Will the Stars Literally Fall from Heaven? A case for clarity

 

Justin Karmann
Professor Dale Allison, Ph.D.
The Quest for the Historical Jesus
May 12, 2014

                                    Will the Stars Literally Fall from Heaven? A case for clarity

            The rampant apocalyptic literature which pollutes our imaginations these days takes Biblical passages such as Daniel 7, Isaiah 24, and Mark 13 very literally.[1] The primary questions stemming from these passages are: was Jesus referring to the end of the world when he said the “Son of Man” would ride upon the clouds and stars would fall from heaven; or, was Jesus using apocalyptical metaphors as a way of prophecy for current socio-political events in the second-temple period? [2] On one side, the popular scholarship of Albert Schweitzer and Johannes Weiss followed later by Dale Allison and Edward Adams supports a literal interpretation of these passages with an expectation that the parousia will include cosmic destruction. On the other side, Dominic Crossan, Barth Ehrman, E.P. Sanders, and N.T. Wright all at least acknowledge that Jesus was referencing the imminent destruction of the temple in Mark 13.[3]

            This paper will present N.T. Wright’s belief that the apocalyptic language in Mark 13 is metaphorical and references the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Adams and Allison are Wright’s main objectors on this subject. After first outlining Wright’s work, I hope to portray his position as plausible, but inconsistent. Adams and Allison point out the inconsistency in Wright’s work, while showing that there are other interpretations for Mark 13.  This paper will conclude with the acknowledgment that there is no clear consensus on what first-century Jews thought of apocalyptic eschatology, destructed cosmos, and the exile. Both parties are potentially right since they accept that certain passages are to be read literally while others should be understood metaphorically. There is an expectation that both party’s interpretations ought to be uniform throughout the Bible and, as will be shown, this is not the case. We are left to wade through this convoluted mess with Wright on one side and Adams/Allison the other, but the reality is that both sides may be needed to fully grasp what Jesus meant in Mark 13.

Wright’s eschatology and the fall of the Temple: 

            Before digging into N.T. Wright’s theory on Israel’s eschatology, I want to conduct an overview of his praxis, method, and his understanding of Israel. As a self-proclaimed historian, N.T. Wright takes a critical realist approach to understanding history.[4] Setting himself apart from the positivist tradition, Wright develops a relational epistemology.[5] Wright aims to know, as best as he possibly can, how a people group, such as Israel, thought and acted based upon their literature and surrounding worldviews.[6] This style is admittedly subjective but allows historians the opportunity to speculate what actually occurred. What it all comes down to is that the language, images, and actions we use are easily accepted and understood because we know what they mean.

We need to understand, better than we commonly do, how language works…What a Martian might have seen was human beings putting pieces of paper in little tin boxes; what the politicians at the same was a tense election in progress; what the historians will see is the turning point at which a country moved from one era to another…Therefore, we must renounce the fiction of a god’s eye view of events on the one hand and a collapsing of event into significance or perception on the other.[7]

If Wright can deduce what Jews in the first-century thought about the “end times”, then it is within his boundaries to speculate that Jesus was utilizing the same sort of apocalyptic language.[8]

            Wright understands that there are two types of history: history-E (what actually happened) and history-W (what was written down).[9] His goal is to acquire history-E from history-W. Wright will be the first to admit that he is working with a certain set of biases which very well may be wrong.[10] He humbly acknowledges that his perspective is just as subjective as every other scholar; unless we have manuscripts from Jesus himself, we will never know what Jesus actually thought.[11] Nevertheless, biases aside, Wright is aiming to understand a Jesus who is a first-century Jew and is living to continue the covenant given to Israel through Abraham. Yet, what exactly is this covenant that Jesus is aiming to uphold and potentially fulfill?

            Wright’s historical foundation determines why Israel, Jesus, Paul, etc. acted the way that they did.[12] Borrowing from E.P. Sanders’ covenantal nomism, Wright believes that Israel was called and set apart by God to be the light to all other nations.[13] Israel was God’s way of restoring creation.[14] Yet, as we all know, Israel failed time and time again to maintain their covenantal status. Israel was forced into exile and invaded multiple times with the latest invasion being Rome and its Hellenistic culture during the second temple era. Because of the Roman dominion, Israel felt that they were still in exile; Israel was seeking the prophesied Messiah who would become king and relieve them of their bondage. The reader should also keep in mind that Wright believed Israel was in an eschatological state.[15] As long as Israel was under dominion of Rome, or any other foreign power for that matter, covenantal faithfulness and hope for a coming Messiah/King must continue.

