Abstract
Of the books I brought on holiday, only one threatened my physical safety. Hardback and 987 pages, Wright’s and Bird’s The New Testament in Its World is a hefty tome that strained my hammock’s integrity to the point I feared being dislodged.
In their preface, the authors identify the book’s threefold purpose to be: (a) something of an N.T. Wright ‘reader’; (b) a user-friendly introduction to the New Testament embedded within the historical context of early Christianity; and (c) an accessible and thematic overview to the contents of the New Testament. The book is largely Bird’s redaction of Wright’s published and original contributions, in consultation with Wright, but Bird’s own influence surfaces regularly through footnotes, suggested readings, occasional differences of opinion (e.g., on Colossians, p. 465, n. 58; authorship of 2 Timothy p. 536), and personal anecdote (e.g., p. 551).
Although its sub-title suggests that this is a book introducing the history, literature, and theology of the first Christians, a more accurate title might be ‘Introducing the New Testament Story for All Christians’. Different from other introductions that aim dispassionately to outlay data about the New Testament, Wright’s and Bird’s book is really proclamation, recounting historical and literary details always with an eye to what those mean for believers today. This quote, referring to John’s Revelation, sums-up well the entire project: ‘the New Testament is designed not just to offer information about God, Jesus, the world, and ourselves, but also to urge us, by inviting us to penetrate its innermost core, to become the kind of people for whom, and indeed through whom, it will at last all make sense’ (p. 812).
Consequently, the book starts not with the first Christians but with contemporary ones. Part I, ‘Reading the New Testament’, positions contemporary readers for an encounter with the New Testament story, and Part II, ‘The World of Jesus and the Early Church’, sets the background from which the book’s ‘hero’ (the New Testament story) is born. Thus the first two sections effectively set the scene of the worlds, both ancient and modern, that the New Testament story must inhabit. Whether by design or my imagination, the remaining chapters form a narrative arc that leads the ‘hero’ (the New Testament story) on an epic journey through threats, transformation, and return to the contemporary reader at the book’s conclusion.
After setting the scene, the plot follows our hero in overcoming scholarly challenges to the New Testament story’s contemporary relevance. Beginning with Jesus, the story of the New Testament overcomes threats to the historicity and self-aware identity of its founder (‘Part III: Jesus and the Victory of God’) and threats to the historical veracity and significance of Jesus’ resurrection – the foundational myth from which the New Testament story derives authority (‘Part IV: The Resurrection of the Son of God’). Turning inward, our hero then undergoes a sort of transformation or self-actualization as the New Testament story aligns with its constituent parts – its messengers and their writings.
Sequenced somewhat chronologically, we see the New Testament story aligned first with Paul’s life, message, and individual letters in presumed chronological order (‘Part V: Paul and the Faithfulness of God’), then with the Gospels (‘Part VI: The Gospels and the Story of God’), and finally with the Catholic epistles (‘Part VII: The Early Christians and the Mission of God’). Throughout this inward journey, several sub-plots emerge where our hero overcomes scholarly skirmishes on critical issues that threaten the integrity of the New Testament story. The penultimate section of the book (Part VIII: ‘The Making of the New Testament’) briefly bridges the gap between the New Testament’s composition and its contemporary reception before concluding (Part IX) with the relevance of the New Testament story today.
The book is augmented throughout with coloured photographs of historical and artistic imagery, text-boxes that showcase quotes from relevant historical writings (‘Portals and Parallels’; ‘Blast from the Past’) or contemporary scholars, and occasional fictitious e-mail exchanges between presumably a youngish undergraduate student and his professor used to address sometimes controversial topics (‘E-mails from the Edge’). The authors also advertise a workbook, church curriculum, and audio and video lectures, sold separately.
As a ‘Wright reader’, the authors quote frequently (though not exclusively) from Wright’s translation, The New Testament for Everyone (UK; The Kingdom New Testament, US). Naturally, the book also reinforces many of Wright’s positions, such as that Jews in the New Testament period perceived themselves as remaining ‘in exile’, awaiting a ‘new exodus’; that Jesus brought the story of God and Israel to its climax, Jesus standing in for Israel (and the Temple) as Israel had stood in for Adam; that God’s righteousness is not (as in Luther) a gift of status from God but is God’s faithfulness to his covenant and to his creation; that Christian hope involves the resurrection of the body not the soul’s flight to heaven; and that believers do not go to heaven when they die but that heaven comes to a ‘put to rights’ rescued earth where God dwells with his people in their ‘life after life after death’.
