed to be reconsidered. The thrust of my argument is, however, that
some of his solutions are badly constructed and that they need to be subjected
to the same detailed examination which he performs on other peoples’ writings.”
p. 160
Finally,
Holland wants to show that Wright’s criticism of the legacy of the Reformation
is off target and wrongheaded. “I would suggest that the Reformers are better
overall guides to the apostles’ understanding [than N. T. Wright], for they are
much more careful in dealing with some of these possible levels of meaning I
have highlighted within the term justification.” p. 449
Summary
In
chapter 1, Holland introduces his main ideas and sets the course for the book.
In chapters 2-3 he focuses on the Apostle Paul’s understanding of himself and
his role.
Chapter
2 attempts to refute Wright’s claim that Paul came from a Zealot background. Holland
argues that Paul was simply a Pharisee of the Hillel school who wouldn’t have
sympathized with the Zealots. Among many strong arguments, the one that struck
me the most here was the fact that Paul had kept up his Roman citizen which we
see him utilizing multiple times in the book of Acts. A zealot would have
repudiated Roman citizenship. In chapter 3 Holland examines how Paul saw his
mission after his conversion. Holland shows that Paul utilized imagery from the
servant in Isaiah to understand his role as a Christian teacher and missionary
rather than intertestamental Maccabean imagery.
In
chapter 4, the book shifts to a discussion of N. T. Wright’s methodology. One
of the big complaints Holland has about Wright is that he often goes to
Hellenistic literature to find context for Paul’s writings when it is far more
likely that Paul is referencing the Hebrew Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament,
rather than sources of Hellenistic origin. Chapter 4 is not specifically
directed at Wright, but rather at other writers who have followed his lead and
taken his methods even farther than he would himself. Chapter 5 deals with more
examples in Paul’s writings where Wright sees Hellenistic imagery. In each
case, Holland attempts to show a more plausible Old Testament antecedent to
Paul’s writings as an alternative to Wright. Chapter 6 discusses Wright’s heavy
use of intertestamental literature in his interpretation of Paul. He argues
that much of the intertestamental literature Wright references was not widely
distributed in the 1st century. If Paul had even read some of it,
which is not certain, it would still be unlikely that he would be influenced by
it. Furthermore, the likelihood that any of his readers would have ever read
this literature and be able to understand his context would be even more
implausible.
In
Chapters 7 and 8, Paul’s Christology and view of the atonement are examined.
Holland argues that by taking the story of the martyrs in 2 Maccabees as a
major influence on Jesus’ self awareness, Wright creates a “disconnect between
the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.” While in his theology Wright is
orthodox, in his biblical interpretation he creates a Christ who did not know
He was God, did not know the purpose of His death and atonement, and, at best,
believed that His crucifixion would avert future political judgment on Israel.
Holland says that this is because Wright ignores the birth narratives of Jesus
which give a clear indication that Jesus would know who He was and what His
purpose was.
Chapters
9-12 deal with Wright’s view of Justification juxtaposed with Paul’s teaching
on justification in his many letters. Holland says that Wright has greatly
misunderstood the teachings of various Reformers and creates a straw man of the
Reformation in the area of justification. “…if Wright had known his historical
theology better he might not have ran with the claim s of the New Perspective
in the first place.” p. 328 Holland sees a weakness in Wright’s view of the law
as wholly positive in the life of Israel and never negative or condemning.
Because of this Wright presents justification almost entirely ecclesiologically
rather than soteriologically. Holland identifies 9 different uses of the term
“justification” in the New Testament, or perhaps more precisely 9 levels of
justification. He argues that the fact that Wright misses the various shades of
meaning in Paul, mostly due to his missing the Old Testament background, leads
to Wright’s narrow view of justification.
The
book concludes with Holland giving his own account of the meaning of
justification and the atonement for Paul.
Evaluation
This book is certainly relevant given the
level of influence N. T. Wright has had on New Testament Studies. When I was
writing my thesis on Philippians 3 back in 2003-2004, the New Perspective on
Paul was all the rage. While I don’t hear it named as much now, its influence
is pervasive. Almost everyone who writes about the New Testament feels the need
to interact with intertestamental literature. Holland is certainly making a
gutsy move by writing this book. However, I have been uncomfortable in the past
with how Wright plays fast and loose with history and his claims for his
constructions. I’ve never been able to put my finger on anything specific
though. After hearing Tom Holland’s arguments, I think that anyone who has been
strongly influence by Wright should read this book and consider it well.
In addition to his direct interaction with
Wright, Holland made me think about many passages in new ways. Holland reads
Paul’s assertion that the Corinthians were “bought with a price” not as the
purchase of a slave from the slave market, but as the bride-price being paid by
a kinsman-redeemer. This seems to make much more sense in the context of the
passage and sets these passages in a new light. His rules for using historical
sources, his various meanings of “justification”, and his emphasis of the
Exodus/Passover as the main theme in the life of the church in the New
Testament have all given me a lot of food for thought.
I wasn’t persuaded by everything in the
book. His seeming denigration of the place of water baptism, for instance,
never fully made sense to me. Perhaps he discusses this more in other books he
has written, but as it stands I was not convinced by his movements in this
direction. On the whole I have a hard time understanding why many theologians
today emphasize the corporate aspect of several passages in the New Testament
and use this to argue against the individual application of those passages. It
would seem that whatever applies to a group would apply to the members of that
group by subimplication, and so drawing a sharp corporate/individual
distinction is confusing for me. Holland does a better job than many
theologians in avoiding this problem, but there are times when I see this
tendency creeping in. There were a few other questions I have about Holland’s
theology as well, but none of these things detracts from the importance of this
book. I enjoyed reading and thinking through Tom Wright and the Search for Truth. Whether you end up agreeing with all of Holland’s positions, if you
keep up with theological trends you’ll definitely want to interact with this
book.
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