The present age is still part of the ‘age of wrath’; until the Gentiles are put in their place and Israel, and the Temple, fully restored, the exile is not really over, and the blessings promised by the prophets are still to take place. No faithful Jew could believe that Israel’s god would allow her to languish forever under pagan oppressors. If he did, the taunts of the nations would after all be correct: he was only a tribal god, in competition with other tribal gods, and moreover losing the battle. [16]

Vindication must still occur and would occur in an apocalyptical setting.[17] For Wright, Jesus is that eschatological Messiah continuing God’s covenantal plan by being the second Adam who would bring Israel out of exile.[18] That all being said, what kind of Messiah does Jesus need to be?

Wright theorizes that Jesus was both a very unique, but typical Messiah. Espousing the prophetical role, Jesus was an itinerant minister who followed in the line of Daniel, Jeremiah, Elijah, and John the Baptist by healing and teaching while enacting the Kingdom of God ushering forth now.[19] What made Jesus a typical Messiah was his way of declaring himself king and revolting against the norm to inaugurate the kingdom.[20] What separated him from the likes of Simon of Peraea, Simon bar-Kochba, and Menahem ben Judah was the rejection of violence from his message.[21] Yes, Jesus believed the kingdom was finally coming about, but not through the violent means that other-would-be-messiahs attempted.[22] Instead, Jesus acted as a prophet who taught using symbols that represented Israel’s status.[23] Parables were taught just as they had always been taught—putting Jesus squarely within the Jewish prophetic tradition.[24] Knowing all of Israel’s stories and connecting the apocalyptic prophecies back to himself, Jesus was under the assumption that he would inaugurate the kingdom in himself.[25] Albert Schweitzer believed the very same thing about Jesus’ inauguration, but came about it through very different results.[26] Schweitzer’s Jesus believed the dispersing of the twelve apostles would bring about the kingdom. The kingdom would come through an assortment of changes, but most importantly, the defeat of evil.[27] For Wright, defeating evil did not mean ending Roman oppression (as is popularly understood) but rather overcoming Satan’s dominion upon the earth. Wright’s Jesus expected the kingdom to come by the defeat of Satan through Jesus’ own death and resurrection.[28] But one ought to ask: how did Jesus come to this apocalyptic conclusion? This is Wright’s main argument and also happens to be the most controversial. Wright believes that Jesus, and all of Israel for that matter, had always lived with eschatological expectations. The kingdom of God and eschatology are one and the same for Wright. Using his historical method, Wright looks to the likes of Josephus in particular to obtain this understanding[29]

The kingdom of God…was simply a Jewish way of talking about Israel’s god becoming king. And, when this god became king, the whole world, the world of space and time, would at last be put to rights. This is Jewish eschatology.[30]

Therefore, when the kingdom of God arrived, drastic changes would come about and a theophany should be upon them. The Sabbath and annual Passover were reminders that the kingdom was coming.[31] Until the kingdom arrived, Israel’s connection to God came about through the temple.[32] The temple was everything for Israel. Their salvation, covenantal renewal, and the return of the king were all embodied in this building. Wright likens the temple to where heaven and earth meet.[33] It is Israel’s god’s dwelling place. Given the importance of the temple, it is very understandable why the Sanhedrin declared blasphemy when Jesus preached the coming destruction of their beloved icon while naming himself Messiah.[34] Jesus was ultimately proposing that the inauguration of the kingdom of God replaces the temple. However, the Jews expected a violent overthrow of the Romans, the end of exile, and restoration of the nation of Israel, its king, and the temple. Instead, Jesus was going around, preaching non-violence, expecting Jews to repent of their nationalistic sins, and saying the kingdom is at hand.

Jesus was offering the return from exile, the renewed covenant, the eschatological ‘forgiveness of sins’—in other words, the kingdom of God.[35]

In every way, Israel understood that the coming of the kingdom of God was eschatological. Literally, everything they had been waiting for was about to be fulfilled, just not as they had necessarily expected.

