NT Wright: Paul and His Recent Interpreters

N.T. Wright’s newest book is called Paul and His Recent Interpreters and it amounts to the “introduction” to his 2-volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God. It is a book that examines how the interpretation of Paul has become what it is today. I was privileged to offer an endorsement of this book and this is what I wrote:

In the past two hundred years only one other survey of biblical scholarship ranks with this book: the blockbuster The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer. Most surveys assume neutrality in order to examine the scholarship objectively, but both Schweitzer and Wright convert surveys of scholarship into scholarship itself. … And, like Schweitzer, Wright writes up a report with the kind of prose that prevents the reader from putting the book down.

In this book we will discover a stage setting chapter, then studies of theological questions, the new perspective and beyond, life after Sanders, and the old is better. Then he engages from his own stance the apocalyptic Paul — the strange career of “apocalyptic,” a study of Käsemann to Beker, then the Union school of De Boer and Martyn, and then a thorough analysis of Doug Campbell.

Will be fun, for sure!

But Tom knows that it’s not just the theological debate that matters, so he examines the social schools of thinking about Paul. Here he focuses on Wayne Meeks and David Horrell — and ventures into Paul and time, Paul and and biopolitics, … and more.

Join us next week as we begin this series on Wright’s new book.

But wait, there’s one more small book by Wright on Paul called The Paul Debate, a book of lecture-type essays written to respond to critiques of Tom Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God.

Hence, we ‘ve got a treat: Tom responding to his critics’ critiques and Tom evaluating his critics’ Paul!