A Review of The Gospel on the Margins by Michael Kok

    Michael Kok’s book The Gospel on the Margins (Fortress Press, 2015) is the publication of the author’s PhD dissertation from the University of Sheffield. Opening with a consideration of the relative obscurity of the gospel of Mark in the first centuries of Christianity, Kok develops an intriguing thesis of the origin of the patristic tradition: the gospel is not in fact Mark’s collection of the memoirs of Peter but rather an anonymous first-century text whose apostolicity was asserted by the early church fathers in an attempt to claim the text for “centrist Christianity” and nullify its use by more radical Christian groups. The Markan-Petrine connection was fabricated in order to reclaim the text for what would become orthodoxy (though Kok prefers to avoid the term). Exemplifying thorough scholarship and judicious conclusions, Kok’s book is well worth the read for students of the second gospel. However, it does not provide compelling reason to rethink the patristic tradition of the gospel’s authorship by Mark and connection with Peter. I will proceed chapter by chapter through The Gospel on the Margins and highlight the points at which Kok’s argument may be fairly challenged.
    Chapter 1 contains an examination of arguments against the patristic tradition. Kok covers objections from form criticism, redaction and narrative criticism, and historical criticism, finding most of them overstated if not unsuccessful. While Kok’s treatment of the gospel’s alleged geographical and historical blunders is remarkably sympathetic, he emphasizes the negative portrayal of the Twelve as a key reason to doubt the gospel’s alleged connection with Peter. He fleshes this out in the next chapter.
    Chapter 2 is the counterpart of the first, examining the arguments in favor of Markan authorship that have been proposed by recent conservative scholars like Hengel, Gundry, and Bauckham. While Kok’s engagement with their work is thorough and supplies plenty of welcome correctives to overly optimistic conservative arguments—especially Bauckham’s “inclusio of eyewitness testimony”—not every rebuttal is of the same quality. But rather than gripe about Kok’s less compelling takes, I will focus on the negative portrayal of the Twelve. That the gospel goes out of its way to record the disciples’ “extraordinary powers of incomprehension” and “lapses in judgment” is the primary reason Kok gives for doubting the traditional authorship of Mark’s gospel. This is quite important to his thesis, as strong grounds for accepting traditional authorship would render the latter half of the book irrelevant. As Kok himself admits (16), “if there is historical substance behind the Papian tradition, there is no reason whatsoever to pursue a different solution for why the patristic writers consistently attribute the text to Peter.” As such, it is worth examining this objection in more detail.
    A standard reply is suggested by Kok: the negative portrayal of the Twelve is “a testament to apostolic humility” (83). However, the shortcomings of the Twelve in Mark’s gospel go beyond this: “the problem is that Mark does not just document the Twelve’s occasional foibles.” Rather, per Kok, the evangelist’s portrayal is closer to a parody than to what we might reasonably expect from a Petrine gospel. However, Kok has not shown that there is anything historically improbable in Mark’s portrayal of the Twelve, and so it is not clear that Petrine humility is an insufficient explanation for the phenomenon at hand. In fact, one might invoke the criterion of embarrassment and use these observations in support of the historical reliability of Mark’s gospel and the accuracy of Peter’s testimony. By Kok’s own admission, the portrayal of the Twelve is complex and a one-sided reading cannot be sustained. Despite their many misunderstandings, the Twelve left everything to follow Jesus, and the gospel ends with a promise of their opportunity (and Peter’s specifically) to rejoin the Jesus movement.
    One could certainly pursue the arguments and counter-arguments further, but Kok’s primary objection to the traditional view of Mark’s gospel is by no means a slam dunk. Indeed, to me it seems to go beyond what we can justifiably conclude. The portrayal of the Twelve is complex: how are we warranted in saying that Peter would have offered a much different testimony, much less building an entire thesis on such a wobbly foundation? A priori historical judgments are not always fruitless, but we must be very cautious when saying what a particular individual (in this case, Peter) “would have” done. Valuing the direct evidence over counterfactual conjectures should be our favored course of action.
    Having made a positive argument against Markan authorship, Kok briefly criticizes the testimony of Papias, but I will save discussion of this for the next part of my review. He is to be commended for stating his conclusions cautiously and engaging with a wide breadth of scholarship.
    Chapter 3 examines the discussion of Mark in the New Testament and early patristic sources. Beginning with the latter, Kok examines the testimony of Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria. His main takeaway is that the latter three are dependent on Papias. The notion that this more or less nullifies their evidential value in establishing Markan authorship is implicit in his argumentation. He argues further that the testimony of Papias is suspect, given the shadowy nature of Papias’ source (John the elder) and errors in Papias’ treatment of other material (namely a Hebrew text of Matthew and the account of Justin Barsabbas drinking poison and surviving). While Kok argues for the disputed interpretation that Justin Martyr referred to the canonical text of Mark as the “memoirs of Peter”, thus linking the gospel with Petrine authority, he qualifies his optimism with the claim that Justin Martyr was dependent on the “Papian tradition” about Mark. His argument for this is brief and involves pointing to some shared stock vocabulary (e.g. “remembered” and “handed down”). However, there is little positive reason to suppose that Justin’s attestation is entirely dependent on the bishop of Hierapolis. Papias was not a prominent figure in early Christianity, which explains why his books have been lost. Justin nowhere mentions Papias and does not mention Mark, which one might have expected if he was just lifting from Papias. Justin was also writing not long after Papias and in locations geographically removed from Hierapolis, lowering the probability that he was dependent on Papias. It’s not impossible that he was, but Kok’s argument to that effect is lacking. We can establish neither the independence or dependence of Justin Martyr’s attestation of the gospel’s Petrine connection, but in the absence of reasons for the latter and in fact some reasons against it, we ought to incline toward the former.
    One may also question the relevance of showing that the later patristic sources knew of Papias’ work. I would argue that the testimony of Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria provides some additional corroborative evidence for Papias’ claim. It indicates either that the second-century authors were unaware of competing traditions, or that if they were, they had reason to favor the Petrine tradition. This is more to be expected on the supposition that the testimony is correct than on the supposition that it isn’t. Now while we don’t know what sources were available to these ancients, is it possible that other written and oral sources provided additional, corroborating evidence undergirding their confidence in Markan authorship? It certainly seems plausible. It is also worth noting that neither Irenaeus nor Clement explicitly quotes Papias as the source of their tradition, leaving little direct reason to think that they simply lifted their authorial claims from Papias’ work and did no corroborative work of their own. It is true that the testimony of Irenaeus and Clement would supply more evidence if it was completely independent from Papias, but Kok’s dismissal of these later authors’ evidential value is premature.
    Kok dedicates the rest of the third chapter to demonstrating a rather dubious chronology of the gradual association of Mark and Peter. Acknowledging the significance of texts such as 1 Peter 5:13 and Acts 12 in establishing a historical connection between Mark and Peter, Kok dates 1 Peter to the last quarter of the first century and Acts to the beginning of the second, arguing that the latter is dependent on Josephus, the Pauline corpus, and possibly Papias. He is not without arguments for these positions, and indeed devotes considerable ink to establishing them. Rather than embark on a lengthy examination of the matter, I will simply indicate that I found his arguments interesting but uncompelling, often taking the unnecessarily complex conjectures of previous scholars and laying even more speculative strata on top of them. The result is a historical scenario which warrants a credence no higher than “possible”. His response to conservative arguments for an early dating of Acts amounted to just one paragraph. I do not expect every reader to share my personal dissatisfaction, but in my estimation this chapter was the weakest of the book.
    In chapter 4, Kok lays the groundwork for his alternative thesis of the patristic tradition’s origin. He argues that apostolic succession was a doctrinally legitimizing tool, leading to early Christian interest in historical lists of bishops and clashes between various sects over the origins of a particular text. “Centrist Christianity,” as Kok prefers to call that sect of Christianity which would become orthodoxy, vouched for the apostolicity of certain texts to safeguard against their use by more radical groups. This is allegedly what happened with the gospel of John. The ghost of Walter Bauer peeks out quite frequently from between the pages of this chapter, but I will bypass a full discussion in the hope of keeping this review to a reasonable length.
    Chapter 5 attempts to demonstrate that Mark was viewed as the “odd one out” of the gospel narratives. This is seen in patristic comments that simultaneously vouch for the text’s apostolicity but in some way denigrate its literary qualities. Papias affirms a Petrine connection but criticizes the gospel’s arrangement; Irenaeus confirms Mark’s primary source but notes that he wrote after the “demise” (interpreted by Kok as death) of Peter and Paul, and Clement of Alexandria suggests that Peter was not particularly enthusiastic about the gospel’s publication. There is also later evidence for the denigration of Mark, particularly in the designation of its author as κολοβοδάκτυλος—stump-fingered. Kok’s hypothesis is that the apostolic fathers wanted to associate the text with Peter but at the same time supply an intermediary scapegoat, Mark, upon whom to lay the text’s many pitfalls. But why should we prefer this to the much simpler hypothesis that the testimony of the fathers is largely correct? Perhaps Mark did in fact record Peter’s testimony and Papias was not pleased with its order. Further, the conflict between Irenaeus and Clement regarding the timing of Peter’s death in relation to the publication of Mark may indicate their access to independent streams of tradition. Kok is multiplying unnecessary hypotheses to explain some rather unremarkable data.
    Finally, chapter 6 looks at the treatment of Mark’s gospel in the second century, attempting to determine whether non-centrist Christian groups had more favorable views of the gospel than those presented in the last chapter. There is little surviving evidence to work with, but Kok does an admirable job examining what we have. The first patristic source to explicitly mention the co-option of Markan prooftexts by heretics is Irenaeus, who names the Valentinians, Carpocratians, and Basilideans. Clement of Alexandria likewise has to deal with misinterpretations of the Markan pericope of the rich man by ascetics. These are the only direct lines of evidence Kok offers for the prominence of Mark among heterodox interpreters, and one may question whether they are sufficient to bear the weight of the argument. This hesitation is confirmed by the realization that different heretics appropriated other gospels—Marcion with Luke, for example, and the Ebionites with Matthew—and so Mark does not appear any different in this regard. Are two sources naming four groups sufficient to convince that Mark was, in relation to the other gospels, disproportionately appropriated by non-centrist Christianity? The evidence from later redaction of Mark by evangelists and scribes is more promising, but a combination of coincidence and counterexample may be sufficient to explain the examples Kok adduces. It is also worth noting that Mark is the only gospel which was incorporated into another, and thus the only one with an extensive non-scribal redaction history, rendering asymmetrical the comparison of the reception of Markan Christology with the reception of the Matthean and Lukan Christology.
    An appendix examines the authenticity of the controversial secret gospel of Mark. After a thorough review of the evidence, Kok tentatively concludes that Morton Smith was no liar: the secret gospel of Mark may well be genuine. He argues that this offers some supplementary evidence for his thesis, but it is by no means necessary to the argument and may be inconsequentially bypassed by readers who are convinced that Smith was a fraud.
    If I were to distill the thrust of my criticism into a short paragraph, it is that Kok consistently prefers complexity over simplicity (and he is by no means the only scholar working in the field who does this) and has constructed a thesis which relies too much on conjecture to be a compelling rival to the traditional authorship of the Second Gospel. His reasons for doubting Mark’s collaboration with Peter in the production of a gospel are unconvincing.