Many if not most second-Temple Jews, then, hoped for the new exodus, seen as the final return from exile. The story would reach its climax; the great battle would be fought; Israel would truly ‘return’ to her land, saved and free; YHWH would return to Zion. This would be, in the metaphorical sense, the end of the world, the ushering in at last of YHWH’s promised new age.[36]

When Jesus expressed the ushering forth of the present kingdom (which will eventually lead to a future kingdom where God will put the world back to rights) God’s covenant was expanded to the entire world and Israel’s mission is complete. This is exactly what eschatology means for Wright. It is neither the end of the world nor the destruction of the space-time-universe as he likes to define it. Instead, eschatology is the rescue and renewal of Israel and hence of the world.[37] Covenantal salvation is no longer only exclusive to the Jews, but can be accepted by all while the world anticipates the future kingdom that has been inaugurated in the present through Jesus.[38] But this is not necessarily the case. Wright’s argument that no first-century Jews believed in an actual destruction of the universe through the “end times” is strongly contested. It all rests upon Wright’s interpretation of Mark 13 which is based upon all that has already been addressed. If Wright is wrong here, then the rest of his present and future work could be potentially damned as well.

            The borders of the puzzle have been set. Moving forward, Wright proposes that Jesus was using the same apocalyptic language found in places such as Daniel 7, which raises portents of a literal fall of the temple. I want to reiterate here that Wright does not believe that Jews expected the end of the world. Such a belief had too much Stoic influence and cosmic dualism to be really upheld by first-century Jews. This is not to say that no Jews thought this way. Wright concedes in later works that it is very possible for certain individuals or rogue sects to have thought so, but overall, no typical Jew thought the end times were upon him/her.

There is virtually no evidence that Jews were expecting the end of the space-time universe. There is abundant evidence that they…knew a good metaphor when they saw one, and used cosmic imagery to bring out the full theological significance of cataclysmic socio-political events. There is almost nothing to suggest that they followed the Stoics into the belief that the world itself would come to an end; and there is almost everything…to suggest that they did not.[39]

Nevertheless, Israel was expecting some sort of apocalyptic doom instead of a cosmological duality. It could be described as the writing on the wall and Jesus was able to predict it, just as I am sure many others were realizing at that time.[40] Israel was well aware that they were still in exile and were not free to be the nation-state they once had been. Originally, Babylon initiated their diaspora and once Israel returned the only expectation Jews desired was a restoration of their nationality. In an ironic turn of events, Wright thinks that Jesus viewed Israel as the new Babylon, exiling its own people from what God has originally intended: covenantal renewal and relationship with all nations.[41] Jesus is making the bold claim that Israel is no longer in the center of God’s covenantal plan because Jesus will become the center.[42]

Israel was being redefined; and those who failed to heed Jesus’ warnings would discover themselves in the position that they had thought was reserved for the pagans.[43]

When Jesus inaugurates the kingdom, the temple is no longer needed. If Israel would not repent of their nationalistic sins, Jerusalem would be no better off than Gehenna. This is where, for Wright, the apocalyptic metaphors really begin.

Wright meticulously presents instances in the Hebrew Bible, including Hosea 6, where the destruction of the temple is re-prophesied by Jesus in the Gospels.[44] Jesus used Old Testament prophecy to solidify his own coming to the throne and inauguration of God’s kingdom.[45] As the disciples heard all of these re-interpretations of these well-known passages while sitting across from the Temple mount in Mark 13, they wanted to know how Israel would be vindicated and how their leader would become king.[46] As Jesus inserted apocalyptical passages from Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah in which the people are told to flee because Babylon has come, the disciples would slowly have begun to understand that these metaphors are the writing on the wall for what was about to happen to their beloved Temple which happened to be sitting right across from them.[47] All of these passages carry dual socio-political meanings. As the disciples marveled at the impressiveness of the Temple in Mark 13:1, Jesus envisions its complete and utter devastation:  Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”[48] But the destruction of the Temple was not just the demolition of a mere building. As mentioned earlier, this is where heaven met earth and God was in relationship with God’s people. To accept that the Temple is no more is to assume that God is being displaced. Consequently, it would not be too much of a stretch to envision the destruction of the Temple as the end of the world for the Jews.

