184. n. t. wright's res. of son of god- review

7/30/2019 184. N. T. Wright's Res. of Son of God- Review

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While this is a book foran educated audience, it is not directed primarilyto specialists. Swinburne's prose is crisp and clear, and he does anexemplary job of presenting the structure of his argument without rendering the book inaccessible to those who lack his background in analytic

philosophy. He wisely relegates his discussion of probability calculus andBayes's Theorem (whence the 97 percent probability is derived) to a dense

but readable appendix. Beyond those who are interested in natural theology and the style of analytic philosophy of religion so skillfullypracticed

by Swinburne, however, it is a bit unclear who his intended academicaudience is. This book lacks the extensive reference to New Testamentscholarship one would expect of a book directed to New Testamentspecialists. His arguments will to some seem skewed in the direction ofChristianity, for he does not consider arguments why it would be unrea

sonable to consider that God would become incarnate, and he sets theprobability that God would become incarnate at some point in humanhistory at fiftypercent, which will seem inflated to those unconvinced byhis arguments. This is a book that will likely be well received by anduseful to pastors, apologists, and educated lay people who are less interested in biblical and historical scholarship than they are in a careful andthoughtful reading of the New Testament, combined with a nonsectariantheology that offers a defense of the traditional doctrine of Christ'sphysical resurrection. This last audience in particularwill be well served

by Swinburne's book.

JASON RICKMAN

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, IN

The Resurrection of the Son of God

By . T. Wright

Minneapolis, Fortress, 2003. 817 pp. $39.00.

. T. Wright is Canon Theologian at WestminsterAbbey and a worldwidecelebrity lecturer. His reformulation of the New Testament story as fulfillment of Second Temple Jewish hopes for God's saving intervention inIsrael's history has been the subject of several earlier books, workshops,and lectures. Wright fans will welcome this volume as next in the series.Conservative Catholic and Protestant readers will be pleased to find their

contempt for liberal theology, comparative religious studies, and historical-critical exegesis justified. Canon Wright plays to that audience withremarks about the mental deficiencies of those of us who disagree with his


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three are about two hundred pages each: (1) methodological considerations and background information on post-mortem survival, the soul, andresurrection in Greco-Roman and Jewish sources; (2) Pauline letters andPaul's personal encounter with the risen Jesus; and (3) resurrection in

other New Testament texts and in ancient Christian writings through theearly patristic period. Afinalchapter in the third section treats resurrectionand confession of Jesus as Messiah and Lord. The concluding sections getto the questions of interest to most readers: (4) the resurrection narrativesas we find them in the Gospels and (5) two chapters devoted to the "sowhat" issues of historicity and Christology. The author is so repetitiousand self-referencing that some readers may prefer to skip from the introductory chapter to the Pauline letters and, from there, to the Easter storiesin the Gospels.

Wright employs an extensive survey of background materials fromGreco-Roman and Jewish sources to establish a univocal Jewish understanding of resurrection. God's creative power will restore the dead to aform of bodily life. He rejects the evidence that first-century Jews envisaged other modes of eternal life with God, such as astral immortality,transformation into the glory of the heavenly Adam, or incorporation intothe ranks of angelic beings. Only a "transphysical" embodiment in the newcreation that is the goal of God's covenant promise and of Israel'smessianic hope fits Wright's reconstruction of the religious views of

first-century CE Jews.Such a rigid understanding of Jewish texts is not necessary to Wright's

more plausible suggestion that nothing short of an "embodied" encounterwith the risen Lord and, consequently, an empty tomb can account forearly Christian beliefs as articulated in the New Testament. Later Christianwriters make the bodily character of resurrection central to their rejectionof both gnostic spirituality and Greco-Roman views of the immortal soul.Wright points out the significant discontinuity between Christian claimsabout Jesus and the cultural archetypes often said to generate resurrection

stories. Execution by the Roman governor is not a setting for a quasi-imperial apotheosis, though Wright repeatedly appeals to the anti-imperialrhetoric ofthe exaltation and parousia ofthe risen Son ofGod. Nor can thebodily return to life of a relatively unknown Galilean religious leader beequivalent to mythic netherworld journeys or the heavenly ascent ofEnoch or Elijah. In short, Wright concludes that, if all the early Christianssought to affirm was that they could continue Jesus' liberating vision ofGod's rule in the Spirit or that God had taken the crucified, sufferingservant to God's right hand in the divine throne room, they would not have

produced the Easter narratives. Christians told these stories because theyrefer to actual, historical events.Though Wright repeatedly flings charges of being victimized by En


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version of salvation for Wright is a new creative act of God that will beinitiated by Jesus' return at the parousia. In other words, what Wrighcannot believe is that there might be reality to all the dimensions of thSpirit encoded in the metaphors we use about angels, heavenly regions

and transformation into divine glory.Amore sympathetic reading of PlatoPlotinus, Philo, the Jewish and Christian mystical traditionnot to mention Augustine, Aquinas, and Dante's Commediathan onefindsin CanWright's book opens up other possibilities for Christian eschatology.

Wright's insistence on a univocal understanding of Christian eschatology leads him to attack the faith of ordinary believers. At best, the "inheaven" and "with the Lord" language is only about the intermediate statof the dead. Our funeral sermons should not promise the happy life inheaven or an immediate transition out of the body by an immortal soul

Easter refers to God's recreation, to the restoration of God'srighteousonein that creation, not to an individual hope for a next life or for lifcontinued in a new sphere of reality. This principled rejection leaves onwondering what the pastoral significance of Wright's project will turn outo be.

PHEME PERKIN

Boston CollegeChestnut Hill, MA

How the Idea of Religious Toleration Cameto the West

By Perez Zagorin

Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2003. 371 pp.$29.95.

Perez Zagorin, professor of history emeritus oftheUniversity of Rochesteand a Fellow of the Shannon Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Virginia and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, hawritten frequently throughout his career on western (especially Britishintellectual history. Here he focuses on the idea of religious tolerationDespite the broad scope of its title, this book actually covers primarilywestern Europe from the European wars of religion through the British Acof Toleration (1689), highlighting the contributions of key western intellectuals (up through John Locke) in articulating a rationalespecifically Christian rationalefor toleration. The author says the book aims "topresent readers with a broad historical account of the ideas of tolerance


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184. n. t. wright's res. of son of god- review

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