A Brief Review of Wesley Hill's Paul and the Trinity

It is often taken as axiomatic in New Testament studies that Paul was not a Trinitarian. There is plenty of variation among the views scholars hold regarding the intersection of Paul's theology, christology, and pneumatology—from those which posit a lengthy legendary development from an angelomorphic or similar christology to the trinitarian dogmas of the later church, to those which argue for an early high (but not trinitarian) christology—but the Trinity is widely seen as a later development: perhaps an adequate synthesis of Pauline material, but nonetheless not derivable from the apostle himself.

Wesley Hill's book Paul and the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2015) challenges this view from a unique perspective. Rather than simply arguing that Paul's writings are trinitarian, Hill argues that trinitarian conceptual resources, culled from the writings of later church fathers, provide a fresh hermeneutical angle from which to consider Paul's christological texts. In doing so, new light is shed on complicated passages. The ease with which later trinitarian categories can unlock Paul's christology thus brings it closer to full-fledged trinitarianism. The entire project calls for the rewedding of biblical exegesis and systematic theology and an exploration of the ways in which they can illuminate each other.

Hill argues that the notion of high christology vs low christology is misguided. In employing that conceptual framework, scholars assume Paul's monotheism as a given—the fixed point against which his christology is measured. God is at the top, so to speak, and christology is the project of determining where Paul put Jesus on the scale from creature to God. Was it halfway up, where Jesus mediated between humanity and God, had some authority from God, but didn't encroach on the divine identity? Or was it basically at the top, where Jesus shared in the divine name and ruled from heaven as divine? Or, perhaps, Jesus started out lower and was then exalted higher? Hill argues that this approach fails to take into account Paul's "meshing" of the identities and relations of God, Jesus, and the Spirit. After surveying the history of Trinitarian dogma with an emphasis on the differing traditions of East and West, specifically as it concerns the priority of the three divine persons or the one God, he argues that the best way to interpret Paul involves recognizing how the identity of each divine person requires the existence of the others. In other words, it is impossible to refer to merely one of the divine persons, because to refer to one is to refer to all of them—their identities are mutually constitutive. Thus, since picking out Paul's monotheism as the given, which can be described with or without Christ, requires isolating God and Christ, a better approach should be proffered.

Hill supports his thesis through exegesis of, among other verses, Romans 4:24, Romans 8:11, Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, and Romans 1:3-4. Along the way, he shows how well trinitarian conceptual categories offer fresh perspectives on contested Pauline texts. For example, he discusses the conflict between Philippians 2:11a and 11b—here Paul is ascribing the divine name to Jesus and yet the worship Jesus receives is for the glory of God. Jesus cannot be lower than God, because he has received the divine name, but then why is the glory given to God? The solution, Hill argues, involves the trinitarian concept of "redoublement". Gregory of Nazianzus put it thusly in his Orations 31.9: "The Three are One from the perspective of their divinity, and the One is Three from the perspective of the properties." In other words, the divine persons have both identical and distinct identities in terms of essence and personhood. In this way, Paul can speak unabashedly of the sharing of the divine name and yet retain distinctions between Jesus and God (one of the Son's distinctives is glorifying the Father). 

My criticisms of the book are fairly minor. For one thing, I would have appreciated engagement with more texts. The volume is a slim two hundred pages and could certainly have examined more than a representative sample of Pauline texts. Second, and this is a point picked up on by Chris Tilling in his essay "Paul the Trinitarian" in Essays on the Trinity, Hill shows very little engagement with Second Temple Jewish literature and the mediatorial figures presented therein. In arguing that a Trinitarian conceptuality is the correct way to interpret Paul, Hill must show how it is preferable to the schemes found in such literature.

My elucidation of Hill's argumentation is bound to fall short, and I encourage anyone interested to purchase a copy of his book and read it for yourself. It represents an important new perspective in the debate over Paul's christology.

A Review of Jonathan Bernier's Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament

Dr. Jonathan Bernier recently published a book (Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament; Baker Academic, 2022) defending an early chronology for the New Testament corpus, the first study of its kind since John A. T. Robinson's 1976 book Redating the New Testament. With the exception of some of the Pauline epistles, Bernier argues for dates of composition "twenty to thirty years earlier than is typically supposed by contemporary biblical scholars". His text is systematic, thorough, and approachable, though the strength of the arguments varied depending on the NT book in question. In this review, I will discuss the pros and cons of the book, overview the arguments adduced for an early date, and assess the strength of his conclusions.

Introduction

These are the dates Bernier defends:

Matthew: 45-59
Mark: 42-45
Luke: 59
John: 60-70
Acts: 62
Romans: winter of 56/57
1 Corinthians: early 56
2 Corinthians: late 56
Galatians: 47-52
Ephesians: 57-59
Philippians: 57-59
Colossians: 57-59
1 Thessalonians: 50-52
2 Thessalonians: 50-52
1 Timothy: 63-64 if Pauline, 60-150 if pseudo-Pauline
2 Timothy: 64-68 if Pauline, 60-150 if pseudo-Pauline
Titus: 63-64 if Pauline, 60-175 if pseudo-Pauline
Philemon: 57-59
Hebrews: 50-70
James: prior to 62
1 Peter: 60-69
2 Peter: 60-69 if Petrine, 60-125 if pseudo-Petrine
1 John: 60-100
2 John: 60-100
3 John: prior to 100
Jude: prior to 96
Revelation: 68-70

1 Clement: 64-70
Didache: 60-125
Epistle of Barnabas: 70-132
Shepherd of Hermas: 60-125

Perhaps the best thing about the book is the systematic treatment of each topic. Each section begins by listing and numbering each piece of evidence to be considered, which correspond to the bold-faced section titles. At the end of each section is a conclusion recapping the evidence considered and stating the current possible date range. There is also a cumulative conclusion at the end of each chapter giving a higher-level recap. The result is an argument that's extremely easy to follow.

