The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best book on historical Jesus to date
Review: Not only does this book have great evangelical and apologetic value, and it is a fascinating read. There is much here to challenge much of what conservative evangelicalism has understood about Jesus' ministry, even his parables. While it has some refutation of Jesus Seminar views, more specific refutations can be found in his other works, so don't get this book for that purpose. The reviewer who complained that the book did not address atonement might re-read the chapters "The Crucified Messiah" and "Jesus & God", because perhaps he missed a major point of those chapters! Wright sees corporate redemption of God's covenant as the atonement. This is a more powerful idea than individual atonement for sin. The reader might also pick up a fuller treatment of Wright's understanding in the book "The Climax of the Covenant".

This book, "The Challenge of Jesus", is available on the 'net in its original form -- that of audio lectures, for free, so that if you are not sure you want this book, listen to the audio lectures first (just look for pages dedicated to N.T. Wright).

Rating:
Summary: It Is Dangerous to Walk the Middle of the Road
Review: PREMISE: We have at least two camps (actually more) of persons who study the life of Jesus. There are those who search for the historical Jesus. This camp is too often made up of historians who come at the issue with a bias against traditional Christianity that was born of the enlightenment. Hence, they discount stories of the miraculous because they don't believe in miracles. A second camp is made up of conservative Christian scholars who approach the life of Jesus from a theological bias, born of centuries of Christian tradition. They do believe in miracles, because they have faith. Surprise! Both camps find the Jesus they set out to look for. N.T. Wright is aware of both camps, but writes somewhere outside of either. He approaches Scripture and the life of Jesus through the eyes of Second Temple Period Jewish Politics. His version of the historical Jesus is VERY political. He puts forth a rational case for his thesis, then examines the impact this new vision of Jesus should have on the church in this postmodern world.

AM I CONVINCED? I'm not sure I would say he convinced me, intrigued would be a better word. His case is too unusual to accept at first reading, but he certainly offers the reader a lot to think about, and delivers his message well. I will keep my eyes open a little wider for future discussions of this nature.

RECOMMENDATION: If you like to be challenged, you might like this book. If you are too accepting, you might be tempted to accept his well written premise too easily. If you tend to be a "Defender of the Faith" you might find this book threatening.

Rating:
Summary: It Is Dangerous to Walk the Middle of the Road
Review: PREMISE: We have at least two camps (actually more) of persons who study the life of Jesus. There are those who search for the historical Jesus. This camp is too often made up of historians who come at the issue with a bias against traditional Christianity that was born of the enlightenment. Hence, they discount stories of the miraculous because they don't believe in miracles. A second camp is made up of conservative Christian scholars who approach the life of Jesus from a theological bias, born of centuries of Christian tradition. They do believe in miracles, because they have faith. Surprise! Both camps find the Jesus they set out to look for. N.T. Wright is aware of both camps, but writes somewhere outside of either. He approaches Scripture and the life of Jesus through the eyes of Second Temple Period Jewish Politics. His version of the historical Jesus is VERY political. He puts forth a rational case for his thesis, then examines the impact this new vision of Jesus should have on the church in this postmodern world.

AM I CONVINCED? I'm not sure I would say he convinced me, intrigued would be a better word. His case is too unusual to accept at first reading, but he certainly offers the reader a lot to think about, and delivers his message well. I will keep my eyes open a little wider for future discussions of this nature.

RECOMMENDATION: If you like to be challenged, you might like this book. If you are too accepting, you might be tempted to accept his well written premise too easily. If you tend to be a "Defender of the Faith" you might find this book threatening.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing
Review: THE AUTHOR

N.T. Wright has proven to be one of the leading New Testament scholars in Christendom and has provided a countless amount of fresh insight into the message of scripture. Clearly, his intellectual prowess has not gone unrecognized. He recently accepted the position as Anglican Bishop of Durham and was previously Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and Dean of Litchfield Cathedral. He also taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. His magnum opus (to date) includes two volumes of an anticipated six-volume series labeled "Christian Origins and the Question of God". The two published volumes, entitled The New Testament and the People of God and Jesus and the Victory of God, are some of the most substantial works in the "Third Quest" of the historical Jesus.

