1998 - maurice casey - where wright is wrong. a critical review of n. t. wright’s ‘jesus and the...

7/27/2019 1998 - Maurice Casey - Where Wright Is Wrong. A Critical Review of N. T. Wrights Jesus and the Victory of Good

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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X9802006905

1998 20: 95Journal for the Study of the New TestamentMaurice Casey

the Victory of GodWhere Wright Is Wrong: a Critical Review of N.T.Wright's Jesus and

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WHERE WRIGHT IS WRONG:A CRITICAL REVIEW OF

N.T.WRIGHTS JESUSAND THE VICTORY OF GOD*

Maurice Casey

Department of Theology, Nottingham University

University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD.

We must begin by welcoming the publication of the book by our col-

league N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory ~f G~d.In the

presentstate of academia, obsessed with completion dates of any work to the

detriment of work which matters, it is particularly good to see a new,

thorough and vigorous attempt to locate Jesus in his original cultural

context. Together with the recent work of E.P. Sanders, it must rate

as one of the best books we have had on Jesus so far.At the risk of

seeming to damn it with faint praise, one must add that it is infinitelybetter than anything to emerge from theAmerican Jesus Seminar:

good scholarship is sober and vigilant, as well as learned and

ingenious.As well as the attempt to see Jesus in his original cultural context, a

welcome feature of this book, compared with the majority of older

ones, is the decreased emphasis on christological titles in so doing.The use of messiahship remains problematical, as we shall see, buteven here genuinely relevant material is carefully gathered together so

that it can easily be used by those of us who are not so convinced thatthe term messiah is an appropriate one for describing Jesus during

* This is a written-up version of a contribution to the Jesus Seminar of theBritish New Testament Conference on 13 September 1997. I am grateful to col-

leagues, especially Dr Wright and Dr C. Marsh, for an interesting debate.1. London: SPCK, 1996.

2. Cf. E.P.Sanders,

Jesus andJudaism (London: SCM Press, 1985); TheHistorical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books 1993).

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the historic ministry.Another very useful feature is the lengthy criti-

cal Forsclmngsbericht, which draws attention to the presuppositions

and cultural environment of investigators, and to the drastic effects ofthis on their pictures of Jesus.

Nonetheless, there are serious problems with this book, and the

major purpose of this critical review has to be to draw attention to

them. The most overarching is the missing piece of the Forschung.s-bericht. The scholarly community as a whole has a myth, a story

according to which we live.According to this myth, we live in the

third quest of the historical Jesus. This myth entails the unfortunatenotion that nothing serious happened in the quest between Schweitzer

wrecking the first quest in 1906, and Kdsemann starting the second

quest in 1953.~ Here again we are told of the absence of serious Jesus

study in pre-war Germany, though Wright knows something of the

attempts to show that Jesus was not Jewish.4 I prefer to regard this

phase of the quest as the most crucial because it is the most illuminat-

ing.Here there was an overt

attemptto demonstrate that Jesus was not

Jewish, a verifiably quite false position.5 This was done because it waswhat German Christians needed.Accordingly, we can see here with

the utmost clarity a hermeneutical circle controlling the work of

scholars who were genuinely expert in the New Testament field.

Equally clearly, we can see that the quest of the historical Jesus is a

quest to avoid him.Avoiding him entails avoiding his Jewishness and

replacing him with a Christ of faith who is to a significant degree a

reification of the needs of a particular Christian community. When we

have seen this, we can better understand radical criticism of the

Gospels in the immediately preceding period, and return to our own

3. A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede: Eine Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-

Forschung (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1906). ET The Quest of theHistorical Jesus:A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (London:

Black, 1910); E. Ksemann, Das Problem des historischen Jesus, a lecture deliv-ered on 20 October, 1953, ZTK51 (1954), pp. 125-53. ET The Problem of the

Historical Jesus, in Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM Press,1964), pp. 15-47.

4. Wright, Victory, p. 23.5. Cf., e.g., P. Fiebig, Neues Testament und Nationalsozialismus: Drei

niversittsvorlesungen ber Fhrerprinzip, Rassenfrage, Kampf (Schriften derdeutschen Christen, 11; Dresden: Deutsche-christlicher Verlag, 1935); W. Grund-mann, Jesus der Galiler und das Judentum

(Leipzig: Wigand,2nd

edn, 1941,[1940]).



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time to understand better why the quest is currently going off the rails

altogether. Like the first quest, it is still run by people whose need in

the modem world is to avoid the historical Jesus and replace him withthe Christ of faith, the cultural context within which the other faults

of Wrights work must be located.This leads us to the second problem, the misunderstanding of apoca-

lyptic and eschatological language as metaphor. This is done in reli-

ance on Wrights teacher G.B. Caird, without any proper discussion

of the nature of metaphor. So, for example, Mk 9.1 is reduced to aclear

promiseof future

victoryand

vindication,then

expandedto

such things as return from exile and rebuilding of the Temple.7

This is a completely unsatisfactory replacement of what the text sayswith something more convenient. The most notorious feature of this

text is that it indicates that the kingdom of God would come within a

generation, and this did not happen. This is a natural mistake by a

first-century Jew, but any mistake at all by Jesus is inconsistent withorthodox Christian Christology.~ The driving force of Wrights inter-

pretation is a hermeneutical circle with which the mistaken Jesus of

history is replaced by the infallible Christ of faith. The process makes

it difficult to interpret texts that discuss the delay of the end-time (e.g.

lQpHab 7.1-14, with its discussion of i1n~iT 11iT, jpn Tn5, and

1n~iT *rl-,),7), and which have any substantial temporal or spatial con-tent (e.g. Mk 10.35-45, where the request of Jacob and John to sit onJesus right and left in his glory makes no sense if it is not interpreted

literally).