My disagreements were principally regarding the evidential weight assigned to various data. I will discuss some of these below.

Overview of the Book

The book is divided into an introduction and five parts. I will briefly discuss each of them.

Introduction

Bernier explains the three main chronologies defended by New Testament scholars as so:

• Lower (defended in this volume)—most of NT prior to 70
• Middle (majority view)—NT generally between 70-100, with the exception of the undisputed Pauline epistles
• Higher—dates much of the NT to the second century
  

Next, Bernier surveys the history of scholarship on the compositional dates of the New Testament and notes that this is the first book-length defense of the lower chronology in almost fifty years, while the middle and higher chronologies haven't been defended at such length since the Victorian era. Accordingly, he argues that three books are needed, each rearticulating a robust argument for one of the three dating schemes. With this volume, he is attempting to do that for the lower chronology.

The next section discusses some of the shortcomings of A.T. Robinson's infamous book. Specifically, Bernier argues 1) that Robinson relies too much on arguments from silence, and 2) that while Robinson is correct to reject NT references to persecution as necessarily referring to the Domitianic persecution, he makes many of the same errors with the Neronic persecution—failing to establish that many references to persecution in the NT refer specifically to the Neronic persecution and not something else.

The next section discusses criteria that will be used for generating hypotheses: synchronization, contextualization, and authorial biography. Bernier uses these three criteria to structure each discussion of dating. Synchronization deals with whether certain portions of a text are more intelligible before or after certain dates. This is often used with reference to the destruction of the Temple in the year 70. For example, a description of the Temple that uses the present tense is more intelligible before the year 70, and thus should incline us toward a pre-70 date. Contextualization deals with the themes of the book in relation to early Christian development in areas like Christology or ecclesiology. Authorial biography deals with what we know about the author. It can yield the most precise dates of the three criteria, such as dating Romans to the winter of 56/57.

Part 1 - The Synoptic Gospels and Acts

Matthew, Mark, and Luke-Acts are the first texts considered by Bernier. He discusses several data that have figured prominently in discussions of the dating of the Synoptics and considers most of them to be nonprobative for purposes of establishing a compositional date. A notable exception is the reference to the desolating sacrifice in the "texts of desolation", which Bernier argues makes the most sense if the Synoptics were written prior to 70.

Bernier also discusses some concerns specific to Luke-Acts, such as the unity of Luke-Acts, whether Luke knew Josephus, the relevance of Marcion's Gospel, Luke's (non)use of Paul's letters, and the enigmatic ending of Acts. He puts a lot of weight on this last piece of evidence, citing Karl Armstrong's new book on the subject, Dating Acts in its Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts.

Chapter 2 seeks to narrow down the pre-70 date by providing evidence from contextualization and authorial biography. Bernier argues that Maurice Casey's work on Markan translation of Aramaic is probably nonprobative for the purposes of dating the Gospel. He then discusses Crossley's argument from Mark's silence on the Gentile mission, concluding that it lends some support to pre-45 dating of Mark, but "this hypothesis is sufficiently tentative that it should be supported by additional argumentation". (71) Unfortunately, it seems to me that Bernier never supplied this additional argumentation.

Bernier also discusses the relationship between Mark and Peter. He argues that Peter was present in Rome ca. 42 but notes that the evidence for this is late and thus not decisive. He concludes that Mark was written sometime between 42 and 45. 

Pivoting into a discussion of Luke, Bernier argues that the famous "we-passages" are best explained if the author of Acts was present for the events in question. As a key piece of evidence, he cites the fact that the we-passages begin in Philippi and trail off when the narrative returns to Philippi. He argues that the best time for Luke to have written his Gospel would be ca. 59, with Acts being written sometime between 60-62.

Lastly, in discussing Matthew, Bernier argues that a date can't be nailed down with as much precision. He concludes that Matthew must postdate 45, since it postdates Mark, and predate 59, since it predates Luke. 

Part 2 - The Johannine Tradition

The synchronization section of chapter 3 covers several lines of evidence. Most of these are deemed to be nonprobative or otherwise of limited evidential value. Of particular interest was Bernier's discussion of the Birkat Haminim and the tenuity of the argument that it necessitates a post-80 date for John.

The lone piece of positive evidence given for a pre-70 date is the use of the present tense to refer to the pool of Bethsaida in John 5.2: "in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool...". Accordingly, Bernier spends the better part of six pages defending its evidential value. I think he succeeds in showing that it should be taken as evidence for an early date. However, since this is the only significant factor that weighs in Bernier's analysis of the dating of John's Gospel, it should be taken with caution. Of course, we can't always expect a multi-pronged cumulative case for dating a specific text, but I don't think agnosticism on the matter of John's date is a particularly irrational position.

In the next sections Bernier critiques further arguments for a later date of John, such as Johannine Christology. Arguing that John's Christology is approximately as high as that of Paul, he correctly asserts that the Christological factor doesn't have much bearing on the date of John's Gospel.

There is little evidence bearing on the dating of the epistles of John. Bernier concludes that 1 and 2 John were written sometime between 60-100 and 3 John was written no later than 100, as he was unable to establish a lower bound for the latter.

Bernier discusses several factors regarding the date of Revelation:
1. external attestation
2. the succession of kings in Revelation 17:9-11
3. the death of Nero in Revelation 13:1-18
4. the passages about the temple in 11:1-2 and 11:13
5. food sacrificed to idols
6. Rome as "Babylon"
7. Revelation's Christology
8. Revelation's ecclesiology
9. Irenaeus' ostensible testimony to a mid-90s date for Revelation

Bernier places the most weight on point #4. Revelation 11:13 reads: "At that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven."

Josephus reports that all of Jerusalem fell in 70 AD (Jewish Wars 7.1.1 §§1-4), and moreover, it was not an earthquake that caused the fall but Roman soldiers. Bernier argues: "It is difficult to imagine that an author writing after 70 would employ the fall of Jerusalem for symbolic effect and yet grossly misrepresent the nature of that fall, and more to the point, underestimate its extent." (122)

Concerning point #9, Bernier offers no alternative interpretation but rather argues that the internal evidence should win out. The problem with this, of course, is that Bernier gave only two pieces of internal evidence for a pre-70 date, which were at least partially epistemically dependent, so the counterevidence they can sustain is limited.

Part 3 - The Pauline Corpus

Part 3 is structured differently than the other parts. Instead of dating texts in both chapters, Bernier spends Chapter 5 discussing how to date the Pauline corpus and Chapter 6 actually dating it.

Of particular note is his discussion of the importance of Acts in dating Paul's letters. He defends an interesting argument for the chronological accuracy of Acts (e.g., whether Acts narrates events in the order they happened): he adduces four key events that can be dated independently (the crucifixion of Jesus, the death of Herod Agrippa, Gallio's tenure in Corinth, and the succession from Felix to Festus) and demonstrates that Acts narrates these all in the order that they occurred. Obviously, this isn't sufficient to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Acts is chronologically accurate, but it certainly points in that direction.

Here are Bernier's dates for the Pauline corpus, with brief explanations:

1 and 2 Thessalonians
On the basis of Paul's Corinthian sojourn, Bernier argues that 1 and 2 Thessalonians were written between the years 50 and 52.

1 and 2 Corinthians
On the basis of Paul's Ephesian sojourn and the data contained in 1 Corinthians 16.8 ("But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost") Bernier argues that 1 Corinthians was written in early 56. On the basis of correlation with Acts, Bernier argues that 2 Corinthians was written in late 56.

Romans
On the basis of correlation with Acts, Bernier argues that Romans was written in the winter of 56/57. The integrity of Romans is considered to be nonprobative for purposes of establishing the compositional date.

Galatians
Bernier gradually narrows the lower bound for Galations from 31 to 40 to 42 and finally to 47. On the basis of correlation with Acts, the upper bound is argued to be 52.

Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon
The primary datum for dating these three epistles is Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea from 57-59. Bernier argues that they were all written from this time period. Notably, Bernier does not seem to entertain serious doubts as to the authenticity of Ephesians and Colossians.

Philippians
Bernier judges the integrity of Philippians to be more probable than not, arguing that it was written during Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea from 57-59.

1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus
Given the disputes as to the authenticity of these letters, Bernier adduces two date ranges for each of them: one if Pauline, the other if pseudo-Pauline. He argues from multiple lines of evidence that these letters, if authentic, would postdate Paul's career as recorded in Acts. He also argues that Paul plausibly had a post-Acts career from ca. 62-68. He concludes that 1 Timothy and Titus were written no later than 150 and 175 (respectively), if pseudo-Pauline, and from 63-64 if Pauline, and that 2 Timothy was written no later than 150 if pseudo-Pauline, and from 64-68 if Pauline.