That is only half of his story, though. His scholastic credentials are quite impressive, but academia is not an end-all for Wright. The community of faith meets historiography halfway-one is not mutually exclusive from the other. In fact, Wright would argue (and does so in The Challenge of Jesus) that the study of history is a necessary part of Christian discipleship. Perhaps it is best to let Wright explain his own experience:

"When I was at seminary in my early twenties, having graduated, I remember talking to one of my advisors about my desire to do both pastoral work and scholarship and the advisor saying very firmly `Well, you're going to have to choose which you want.' And I thought then, and think now, thirty-five years later, that he was wrong, that I have been right to combine the two."

It is out of this framework that Wright presents The Challenge of Jesus.

THE SUMMARY

The full title, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, begs the question: What is this work of "rediscovering" Jesus? Has he been lost? These questions are not lost on the reader, though, as Wright addresses them without delay. In opening, Wright acquaints his reader with the focus of his work. His purpose, as he states in the opening remarks, involves three facets. First, Wright intends to preserve "historical integrity in talking about Jesus" (p. 10). Secondly, Wright directs his attention to "the Christian discipleship that professes to follow the true Jesus" (p. 11). Finally, Wright asserts that it simply will not do for Christians to practice their faith in private and neglect the "commission to be for the world what he [Jesus] was for the Israel of his day" (p. 11). Thus, his third objective involves equipping believers with a mighty vision that has the power and authority to change the world.

With these objectives in mind, Wright divides his book into two sections. Within the first six chapters, Wright constructs a Jesus free from the distortions of Reformation and Enlightenment theology. In short, he outlines a historical Jesus-Jesus as he appeared in first-century Palestine. After Wright has unveiled his rendering of Jesus, he uses the final two chapters to connect with the postmodern world in which readers find themselves. He directs Christians to take their understanding of the historical Jesus and and grow in faith.

As demanding as pure historical work can be, Wright maintains that in studying the life of Jesus, this type of tedious research simply cannot be sidestepped in favor of another methodology. In the first section, therefore, Wright performs the necessary work of uncovering the facts that characterized first-century Palestine. The focus of the book is not ancient history, so Wright avoids writing a textbook on the antiquities. He does, however, read his interpretation of the life and mission of Jesus while preserving a first-century Jewish perspective.

There are six subsections devoted to unearthing the historical Jesus, each having its own chapter. The first chapter sets the tone for the remainder of the book and is vital to understanding the work as a whole. In it, Wright exposes the blunders of studying Jesus out of his historical context, namely through Enlightenment or Reformation lenses. After establishing his methodology for studying Jesus, Wright deals with issues and questions that surround Jesus' ministry. He then offers his opinion on how first-century Jews and Gentiles would have understood Jesus' message. Wright focuses on the following issues: Jesus' proclamation concerning the Kingdom of God, the challenge Jesus presented in relation to Jewish symbols, the realization of the Jewish sacrificial system in Jesus' crucifixion, Jesus' deity, and the Resurrection. It is within these middle chapters that Wright adds details to aid the reader in understanding the first-century perception of Jesus. For instance, the reader is encouraged to view Jesus' mission as extensively political (albeit eschatological) in nature. Also, he draws the parallel of Jesus' redeeming action to that of Jewish history, particularly the events of the Exile and Restoration. This view, Wright explains, is most certainly how a first-century Jew would have understood Jesus' vocation. These, among others, are Wright's attempts to bring the reader as near to first-century Palestine as pen-and-ink can draw.

This particular work of Wright's is not stuck in the first century, though, and the author has had his eyes fixed on the contemporary situation throughout the book. It is within the final two chapters that Wright takes the historical Jesus and applies his message to a postmodern world. The significance of the book, therefore, culminates within the last section as Wright presents his challenge: present-day Christians should be to their world what Israel was to the Old Testament World and what Jesus was to Israel. In short, Christians should be "the Light of the World"-a title that negates fear of the postmodernist movement.

