N.T. Wright's case for the Resurrection

05/29/10 04:41 PM

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All Christians should be confident that God raised His Son Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:9-10)! If you are not confident about this fact, then I would invite you to ask questions and find answers. Enlightenment thinking has had quite a negative impact on our thinking about miracles and the supernatural. If you grew up in western culture, then you have been affected by materialism (and I do not mean wanting to buy lots of things! I mean anti-supernatural presuppositions.) Materialists (athiests/agnostics/humanists) people think it is funny and curious when we tell them that God raised Jesus from the dead. However, we are not appealing to the fancy of our imaginations, we are appealing to the testimony of history. N.T. Wright’s famous quote is ‘the christian has nothing to fear from history’. In this work Wright using ‘historical-critical’ methods analyzes the Case for the resurrection of Jesus. It is a magnum opus, a must read for 21st century dwellers.

N.T. Wright has taught at Cambridge, Oxford, Duke, McGill, etc.. He’s published 40 books. Here is a
CV excerpt, all degrees are from Oxford University:

2000 D.D.
1981 D.Phil.
1975 M.A.
1973 B.A.(1st class Honours), Theology; Denyer and Johnson Prize (shared) for top first class of year; College Prize
1971 B.A.(1st class Honours), Literae Humaniores; College Prize

Wright seems to get a lot of respect from skeptics like John Dominic Crossan (their debate is here: book, audio – note: buy the audio, don’t buy the book). I have never heard Crossan concede the empty tomb and the appearances before, but he did against Wright. In his debate (audio, book) against William Lane Craig, he denied all 4 of Craig’s minimal facts.

It is good to know how to argue for the resurrection using the minimal facts approach. The minimal facts are the handful of facts about Jesus that survive the standard historical criteria used in the evaluation of historical biographies. But Wright has a different approach.

Here is a lecture (that link has PDF transcript, audio and movies) that Wright gave on the resurrection.

N.T. Wright’s historical case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus
Wright basically argues that the resurrection could not have been a myth invented by the early Christian community, because the idea of the Messiah dying and being bodily resurrected to eternal life was completely unexpected in Jewish theology, and therefore would not have been fabricated.

In Judaism, when people die, they stay dead. At the most, they might re-appear as apparitions, or be resuscitated to life for a while, but then die again later. There was no concept of the bodily resurrection to eternal life of a single person, especially of the Messiah, prior to the general resurrection of all the righteous dead on judgment day.

Wright’s case for the resurrection has 3 parts:

1. The Jewish theological beliefs of the early Christian community underwent 7 mutations that are inexplicable apart from the bodily resurrection of Jesus
2. The empty tomb
3. The post-mortem appearances of Jesus to individuals and groups, friends and foes

Here’s the outline of Wright’s case:

…the foundation of my argument for what happened at Easter is the reflection that this Jewish hope has undergone remarkable modifications or mutations within early Christianity, which can be plotted consistently right across the first two centuries. And these mutations are so striking, in an area of human experience where societies tend to be very conservative, that they force the historian… to ask, Why did they occur?

The mutations occur within a strictly Jewish context. The early Christians held firmly, like most of their Jewish contemporaries, to a two-step belief about the future: first, death and whatever lies immediately beyond; second, a new bodily existence in a newly remade world. ‘Resurrection’ is not a fancy word for ‘life after death’; it denotes life after ‘life after death’.

And here are the 7 mutations:

1. Christian theology of the afterlife mutates from multiples views (Judaism) to a single view: resurrection (Christianity). When you die, your soul goes off to wait in Sheol. On judgment day, the righteous dead get new resurrection bodies, identical to Jesus’ resurrection body.

2. The relative importance of the doctrine of resurrection changes from being peripheral (Judaism) to central (Christianity).

3. The idea of what the resurrection would be like goes from multiple views (Judaism) to a single view: an incorruptible, spiritually-oriented body composed of the material of the previous corruptible body (Christianity).

4. The timing of the resurrection changes from judgment day (Judaism) to a split between the resurrection of the Messiah right now and the resurrection of the rest of the righteous on judgment day (Christianity).