Part 4 - Hebrews and the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude

Bernier dates Hebrews between the years 50 and 70. The majority of his analysis consists of refuting arguments for a later date. To establish the lower bound of 50, Bernier cites Hebrews 13.23, specifically the phrasing "our brother, Timothy". He argues that this makes most sense after Timothy had entered into ministry, ca. 50. To establish the upper bound of 70, Bernier cites Hebrews 10.1-3 ("would not the sacrifices have ceased?"). This makes more sense if the Temple hadn't been destroyed. Otherwise, the point of the argument could be lost: "If in 85 I were to ask, 'Would not the sacrifices have ceased being offered?' you likely would respond, 'But they have!'" (191)

Bernier dates James no later than 62, the date of James' death. His primary reason for doing this is his acceptance of traditional authorship. Bernier discusses and refutes many arguments for a later date, though in some cases he didn't condemn those arguments as strongly as could be warranted, such as the claim that James 3.9-10 betrays knowledge of the Birkat Haminim.

Bernier's lower bound for 1 Peter is the year 60. This is reached on the basis of 1 Peter's knowledge of Romans and Ephesians, as argued by Ora Delmer Foster. The authorial biography section includes a discussion of objections to the traditional authorship view. Bernier's upper bound is 69, which he judges the last possible year of Peter's death. Notably, Bernier does not even provide a date for if the epistle is pseudo-Petrine, despite his doing so for 2 Peter, as he believes 1 Peter is likely authentic.

Bernier argues that "2 Peter is probably the strongest candidate for pseudonymous authorship in the NT corpus." (228) If authentic, he gives the same 60-69 date range as 1 Peter. If pseudonymous, the upper bound is pushed out to 125.

There is little evidence for the dating of Jude, due to the brevity of the letter and the questions surrounding its authorship. Bernier concludes that Jude was probably dependent on 2 Peter, setting a lower bound somewhere in the 60s. He argues for an upper bound of 96, based on the fact that Jude had probably passed away by the time of the Domitianic reign.

Part 5 - Early Extracanonical Writings

References to the deaths of Peter and Paul solidly exclude a date for 1 Clement earlier than 64. Narrowing down this range, Bernier refers to 1 Clement 40-44, which uses the present tense to refer to the temple administration. Judging most other lines of evidence to be nonprobative, Bernier argues that this present tense should incline us to prefer a pre-70 date for the letter, when the temple was still standing. The final date range is 64-70.

The Didache is argued to date between 45-125. the upper bound is established by the contextual relevance of concerns about traveling teachers, apostles, or prophets and Gentile inclusion, which Bernier argues are most intelligible in the 40s-60s but look increasingly out of place the later one dates the text.

Very little can be said to narrow down the date range of the Epistle of Barnabas. The reference to the destruction of the Temple in 16.3-4 necessitates a post-70 date. Bernier argues that the verses also tell against a date after the Bar Kokhba revolt, as that would have made the prophecy about the temple being rebuilt less likely. Thus, Bernier settles on a wide date range of 70-132.

The Shepherd of Hermas also resists restriction to a narrow date range, in part due to its composite nature. On the basis of ecclesiology, Bernier gives a date range of 60-125.

Conclusion

Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament is a must-read for anyone interested in the central topic of the book—namely, dating the New Testament. I would contend, however, that the discussion is a bit too esoteric for general reading in New Testament reliability. Bernier has done New Testament scholarship a great service by presenting anew the case for earlier dates of the NT corpus. Due to numerous disagreements about the strength of the evidence as well as a desire to withhold my final conclusions until I've researched the relevant issues further, I was ultimately unconvinced that I should confidently embrace an earlier chronology, but Bernier has certainly shown the flaws in a position of epistemic dogmatism with regard to the consensus dating. I agree with Bernier that more books are needed on this subject, particularly defenses of middle and high chronologies, so that the merits of each case can be more easily judged.

Don't Be Intimidated by Michael Alter's Book on the Resurrection

In 2015, Jewish autodidact Michael J. Alter published a 900+ page "scholarly" critique of the resurrection. Alter explains that the book was the result of many years of research on Jesus' resurrection, sparked by a challenge from a unitarian to investigate the matter. It cites hundreds if not thousands of sources and takes a very skeptical stance on the resurrection. It has been met with glowing reviews, even from Christians, asserting that the book represents the definitive critique of the resurrection. The back cover claims that it "refutes Jesus' purported physical, bodily resurrection". From the size, scope, and scholarly veneer of the text, one might reasonably assume that it succeeds in its task, or at least presents a strong case against the foundation of the Christian faith. In this post, I will argue that this is not the case. I won't offer a full critique of Alter's text but rather a discussion of some of the consistent problems that plague the book. I will also provide a few examples of bewildering takes and the ease with which they can be refuted.

Full disclosure: I have only read half of the book, but the consistency of the terrible argumentation has led me to doubt that the second half of the book suddenly delivers the promised refutation of Jesus' resurrection. I may continue to read it in the future, at which point I may write a follow-up post or add some material in the comments section here.

And of course, I mean no disrespect toward Alter as a person. From what I've seen, he seems like a nice individual. Nevertheless, his work is quite poor, and needs to be called out as such.

Some Preliminary Remarks

The main portion of the book is structured around 113 "issues", each dealing with a specific aspect of Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, or appearances that Alter deems suspect. Each of these issues is divided into various "contradictions" and "speculations". For example, Issue 2, "The Last Supper as a Passover Meal" contains two contradictions and thirteen speculations, numbered continuously from the beginning of the text. In total, 120 contradictions are asserted. This immediately encourages a healthy skepticism that Alter was able to identify this many disagreements between four versions of just a few chapters of text. This skepticism is confirmed, in fact, upon closer inspection of the contradictions, but that will be discussed later.

My first complaint is the lack of proper editing. Many sentences are worded improperly, containing such lackluster phrasing as, for example, three consecutive synonyms, and sounding more like a grade school paper unimaginatively meeting rhetorical requirements than the work of a competent scholar. While this is not a problem for the quality of the arguments, it does make it harder to take the text seriously.

Throughout the book, Alter relies on unreasonable standards of historiography. He frequently remarks that we don't have "incontrovertible evidentiary proof", or something similar, for a specific proposal, and chalks up any apologetic response to his arguments as "mere speculation", ignoring the difference between blind speculation and plausible conjecture. Furthermore, he gives too much weight to obsolete objections from many decades ago that don't hold up to any scrutiny, and have thus been dropped from modern discourse, such as the claim that Jerusalem lacked palm trees (see here). Similar examples will be given later.

I don't mean to imply that the book is without merit, as there are reasonable objections presented that need to be thoughtfully considered. The value of the book will be discussed near the end of this post. Before that, there are three categories of argumentation of which I want to provide examples: terrible takes, arguments that sound convincing to the casual reader but are easy to refute, and robust arguments that are more compelling than the others, even if they aren't ultimately successful.

Example: Terrible Takes

Many, many of these "terrible takes" can be found throughout the book. I don't want to waste time on the numerous small issues, like when Alter calls William Lane Craig a "fundamentalist". Rather, I want to highlight some larger "contradictions" or "speculations" proposed by Alter that should convince no one. 

For example, in discussion of the Johannine burial account, Alter comments, "Perhaps the author of John wrote part or all of his burial account based on Gamaliel, that is, a copycat attempting one upmanship. The similarities are striking: ..." The similarities (listed in Table 23) are as follows: both Jesus and Gamaliel were "A Jewish leader", "A rabbi (teacher)", buried with 100 (per the KJV, Alter's perplexing translation choice) and 86 pounds of spices, respectively, and they "died during a time under Roman rule." This is a ridiculous parallelism. We have four broad parallels, all of which are already plausible in burial accounts. And the problem is compounded when we note that Jesus being a Jewish "leader", a rabbi, and dying under Roman rule can be established historically on independent grounds. Thus, the only relevant similarity is that both individuals were buried with spices (a common practice), and the amounts of spices don't line up. To claim that this is sufficient evidence to show literary dependence between the accounts is absurd.

Another example from Alter's discussion of the burial accounts is where he suggests that Luke and Acts might have different authors. The following excerpt is found in Contradiction #42. 

"The burial narrative of the writer of the Gospel of Luke is assumed also to be the author of Acts [sic], yet he records conflicting accounts. Luke 23:52-53 declares that Joseph alone buried Jesus: 'This man went unto Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.'... 