THE CRITIQUE

N.T. Wright demonstrates his brilliant writing skills in The Challenge of Jesus. However, the ultimate test of a work lies not in the hands of an author's scholarship, but with its intended audience. Literature can be eloquently written, historically accurate, and logically sound, but if it falls short of its objectives, has anything really been accomplished? In the preface, Wright defines three specific purposes for writing this book (see section "The Author"). These, therefore, should be used as the benchmark in evaluating this book.

His first aim involves maintaining historical accuracy concerning the study of Jesus, and this goal has, for the most part, been met. Wright makes use of recent discoveries (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls) to support his arguments, and when confronted with the evidence he presents, it is difficult for one to deny his stance. That is not to say that he overlooks other scholarly opinions, though. Perhaps one of the strongest parts of his work is Wright's willingness to confront tough issues head-on. In fact, he acknowledges that the questions raised by other scholars in this field (Schweitzer, Reimarus, and Crossan, among many others) are even necessary and denies, therefore, the inflexible dogmatism that characterizes many Christians (p. 20)! Wright's evenhanded position on most issues found in the book lends the reader to believing that he is getting an unbiased opinion toward an authentic historical description. How rare! His efforts intended to cut through Reformation and Enlightenment theology do not go unnoticed and, at least for this reviewer, are much appreciated.

Nevertheless, the historical work Wright performed is not foolproof and can be improved upon. One section Wright needs to reconsider is the chapter entitled "Jesus and God". He seems a bit too presumptuous in assuming that he is able to understand Jesus' psychological state. Claims like, "I do not believe Jesus `knew he was God' in the same sense that one knows one is hungry or thirsty, tall or short," (p. 121) are shaky at best and should have been avoided. Wright should have treated this subject a bit more delicately and not been so hasty in his assertions.

In addition, there is an unnecessary amount of information concerning the effect of the Enlightenment on Christianity. Without question, Enlightenment theology distorted the Christian faith. However, for a book that is limited in focus, Wright would have done better to bypass how the Enlightenment misinterpreted faith and reason, only acknowledging that it did. Because tracing why postmodern Christians think as they do is not one of his goals, time would have been better spent elsewhere. Also, without denying Wright's scholarship, is he in a place to speculate on the Enlightenment's mammoth effects? In fact, Wright actually admits that he is no "eighteenth-century specialist" and that his premise derives from "what little (he knows) of the last five hundred years" (p. 18-19). Perhaps he should let that issue be handled by someone who could treat it more carefully. All this is not to say that Wright did poorly on his overall historical analysis, though. In reality, there are few better.

The tedious task of dealing with historical data in The Challenge of Jesus could have easily been made stale and unproductive. However, Wright managed to compile the names, people, places, and dates into a kaleidoscope of vibrant color and relate them to a modern world-far from an easy task. His second ambition, therefore, of encouraging Christian discipleship rooted in Jesus himself is accomplished. Do not fail to notice the ground-breaking effect of what Wright has done. For many Christians, their long-espoused perceptions of an unexciting, unchallenging Jesus have been shattered and replaced with the "sharp and craggy message" (p. 17) that Jesus left behind . This newly-found perception of (and relationship with) Jesus opens up a much richer and more profound world for discipleship and prayer. For Wright, this revelation is personal. He acknowledges that when he says the Christian creeds he means them sincerely, but that after twenty years of historical study he intends "something much deeper, much more challenging" than he did when he first began (p. 17-18). Wright's personal testimony reflects the crux of his second intention-that his brothers and sisters in Christ would share in his experience of intimacy with God through discipleship based on historical study. Because Wright recounts his own experience, his second objective is made more believable.

Wright's departing desire is not confined to a study room, however. It involves equipping Christians with the power of God's gospel to revolutionize the world. Wright's final goal for writing is, indeed, his strongest. Refusing to let readers remain dormant in an ever-shifting culture, Wright encourages his readers to apply their knowledge of discipleship to radically affect their lives, as well as the world around them. The final section is a motivating, uplifting, and refreshing perspective on how to employ one's discipleship training.