Then Jesus begins to prophecy people fleeing and brother turning against brother.[49] A cataclysmic event is at hand.[50] Scholars, such as Schweitzer and Weiss, have speculated that Jesus is prophesying about the end of the world in Mark 13 and was proven wrong since it never occurred.[51] In their minds, his parousia never came.[52] I question, however, whether both Wright and Schweitzer are correct.[53] I speculate that second-temple Jews would understand the cosmos within their own nationalistic sense. Perhaps they would have expected the world to end because it was prophesied that Israel was ending. If the same was prophesied of America in our own modern times, I expect many will fear the cosmos to be ending as well. This does not mean that the cosmos is literally ending, but rather that Israel’s own borders are the only thing they can truly grasp so they use language that speaks as if the space-time-universe is about to be destroyed.[54]

Returning to Mark 13, Jesus quotes the passage in Daniel 7 and Isaiah 13, 34:

But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.[55]

 This is where the greatest controversy lies. Wright reminds us that the Daniel and Isaiah passages are carrying socio-political metaphors and have nothing to do with the end of the space-time-universe.[56] Specifically, Daniel 7 is speaking of a future Messiah (Son of Man) that would bring them out of the exile they are under through the Babylonians.[57] Second-temple Jews ought to hear the same message if they still believed they were under exile to the Romans and Greek Hellenization. Just as the metaphors of the failing sun, moon, and stars in Isaiah and Daniel are references to Babylon, Jesus is using these same images, but Rome has replaced Babylon.[58] Likewise, the ‘Son of Man riding upon the clouds’ ought to be interpreted as Jesus leaving this earth and returning to the ‘Ancient of Days’ or heaven.[59] What this all leads up to is Jesus being vindicated after suffering on the cross as he expects to do.[60] In summation, Wright believes that the exiled Jews are being called by Jesus, the true Adamic Messiah, who will fulfill the covenant, restore God’s relationship with Israel by easily predicting the fall of the Temple and the polluted Jerusalem, and enacting a present kingdom which allows God to be present without need of the temple. The exile is over and now a future kingdom is to be expected while living out in the present. Wright now expects God, not to destroy the world and start over as Stoic philosophy suggests, but rather put ‘the world back to rights’ and enact the future part of the kingdom when all is restored as is ought to be.

It is Mark’s central contention that in Jesus the long-awaited moment had come when Israel’s God would act in person and in power. The events of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the divine judgment on Jerusalem, were indeed the inauguration of the kingdom, the return of YHWH to Zion. They were not the ultimate end, but they were the start of it.[61]

Wright has offered us a sound argument. And while other scholars will disagree, my primary question is: if the kingdom is here in the present, where is it and what is it doing?

The Stars Will Fall from Heaven—critiques of Wright’s work:

Not everyone, however, finds Wright’s overall eschatological use of metaphors and interpretation of Mark 13 to be credible. Edward Adams and Dale Allison believe that passages such as Mark 13 ought to be read more literally. When Jesus remarks that the sun will be darkened and stars will fall from heaven, Allison wonders whether this actually would happen.[62] After all, first-century Jews did not have modern science and could read Isaiah and then view something as simple as a meteor shower to be the end of the world.

First and foremost, many scholars do not believe that Israel thought they were still in exile during the second-temple era. After all, the Jews had returned to their motherland a few centuries beforehand by the gracious act of Cyrus the Great. The Temple had been rebuilt, supposedly mightier than before, and sacrifices were being made.[63] Why would they still consider themselves to be in exile? The contention raised is that Wright glosses over this point and merely assumes this is the way Jews viewed themselves.[64] Yet, Wright is not alone in his belief that Jews thought they were still in exile. Scholar Craig Evans connects references from Josephus, Theudas, and the Egyptian Jew with coinciding findings in the Qumran texts to show that Israel was still waiting for restoration and vindication.[65] As long as Israel was under Roman rule, they were not free. Even though they were allowed to carry out their sacrificial practices, they were still oppressed. Evans goes so far as to connect the same Danielic ‘Son of Man’ narrative to the exile and concludes that Wright is right.[66] Wright even clarifies his point later on, noting that the exile should not only be understood geologically, but also as an era when YHWH is not maintaining covenantal faithfulness.[67] The exile becomes the evil, present age while waiting for the age to come when the long-awaited Messiah will inaugurate the kingdom.[68] Of course, it is likely that certain Jews did think the exile was over, but Wright makes a strong case for a continuing exile that Jesus was born into.[69]