"To the contrary, Acts 13:29 records the word they (plural), referring to those who had culpability, who had participated in Jesus' guilty verdict and execution and who had also assisted in his burial: 'And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.' In his preface, Luke claims to have investigated all the sources of his day. Yet the narrative in Acts contradicts Luke. How then could these works be by the same person?"

Where does Luke say that only Joseph of Arimathea took place in the burial? He doesn't. It's as simple as that. The Gospel of John records that Nicodemus helped, and there may have been others. Reading contradictions into the text where there are none is a frequent tendency throughout the book.

But more can be said. Let's look at the context in Acts 13.27-29: "For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the declarations of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no grounds for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. When they had carried out everything that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb."

If we adopt Alter's hyper-literalism, we must conclude that Luke thinks everyone who lives in Jerusalem participated in the burial of Jesus, as well as in removing him from the cross. More likely, Luke is probably using the law of agency, and referring to "those who live in Jerusalem", specifically the Jews who wanted to crucify Jesus, as the group responsible for everything. Thus, everything accomplished by them or through their agency, such as the burial of Jesus, is attributed to them. The only way you get a contradiction here is to employ a ridiculous hermeneutic.

By employing this hermeneutic, Alter ends up suggesting that Luke and Acts may have different authors, which is extremely unlikely. The radical skepticism required to assert that two volumes with the same writing style, addressed to the same person, with the second referring to the first as "the first volume" and continuing its story, were written by different authors, would render unknowable most of ancient history.

I wish I could say that these strange takes were the exception, but unfortunately, they are extremely prevalent throughout the book. A good editor could have removed them and made the book far shorter than it is now.

Example: Sounds Convincing but Doesn't Hold Up

The next category of objections in Alter's book are those that sound convincing when first reading them but quickly unravel under minimal scrutiny. This is often due to misrepresenting or cherry-picking different Bible verses. It serves as a reminder that whenever anyone, Christian or not, cites source material, it is always worth looking it up. It's easy to note, mindlessly, that a scholar has a few references to support their case, and thereby assume that they've sufficiently established their thesis. This is far from the truth.

This specific example is from the beginning of the book, under Topic 10. Alter claims "When read chronologically, the gospel narratives exemplify continual enhancement." He gives two examples; the first of which, pertaining to the women watching Jesus' crucifixion and burial, will be discussed here. Here are the relevant texts for ease of reference:

Mark:

Mark 15.40-41: "There were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women followed him and took care of him. Many other women had come up with him to Jerusalem."

Mark 15.46-47: "After he bought some linen cloth, Joseph took him down and wrapped him in the linen. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock and rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid."

Matthew:

Matthew 27.55-56: "Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him were there, watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons."

Matthew 27.59-61: "So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated there, facing the tomb."

Luke:

Luke 23.49: "But all who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things."

Luke 23.55: "The women who had come with him from Galilee followed along and observed the tomb and how his body was placed. Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment."

John:

John 19.25-27 "Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there, he said to his mother, 'Woman, here is your son.' Then he said to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home."

Alter notes that Mark merely says the women were watching, Matthew reports this as well as that they were facing the tomb, and Luke reports these in addition to saying that the women beheld "how his body was placed". John adds in the scene with Mary at the foot of the cross. This is supposed to demonstrate a legendary development. However, it's remarkably easy to make anything look like a developing legend by cherry-picking details (Bart Ehrman does this too. See Lydia McGrew's discussion here). Reading the entire texts gives a much fuller picture:

Mark:

• Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses and Salome see the crucifixion. Mark spends slightly more time discussing them than later accounts; only he mentions Jerusalem.
• Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses see the burial.
• The women see where Jesus was laid.

Matthew:

• "Many women", including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons see the crucifixion. A few less words are written about it than Mark. No mention of Jerusalem.
• Mary Magdalene and the other Mary see the burial.
• The women are said to be seated there, facing the tomb. No mention of what they see.

Luke:

• A group of unnamed women see the crucifixion. Even less time is spent discussing them (progressive exaggeration is going backwards!).
• A group of unnamed women see the burial.
• They see his tomb and how the body was placed. There is no mention of where they are in relation to the tomb.
• The women obtain spices.

John:

• Longer conversation with the women at the cross (Jesus' mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.)
• No mention of women observing the burial.

When all the accounts are lined up, we have instances of both exaggeration and contraction. Some notable examples of contraction are that the women in Luke's accounts are unnamed: this is unexpected on the hypothesis of progressive exaggeration. Also in Luke, we aren't told how close the women are in relation to the tomb, though this information is supplied in the previous accounts. In John's Gospel, the women drop completely out of the burial account. Any other examples of apparent exaggeration can be accounted for by mere coincidence—with enough details distributed randomly across four accounts, some will invariably line up randomly as if to suggest progressive exaggeration.

An individual merely reading through Alter's summary of the accounts could well be convinced that progressive exaggeration exists across them all. All it takes is a glance at the source material to defuse the objection.

The Better Objections

Gasping for breath beneath the weight of all the filler are stronger objections that should be taken seriously. This is not to say such objections are insurmountable but rather that responses to them require more thought to devise. Dr. Timothy McGrew responds to three such objections here, here, and here. Another example is the timing of the crucifixion in John's Gospel, an objection which I have discussed here.

The Value of the Book

Despite the poor quality of much of the book, it is not without value. Alter has done a herculean feat in compiling so many skeptical objections into one place, providing a great reference work for looking up various objections, good and bad, to the passion and resurrection narratives. The book is meticulously sourced and is thus a good starting point for further research. It raises many issues that are worth thinking about. Thus, I am not saying you shouldn't read the book—I'm merely saying that you shouldn't be intimidated by it. Despite its hundreds of pages and thousands of footnotes, The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry is no insuperable challenge to the Christian faith.

A Review of N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus

This will be a chapter-by-chapter review of N.T. Wright's book The Challenge of Jesus. Wright is a prolific Anglican theologian. The core of the book comes from a series of lectures he gave in the late 1990s concerning a wide array of topics pertaining to Jesus, such as how radical his message was, the evidence for his resurrection, and how Christians should follow Jesus in the world today.

My general reaction to this book was positive, though I no doubt had disagreements (some of these will be highlighted in the content that follows). Wright endorses positions I do not hold, such as his views surrounding Pauline theology of justification by faith, but he is well within the bounds of orthodoxy and has produced much edifying content over the years.

All references are to the book. The page numbers are approximate and based off of a digital edition of the text.

Chapter 1 - The Challenge of Studying Jesus

In Chapter 1, Wright discusses the importance and challenges of studying the historical Jesus. Indeed, as he says, "I regard the continuing historical quest for Jesus as a necessary part of ongoing Christian discipleship." (15) He gives four reasons that make it "imperative":
1) "We shall only discover who the true and living God actually is if we take the risk of looking at Jesus himself. That is why contemporary debates about Jesus are so important; they are also debates about God himself." (17)
2) Loyalty to Scripture. "For me the dynamic of a commitment to Scripture is not 'we believe the Bible, so there is nothing more to be learned' but rather 'we believe the Bible, so we had better discover all the things in it to which our traditions, including our "protestant" or "evangelical" traditions, which have supposed themselves to be "biblical" but are sometimes demonstrably not, have made us blind.'" (17)
3) The Christian imperative to truth. Wright puts it boldly "Christians must not be afraid of truth." (17) He points out that this is the attitude of the reductionists, but says that that this is not his agenda. He intends to "go deeper into the meaning" (17) of Christian doctrines and come to a greater understanding of them within their original setting.
4) The Christian commitment to mission. "The skeptics can and must be answered," says Wright, "and when we do so we will not merely reaffirm the traditions of the church, whether Protestant, Catholic, evangelical or whatever." (18) This is crucially important for the church today in winning intellectually-minded people to its fold.

Wright then pivots into a brief historical discussion of the study of the historical Jesus. He focuses on the Enlightenment, highlighting the intellectual development thereof and the splintering of the scholarly landscape into polarized extremes. "Jesus was almost bound to appear as the teacher of either liberal timeless truths or conservative timeless truths." (22) He goes on to say, "I believe, then, that within the multiple tasks to which God is calling the church in our own generation, there remains the necessary task of addressing the Enlightenment's question as to who precisely Jesus was and what precisely he accomplished." (22)

The next section contains a discussion of new opportunities in the quest. Wright highlights the tools we have now that make it easier than ever to study Jesus in the setting of first-century Judaism, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. He argues that seminarians, pastors, and even non-specialists should take the quest seriously.