Wright was thorough in his treatment of this subject and would be hard-pressed to fit more applicable, practical information into two chapters. As the author of one critique suggested, Wright lets the "rubber hit the road" by avoiding the same, boring generalities one usually finds in a "self-help" book .
Additionally, his comparison of Psalms 42 and 43, the two men on the road to Emmaus, and the present condition of living in a postmodern world was no less than masterful. It certainly brought to light God's dealings throughout history while challenging Christians to live under God's power-the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Finally, this section reaffirms what Wright has been saying all along: before interpreting what Jesus means for the present condition, he must be clearly set in a first-century Jewish perspective.

In conclusion, it is necessary to see not just how, but why Wright continues on his search for the historical Jesus. In the first chapter, entitled "The Challenge of Studying Jesus", Wright lays out exactly why he feels compelled to participate in the Third Quest. He testifies that humans are made to be a praise of God's glory (p. 16). That statement alone speaks volumes on behalf of N.T. Wright. His quest is not one of personal gain, nor is he seeking to be decorated with an elaborate array of awards. He has chosen to demolish the dividing wall that separates scholarship and faith as he testifies that when "Christianity is truest to itself...it denies precisely this dichotomy," (p. 16). The Challenge of Jesus presents its readers with a unique, yet rewarding responsibility: devote oneself to accurate historical study of scripture, and use that knowledge to transform the world as a praise of God's glory.


Rating:
Summary: A book true to its title
Review: The author is Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, and this book represents a distillation of ideas he presents at length in lengthy scholarly publications, which engage in "mainstream" historical debate about Jesus and first-century Christianity. Wright debates, however, without setting aside personal commitment to and belief in the essential truth and genuine historicity (of Jesus's resurrection, for example) which the New Testament books and letters claim. This does not mean that he feels bound to toe any particular line defined as orthodox. "I am someone who believes that being a Christian necessarily entails doing business with history and that history done for all it's worth will challenge spurious versions of Christianity, including many that think of themselves as orthodox, while sustaining and regenerating a deep and true orthodoxy, surprising and challenging though this will always remain." (p 16) I would have to let theolgians offer opinions on the orthodoxy of Wright's arguments; but these arguments are in any case stimulating and bring fresh air to scriptural study and devotional contemplation. There are three areas where Wright challenges what he feels are common misunderstandings about Jesus. First, he argues that "Jesus remained utterly anchored in first-century Judaism" (p 73), and that everything he said and did was a "unique challenge to his contemporaries" and was "related uniquely and specifically to that situation" [i.e. in the first century] (p 174). Wright feels that this approach closes off the possibility of Deism, or of seeing Jesus merely as one of several 'great men' of a certain type in human history, a type of deeply wise, gentle moral philosopher preaching timeless aphorisms. By setting studying Jesus in his historical context alone, and shutting off (at least for the moment) the universality of his words and deeds, we come to a better understanding of their profound radicality and significance. Jesus was casting himself as the culminating nexus of everything that Jewish history and prophecy had been pointing to. Wright shows how this approach helps us to understand better why the first Christians (who were Jews) became utterly convinced that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, whose message had to be taken to the Gentiles. Wright cautions that his approach does not mean that Jesus loses his relevance for today - "this fear is groundless". "The key I propose for translating Jesus' unique message to the Israel of his day into our message to our contemporaries is to grasp the parallel, which is woven deeply into both Testaments, between the human call to bear God's image and Israel's call to be the light of the world. ... Jesus came as the true Israel, the true Jew, the true human." (p 184) The author also challenges what he considers a creeping Docetism into our modern understanding of who Jesus was, and of how he understood his vocation and what he believed himself to be. Wright's arguments in this book, although shortened from his methodical treatment in other books, are still to complex - challenging - to outline in a review. He urges Christians to "forget the 'titles' of Jesus, at least for a moment; forget the attempts of some well-meaning Christians to make Jesus of Nazareth conscious of being the second person of the Trinity" (p 122-123), as these approaches can reduce Jesus to almost a ghostly, supernatural presence, when in fact he was a breathing, sleeping, walking man who suffered and died. Third: in the final two chapters of the book Wright explains why he feels that postmodern philosophy has discredited modern philosophy (modern = 18th, 19th, early 20th centuries), with its claim that science can uncover objective truth, and why we should not fear this. Rather, he considers that Christianity can fluorish as well or better in the postmodern intellectual world, and mixes the argument with personal, devotional reflections on what it means to be a follower of Jesus today. I recommend the book espcially to anyone who wants to read an intellectually rigorous challenge to the conclusions of those historians who wish, however tactfully, to debunk Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: The Challenge of reading this book
Review: The Challenge for reading this book was that it was an assignment. I was actually hoping to find some reviews about it here, but seeing as I am the first one, it must not be too popular. My professor likes it, I disagree however. Wright shoves his views in your face throughout this book. A lot of it is his own thoughts, either from other books he has written or just his opinion. That is okay by me, but it is supposed to be about how we can study Jesus. This book is very challenging for new Christians, such as myself, but it does encourage you to read more. Not necessarily more of this book, but possibly more of another book--the Bible. The setting of First Century Israel MUST be conceived by the reader or else it will be very hard to comprehend the book. I found it to be interesting at times, although difficult to understand the sentence structure. This book could easily be a 120 pager if wright would exclude all of his little useless phrases. To conclude, I suggest one be well along in their faith, have extreme patience, and most of all, PRAY before you start to read it. It helps if you have God behind the book when reading it. Otherwise, enjoy, and check out that other book, the Bible--it's author is pretty creative as well.