Yet, all of this is for nothing if Wright is incorrect in his belief that no second-temple Jew would read Daniel and expect the end of the space-time universe.[70] It all comes down to Adams’ book The Stars Will Fall from Heaven. Adams takes Wright head on, finding that it is very likely that many Jews did expect the end of the world or ‘destructed cosmos’ as he insists on calling it[71]. Again, according to Wright, an end to the space-time universe is too heavily influenced by Stoicism and reflects a dualistic cosmology.[72] Adams does not hold back any punches in his counter to Wright by first going through the Hebrew Bible, Jewish apocalyptic literature, Greco-Roman sources, and finally passages from the New Testament to show the exact opposite. In the Hebrew Bible, it is clear that God promised the world that God would not destroy the world again with a flood, but God never said anything about any other natural disaster. Passages such as Isaiah 24 and Joel 2:10 reveal a real fear for the end of the world[73] Likewise in Jewish apocalyptic literature, Adams believes that 1 Enoch is a clear reference to the final eschatological event.[74] Wright acknowledges the dualism present in this literature but believes it is a lone wolf in Jewish thinking.[75] Adams responds with a right jab, demonstrating how The Astronomical Book, The Dream Vision of 1 Enoch 83-84, Testament of Job, Biblical Antiquities, 4 Ezra, Apocalypse of Zephaniah, 2 Enoch, Sib. Or. 3.75-92, 4, and 5.179-285 are all Jewish apocalyptic writings about the destruction of the cosmos.[76] The same can be found in Greco-Roman literature, but Wright capably shrugs off these attacks off since they are influenced by Stoic philosophy.[77] In the New Testament, Adams goes 10 rounds with his exegesis of Hebrews 12:25-29 and 2 Peter 3:5-13. Both of these passages clearly have no socio-political meaning. Adams concludes:

The idea of creation coming to an end is not at all foreign to Jewish theology and eschatology. The cessation of the present creation is both implied and explicitly taught in the Old Testament, and, as was demonstrated, it is a well-attested conviction in Jewish apocalyptic and related writings. It is thus entirely plausible, within a Jewish context, that the evangelist (or even Jesus himself) should express it.[78]

The greatest critique comes from Dale Allison. Allison, a world-renown New Testament scholar himself, finds Wright to be inconsistent in his use of eschatological metaphors in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in Daniel 7.[79] Allison questions whether Wright is picking and choosing certain metaphors to be literal while others carry socio-political meaning.[80] After all, the sun literally stands still in Joshua 10 and the sky becomes black after the crucifixion in the passion narrative. [81] Although Allison and Wright both agree that the world is going to be changed at the end, there is disparity concerning whether this will be the end of time or renewing of the world as speculated by Wright.[82] Allison thinks hearers of Jesus would have expected vindication and looked for Jesus to return soon after his ascension with a host of angels.[83] Paul seemed to think so as well in 1 Thessalonians 4 when Jesus returns as a thief in the night.[84] Further passages such as Isaiah 24 strictly refer to the destruction of the world. Wright has no answer for these passages either. What it really comes down to for Allison is the convenience of Wright’s Jesus.[85] Jesus is no longer held in contempt for misidentifying the end of the world.[86] He is saved from his own salvation.

Does Wright believe that if we adopt a more literal interpretation of Jesus’ apocalyptic language, then we will be stuck with the embarrassment of an error-ridden Jesus? Is the nonliteral interpretation of biblical prophecy an attempt to circumvent an unwelcome alternative? A Jesus who expected a radical transformation of nature and the last judgment, especially if he spoke as though those things might come in the near future, is not very congenial to either orthodox or modern thought: he raises disturbing questions. But a Jesus who used figurative language to talk about the political events of his day is rhetorically admirable, and he also has the virtue of freeing us from the theological difficulties of the usual apocalyptic Jesus. Schweitzer’s Jesus is an offense; Wright’s Jesus, by comparison, is a welcome relief. Surely then our suspicions must be aroused.[87]

Instead, Allison urges us to read the prophecies literally and to still expect an apocalyptic parousia.[88]