"It is because we believe we are called to be the people of God for the world that we must take the full historical task with utter seriousness. Study all the evidence; think through all the arguments... If human maturity is evidenced by delayed gratification, one sign of Christian maturity may be a readiness to hear the argument through to the end, not short-circuiting it in the interests of a quick-fix spirituality or missiology. Patience is as much a virtue in history and theology as it is anywhere else." (29-30)

Chapter 2 - The Challenge of the Kingdom

In Chapter 2, Wright sets out to address the question "What did Jesus mean when he said the kingdom of God was at hand?" (32)

He analyzes what "the kingdom of God" would mean in the context of first-century Judaism. He explains: "The Jews of Jesus' day, as is well-known, were living under foreign rule and had been for several centuries. The worst thing about that was not the high taxation, the alien laws, the brutality of oppression and so on, awful though that often was. The worst thing was that the foreigners were pagan. If Israel was truly God's people, why were the pagans ruling over her?" (33)

He explains that the Jews had three options for dealing with this conflict:
1) Quietist: "Separate yourself from the wicked world and wait for God to do whatever God is going to do." (34)
2) Compromise: "Build yourself fortresses and palaces, get along with your political bosses as well as you can, do as well out of it as you can and hope that God will validate it somehow." (34)
3) Zealot: "Say your prayers, sharpen your swords, make yourselves holy to fight a war, and God will give you a military victory that will also be the theological victory of good over evil, of God over the hordes of darkness, of the Son of Man over the monsters." (34)

Wright argues that Jesus was none of the above—"he went back to Israel's Scriptures and found there another kingdom-model, equally Jewish if not more so... The kingdom of God, he said, is at hand." (34) In other words, God was going to have mercy on Israel and the whole world through Jesus.

He asserts, "Jews of Jesus' day did not, by and large, expect that the space-time universe was going to come to a stop. They did expect that God was going to act so dramatically within the space-time universe, as he had before at key moments like the Exodus, that the only appropriate language would be the language of a world taken apart and reborn." (35)

Wright moves on to discuss the thrust of Jesus' messages from three different angles: the end of exile, the call of the renewed people, and disaster and vindication.

The End of Exile

Wright discusses two parables that he argues can be freshly understood when read within their historical context. The first is the parable of the sower. He argues that the parable has two Old Testament roots: the prophetic language used of Israel's return of exile (e.g. Jeremiah's discourse on God sowing the Israelites in their own land) and the apocalyptic storytelling found elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. For the latter he references Daniel 2. In short, "The kingdom of God, the return from exile, the great climax of Israel's history, is here, Jesus is saying, though it does not look like you thought it would." (37)

The second parable is of the prodigal son. "A story about a scoundrel young son who goes off into a far pagan country and is then astonishlingly welcomed back home is—of course!—the story of exile and restoration... The parable was not a general illustration of the timeless truth of God's forgiveness for the sinner, though of course it can be translated into that. It was a sharp-edged, context-specific message about what was happening in Jesus' ministry." (38)

Wright argues that both of these parables teach general theological truths as well as specific things about the kingdom of Israel and the return from exile. 

The Call of the Renewed People 

Wright offers an analysis of Jesus' call to "repent and believe", arguing that we need to understand it within the context of first-century Judaism. He offers a particularly interesting example from Josephus to illustrate what the phrase meant in that context.

As a young military commander, Josephus was tasked with persuading the Galileans against brazenly revolting against Rome, telling them that they should instead trust the Jewish leaders to come up with a better plan. "So when he confronted the rebel leader, he says that he told him to give up his own agenda and to trust him, Josephus, instead. And the word he uses are remarkably familiar to readers of the Gospels: he told the brigand leader to 'repent and believe in me'." (40) In other words, Josephus was telling the rebel leader to stop trying to bring about the desired outcome on your own. There's a better plan; you just have to wait. Wright comments: "Even if we end up suggesting that Jesus meant more than Josephus did—that there were indeed religious and theological dimensions to his invitation—we cannot suppose that he meant less. He was telling his hearers to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the kingdom, his kingdom-agenda." (40)

At the end of this section, Wright comments regarding the reliability of the Gospels that Jesus' lack of emphasis on reaching the Gentiles is "an interesting sign" (43) that the Gospel authors were concerned about the reliability of the sayings about Jesus. This is an example of restraint on the part of the Gospel authors. While no individual example of restraint shows much, the combined strength of numerous examples is a good piece of evidence for the reliability of the Gospels.

Disaster and Vindication

In this section Wright addresses some of the claims that Jesus thought the world would end in his lifetime. With regard to the Olivet discourse, he says "... it is to be read, I suggest, as a prediction not of the end of the world but of the fall of Jerusalem. The critical thing, here and elsewhere, is to understand how apocalyptic language works." (45)

Ultimately, Wright concludes that Jesus did not think the world would end in his lifetime. For topical reasons, he doesn't provide a full treatment of the various verses and historical observations used in support of this view. Some of these matters have been addressed by others on this blog. See here, for example.

Chapter 3 - The Challenge of the Symbols

Chapter 3 contains a discussion of various symbols of Judaism that received new meaning through the person of Jesus as well as new symbols of the in-breaking kingdom of God.

The Symbols of Judaism 

The Sabbath. Wright comments, "All the signs are that Jesus behaved with sovereign freedom toward the sabbath." He discusses the various attitudes Jesus displayed toward the Sabbath, emphasizing that Luke's gospel argues "the sabbath was the most appropriate day for healing to take place". (54) In Jesus' ministry, therefore, he is indicating that Israel's sabbath has come.

Nation and land. Wright discusses how many of Jesus' sayings seemed to undermine the honor the Jews placed on their nation and land. Jesus repeatedly teaches that the kingdom of God is more important than the nation and land of the Jews.

Temple. The primary symbol of Judaism is the Temple, and Wright spends much more time discussing this than the other signs. He emphasizes that Jesus' attitude toward the Temple was not one of trivial disaffection: "His deepest belief regarding the Temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution." (57) He then discusses Jesus' purpose in cleansing the temple, ultimately arguing that Jesus was, in a sense, acting out the Temple's destruction. I'm generally skeptical of these arguments that try and enter the mind of Jesus, declaring what his intent was in what he did. Wright's proposal has an aura of plausibility to it, however, even if we accept that Jesus' purpose in cleansing the temple was most likely multifaceted. 

The Symbols of the Kingdom 

Land and people. Wright argues that Jesus chose specific locations, such as the Temple or the Mount of Olives, for purposes of "symbolic geography" (60) when he was delivering a teaching. He also argues that Jesus' healings are to be seen as symbolic of the reconstitution of Israel. He summarizes the "messianic rule" from Qumran (1QSa) as "There the blind, the lame, the deaf and the dumb were excluded from membership in the community of God's restored people." (60) In other words, healing was a prerequisite for entry into the kingdom of God, so Jesus' healing people was symbolic of the beginning of the kingdom.

Family. "Through his actions and words Jesus was calling into being a people with a new identity, a new family." (61)

Torah. Wright notes the correlation between forgiveness and the Exile. The Exile was viewed as punishment for Israel's sins, and so forgiveness was inextricably linked with the return from Exile. "If Jesus' table-fellowship replaced the food laws, his demand of forgiveness was part of his definition of the new family, the new people of God. In other words, it was part of his redefined symbolic Torah." (62)

Temple. Wright notes some indications throughout Jesus' ministry on God being present outside of the Temple in the same way he would be inside of it, thus establishing a new system by which Israel could relate to God. He references the Jewish practice of fasting as shown in Mark 2:18-22. Since fasting was a result of the Exile, Wright argues, the fact that Jesus' disciples didn't fast symbolized the end of the Exile.

Wright closes the chapter by concluding that we can definitively say that Jesus regarded the kingdom of God as happening in the present but continuing on into the future. (64)

Chapter 4 - The Crucified Messiah

Chapter 4 is a discussion of the fact that the Messiah was crucified—an unexpected turn—and its ramifications for the grand turning point of history.

After cautioning us about our inability to discern the psychological disposition of an ancient individual, Wright comments, "What we can in principle do as historians, however, is to study someone's awareness of vocation... We can examine their actions and sayings and can work back with a fair degree of certainty to their aims and intentions. This is not to psychoanalyze them. It is to do what historians normally do." (67)

He goes on to say, "The messianic agenda aimed, through these things, to do for Israel what Israel's prophets had declared would be done: to rescue Israel and to bring God's justice to the world. Part of asking, 'Did Jesus think he was the Messiah?' is to ask, 'Did he in any sense intend to accomplish these tasks?'" (67) Wright argues that the resurrection alone would not convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah; there had to be some expectation or sense that he was that before he died. Having said this, Wright launches into an examination of the life of Jesus for characteristics of Messiahship.

