Michael Bird

Oda Wischmeyer on the “Grandness” of N.T. Wright with a Review of God and the Faithfulness of Paul

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Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed reading through God and the Faithfulness of Paul (edited by Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt, and Michael F. Bird), which contains many excellent responses to N.T. Wright‘s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Hence, after providing a key excerpt—in English and German—from Oda Wischmeyer (Eng) on the “grandness” of N.T. Wright, this post will also include some brief comments on the chapters written by German-language-sphere scholars. On another note, readers of this blog may be interested in participating in the 2016 Mainz Summer School in German (and) Theology.

I. Oda Wischmeyer on the “Grandness” of N.T. Wright

I both profited from and greatly enjoyed co-translating (with Christoph Heilig) Oda Wischmeyer‘s chapter in God and the Faithfulness of Paul. What I found so remarkable was the honest and profound way that she was able to interact with both N.T. Wright’s work and her own academic tradition (cf. Christoph Heilig’s comments on Wischmeyer’s essay). Unlike many of us—whether we are Wright’s adoring admirers, sharp critics, or somewhere in between—Wischmeyer seemed to be entirely comfortable in her own shoes when discussing Wright and his work, so that she was able both to reflect on her own tradition with great insight and self-awareness and to draw out striking aspects of N.T. Wright’s work in a way that was both appreciative and critical in the best sense of the word. I don’t know why exactly this is the case. Perhaps it is because Prof. Wischmeyer herself is a senior scholar who has nothing to prove. Or perhaps it is simply because her hermeneutical approach has given her better tools for observing and reflecting on what is going on with Wright and in her own tradition. Whatever the reason, I found the tone and content of her essay to be both refreshing and illuminating. Let me turn then to my key excerpt, alternating between the English translation and the German original for those who are learning—or seeking to revive their—German:

GFP 74: Exactly one hundred years after the publication of Wilhelm Bousset’s great Paul article in the first edition of Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, N. T. Wright in his two-volume work Paul and the Faithfulness of God has again struck that sonorous tone which one could probably last hear in Germany in the the Pauline research of the history of religion school. …

Genau hundert Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des großen Paulus-Artikels von Wilhelm Bousset in der ersten Auflage der “Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart” hat N.T. Wright in seinem zweiteiligen Werk „Paul and the Faithfulness of God“ wieder jenen klangvollen Ton angeschlagen, den man in Deutschland wohl zuletzt in der Paulusforschung der Religionsgeschichtlichen Schule hören konnte…

GFP 74: At the first reading of Wright, it is the perception of the lofty tone, the liveliness of the historical narration and methodological discussion, and finally the certainty, elegance, and joy in the details of the presentation that excites an exegete who comes from the Bultmann school. …

Es ist die Wahrnehmung des hochgestimmten Tones, der Lebendigkeit der historischen Erzählung wie der methodischen Diskussion und schließlich der Sicherheit, Eleganz und Detailfreude der Darstellung, die eine Exegetin, die aus der Bultmannschule kommt, bei der ersten Lektüre von Wright begeistert. …

GFP 75: Wright writes today as Bousset … wrote a hundred years ago and as one does not write in contemporary German-language exegesis. …

Wright schreibt heute, wie Bousset … vor hundert Jahren schrieb und wie in der zeitgenössischen deutschsprachigen Exegese nicht geschrieben wird. …

GFP 76: For “German” ears or, more specifically, for a hermeneutical perception from the German-language exegetical tradition it is first—this deserves to be repeated once more—Wright’s tone or style that demands our full attention. …

Für „deutsche“ Ohren bzw. für eine hermeneutische Wahrnehmung aus der deutschsprachigen exegetischen Tradition ist es – es sei noch einmal wiederholt – zuerst der Ton oder der Stil Wrights, der alle Aufmerksamkeit beansprucht. …

GFP 76: Behind the pages of Wright we hear Handel’s music and Shakespeare’s language and we might not only be impressed by the force and energy of the presentation, but even saddened, or at least discontent, that we ourselves have lost this tone so completely and can no longer rhetorically orchestrate “grandness.”

Wir hören hinter den Seiten Wrights Händels Musik und Shakespeares Sprache und sind unter Umständen nicht nur beeindruckt von der Wucht und Energie der Darstellung, sondern auch betrübt oder mindestens unzufrieden, dass uns selbst dieser Ton so ganz abhandengekommen ist und wir „Größe“ nicht mehr rhetorisch instrumentieren können.