5. There is a new view of eschatology as collaboration with God to transform the world.

6. There is a new metaphorical concept of resurrection, referred to as being “born-again”.

7. There is a new association of the concept of resurrection to the Messiah. (The Messiah was not even supposed to die, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to rise again from the dead in a resurrected body!)

There are also other historical puzzles that are solved by postulating a bodily resurrection of Jesus.

1. Jewish people thought that the Messiah was not supposed to die. Although there were lots of (warrior) Messiahs running around at the time, whenever they got killed, their followers would abandon them. Why didn’t Jesus’ followers abandon him when he died?

2. If the early Christian church wanted to communicate that Jesus was special, despite his shameful death on the cross, they would have made up a story using the existing Jewish concept of exaltation. Applying the concept of bodily resurrection to a dead Messiah would be a radical departure from Jewish theology, when an invented exaltation was already available to do the job.

3. The early church became extremely reckless about sickness and death, taking care of people with communicable diseases and testifying about their faith in the face of torture and execution. Why did they scorn sickness and death?

4. The gospels, especially Mark, do not contain any embellishments and “theology historicized”. If they were made-up, there would have been events that had some connection to theological concepts. But the narratives are instead bare-bones: “Guy dies public death. People encounter same guy alive later.” Plain vanilla narrative.

5. The story of the women who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb cannot have been invented, because the testimony of women was inadmissable under almost all circumstances at that time. If the story were invented, they would have invented male discoverers of the tomb. Female discovers would have hampered conversion efforts.

6. There are almost no legendary embellishments in the gospels, while there are plenty in the later gnostic forgeries. No crowds of singing angels, no talking crosses, and no booming voices from the clouds.

7. There is no mention of the future hope of the general resurrection, which I guess they thought was imminent anyway.
To conclude, Wright makes the argument that the best explanation of all of these changes in theology and practice is that God raised Jesus (bodily) from the dead. There is simply no way that this community would have made up the single resurrection of the Messiah – who wasn’t even supposed to die – and then put themselves on the line for that belief.

And remember, the belief in a resurrected Jesus was not a belief in a flying spaceship that was going to come and pick them up if they drank the kool-aid. This was a belief they held based on personal experiences. They were able to confirm or deny their belief in the resurrection of Jesus based on their own personal experiences with the object of those beliefs.

Additional resources

For more debates on the resurrection, see here for William Lane Craig, herefor Mike Licona, and here for Gary Habermas. I am a big fan of all these guys, but Craig hasn’t lost any resurrection debates, while Licona tied against Richard Carrier and Habermas lost against Arif Ahmed. In particular, I recommend these 3 debates:

William Lane Craig (Biola) vs Roy Hoover (Whitman College)
Mike Licona (Independent) vs Bart Ehrman (UNC Chapel Hill)
Gary Habermas (Liberty) vs Joel Marcus (Duke) – Part1, Part2, Part3

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N.T. Wright on the Resurrection

03/10/10 08:54 PM

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Craig Evans

03/09/10 07:18 PM

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I have been following Craig Evans recently and have been encouraged by His scholarship, writing, and the scores of interviews He has done with media in regards to the historical Jesus. You should check out His website and consider grabbing the book ‘The Last days of Jesus’ He co-authored with Bishop Tom Wright. A book I recently just finished by Evans is ‘Fabricating Jesus: How modern scholars distort the gospels.’ It was superb scholarship! In a day where academia continues to fabricate a new Jesus, we should feel very blessed by the true Jesus to have Dr. Evans still being true to Jesus of Nazareth. I uploaded some videos of Evans discussing His recent book with Wright, and the dead sea scrolls on my video page.
http://www.craigaevans.com/

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Test everything by scripture...even John Piper.

02/17/10 10:10 AM

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Jesus is the Bread of Life. 1 Cor 10:16-17

11/03/09 11:15 AM

Paul is referring to the unity the body of Christ possesses in the communion meal. This meal has been instituted by God in the Passover, and brought to the fullness of expression by the Lord Jesus the night before He willingly went to the cross to be our Passover lamb. Read More...