Rating:
Summary: The Challenge of Jesus
Review: The Challenge of Jesus is a more popular summary of Wright's more sholarly writings and brings a much needed balance to the flood of popular works by the Jesus Seminar and Bishop Spong. Wright brings the mind of a scholar and the heart of a pastor to this work in which helps the reader sort through the pressing questions which underly the quest for the historical Jesus. The reader will find a healthy assessment of and response to postmodernism. Wright is a exceptionally gifted writer and apologist of the Christian faith.

Rating:
Summary: FLAWED BUT EXHILARATING JOURNEY THROUGH THE MESSIANIC MIND
Review: The eschatological debate between liberal and conservative scholars is so deeply entrenched, so polarised, so emotionally charged that any reconciliation seems unlikely - at least this side of the Parousia! But what would happen if a theologian with impeccable academic credentials consciously set out to transcend these factions? The chances are, of course, that such an author would get shot at from both sides, even as both sides tried to claim him as an albeit wayward member of their own camp. And that is rather what is happening to N. T. ("Tom") Wright, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey.

Wright has recently completed the second volume of a projected six-volume re-assessment of Christ's teaching and its relationship to the early Christian Church entitled "Christian Origins and the Question of God". In the shorter book reviewed here, "The Challenge of Jesus", Wright has produced a fascinating introductory overview of his thesis that will appeal to the general reader without underselling the author's status as one of the leading British theologians of his generation.

Wright's starting point is the familiar and widely accepted truth that we must understand how Jesus and his contemporaries understood his teaching and his actions before we can apply them to our own setting. But Wright goes a stage further: Even with a sound understanding of this principle, the way the Church has traditionally acted out its mission does not do justice to the uniqueness and particularity of Jesus' works. Individual emulation of Jesus' actions and the lifestyle application of popular interpretations of his teaching, however culturally adjusted, are inadequate. In short we are not just people (plural) but the People (singular) of God. Wright's conclusion is no less than that the Church must be to the world what Israel was to the world in the Old Testament and what Jesus was to Israel in the New Testament.

That does not sound anything like as exciting or challenging at first sight as it will be once you have digested Wright's reasoning. He shows with unerring skill, both as historian and exegete, how Jesus subverted traditional Jewish symbolism and messianic expectations to supplant the Temple with his own person and position his own death as the central historical event in a new Exodus. In doing so, Wright brings together tools that will be familiar to both liberals and conservatives, and he is remarkably successful in making two important connections: Firstly, he shows in geopolitically and psychologically credible terms the connection between Jesus' actions and his death sentence. Secondly and even more strikingly, Wright shows in historically and spiritually credible terms the connection between the Jesus who walked and talked and the Christ of the Church's kerygmatic literature. The value of these achievements in a book that concurrently stresses the historic centrality of the physical death and resurrection (for which read literal re-embodiment) of Jesus Christ cannot be over-stated.

