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{"id":16591,"date":"2020-11-03T05:24:58","date_gmt":"2020-11-03T09:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/?p=16591"},"modified":"2020-10-30T18:54:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T22:54:16","slug":"apostle-paul-n-t-wright-and-supersessionism-the-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2020\/11\/apostle-paul-n-t-wright-and-supersessionism-the-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Apostle Paul, N.T. Wright, and Supersessionism – The Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last year\u00a0Joel Kaminsky and\u00a0<\/span>Mark Reasoner published an article in\u00a0Harvard Theological Review\u00a0<\/em>112.4 (2019)\u00a0on \u201cThe Meaning and Telos of Israel\u2019s Election: An Interfaith Response to N.T. Wright\u2019s Reading of Paul<\/a>,\u201d pp. 421-446.<\/p>\n

I thought they scored a few good points against Wright, but on the whole, I thought they were grossly unfair, putting the worst possible spin on Wright\u2019s position, and I think they got a lot wrong about second Temple Judaism and the apostle Paul.<\/p>\n

So I wrote a rejoinder which\u00a0HTR\u00a0<\/em>has just now published and Reasoner and Kaminsky have their own surrejoinder in the latest issue.<\/p>\n

Michael F. Bird, \u201cN. T. Wright and Paul\u2019s Supersessionism: A Response to Kaminsky and Reasoner,<\/a>\u201d\u00a0HTR\u00a0<\/em>113.4 (2020):\u00a0498-512.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joel Kaminsky and Mark Reasoner offered a concerted critique of N. T. Wright\u2019s account of Israel\u2019s election as well as Wright\u2019s description of the apostle Paul\u2019s messianic atonement theology. They allege that Wright treats Israel\u2019s election as instrumental rather than intrinsic and his exegesis of Rom 5:20\u201221 results in a rehearsal of anti-Jewish tropes. This essay responds to them by 1) claiming that many of their criticisms are inaccurate representations of Wright\u2019s views; 2) defending a missional perspective of Israel\u2019s view of election; 3) asserting that Wright\u2019s reading of Rom 5:20 about the Torah multiplying sin within Israel is neither immoral, nor implausible, nor idiosyncratic; and 4) offering some final thoughts about Wright and Jewish-Christian relations.<\/p>\n

Joel Kaminsky and\u00a0<\/span>Mark Reasoner, \u201cIn Quest of a Coherent Portrait of Paul: A Rejoinder to Michael Bird,<\/a>\u201d HTR\u00a0<\/em>113.4 (2020):\u00a0513-527.<\/span><\/p>\n

This rejoinder to Michael Bird\u2019s critique of our argument in Joel Kaminsky and Mark Reasoner, \u201cThe Meaning and Telos of Israel\u2019s Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright\u2019s Reading of Paul,\u201d\u00a0HTR<\/span>\u00a0112 (2019) 421\u201346, acknowledges that Wright recognizes a dimension of intrinsic value in God\u2019s election of Israel, while it shows how Wright\u2019s metanarrative is not only unduly skewed toward an instrumental view of Israel\u2019s election but also, in effect, totally redefines Israel. Our rebuttal first reiterates some of our original claims and also presents new arguments against an exegesis of Second Isaiah that portrays Israel as divinely called to bring light or Torah to the nations. Later Second Temple sources also did not understand Israel as failing to fulfill a divine call to missionize the gentiles. Bird\u2019s own inconsistency on the mission orientation of Israel weakens his defense of Wright here. Wright\u2019s exegesis of Rom 5:20\u201321 as teaching that God intentionally gave Torah to draw the world\u2019s sins onto Israel and Bird\u2019s defense of this on the basis of Isaiah 53 are anomalous and untenable in the light of other scholars\u2019 readings of Romans and the rest of the New Testament. Finally, against Bird, Wright does indeed read non-Christ-confessing Jews out of Israel in a highly problematic way. Bird\u2019s agreement with us against Wright that \u201call Israel\u201d in Rom 11:26 refers to corporeal Israel strengthens our original critique of Wright\u2019s redefinition of Israel in Rom 9\u201311.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"