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The "Body" of Christ

09/21/09 12:42 PM

The Spiritual gifts are given by the will of the Spirit to individual members (1 Cor. 12:11). All the individual members are part of a collective whole, namely “the body of Christ.” The body of Christ is made up of many individual members. This is a beautiful metaphor Paul is using to describe our corporate connectedness, while maintaining individual identity, so that He can call on the Corinthians to both individually and corporately respond to Jesus imperative to be “unified in love” (1 Cor. 13ff.). Read More...

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God the Peacemaker

09/18/09 02:08 PM

Graham Cole was interviewed by Justin Taylor here about His forthcoming book “God the Peacemaker: How atonement brings shalom.”
Read More...

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Apostolic Preaching of the Cross

09/18/09 01:00 PM

Leon_Morris

I have been reading Leon Morris lately. It has been very encouraging to me.
Leon Morris received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge on the subject which became his first major book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. For me it has been a breath of fresh-air to read a Biblical Theologian speak of the major themes of the cross. Morris takes each word and traces the hebrew and greek, LXX and NT root of that word. He then draws out the Apostles thought forms for preaching the cross. Personally, I have been wrestling through what happened on the cross in all of its significance for the past several years. This personal wrestling came about as a result of some transgression I willfully, rebelliously, committed in my life when I was 22 yrs. For the past several years I have struggled to forgive myself for it, and the accusing voice has never stopped lying to me. So I decided not to ignore the lie, but to see if there was any substance to it. As, I read the text, and thought about what Jesus accomplished on the cross, I have come to discover that there was no substance to the lie. It was false! It would be like someone telling you 2+2=5, and then you researching and realizing, “No...2+2=4”. I realized that nothing can separate me, or anyone else for that matter, from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The biggest doctrine to impact me personally in this book by Morris is the doctrine of Reconciliation. After so clearly transgressing against my Father and alienating myself willfully from Him, I wondered to myself, “will He take me back again?” The answer I have found in scripture according to the cross, which is God’s means of reconciling the world, is YES! He pleads with me to return to Him, though I have transgressed, and committed spiritual adultery against Him, He pleads with this transgressor, “return to me!”

If you are interested in reading Dr. James Deyoung’s ETS paper on Reconciliation

Here is the outline of Leon Morris’ book.
1. Redemption
2. Covenant
3. The Blood
4-5. Propitiation
6. Reconciliation
7-8. Justification.
9. Conclusion

A bibliography of Leon Morris work, with some downloadable PDF’s.
Another book by Morris I read recently is “Testament of Love” This book traces the idea of the Love of God in both testaments. The Hebrew, LXX & Koine. Morris shows that God is chesed’ for Israel and the Nations.

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Colossians

07/14/09 02:56 PM

women

Don’t let sin silent you in speaking about Jesus! Instead, let scripture, which is inspired by God, be used by the Spirit in your life to make you more like Jesus the Son. I would really like to be more like Jesus, and the Holy Spirit would really like me to be more like Jesus too. If you are a believer you as well want to be more like Jesus, and the Spirit wants you to as well. What a glorious truth that God’s powerful will is that we be more like Jesus. I recently finished memorizing Colossians, and it was very much about Jesus! Paul records an early church Hymn (1:15-20) about Jesus. Paul says Jesus is the one He preaches (1:28) for the goal that people would become more like Jesus (1:29). He does not want His readers in Colossae, Laodicea, or anywhere else for that matter to be carried away like the spoils of war (2:8) in believing good sounding arguments that are not about Jesus. Jesus is in fact God in the flesh (2:9) and so believers in Jesus do not need anything else other than...Jesus (2:10). Because of the work of Jesus, the Father identifies believers in Jesus as “hidden in Christ” (3:3). Since God so identifies us with Jesus we will be found on the day of judgment as holy, blameless, and above reproach (1:22). That is if we remain steadfast in the faith and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel (1:23). The whole point of Paul writing His letter was to warn and encourage this new faithful church to continue to trust in Jesus and not be moved. That is definitely, most definitely, a message for us!! We as believers in Jesus have been identified with Jesus (3:3), saved from our enemies by Jesus (2:14-15), reconciled to God by Jesus (1:21-22) and are therefore to remain trusting Jesus (1:23). Where else can you go? He alone has the words of eternal life!

