N.T. Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham (England) and also a leading scriptural scholar. (By the way, for some reason he doesn’t use his full name when writing and publishing – the N.T. stands for Nicholas Thomas.) I’ve been wanting to read a sample of his work, and "The Challenge of Jesus" was a good choice. It is an abbreviated version, with some new material on the resurrection, of his book "Jesus and the Victory of God." And that book is the second of a projected six volume series! So this book is not really designed for other scholars, but for serious amateurs!
In the preface, Wright outlines the three goals of the book: (1) maintain historical integrity, (2)examine how Christian discipleship flows from following Jesus, and (3) how we are to be for the contemporary world, what Jesus was to Israel?
There are eight chapters, with the first six taken up with Who was Jesus? (Of course this is the question, isn’t it? How many books have been written addressing that question?) He looks at the historical Jesus as he would have appeared to a first century Palestinian Jew. Some of Wright’s commentary looks at Jesus’ understanding of his Messiahship (P. 89), Jesus Messiahship and his followers understanding of divinity (P. 110), Jesus as the new Exodus (P. 115).
In Wright’s view, Jesus self-understanding and the understanding of his followers (post resurrection)is that Jesus replaces the Jewish concept of incarnation – the physical Temple and the Torah – with Jesus as the living word of God.
Chapter six is entitled "The Challenge of Easter" and here Wright defends the resurrection as an historical event – something in history, not "outside" of history, or "transcending" history, or just a psychological resurrection in the minds of Jesus’ followers. Wright doesn’t have much time for trendy groups like "The Jesus Seminar" who come up with brilliant insights like Jesus’ body was probably eaten by wild dogs (That’s former Catholic priest John Dominic Crossan’s theory).
The last two chapters address the practical difficulties of trying to be a disciple in the post-modern world, where scepticism reigns supreme. He offers a wonderful interpretation of the Lucan story of the disciples on their way to Emmaus. For Wright, Jesus stands as Lord; not Marx, Freud or Nietzsche.
So this is a very good book; not a great book, but solid scholarship and thoughtful reflections on Christian discipleship in today’s world.
For me, the best short, thorough study of modern scriptural views about Jesus is the late Fr. Raymond Brown’s "An Introduction to New Testament Christology". Brown was a great scholar and he pours his years of study into 210 pages of solid analysis and thinking. If you are interested in this kind of academic study – designed for serious, thinking amateurs, without "The Jesus Seminar" baloney – read Brown first.
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