That is not to say that the book is without flaws, and one of these is particularly serious, namely inadequate handling of the Atonement. Nowhere in the book's climactic chapter, 'The Challenge of Easter' does Wright come close to explaining how Jesus' death can be the means of salvation or even transference of guilt. In fairness to the author, it is clear from passing comments elsewhere in the book that he vehemently disowns the view that Calvary was no more than an example to the infant church of the cross-bearing path it would have to follow. Nevertheless, he does not elaborate this conviction in the parts of the book where it matters most, and readers could be excused for inferring from the chapter under discussion that Jesus' painful death was little more than an inconvenient bridge he had to cross to get to his glorious resurrection.

The under-emphasis of substitutionary atonement was for me at least the most serious of several flaws including a rather too guarded analysis by the author of exactly what he means when he speaks of Christ's divinity, and in a lesser work these might have been fatal. But it really is too much to expect that any one book but the Bible itself can do justice to every strand of Christian truth. Wright's viewpoint really does represent a broader-based homage to the historical truth of the New Testament than anything else I can bring to mind. Moreover he is not just a theoretician, and in the last two chapters of the book he applies his exegesis, developing with ruthless logic the ethical challenge of an inaugurated but unfinished eschatalogical Kingdom of God. The challenge to our preconceptions, prejudices and comfort zones is deeply unsettling and yet fundamentally uplifting.

In summary, almost every one with an opinion of his or her own will find something in Wright's thesis to disagree with, but most readers of whatever persuasion should find his work challenging and rewarding. This concise introduction to the larger project is engagingly readable but full of fresh and striking insights that will stimulate both the heart and the brain. It is one of the most exciting Christian books I have read, and I would recommend it to anyone who seriously wants to get to the heart of what Jesus and his contemporaries will have understood by the "Kingdom of God".

Rating:
Summary: And You Thought You Knew the Real Jesus
Review: This is an excellent book if you want a quick overview of Wright's thought, yet you are not ready to purchase and read the books in his Christian Origins series. For most Christians, the ideas expressed in this book will be unsettling.

The goal of the book is to view Jesus (and the Gospels) from a first century Jewish perspective, not from a 16th century Reformation or 21st century Christian perspective. Wright attempts to peel away the theological and historical layers that have accumulated around the actual, historical figure of Jesus.

The sections in the book are: (1) Wright's methodology used, (2) a 1st century view/understanding of the Kingdom of God, the Parables, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, and (3) how should a 20th/21st century Christian live now they have a historically more accurate view of Jesus.

Though no biblical scholar, I have a background in theology, biblical studies, and history. I found Wright's methodology correct and refreshing. In my Interpreting the Bible class, we were pounded with the dictum that (1) we must first understand what the author of a book in the Bible thought they were saying, (2) what the intended hearers/readers thought was said, and (3) once 1 and 2 were completed accurately we should move to what does the biblical passage mean to us in the 21st century. This is exactly what this book does for the Gospel portrayal of Christ.

Wright focuses on what a 1st century Palestinian Jew living in Galilee would think if they did and said what Jesus said and did. He also looks into what a 1st century Palestinian Jew living in Galilee would think when they heard and saw what Jesus said and did.

Wright makes a good (though not obvious) point that what we Christians hear and think when reading/studying the Gospels is based on a long trail of historical interpretation of the Gospels. The Reformers interpreted the Gospels from a 15th century perspective and had very little evidence to understand the 1st century perspective. A pastor/preacher/priest giving a sermon today sees the Gospels from a historical perspective that has been changed by 20 centuries.

Based on this, how can Wright know the real Jesus? Wright and other scholars have the good fortune of living in a time when 1st century documents have come to light. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library are two examples. Both of these were discovered after 1940. Wright (and other scholars like Geza Vermes) are using these new discoveries to get a more historically accurate view of Jesus and the times he lived in.

If you are an evangelical or have an interest in Jesus, read this book! It will be unsettling and disturbing as (like me) you may find many of your cherished, long held views of Jesus undermined and dismissed. Wright is not out to destroy Jesus or the Christian religion. Wright is not out to make a name for himself by putting forth crazy theories. He is very conservative in his thinking. I think his goal is to try to discover the true meaning of Jesus and the gospels. I don't agree with everything in the book, but I agreed with much of it.