GFP 76: Or we react critically and regard this tone as too pious, too triumphalistic, too self-assured, not analytical enough—depending on our own academic background.

Oder wir reagieren kritisch und halten diesen Ton für zu fromm, zu triumphalistisch, zu selbstgewiss, zu wenig analytisch – je nach unserer eigenen akademischen Prägung.

GFP 76: Precisely these signals should be observed hermeneutically.

Gerade diese Signale gilt es hermeneutisch aufzufangen.

II. Review of Chapters by German-Language-Sphere Scholars

* For the complete table of contents, see here.

In “Paul and the Faithfulness of God among Pauline Theologies” Benjamin Schliesser (Eng) effectively situates Wright’s contribution in relation to the Pauline theologies of Bultmann, Dunn, Schreiner, Wolter, and Schnelle, displaying a remarkable gift of synthesis (cf. also his 2013 German article).

In “N.T. Wright’s Biblical Hermeneutics” Oda Wischmeyer (Eng) discusses both the history and present situation of German-language Pauline scholarship and the biblical hermeneutics of N.T. Wright.

In “Wright’s Version of Critical Realism” Andreas Losch offers a valuable discussion of “critical realism” in relation to the works of Ian Barbour, Bernard Lonergan, Ben F. Meyer, and N.T. Wright. Whether or not his thesis that Wright’s “critical realism” was initially developed with respect to Barbour and only associated with Lonergan/Meyer secondarily is correct (Wright rejects it [p. 718]), I found this chapter to be a helpful presentation of different versions of “critical realism” and benefited from Losch’s own assessment of the value and limitations of this approach.

In “Historical Methodology” Theresa Heilig and Christoph Heilig (Eng) provide a careful discussion of abduction, inference to the best explanation, and Bayesian confirmation, which includes a systematic analysis of the crucial issues in the debate between Barclay and Wright over whether Paul is criticizing the Roman empire (pp. 145-148)

In “Wright’s Paul and the Paul of Acts” Eve-Marie Becker (Eng) argues from the perspective of recent advances in historiography that Wright should have taken greater account of Acts as a source for Paul, suggesting, inter alia, that such an approach would have preventing him from problematically failing to incorporate Paul’s activities as miracle worker into his overall portrayal of Paul (pp. 160-161). In some respects her argument reminded me of perspectives advanced in Benjamin White’s important book.

In “N.T. Wright’s Narrative Approach” Joel R. White provides a sympathetic presentation and defense of much of what Wright is doing (e.g. he defends “the existence of a common first-century Jewish metanarrative highlighting God’s faithfulness to Israel in spite of her ‘ongoing exile'”), while also criticizing Wright at specific points (e.g. his treatment of apocalyptic language in relation to the notion of cosmic cataclysm, pp. 198-199). Significantly, at certain points White made me feel the force of Wright’s vision to a greater extent than Wright himself has done!

In “N.T. Wright’s Understanding of Justification and Redemption” (trans. Lars Kierspel), Peter Stuhlmacher both challenges key elements of Wright’s interpretation (e.g. the validity of his controlling narrative; cf. John Barclay, Alexandra Brown, and Chris Tilling [part I]; but see also Joel R. White’s defense of this metanarrative) and, perhaps more importantly, provides a compact and eloquent presentation of his own views on sacrifice and justification in critical dialogue with Wright (cf. Christoph Heilig’s comments on Stuhlmacher’s essay).

In “God and His Faithfulness in Paul” Torsten Jantsch (Eng) both presents a very helpful discussion of the history of research on God in Paul and compactly outlines aspects of the “concept of God” in Romans in critical dialogue with N.T. Wright (cf. also here). In my judgment Jantsch’s chapter would be an excellent place to start for anyone interested in recent (German) research on God (in Paul). It complements well Jochen Flebbe’s fine monograph on God in Romans.

In “Demythologizing Apocalyptic?” Jörg Frey (Eng) provides both an extensive discussion of recent perspectives on apocalyptic and a hard-hitting critique of Wright’s treatment of apocalyptic, which he regards as a “neutralizing” or “taming” of apocalyptic. In particular, Frey stresses that there is no need to deny that Paul drew on mythological concepts such as the idea of an end of the world and personally reckoned with the return of Christ during his lifetime (p. 526; cf. Joel R. White’s comments on pp. 198-199; cf. also Paula Fredriksen; Larry Hurtado). In his lengthy response Wright emphasizes the extent of their agreement (744-745, 748), differentiates between 6 forms of apocalyptic (pp. 745-748), denies the charge of neutralizing/taming (751), and responds to their primary disagreement about whether or not Paul’s “end-of-the-world” language is concerned with the end of the world as well as the relationship between this question and the early Christian conviction that Jesus the Messiah would return from heaven (748-754).