A primary piece of evidence cited for Jesus' messianic actions is how he pronounced judgment on the Temple. He also cites some of Jesus' parables, such as the parable of the wicked tenants, as evidencing Messiahship.

After discussing various other events in Jesus' career that are best viewed through this lens, Wright concludes the section by saying "[Jesus] came to accomplish Israel's rescue, to bring God's justice to the world." (72)

He comments later, "I propose, in other words, that we can credibly reconstruct a mindset in which a first-century Jew would come to believe that YHWH would act through the suffering of a particular individual in whom Israel's sufferings were focused; that this suffering would carry redemptive significance; and that this individual would be himself. And I propose that we can plausibly suggest that this was the mindset of Jesus himself." (78) This fits with some of Wright's comments elsewhere (see Chapter 5) about Jesus' lack of knowledge of his own deity. This is not a subject I have studied at length, but while Wright's position is certainly striking, I don't regard it as particularly problematic given a robust model of the incarnation.

With regard to how Jesus understood this mission, Wright comments, "He would thereby do for Israel what Israel could not do for herself. He would fulfill Israel's vocation that she should be the servant people, the light of the world. This, I suggest, was how Jesus understood his messianic vocation." (79)

In the conclusion of the chapter, Wright says that "some critical scholars have chided me with claiming to know more than we can and with projecting back into Jesus' mind all sorts of things that we cannot be sure were ever there." (81) As this is a criticism I had as well, I was curious to see how he would respond.

Wright responds by saying "the best historical hypothesis is the one that with appropriate simplicity explains the data before us... since so many details of this picture are not the same as the early church's atonement-theology... a very strong case can in fact be made out." (82) He says that "all the signs are that Jesus did indeed make this particular construal of the overarching narrative and apply it to himself" (82) and thus we are justified in believing that this is how Jesus thought of himself. Again, I find Wright's proposal plausible but not demonstrable with any degree of certainty. Though it does provide a beautiful picture of the grand metanarrative and Jesus' understanding of his place in it, a healthy skepticism is warranted.

Wright summarizes the chapter with an allusion to practical application, a matter he discusses more fully in Chapters 7 and 8: "The cross is the surest, truest and deepest window on the very heart and character of the living and loving God; the more we learn about the cross in all its historical and theological dimensions, the more we discover about the One in whose image we are made and hence about our own vocation to be the cross-bearing people, the people in whose lives and service the living God is made known." (83)

Chapter 5 - Jesus & God

In this chapter Wright addresses the questions "Was Jesus God?" and "Did Jesus know he was God?". He begins by explaining the ambiguity surrounding those questions: "There are, then, plenty of 'gods' currently on offer. But do any of them have anything to do with Jesus? It is vital that in our generation we enquire once more: to what, or rather whom, does the word god truly refer? And if as Christians we bring together Jesus and God in some kind of identity, what sort of an answer does that provide to our question?" (87)

Wright spends a few pages discussing Jewish monotheism and various concepts of the word "God" in first-century Judaism. He concludes by saying "Jewish monotheism was much more complicated than was supposed by those who said so glibly that since Jews were monotheists they could not conceive of a human being as divine." (94)

With this out of the way, the chapter discusses early Christian views of Jesus and God. Wright comments "All the signs are that the earliest Christians very quickly came to the startling conclusion that they were under obligation, without ceasing to be Jewish monotheists to worship Jesus." (94) As evidence of this high Christology, he cites 1 Corinthians 8.1-6, Philippians 2.5-11, Galatians 4.1-7, and Colossians 1.15-20.

Wright asks where the early Christians got the idea that they should elevate Jesus this highly. After heading off some "false trails" (e.g., that the Messiah was already conceived of as divine before Jesus came, or that the resurrection established Jesus' divinity), he moves back to the life and teaching of Jesus, asking "What signs are there within his own agenda and vocation that these trains of thought originated with him rather than being wished on him by the early church?" (98)

Wright emphasizes the conflict between Jesus and the Temple. The Temple is where God came to be with humanity, but Jesus was now the embodiment of God. "for Jesus to upstage the Temple, to take on its role and function and to legitimate this with Davidic claims, meant that Jesus was claiming that he rather than the Temple was the place where and the means by which the living God was present with Israel." (98) In support of Jesus' divine self-identity, Wright also emphasizes Jesus' authority over the Jewish Scripture and his understanding that he could issue a new version of the Torah.

Further on in the chapter, Wright argues that Jesus' parables about a master returning to see how his servants were getting along with things they were supposed to do is not a reference to the second coming: "Even granted that Jesus' hearers did not always grasp what he said, it strains probability a long way to think of him attempting to explain to people who had not grasped the fact of his imminent death that there would follow an indeterminate period after which he would 'return' in some spectacular fashion for which nothing in their tradition had prepared them." (103) Rather, he argues that they're symbolic of Jesus' final coming to Jerusalem before his crucifixion: "the return of YHWH to Zion" (104). 

Wright is skeptical that Jesus viewed himself as the second person of the Trinity and argues that we should cautious about assuming a particular view of God and then assuming that Jesus must have been just like that: "Focus, instead, on a young Jewish prophet telling a story about YHWH returning to Zion as judge and redeemer, and then embodying it by riding into the city in tears, symbolizing the Temple's destruction and celebrating the final exodus." (108) Again, this is an interesting proposal, but I lack the expertise to comment further on it.

The chapter thus closes: "When we see, as Paul says, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and when we rediscover the length and breadth of what that phrase means, we see and discover this not for our own benefit but so that the glory may shine in us and through us, to bring light and life to the world that still waits in darkness and the shadow of death." (109)

Chapter 6 - The Challenge of Easter

Chapter 6 contains a brief but substantive discussion of the resurrection.

Wright begins by discussing several popular but misguided attempts to explain away the resurrection, such as the swoon theory. "As has been shown often enough, the Romans knew how to kill people, and the reappearance of a battered and exhausted Jesus would hardly be likely to suggest to his followers something for which they were certainly not prepared, namely, that he had gone through death and out the other side." (113) 

He then comments on the Pauline distinction between resurrection and exaltation: "Paul argues that all Christians will be raised as Jesus was raised, but he does not suppose that they will thereby share the unique divine sonship that, in the same letter, he attributes to Jesus. Already in Paul, in fact, we see the clear distinction between 'resurrection'—a newly embodied life after death—and 'exaltation' or 'enthronement' a distinction that some scholars have suggested only enters the tradition with Luke." (115) In other words, Jesus' resurrection and exaltation were separate events. Wright comments further on this when he discusses 1 Corinthians 15.

Wright then proposes a historical argument about what happened on Easter, consisting of three stages with four steps each. He suggests that we need to view Christianity as a kingdom-of-God movement, a resurrection movement, and a messianic movement.

A kingdom-of-God movement
1. Early Christianity was a kingdom-of-god movement.
"Already by the time of Paul the phrase 'kingdom of God' had become more or less a shorthand for the movement, its way of life and its raison-d'être." (116)

2. "Kingdom of God" had specific meanings in Judaism.
The kingdom of God meant the return of Israel from exile and the accomplishment of God's purposes for it. "If you had said to some first-century Jews 'the kingdom of God is here' and had explained yourself by speaking of a new spiritual experience, a new sense of forgiveness, an exciting reordering of your private religious interiority, they might well have said that they were glad you had had this experience, but why did you refer to it as the kingdom of God?" (116)

3. These specific meanings had not come to pass.
"Israel was not liberated; the Temple was not rebuilt; looking wider, it was obvious that evil, injustice pain and death were still on the rampage." (117)

4. Therefore, there must be some reason why the Jews came to believe that the kingdom of God had arrived.
Wright argues that there must have been some reason for the Jews to come to these conclusions.

A resurrection movement
1. There were many different Jewish views about the afterlife.
Wright explains various views such as "ultimate nonphysical bliss" (118), the resurrection of the righteous, or no afterlife at all (as espoused by the Sadducees). He comments, "Though there was a range of belief about life after death, the word resurrection was only used to describe reembodiment, not the state of disembodied bliss." (118) I fear this is a bit of an oversimplification—there were other conceptions of resurrection at the time. However, a physical reembodiment was one of the most common, and thus factors into the background knowledge for what Jesus' resurrection was believed to be.

2. The temporary disembodiment preceding bodily resurrection could not be referred to as resurrection.
Wright links the Jewish understanding of "resurrection" to the return of Israel from exile. He argues that first-century Jews would have thought of resurrection as a package of embodiment and the dawning of the new age.