Wright responds to this critique fairly by first citing his mentor G.B Caird. Wright adopts Caird’s presupposition that Jeremiah also prophecies the destruction of the temple by using end-of-space-time language, but Jeremiah is never declared a false prophet because the world had not come to an end by the time of Christ.[89] Jeremiah’s audience, Wright suggests, understood that there was socio-political meanings behind his prophecy.[90] The same ought to be understood of the metaphors behind Jesus’ prophecies. Likewise, he urges Allison to rethink his definition of metaphor:

Allison seems to use metaphorical to mean abstract; for when he says that it would be unwise to reduce the language of 2 Baruch to metaphor, it is the word reduce that puzzles me. He then fills the linguistic gap by the use of the word symbol and its cognates. Thus when he accuses me of forcing a choice between understanding eschatology in terms of metaphors and understanding it is in terms of the end of the space-time-universe, he is forcing his shrunken understanding of metaphor and then rejecting it.[91]

What this convoluted response means, in Wright’s view, is that eschatological passages use literal metaphors for socio-political events. In Daniel, there is a reference to stars falling from the heavens, but there are also instances in the Josephus narrative where cows give birth to lambs and swords shall fall upon Jerusalem.[92] Should the same literal interpretation be expected of these metaphors? Wright thinks not. Allison seems to have the last word in this debate when he questions the legitimacy of this present kingdom which Wright has been harping on.

…and it seems to me that, whether or not we speak of the end of the space-time universe with reference to Jesus’ eschatology, what matters is that his vision of the kingdom cannot be identified with anything around us. God has not yet brought a radically new world. Specifically, if Jesus hoped for the ingathering of scattered Israel, if he expected the resurrection of the patriarchs and if he anticipated that the saints would gain angelic natures, then his expectations, like the other eschatological expectations of Judaism, have not yet met fulfillment. To this extent we may speak of his “unrealized eschatology.”

I echo Allison in asking Wright: where is this kingdom?

Conclusion:

            What does this all mean? Will the world literally end or will it be renewed? Did the first-century Jews believe they were still in exile? What did they expect when they heard Jesus incorporate apocalyptic texts from their past? Overall, what did Jesus think? Many of these questions are unanswerable.[93] But, this does not mean that Wright’s work has been negated. In reality, the exact opposite has occurred. Adams and Allison have both acknowledged that there are passages where socio-political metaphors are being used in regards to apocalyptic prophecy. But Adams and Allison have also caught Wright overstating his case. The fluidity and the grand-metanarrative which Wright is working towards may not be all there. He may be extending his covenantal faithfulness and the vindication and inauguration of the kingdom in the present perspective a little too much. Which returns me to my final question: where is the kingdom? 

Wright has written extensively on this matter since Jesus and the Victory of God and convincingly so, but I still do not have a convincing answer when someone asks how the kingdom is here now. [94]  After all, the world is still a messed up place. The explanation that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom in the present, extending the covenant to all of humanity, electing all of us to be faithful to working towards the final kingdom feels like a ‘cop out’ when someone is describing the horrific loss of a loved one. This being the case, I still insist that Wright’s perspective is not wrong, but rather that further clarity from him and his opponents is necessary. And finally, both Adams, Wright, and, to some extent, Allison are guilty of expecting their interpretation to be the dominant meta-narrative throughout the Scriptures. This clearly is not the case and is the reason why further clarity is needed. Everyone will draw different conclusions from our authors’ perspectives so I can only speak for myself when I acknowledge that I find Wright’s understanding of Daniel 7, Isaiah 24, and Mark 13 to be correct. Jesus was prophesying a destruction of the temple and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. But I also agree with Adams and Allison’s retort that there were definitely certain Jews who were expecting the end of the world. Therefore, whether the kingdom has come now or is yet to come in the future, some sort of apocalyptic destruction will occur and then, as Wright poetically describes it, God will put the world back to rights.   

 

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—. The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.

—. The Resurrection and the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

Wright, N.T., interview by Justin Karmann. The Stars Will Fall From Heaven: A Response to Eddie Adams and Dale Allison on apocalyptic language in the gospels (10 2014, April).

Wright, N.T., and Marcus Borg. The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. New York: Harper Collins, 1999.

 

 

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[1] Examples of this would include John Hagee’s latest rubbish, Four Blood Moons.

