New Perspectives on N.T. Wright

By Paul Taylor, 21 June, 2011

By Paul TaylorDirector of Ministry DevelopmentCreation Science Evangelism (www.drdino.com)
N.T. Wright is an English theologian and Anglican clergyman. From 2003 through 2010, he was Bishop of Durham the fourth most senior position in the Church of England (after the Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, and the Bishopric of London), entitling him, while in office, to take a seat in the House of Lords.
The post of Bishop of Durham has traditionally been granted to someone with a reputation in academic theology. One of Wright's predecessors was David Jenkins: the unbelieving bishop, who denied the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Jesus. In contrast, Wright assumed his post with the reputation of a conservative evangelical. A mark of his conservatism was his announcement, in the controversy over homosexual marriage in the Church of England, that he would take disciplinary action against any clergy registering as civil partners or any clergy blessing such partnerships.[1] Wright has been a frequent speaker at conservative evangelical conferences in the UK notably Word Alive, Spring Harvest and Keswick. His reputation at such events has always been as reformed or Calvinist in theology.
Wright's conservative evangelical credentials make it all the more concerning that his influence as a sort-of elder statesman of conservative theology gives him a major influence on both sides of the Atlantic. His association with the BioLogos foundation has brought a new respectability to theistic evolutionism within theologically conservative circles.
Wright's views on Adam and on Paul are of particular concern. There is a subtlety to the way that modern theologians are denying important biblical truths. Instead of actually denying them outright, they seek to quarantine the doctrine, maintaining that it is not important. Rather than argue against a particular doctrine, they can then simply ignore it. The former bishop does this with the historicity of Paul.
In a BioLogos video on Genesis, Wright says this:
The question of when Genesis was written is hugely controversial. Some way Moses wrote it about 1500BC, and some, perhaps, suggest it was written in the 3rd Century BC.[2]
This statement is disingenuous. One of the authorities that we could quote as suggesting that Moses wrote Genesis would be Jesus! (Luke 24:27 etc.) As an evangelical, Wright should have offered this analysis.
But Wright is not interested in who wrote Genesis.
I'm interested in the way people would have read it in the period immediately before the New Testament.
This also is disingenuous. How people at Jesus' time read Genesis is irrelevant though, in fact, I am convinced that they would have read it as historical fact, not the way that Wright suggests. Even so, the real issue is what did the original author intend. AIM! Author's Initial Meaning.
To someone like Wright, the AIM is not important. It is a sort-of post-modern view. What matters is how it reads now or then. Wright maintains that Jesus' immediate antecedents would have read the story of Adam and the expulsion from Eden and read it as an allegory of Israel and the Exile to Babylon. In this way, he can argue that the original historicity of Adam is actually irrelevant. He concludes the video with a sideswipe at young earth creationists.
If people say "what really matters about Genesis is precisely how many days it took and how young the earth is etc.", it doesn't feel to me as though you are reading the text or you are reading something that you have turned the text into, rather than the text itself.
What a nifty piece of theological tap-dancing, worthy of a veritable academic Astaire! It's those pesky young earth creationists who are the ones who are not reading the text properly! But Wright's statement has at least two problems. First, he has made it necessary to know his background theory, before you can understand the text. That turns the former bishop into a modern-day Pope, without whom the Bible is unintelligible. Second, he accuses creationists of being concerned with "precisely how many days it took". That is not our concern. Our concern is "precisely what God said He did".
In a second BioLogos video, Wright turns his attention to the historicity of Adam in Paul's writing specifically, Romans 5. He launches into a long polemic on what he believes Paul's purpose in Romans 5 was. He says that Paul has been referring to Abraham and his family, and that Paul has made the death and resurrection of Jesus as really finding Abraham a worldwide forgiven family.
So Paul is taking a step back to the big picture of Genesis and is saying that the whole problem, which started way back, has now been addressed. Abraham's family was there to deal with the problem of Adam. So Paul says "this is how the Adam problem gets dealt with". Jesus the Messiah is there to represent Israel. Thus the historicity of Adam is not central to the theology. It is what Adam represents, which ultimately is revealed through Christ, who shows his faithfulness by keeping the original covenant between Israel and God the Father.[3]
In both Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, it is clear that Paul believes there to be a real, historical figure called Adam. Now, clever Dr. Wright has told us that it doesn't matter whether Paul believed that or not!
In such subtle ways, a man with a reputation as a conservative evangelical gently undermines scripture. You see there are deeper issues with this interpretation of Romans 5. Does it really matter if the "theology" behind Romans 5 is true, if the actual factual basis is false? Of course it does! How can we trust a writer of inspired scripture, if he is factually wrong? It is not good enough to say that it doesn't matter whether he was wrong or not.
The correct way to interpret Romans 5, I submit, is to believe what Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes. Paul compares Jesus to Adam. This is because Adam was a real person who committed a real sin in a real garden, from which he was really expelled. Conservative evangelical churches and colleges are being taken in by a quietly spoken, academically sounding seducer, who is spreading doubt through the constituency that should be most trusting and most knowledgeable about God's word.