3. The new age, as traditionally conceived, had not come.
The general resurrection hadn't occurred yet. Wright cites Acts 4:2 ("...being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.") as evidence that the resurrection from the dead had already occurred. "They behaved, in other words, as though the new age had already arrived." (120)

4. There must be a reason the Jews came to believe Jesus was raised from the dead.
Again, Wright argues we must postulate a reason for this shift in Jewish beliefs.

A messianic movement
1. The early church continued to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, even after his death.
Jesus was called the Messiah well after his death. See, for example, Matthew 1.1. Wright argued in Chapter 4 that belief in the resurrection wouldn't have led the Christians to think Jesus was the Messiah; thus, there must have been some precedent for it in his words and teaching. 

2. There were clear expectations in Judaism for what the Messiah would accomplish.
"Jewish expectations of a Messiah, as we have seen often enough, focused on defeating the pagans, rebuilding the Temple and bringing God's justice to the world." (121)

3. Jesus did not fulfill these.
Obviously, the Roman empire was still very much intact after Jesus died, Israel hadn't been restored to its own land, and the world hadn't seen God's justice. Yet, the early church continued to affirm Jesus as the Messiah.

4. Therefore, we must explain why the early Christians continued to believe this.
Again, we must offer an explanation for this peculiar affirmation.

1 Corinthians 15
Wright pivots into a discussion of 1 Corinthians 15. He asserts that Paul's experience was different than the others: "We trace a clear sense that Paul knew that what had happened to him was precisely not like what had happened to the others." (124) He also argues that Paul's experience couldn't have merely been an inward spiritual illumination: "When he says 'last of all,' he means that what one might call the ordinary Christian experience of knowing the risen Jesus within the life of the church, of prayer and faith and the sacraments, was not the same sort of thing that had happened to him." (124) These are helpful observations that help answer some objections to Paul's use of the creed in 1 Corinthians 15. Discussion of some of these issues can be found here.

Wright then argues from linguistics that Paul believed in a physical resurrection, and concludes the section by discussing Paul's distinction between resurrection and exaltation: "1 Corinthians 15 clearly gives the lie to this. The exaltation of Jesus is clearly distinguished from the resurrection. Of course, since the risen Jesus is the same person as the exalted Lord and since his resurrection is the prior condition for his exaltation, there is close continuity between the two. Where his argument requires it (as, for instance, in Phil 2.5-11), Paul is quite capable of referring only to the exaltation, not to the resurrection. But in this passage where he sets the matter out more fully than anywhere else, the two are aligned without confusion and distinguished without dislocation." (127) I'm not entirely sure where Wright would draw the distinction between resurrection and exaltation in 1 Corinthians 15 and would have appreciated a further explication of his position.

Wright then offers a brief critique of the hallucination theory: "If one had described such an experience to a first-century Jew, and even if such a person had been entused to the extent of experiencing something similar himself or herself, it would never have convinced them that the age to come had burst into the present time, that it was now time for the Gentiles to hear the good news, that the kingdom was really here, that Jesus was after all the Messiah." (130) While this assertion requires nuance, the radical shift that so many Jews came to embrace is certainly a fact in need of an explanation.

A concluding quote: "I believe, therefore, that the only way forward for us as historians is to grasp the nettle, recognizing that we are of course here at the borders of language, of philosophy, of history and of theology. We had better learn to take seriously the witness of the entire early church, that Jesus of Nazareth was raised bodily to a new sort of life, three days after his execution." (130)

Chapter 7 - Walking to Emmaus in a Postmodern World

In this particularly touching chapter, Wright discusses what it looks like to display Christ in a postmodern world. He briefly discusses several cultural trends and modern outlooks on knowledge, truth, and the self, but spends the bulk of the chapter discussing the resurrection appearance on the Emmaus road through the lens of Psalms 42 and 43.

"The Hebrew Scriptures thus offered to Jesus and his contemporaries a story in search of an ending. Jesus' followers had thought the ending was going to happen with Jesus. And it clearly had not. How had they thought it would happen? The pattern of messianic and prophetic movements in the centuries either side of Jesus tells a fairly clear story. The method was quite simple: holiness, zeal for God and the law, and military revolt. The holy remnant with God on their side would defeat the pagan hordes. Thus it had always been in Scripture; thus, they believed, it would be when the great climax came, when Israel's God would become King of all the world." (141)

In light of this, Wright argues that the crucifixion would have been interpreted as the end of all hope that Jesus was the Messiah, and thus spark the discussion on the road to Emmaus.

But, Wright comments, "Suppose the reason the key would not fit the lock was because they were trying the wrong door. Suppose Jesus' execution was not the clear disproof of his messianic vocation but its confirmation and climax. Suppose the cross was not one more example of the triumph of paganism over God's people but was actually God's means of defeating evil once and for all. Suppose this was, after all, how the exile was designed to end, how sins were to be forgiven, how the kingdom was to come. Suppose this was what God's light and truth looked like coming unexpectedly to lead his people back into his presence." (143)

Wright then moves into a discussion concerning various details in Luke's narrative that could be symbolic, such as the breaking of bread and the fact that this is the eighth meal reported in Luke's Gospel (e.g., the first after the initial seven, symbolizing the start of the new creation week). I'm generally unconvinced by such speculative arguments, and these were no exception, but they were nonetheless interesting to hear.

The chapter ends with a discussion on how to apply this to living out Christ in our own culture. Wright puts a heavy emphasis on the actions of Christians, saying "I am reminded of St. Francis's instructions to his followers as he sent them out: preach the gospel by all means possible, he said, and if it's really necessary you could even use words." (148) I wholeheartedly agree with this: a Christian should be able to communicate the Gospel through their actions. As Wright says, "We must therefore get used to a mission that includes living the true Christian praxis. Christian praxis consists in the love of God in Christ being poured out in us and through us." (148)

Chapter 8 - The Light of the World

In this chapter, Wright elaborates on Chapter 7 and suggests some more practical applications. He repeatedly emphasizes the new world brought in by the resurrection of Jesus: "Then on Easter morning it is the first day of the week. Creation is complete; new creation can now begin." (156)

Wright then discusses some ways he thinks Christians have misunderstood the relationship between this world and the world that is to come: "Some have so emphasized the discontinuity between the present world and our work in it on the one hand and the future world that God will make on the other that they suppose God will simply throw the present world in the trash can and leave us in a totally different sphere altogether... On the other hand, some have so emphasized the continuity between the present world and the coming new world that they have imagined we can actually build the kingdom of God by our own hard work." (158)

This is certainly a refreshing perspective, standing in contrast to those peddled by individuals of other eschatological positions, such as premillennial futurism. Wright would argue that we are living in the period between the beginning of the kingdom of God and the final establishing thereof, and thus it is not befitting for Christians to neglect caring for the world.

He elaborates further: "We do not have to achieve what Jesus achieved; we cannot, and even to suppose that we might imitate him in that way would be to deny that he achieved what in fact he did. Rather—and this is absolutely crucial to understanding what is going on—our task is to implement his unique achievement. We are like the musicians called to play and sing the unique and once-only-written musical score. We don't have to write it again, but we have to play it." (158)

After developing this point for a while, Wright discusses of what exactly our present task consists. He claims, "Our task is now to build the house, to tend the garden, to play the score. The human race has been in exile; exiled from the garden, shut out of the house, bombarded with noise instead of music. Our task is to announce in deed and word that the exile is over, to enact the symbols that speak of healing and forgiveness, to act boldly in God's world in the power of the Spirit." (163)

One of Wright's points throughout this chapter is that it doesn't much matter whether your discipline is something like ministry or something like mathematics: "You are called, prayerfully, to discern where in your discipline the human project is showing signs of exile and humbly and boldly to act symbolically in ways that declare that the powers have been defeated, that the kingdom has come in Jesus the Jewish Messiah, that the new way of being human has been unveiled, and to be prepared to tell the story that explains what these symbols are all about." (164)

Wright argues that Christians should be at the forefront of solving world difficulties, giving some practical examples of what this might look like. This is a part of mending the world and declaring that the exile is over. I agree with him here as well. Christians shouldn't sit back and let others tackle these issues, hoping that Jesus will return soon and whisk us away from every current difficulty. Rather, if we truly believe that Jesus ended the exile and ushered in the kingdom of God, if we truly believe that we are to proclaim the Gospel not just in words but also in deeds, we need to roll up our sleeves and do the work ourselves.

"The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even, heaven help us, biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way into the post-postmodern world with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom." (171)

Conclusion

Though I had my disagreements with Wright, these were small, and in no way detracted from the overall quality of the work. It is worth reading slowly to comprehend the points that Wright is making.

Given the shortness of this book (around 200 pages) and the profound ideas developed therein, I would highly recommend it to all Christians interested in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, especially those wondering what this looks like on a practical level.