[2] Mark 13:24-26.

[3] Crossan, The Historical Jesus, (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 356-359; Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 156-159; Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, (New York: Penguin Press, 1993), 255-262).

[4] Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 61.

[5] Ibid, 44-45. “The Relational Epistemology” model allows fully for the actuality of knowledge beyond that of one’s own sense-data (that which the objectivist’ desires to safeguard), while also fully allowing for the involvement of the knower in the act of knowing (that upon the subjectivist’ will rightly insist” 45 (emphasis added).

[6] Ibid, 45.

[7] Ibid, 63 (emphasis added).

[8] For a better understanding, see Part Two of his Jesus and the People of God.

[9] Wright. “In Grateful Response.” In Jesus and the Restoration of Israel by Carey C. Newman, 245-248.

[10] Wright in response to Nicholas Perrin - Jesus' Eschatology and Kingdom Ethics: Ever the Twain Shall Meet at the 2010 Wheaton Theological Conference

[11] Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), Preface & 11-27.

[12] Wright, NTPG, 256-260.

[13] Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977), 421-423; Wright, NTPG,  245.

(1)      God has chosen Israel

(2)      God has given the Law

(3)      The Law implies God’s promises to maintain the election

(4)      This implies the requirement to obey

(5)      God rewards obedience and punishes transgressions.

(6)      The Law provides for means of atonement.

(7)      Atonements results in maintenance of covenantal relationship.

(8)      All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement, and God’s mercy will be saved.           

[14] Wright, NTPG, 260-266. They were to be the true Adamic community (262).

[15] Ibid, 269-270.

[16] Ibid, 270-271. This one of the strongest criticisms levied against Wright. Many scholars believe that the Jews return to Israel has ended the exile. Clearly, Wright disagrees and this will be addressed later.

[17] Wright, JVG. 215.

[18] Wright, NTPG, 268-334; Evans, “Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel”. In Jesus and the Restoration of Israel by Carey. C. Newman. 90-91.

[19] Wright, JVG, 147-197.

[20] Ibid, 191-192.

[21] Wright, JVG, 110,471.

[22] Wright, Simply Jesus, (New York: Harper Collins, 2011),  116-117

[23] Wright, JVG, 167.

[24] Ibid, 177.

[25] Ibid, 197. “The stories he told, and acted out, made it clear that he envisaged his own work as bringing Israel’s history to its fateful climax. He really did believe he was inaugurating the kingdom”; McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel. 100

[26] Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, (Mineola, New York: Dover Press, 1911), 386-388.

[27] Wright, JVG, 200.

[28] Ibid, 461.

[29] Wright, NTPG, 170-183, 302-307.

[30] Ibid, 202-203.

[31] Ibid, 204.

[32] Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus. 246-253; Wright, JVG 204-20; Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism. 303-306; Sanders, The History Figure of Jesus. 35-37.

[33] Wright, JVG. 205.

[34] Matthew 26:57-67; Wright, JVG, 521-525.

[35] Wright, JVG. 272.

[36] Ibid, 209

[37] Ibid, 279-280.

[38] If this is the case, Paul’s message about present and future justification also holds true.

[39] Ibid, 321.

[40] Ibid, 323, 344; Josephus, War 6.5.4 310-311. The same case could be made for 9/11 here in the United States. Extremist groups had attempted attacking it before and there were reports out that they would attempt so again. It would not have been too far out there to expect such an attack. Jesus would be in the same camp, knowing the factors surrounding his socio-political situation and, consequently, predicting the inevitable.

[41] Ibid, 323.

[42] Ibid, 327.

[43] Ibid, 329.

[44] Ibid, 335-339.

[45] Ibid, 342.

[46] That was the whole point of them following Jesus around for years.

[47]Mark 13:5-23

[48] Mark 13:2

[49] Mark 13:12-13.

[50] Last Christmas, I visited Pearl Harbor and stood above the sunken grave of the U.S.S. Arizona as a survivor recounted his story. I could smell the burnt oil and molten metal as I imagined planes screaming overhead. The carnage became real once more. I imagine the disciples hearing Jesus prophecy—about the coming destruction of the Temple as kingdom comes upon kingdom and Jerusalem is on fire—remembering what their ancestors experienced when Babylon invaded. This was not some fanciful prophecy of a remote desolation but an imminent warning about what was about to occur.