Let me also issue a challenge to any who are reading this. Why don’t you pick a book of the NT and memorize it? Many Jewish and Muslim followers have the Quran or Torah memorized. Why should not people who follow Jesus memorize the New Testament? There are 260 chapters in the New Testament with a total of 7,957 verses. If you memorize 4 verses a day, you would have the entire New Testament in 5 years!! Just think 5 years from now you would have the New Testament memorized and the Holy Spirit would use the scriptures to make you more like Jesus.

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Textual Criticism

06/18/09 03:26 PM

I am so deeply encouraged by my Exegesis class right now. I deeply want to learn how to read scripture well, and help others read it well, as well. I am a big advocate of entire book memorization as an aid in interpretation, and I am beginning to think it is even more important as we seek to do exegesis well. It just gives a good grid to the interpreter to have the book memorized. This bible has helped me memorize just because of it’s compactness/cleanness, and it is only $5 right now, but be warned..its a NKJV!!! It was Calvary Chapel’s fault, but there is no way I can switch from the NKJV to sumin else now. I read other translations, and enjoy the eclectic greek text, and the majority text. I have also really enjoyed studying textual criticism these last weeks. Especially in light of Bart Ehrman’s recent rise in popularity. I like the critique Dan Wallace gives of Bart. I also linked the book image above, it is $12 on CBD and it is a great introduction into a complicated field. I sometimes feel like Indiana jones or someone on the goonies when I read/think on/do textual criticism and it definitely brings out the exploring little boy in me.

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Galatians

06/02/09 09:33 AM

Galatians6

I have just finished memorizing Galatians and have spent the last couple weeks really immersing myself in the message of the book. I do not say this here to boast, but to share that the way I personally understand books of the bible best is by meditating upon them and memorizing the entirety of them. I begin to get a general context for the whole letter as I work my way through the different sections. I also receive a general understanding of the flow of the argument of the book, the big picture begins to make sense, and then the little details do as well. Paul’s attitude toward the church which was being “led astray” and his attitude toward the leaders who lead astray is different. His attitude towards the church is shock, concern, and worry that they do not understand the point of the Law and the new life of adoption they have received through the Holy Spirit. Paul’s attitude towards the leaders is “wishing, they would cut off there penises.” Paul is adamant that the Galatians are nor longer to find there relational access point to God through the law. They are instead adopted into the very family of God and are to relate to Him, through the Spirit, in light of His salvation historical work through Jesus, by faith. Jesus has come in the perfect “time” and Paul, as well as all who have been baptized into Christ, have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer they who live but Christ who lives in them. Paul wants to make sure that the Galatians do not set aside God’s salvation from the curse of the law. How has God saved these Galatians from the curse of the law? He has enacted a new way of relating to Him, by faith, through the Spirit. Paul’s shock comes in understanding that since God has made something better, how can the Galatians go back to relating to God through the former? Paul has derogatory things to say about the law; He calls the law Hagar. He says the law gives birth to bondage. He says the law is a tutor for little kids, but after we “grow up” we don’t need it any more. He calls it “weak and beggarly elements.” Paul says that “those who attempt to be justified by law have fallen from grace, and become estranged from Christ!” It is theological error to look to the law for salvation. Paul said He “withstood Peter to His face” in front of a bunch of people. From all this data, I gather that Paul really believed that Jesus death (which He boasted in) changed the way we relate to God. It is God’s will to deliver us from this present evil age through the new covenant (not old covenant) promises in Christ, which Paul adds were even given to Abraham, and those who truly want to be sons of Abraham, will relate to God by faith as well. Those who want to be in bondage, immature, cursed, estranged from Jesus, and associated with Hagar (unclean) should go on relating to God through the law. Those who want to be free, mature, blessed, adopted by Jesus, and associated with Abraham and the true Israel of God should begin sowing to the Spirit and relating to God by faith.