In “The Faithfulness of God and Its Effects on Faithful Living” Volker Rabens investigates Tom Wright’s portrayal of Paul’s ethics. In addition to providing a valuable discussion of Wright’s treatment of “plight” and “solution”, Rabens develops an especially perceptive critique that warns against Wright’s tendency to give pride of place to cognitive renewal and presses Wright to give greater attention to relational transformation and, more specifically, to “the transforming and empowering transferal by the Spirit into loving relationships to the divine and the community of faith” (p. 577; cf. Wright’s response on 729, 762 and 766).

In “Barth, Wright, and Theology” Sven Ensminger provides a concise sketch of Barth’s treatment of revelation, religion, and Christology with some points of comparison with N.T. Wright. Ensminger seeks to contribute to the question of the relationship between biblical studies and theology (658), and gives particular attention to the following question: “to what extent can God be bracketed out of theological reflection about a key figure of the Christian church such as Paul in order to consider him as a historical figure with his socio-political background?” (p.656). See also my post Sven Ensminger on N.T. Wright, Karl Barth, and the Aufhebung of Religion.

In “Evangelism and the Mission of the Church” Eckhard J. Schnabel tackles a range of topics related to evangelism and mission, including a) a challenge to Wright’s suggestion that Paul wanted to visit places “where Caesar’s power was the strongest” (p. 688), b) the interpretation of Gal 2:7-9 (691-692), c) the validity of the language of “conversion” (692-696; but cf. 759), d) the meaning of gospel (796; but cf. 729), and e) a critique of Wright’s alleged repetition of caricatures of missionaries (700-704; but cf. 757-758).

Finally, if I could mention only one of the many fine essays by English-language-sphere scholars—I realize, of course, that some of the scholars could be classified in both groups—I would highlight Gregory Sterling‘s chapter “Wisdom or Foolishness? The Role of Philosophy in the Thought of Paul”. Sterling shows genuine appreciation for N.T. Wright’s treatment of philosophy, while suggesting, inter alia, that Wright has not given sufficient attention to the later Platonic tradition and specifically to what we call Middle Platonism. Among other observations, I found Sterling’s discussion of prepositional metaphysics to be especially illuminating (cf. here). More generally, I found his chapter to be a very helpful introduction to recent scholarship on philosophy and early Christianity, and I will certainly return to it (for N. T. Wright’s very positive response to Sterling’s essay, see p. 754-756).

For more posts on GFP, see here and here.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! I hope to be able to write at least one Monday blog post each month. Best, Wayne

Rehabilitating F. C. Baur with Jens Schröter and Matthew Hopper

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While looking through my Mohr Siebeck catalogue, I was pleased to learn of a forthcoming volume entitled Ferdinand Christian Baur und die Geschichte des frühen Christentums (eds. Martin Bauspiess, Christof Landmesser, and David Lincicum). Sharing David Lincicum’s high estimation of Baur’s importance (see here; cf. here, here, and here), this post will attempt to prepare the way for this forthcoming volume by “rehabilitating” Baur in two respects, namely (1) in relation to his pioneering appropriation of historiographical insights and (b) in relation to his relationship to Hegel. To do so, I will take my initial orientation from two quotations from Jens Schröter’s book Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament / From Jesus to the New Testament.

1) Baur and Historiography

From Jesus to the New Testament (p. 320): “These exegetical-historical conclusions were obtained on the basis of the conviction that historical individual-appearances can only be understood by discovering their inner connection. As isolated individual phenomena, by contrast, they remain mute. In early Christianity, Baur saw such a connection in the opposition between Pauline and Petrine parties, whose views were then conciliated with each other. Even if this view was subsequently clearly differentiated with regard to the positions represented in early Christianity, the lasting significance of Baur lies in the thoroughgoing application of the principles of historical research to the beginnings of Christianity. He thereby laid the methodological foundations for all subsequent conceptions of a history of Christianity.” (cf. pp. 15-18, 27, 29, 31, 39, 319-21).

Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament ( p. 346): “Diese exegetisch-historischen Ergebnisse sind auf der Grundlage der Überzeugung gewonnen, das geschichtliche Einzelerscheinungen nur dadurch verstanden werden können, dass man ihren inneren Zusammenhang aufdeckt. Als isolierte Einzelphänomene bleiben sie dagegen stumm. Im Urchristentum sah Baur einen solchen Zusammenhang im Gegenüber der paulinischen und petrinischen Partei, deren Auffassungen dann miteinander vermittelt worden seien. Auch wenn diese Sicht im Blick auf die im Urchristentum vertretenen Positionenen später deutlich ausdifferenziert wurde, liegt die bleibende Bedeutung Baurs darin, die Prinzipien historischer Forschung konsequent auf die Anfänge des Christentums angewandt zu haben. Er hat damit die methodischen Grundlagen für alle späteren Entwürfe einer Geschichte des Urchristentum gelegt.”

2) Baur and Hegel

From Jesus to the New Testament (p. 320n6): “By contrast it is inappropriate, as unfortunately often occurs, to dismiss Baur’s contribution with the observation that he forced Hegel’s philosophy of history onto the history of early Christianity. The article on the Corinthian Letters, in which he submitted his view for the first time, was written before Baur became familiar with Hegel’s writings. Cf. Hodgson 1966, 22.”

Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament   (p. 346n6): “Dagegen ist es unangemessen, was leider oft geschieht, Baurs Beitrag mit dem Hinweis abzutun, er habe der Geschichte des Urchristentums Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie aufgezwungen. Der Aufsatz über die Korintherbriefe, in dem er seine Sicht zum ersten Mal vorlegte, wurde geschrieben, bevor Baur mit Hegels Schriften bekannt wurde. Vgl. Hodgson, Historical Theology, 22.”

3) Substantive Analysis

My purpose here is not to rehabilitate Baur at every point. On the contrary, I think that fundamental aspects of his project have rightly been called into question. I do, however, think that it is unhelpful when a towering figure like Baur is set aside with dismissive slogans rather than engaged with in a critical and constructive manner. Against this background, I was somewhat frustrated to read the following statement in David Wenham’s forward to the important work Earliest Christian History: History, Literature, and Theology: Essays from the Tyndale Fellowship in Honour of Martin Hengel (eds. M. Bird and J. Maston): “Baur’s Hegelian analysis of the history of early Christianity and of the New Testament as a conflict between the Jewish Christianity of Peter and others and the Hellenistic Christianity of Paul was very influential, very damaging to traditionally orthodox Christian faith, but deeply flawed, as has been almost universally recognized since” (my emphasis). And I experienced comparable disappointment upon reading the similar statement of Daniel B. Wallace in his otherwise enjoyable blog post in memory of Martin Hengel: “These 19th-century scholars, especially Baur, applied Hegelian dialectic to New Testament studies (i.e., thesis vs. antithesis, struggling with each other end up resulting in a synthesis of both). Baur had been one of Hegel’s students; he applied this dialectic to the authorship of the NT writings, resulting in seeing only four authentic letters by Paul and seeing John as written sometime after 160 CE” (my emphasis). The problem with these quotations is not that Baur is beyond reproach. He is not! The problem is that Baur’s contribution is too quickly sloganized and dismissed by means of a somewhat inaccurate – or at least grossly oversimplified – attribution of his views to the influence of Hegel, which inevitably prevents the productive aspects of his approach from being appreciated and appropriated, for example his appropriation of advances in historiography (cf. FJNT, p.16). In fact, it could be added that in this respect F. C. Baur and Martin Hengel could be compared rather than contrasted with each other (cf. Hengel, “Eye-Witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels”, pp. 93-95)! Let me conclude by noting that my own stance toward Baur was greatly shaped through my supervision of Matthew Hopper’s learned and spirited MA Thesis “Historical Theology as the Crossroads of Faith and Reason: The Contribution of Ferdinand Christian Baur”, which he completed in 2008. While my enthusiasm for Baur does not extend as far as my student’s, I remain indebted to Mathew Hopper for giving me a much greater appreciation for this Tübingen giant. Needless to say, I look forward to learning more about Baur’s achievements and shortcomings from the forthcoming volume Ferdinand Christian Baur und die Geschichte des frühen Christentums.

For some other posts on F. C. Baur in the blogosphere, see here.

For my other posts on Jens Schröter and historiography, see here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

For two interviews with me about the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Series, see Clifford Kvidahl and Michael Hölscher.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! In an effort to provide a sense of regularity and predictability for this blog’s readership, I plan on writing a new post each Monday. So hopefully I will ‘see’ you again in a week’s time. Best, Wayne.