This is the rare book that makes you think. It does not contain the same re-hashed arguments and evidences. Also, the last two chapters examine what it means to live the Christian life today. Unlike most academics, Wright does not give generalities but goes into specifics where he can. This was great! I am always annoyed when I read a self-help or Christian living book and all they give are basic generalities that everyone knows. Wright does not do this, he lets the rubber hit the road and gives you much to think about on living the Christian life in the 21st century.

Rating:
Summary: In the context of Judaism, but is it really?
Review: Warning! This book could change the way you view Jesus, change the way you do theology, change the way you read your bible, shipwreck your faith, shake up your smugness, drag you to the Left, poison you with spiritual cyanide, condemn you to hell, or whatever you prefer to call it!

I would throw it in the trash, and write to Inver-Varsity that they have no business publishing a non-Trinitarian author for Christian edification. The author most assuredly does not stick to the essentials as so many reviews ignorantly claim, but undermines them seriously. With what boldness does he assert that Christ was not fully conscious of being the Second Person of the Trinity! He has said in his own words that Jesus' knowledge of his divinity is not "mathenatical knowledge" like one's knowledge of arithmetic; nor does Jesus know that he is God the same way you know you are human.

Descartes once said, "I think, therefore I am." But Wright's revisionist Jesus would never reason, "I created the world; therefore, I am God," nor, "I remember my Father, therefore I must be his Son." Apparently, Jesus' knowledge of his divinity could have only come to him by faith, in the same sense that our knowledge about God comes to us. In other words, Jesus grasped his divinity as an article of faith, not as his own infallible experience from eternity past.

While I find Wright's work a curiosity as a new wave of liberal theology, I insist that Jesus knew experientially that he was God. If, as Wright insists, the Shekinah glory came to dwell in Jesus in the same sense he had dwelt in the Temple, then it must logically follow that a meer man became God, and what we are left with is God in man's making. Jesus then would be a man who perceived a calling from God to be the Messiah, and therefore took on that calling by faith, thus believing himself to be the Messiah, and never knowing it from remembering his Father sending him before he entered his mother's womb to be conceived as a baby.

If such a thesis held, then for all I know I could be the Messiah. One way I always believed I knew I was not God was that if I was God, I would know it experientially, just the way I know I'm a man. But I don't have any recollection of ever being God. Therefore, I know I am not God. But Wright will insist that I have a serious misconception of what "God" really means. Indeed, he accuses conservative theologians of equating Jesus with the detached, uninvolved God of Deism. He makes me wonder if it is all for assuming God to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. If so, then this surely places God outside of Judaism altogether, because in Judaism, God is all of the above. Yet, as the author insists, viewing Jesus within the context of first-century Judaism will reveal a Jesus astonishingly different from the conservative Jesus.

Wright also has the audacity to assert that Luther's understanding of justification by faith is not what Paul meant, that postmodernism is justified in condemning modernism's insistence on an absolute truth, and that trying to use the truth to persuade a postmodernist is misguided. Indeed, despite all the appearances to the contrary, Wright buys into the notion that there is no such thing as absolute truth, and that all there is is perceptions. He even calls evangelicalism a form of modernism because of its insistence that the gospel is the absolute truth. He then advises that beating someone over the head with the truth is not the right way to go about missions, and that the postmodernist crisis ought to be accepted because it was inevitable. With some amazing feat of rhetoric, he manages to equate insistence on absolute truth with hate, repression, and using the ememy's own weapons. Instead of making the devil out to be a liar, Wright seems to be attributing the power of truth to the evil one.

Yet the author is right when he points out that Jesus came to fulfill a unique mission, and that to try to repeat what Jesus did would by definition be to deny the finality of what Jesus did. He warns against viewing Jesus as merely man done good, yet he somehow leaves me feeling as if conservatives are doing just that. It makes no sense whatsover that insisting that Jesus, knowing fully well that he was God, willed to die for my sins that I may have hell insurance, and retelling this over and over again to the lost, somehow reduces Jesus to a mere example, when in fact it does just the opposite. So if it makes no sense to you, then you will surely agree that this book flops.