[51] Schweitzer, 365-395; Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. 93-95.

[52] Wright, JVG, 341.

[53] Although Wright could be labeled as an apologist for defending Jesus’ prophecy within his social setting, I speculate that he would not turn away from such a claim. Growing up in shadow of Bultmann’s legacy, Jesus was either a confused sage or, in Wright’s assumption, another prophet warning Israel of its pending doom. Wright is attempting to be consistent with his critical realism while warding off years of post-liberalism.

[54] Of course, this is pure speculation.

[55] Mark 13:24-27

[56] Wright, JVG, 354-360.

[57] Ibid, 513. “Within the historical world of the first century, Daniel was read as a revolutionary kingdom-of-god text, in which Israel’s true representative(s) would be vindicated after their trial and suffering at the hands of the pagans (517).
“We must not confuse literary ‘representation’ with either sociological or metaphysical ’representation’, or any of these with metaphysical identification. At the literary level, ‘one like a son of man’ in Daniel 7 represents ‘the people of the saints of the most high’. The phrase ‘one like a son of man’ thus refers to the ‘people of the saints of the most high’, and invests them, by means of apocalyptic imagery, with the status of being the truly human ones who will be exalted over the ‘beasts’. As this text was read by suffering Jews in Jesus’ day, the ‘son of man’ became identified as the anointed Messiah; he, of course, would ‘represent’ the true Israel in the sociological sense, standing in her place and fighting her great battle” (518).

[58] Wright, NTPG 304-310.

[59] Wright, JVG 361.

[60] Ibid, 336-343.

[61] Wright, The Stars Will Fall From Heaven. Evangelical Theological Society: Milwaukee, November 15, 2012. 8

[62] Allison, lecture from April 8, 2014 at Princeton Theological Seminary

[63] Evans, Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel, 78.

[64] Casey, Where Wright is Wrong: A Critical Review of N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 69 (1998) 99.

[65] Evans, 80-86.

[66] Ibid, 99-100.

[67] Wright, In Grateful Dialogue, 259.

[68] Ibid, 260.

[69] Wright, PTFG, “Now of course it is quite possible that some first-century Jews believed that the space-time universe would come to a stop, that the material world was a thing of shadows and irrelevance, and that one day soon some god or other (which one” not the God of Genesis 1, for sure) would create a new sort of world without all that messy stuff. Philo, on a poor day at least, might have pondered that possibility” 165.

[70] Ibid, 170.

[71] Adams, The Stars Will Fall From Heaven, (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 4-17.

[72] Wright, A Grateful Dialogue, 262-270.

[73] Adams, 47.

[74] Ibid 57. The book of Jubilee definitely supports Wright and Adams has no answer for the socio-political metaphors present in this passage.

[75] Wright, PTFG, 166.

[76] Adams, 99.

[77] Wright, The Stars Will Fall From Heaven, 6-9; Adams, 256. What surprises me is that both parties believe in some sort of event in the end when God will make things right. In fact, both present a solid case for the end of the space-time-universe but I find that no one is actually arguing for cosmic destruction. All of these scholars expect God to change the world and for there to be some sort of cataclysmic event but nothing that will be ex nihilo as with the Genesis creation accounts. Perhaps, these gifted scholars can again come to the table and first identify what the future kingdom will look like and then work back from there?

[78] Adams, 163.

[79] Allison, Jesus and the Victory of Apocalyptic, 130-131.

[80] Ibid, 131.

[81] Allison, lecture from April 8, 2014 at Princeton Theological Seminary.

[82] Allison, Jesus and the Victory of Apocalyptic, 134.

[83] Ibid, 131-135.

[84] Ibid, 135.

[85] Allison, The Historical Christ, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 97-100.

[86] Allison, Jesus and the Victory of Apocalyptic, 137.

[87] Ibid, 137.

[88] Ibid, 140-141.

[89] Ibid, 169.

[90] Ibid, 169.

[91] Wright, In Grateful Dialogue, 262.

[92] Wright, PTFG, 173-174.

[93] Allison, The Historical Jesus, 90-95.

[94] Most prominently by Wright: Surprised By Hope, Evil and the Justice of God, Simply Jesus, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, How God Became King, After We Believe.