This is a really good outline on Galatians by Richard Longenecker

1. SALUTATION (1:1–5)
2. REBUKE SECTION (1:6–4:11)
3. OCCASION FOR WRITING/ISSUES AT STAKE (EXORDIUM) (1:6–10)
4. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS IN DEFENSE (NARRATIO) 1:11–2:14
5. THESIS STATEMENT (1:11–12)
6. EARLY LIFE, CONVERSION AND COMMISSION (1:13–17)
7. FIRST VISIT TO JERUSALEM (1:18–24)
8. SECOND VISIT TO JERUSALEM (2:1–10)
9. THE ANTIOCH EPISODE (2:11–14)
10. THE PROPOSITION OF GALATIANS (PROPOSITIO) (2:15–21)
11. ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT (PROBATIO) (3:1–4:11)
12. RIGHTEOUSNESS APART FROM THE LAW: AGAINST LEGALISM (3:1–18)
13. ARGUMENTS FROM EXPERIENCE (3:1–5)
14. ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE (3:6–14)
A. Ad Hominem Theological Arguments (3:15–18)
B. The Believer’s Life not “under Law” but “in Christ”: Against Nomism (3:19–4:7)
15. THE PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF THE LAW (3:19–25)
16. NEW RELATIONSHIPS “IN CHRIST” (3:26–29)
17. AN ILLUSTRATION OF RELATIONSHIPS (4:1–7)
18. PAUL’S CONCERN FOR THE GALATIANS (4:8–11)
19. REQUEST SECTION (4:12–6:10)
20. EXHORTATIONS AGAINST THE JUDAIZING THREAT (EXHORTATIO, PART I) (4:12–5:12)
21. PERSONAL APPEALS (4:12–20)
A. The Hagar-Sarah Allegory (4:21–31)
22. HOLDING FAST TO FREEDOM (5:1–12)
23. EXHORTATIONS AGAINST LIBERTINE TENDENCIES (EXHORTATIO, PART II) (5:13–6:10)
24. LIFE DIRECTED BY LOVE, SERVICE TO OTHERS, AND THE SPIRIT (5:13–18)
25. THE WORKS OF THE FLESH AND THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT (5:19–26)
A. Doing Good to All (6:1–10)
26. SUBSCRIPTION (6:11–18)

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New Perspective on Paul

05/21/09 10:17 AM

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Tags: rants, thinking, upset, stoked, blessed, wierd worldthinking

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Reconciliation and Geerhardus Vos

05/21/09 10:16 AM

I recently have been reading Geerhardus Vos who was the father of Reformed Biblical Theology. He was born in 1862 in the Netherlands. He attended the theological school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then went to Princeton Seminary, and eventually received his doctorate at Strassburg. After a brief teaching stint at Grand Rapids Vos returned to Princeton as the first chair of Biblical Theology. He remained at Princeton for 39 years. Throughout his career Vos fought against liberalism at every step, especially on such issues as the kingdom of God and Jesus' Messianic self-consciousness. After retiring, Vos lived in California before returning to Grand Rapids, where he died in 1949 at the age of 87. Here is a great article by Vos on reconciliation It is interesting that He is identified with the reformed camp so often. The article deals with the two main passages in Paul for reconciliation ( 2 Cor 5:18-21; Romans 5:8-11). I am currently preparing a paper on atonement and will focus even more on the objective nature of the reconciliation aspect of atonement. My hypothesis is this, that God is reconciled to the world but that the world is not reconciled to God. I take that from several passages, and from the kerygma (gospel speeches) in Acts, we know "There is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." I think, God is pleading with people (through the church) to be forgiven on the merits of Jesus substitutionary death (2 cor 5:21), if people turn to God they must do it through the person and work of Jesus (mediator of reconciliation). If people repent and trust Jesus for salvation they are doing this in cooperation with the Holy Spirit who, I think, is convicting the world to be reconciled to God through Jesus.

Tags: rants, thinking, upset, stoked, blessed, wierd worldblessed

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Crucified with Christ

05/20/09 04:33 PM

"I have been crucified with Christ." What is Paul trying to communicate about himself, and every christians experience? Paul is arguing that since God ratified the new covenant in Jesus death some things have changed.