The book also presents perhaps lesser known positions, such as a firm defence of the Southern Galatian theory for an early dating of Galatians, or preference for Ephesian rather than Roman imprisonment as the provenance and early dating of Paul’s prison epistles. On the latter, the authors urge that although in Acts Luke omits to mention an Ephesian imprisonment for Paul, one might be inferred from 2 Cor 1.8-11 and other internal evidence from Paul’s letters (p. 453). I would add to their arguments that Roman readers of Acts might have deemed Paul’s imprisonment justified insofar as the Ephesian riot arguably did occur as a result of Paul’s preaching, so omitting its mention might better serve what Wright and Bird identify as Luke’s principally apologetic purpose for Acts (p. 616).
The authors follow Richard Bauckham and others in abandoning the ‘community’ hypothesis that claims the Gospels tell us principally about the communities they represent and only derivatively about Jesus. Instead, Wright and Bird proclaim, the Gospels tell the life (bios) of Jesus, and whatever community interests they communicate are secondary (pp. 683-84). The authors also follow Bauckham in identifying close parallels between the Synoptics and John.
As with any composition, there are stronger and weaker points. The book’s tremendous strength is its confident, narrative prose. As Wright remarks here and elsewhere, the New Testament tells a story, and this book proclaims the New Testament story in declarative prose such that one can often hear the lines delivered by Wright, that rambly sage who delights packed-out lecture theatres and podcast subscribers with erudite, winsome grandfatherliness and Oxbridge pronunciation.
For me, the high point of the book’s prose is its opening section on Paul, recounting Paul’s theology, followed closely by the chapter on Romans. There, an expositor might be inclined to ‘take up and read’ and passionately preach the chapter verbatim. On the other end, I found some of the weakest prose to be the concluding chapter on Paul, where the authors expound the Pastoral Epistles. Here, instead of confident proclamation the authors bandy about critical issues on Pauline authorship and pay little attention to proclaiming the Pastorals on the Pastorals’ own terms. Although they conclude this chapter by each sharing personal anecdotes meant to make the content relevant, the authors communicate – inadvertently, I am sure – that the Pastorals add little value to the New Testament story. Thus the section on Paul that begins with a bang goes out with a whimper.
The prose in the sections on the Gospels (Part VI) and Catholic epistles (Part VII) is somewhat uneven. The chapters on Luke-Acts, John, and the Making of the Gospels show the confident, declarative proclamation displayed through most of the book. But those chapters on Mark, Matthew, and much of the Catholic epistles are more derivative than declarative, deferring to the conclusions of other scholars, prominently Richard Bauckham. One might be tempted to dismiss this observation as the subjective reading of a single reviewer, but I think it bears up under scrutiny. In Parts I-V, footnotes appear less frequently and frequently reference either primary sources or the authors’ own publications. Where secondary sources do appear, they often support the authors’ claims. By contrast, in Parts VI and VII the authors depend more openly on other scholars’ conclusions and secondary sources appear more as authorities in the footnotes.
Probably, the difference in style is because up to Part V the book draws much from especially the four volumes of Wright’s Christian Origins and the Question of God series (COQG), which ends with Paul. Of course, the book regularly cites Wright’s other extensive publications, including his popular-level For Everyone commentaries that cover the entire New Testament. But a shift in prose style seems to coincide with roughly where the COQG series stops. The change does not at all diminish the informed or accessible explanations of the authors, but the shift to more conventional academic prose does subtly alter the authors’ voice from one with authority to one speaking as the Scribes. It depotentiates their confident proclamation.
The penultimate section of the book (Part VIII) is perhaps the only place the authors largely fail to provide readers an accessible introduction. Particularly in the chapter on textual criticism, the authors suffer the curse of knowledge as they breeze through technical terms and acronyms, use sigla with insufficient explanation as to what these strange symbols mean, and bypass a rudimentary introduction to the basics or ‘whys’ of textual criticism before introducing (presumably novice) readers to the latest discussions on method. The chapter is too technical for the novice and too general for the specialist.
In Part IX: ‘Living the Story of the New Testament’, the narrative comes full circle as the New Testament story returns to roost with the contemporary reader, whence the book began. This final chapter concludes the book with the confident, proclamative prose that opened it and Wright and Bird show how the New Testament story has been meant to be lived-out from its earliest proclamation.
Overall, this book is an excellent introduction that well fulfils its stated aims. Despite whatever criticisms I raised above, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this work cover to cover. Because any book with ‘N.T. Wright’ on its jacket is a publisher’s dream, and with at least two more volumes in Wright’s Christian Origins series rumoured, I strongly suspect this book is only the first of multiple editions to come. I only worry that future editions will be revised and expanded. I will need a stronger hammock.