Paul argues that believers are released from the jurisdiction of the Mosaic law. Paul shows this in four ways: (1) that it was the law’s purpose to bring about its own demise in legislating the lives of God’s people (Gal 3); (2) that such a jurisdictional demise was necessary in order that believers in Christ might live more fully in relationship with God (Gal 2:20c); (3) that freedom from the law’s jurisdiction is demanded by the death of Christ on the cross (2:21c); and (4) that by identification with Christ we experience the freedom from the law that he accomplished (2:20b).

Do you know that since Jesus died you are no longer to relate to God through the mosaic law? How then are you to relate to the One-Trinitarian God of Israel? By faith. Is this easy? No! Give people the checklist...that is easy. We must exalt in the communal mind of the church the new covenant God has made with us through Christ! We must in community enter into a loving, worshipful, responsive relationship with the living God. He has made a way for us so that we may enter in through it. The Trinity has not gone through the death of the cross, and relational separation so that we can admire the way opened for us without entering into it!!! We who do not enter such a new and living way are much worse than the wilderness wanderers who did not enter the promised land (Heb 10:28-29). The Land is much better, the cost much higher, and the revelational weight much heavier. Post-cross people are without excuse and will be cut-off if they do not by faith enter in to all God has done for them in Jesus. Obeying the gospel is not an option, or an invitation, it is a divine command (Acts 17:31, 2 Thess 1:8-12).

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Jesus is LORD!

04/30/09 01:17 PM

One thing I have been thinking about modern day gospel presentations is that they tend to lack the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. Many sermons talk about Jesus as the Lord, but the implication is not always carried out to the listener. For example...why would we invite someone to “make” Jesus there Lord? An invitation to “receive” Jesus as Lord is also an implicit denial of Jesus Lordship. Jesus is already the Lord of everyone, and this was the message of the early church (Acts 2:36, 17:31). Therefore, people changing there minds about Jesus as Lord is not a suggestion but a divine command (Acts 17:31). This is what it means to repent in the words of Gerry Breshears, “a change of mind about who is God around here.” Obedience to the command brings salvation (Rom 10:9). Disobedience to the command to repent about Jesus results in eternal punishment in hell (2 Thess 1:8-10). It is better to proclaim Jesus as Lord, then to “invite” people to make Jesus Lord. God the Father has made Jesus Lord and appointed Him to bring salvation to the repentant and judgment to the unrepentant (Jn 5:22-29). If the Father has made Jesus Lord can we cancel that? I understand our modern day invitation, but I think it undercuts the Father’s approval of Jesus.
Jesus is the Lord of everyone whether someone submits to Him or not. That is why one day every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God (Ph 2:9-11). The news of Jesus as Lord should bring with it both fear and hope. If it does not bring fear then the hope will not be felt, if it does not bring hope then the fear has been overemphasized.

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Jesus death

02/01/09 09:36 AM

I am slowly narrowing my focus of what I will be doing for my Masters level thesis. At first thought I would like to write “A biblical theology of the atonement,” simply because I think my exegesis of New Testament atonement passages are not as thoroughly connected to the Old Testament atonement passages and I am therefore missing something of the thought forms of the Jewish (Paul, Peter, Hebrews) writers of the NT. But I think this topic would be to broad in scope. So I am still trying to narrow in on a particular aspect of the atonement. I am very interested in Jesus as the mercy seat in Romans 3:25. I think the ramifications of this for gospel preaching, systematic theology, and biblical interpretation are cosmically large. So large, I do not want to miss what it is saying. What is the author seeking to communicate in Romans 3:25 when He says “God put Jesus forward as a “hilasterion” by his blood, to be recieved by faith. I have been doing some research and have found that a man did His Ph.D work on this very topic at the university of cambridge in 1999. So now I am thinking maybe His work will satisfy me and launch me in an even more nuanced direction. I am going to try to get a hold of him. Please think well with me about what God was doing when Jesus went to the cross and how his death instituted the new covenant. Wow! God is good! He is very good and gracious to us!

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