6. Cf., e.g., the unsatisfactory attempt to use the work of Max Black by P.A.

Porter, Metaphors and Monsters:A Literary-Critical Study ofDaniel 7 and 8 (repr.;ConBOT, 20; Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1985 [1983]), with my review, JTS NS 38

(1987), pp. 454-57. I cannot discuss here G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery

of the Bible (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1980), pp. 244-71, which caricaturesscholars who take some

languagemore

literallythan Caird

did,and which

appearsignorant inter alia of the Syrian tradition of biblical exegesis and modem linguistics.

7. Wright, Victory, p. 470.

8. Cf. P.M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and

Development of New Testament Christology (The Cadbury Lectures at the Uni-

versity of Birmingham, 1985-86; Cambridge: James Clarke; Louisville, KY:Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 58-59, 170-74.

9. For a full discussion of this pericope, including a reconstruction of MarksAramaic source, see P.M. Casey,Aramaic Sources of Marks Gospel (MSSNTS,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), ch. 5.



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Another unsatisfactory aspect of Wrights attitude to language is the

conventional fault of never discussing genuine sayings of Jesus in

Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.As so often, this is mostcatastrophic with the term son of man, because genuine uses are

virtually untranslateable, with the result that examples of this expres-sion shift significantly in meaning when attempts are made to translate

them into Greek, English, German or the like.&dquo; Wright declares the

expression notoriously ambiguous, even cryptic,- without anyattempt to reconstruct anAramaic sentence and explain what is

ambiguousor

crypticabout

it,and without

any attemptto answer the

classic point that the synoptic tradition does not show any signs of

difficulty in understanding this expression. He suggests that those withears to hear would understand this term in Mk 2.28 in the light of its

Danielic context. I published a reconstruction of Mk 2.28 some years

ago, with proper critical discussion.&dquo; Wright should have explainedhow this could possibly have been intended to call up a particularDanielic context, or offered an alternative reconstruction which does.

Instead of this, he has read it in the wrong language in the light of hisChristian tradition. His general discussion of son of man is very

oversimplified and does not respond to recent discussion at all. 14

Apart from the use of son of man, a notable mistake is the decla-ration that the high priests question at Mk 14.61 would be a statementin Greek, and presumably inAramaic, only becoming a question asit was spoken at the end:S but we need anAramaic reconstruction to

show that it could be said inAramaic at all. Let us try:

10. This well-known fact is occasionally challenged, as recently by S.E. Porter,Did Jesus Ever Teach in Greek?, TynBul 44 ( 1993), pp. 199-235; revised asJesus and the Use of Greek in Galilee, in B. Chilton and C.A. Evans (eds.).

Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (NTTS,19; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), pp. 123-54. For a brief response, P.M. Casey, InWhich

LanguageDid Jesus

Teach?, ExpTim108

(1997), pp. 326-28:for

compre-hensive discussion, see Casey,Aramaic Sources.11. Of the massive secondary literature, cf. especially P.M. Casey, Idiom and

Translation. SomeAspects of the Son of Man Problem, NTS 41 (1995), pp. 164-82.

12. Wright, Victory, p. 394.13. P.M. Casey, Culture and Historicity: The Plucking of the Grain (Mark 2.23-

28), NTS 34 (1988), pp. 1-23.

14. Wright, Victory, pp. 513-19.15. Wright, Victory, p. 523.



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However Semitic Son of the Blessed sounds to New Testament schol-

ars, nr7r is not a recognized circumlocution for God in Hebrew or

Aramaic.~ It must therefore be regarded as an attempt by a Greek

writer to imitate a Semitic expression: hence its virtual uniqueness.The use of ~n&dquo;ja is not satisfactory either, as we shall see. There are

also well-known problems with the sequence of events, and Jesus

reply. We must infer that the high priests question is secondary, and

commenting on what would happen inAramaic without looking to see

what does happen inAramaic is not a satisfactory procedure.The next serious problem is almost a leitmotiv of the whole book:

the notion that Jews believed that they were in exile.At the time of

Jesus, many Jews lived in Israel. Some lived permanently in

Jerusalem. Jews came to Jerusalem from all over Israel and the dia-

spora for the major feasts. In the Temple, the Tamid was sacrificedtwice a day, a special symbol of Gods presence with Israel.As Jesus

put it, And he who swears by the sanctuary swears by it and by Himwho lives in it (Mt. 23.21). We would need stunningly strong argu-ments to convince us that these Jews really believed they were in exile

when they were in Israel.All Wrights arguments for this view, how-

ever, seem to me to be quite spurious. For example, in a somewhat

exaggerated discussion of Jesus offer of forgiveness of sins, he

roundly declares that Fongiveness of sins is another way of saying

&dquo;return from e.dle&dquo;,and

bringsforward texts in which the

pointis

crystal clear.&dquo; None of the texts quoted demonstrates anything of the

kind, because of a non sequitur at the centre of the argument.All the

texts (e.g. Jer. 31.31-34; Ezek. 36.24-26, 33) concern the period when

Israel genuinely was in exile, a different situation from that in the

ministry of Jesus. They genuinely do announce that Israels sins would

be forgiven when Israel returned from exile. From this it cannot pos-sibly follow that Israel was in exile whenever Jesus, during the courseof a ministry which took place entirely in the land of Israel, offered

16. R.H. Gundry, Mark:A Commentary on hisApology for the Cross (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 909-10, finds a precedent at I En. 77.2, but this isnot found in the (defective)Aramaic, and the corrupt Geez text may not have meant

it either. He also suggests? at m. Ber. 7.3; b. Ber. 50a, but here?qualifies the name of God, it is not a circumlocution as in Mk 14.61, not even in the

wrong language at a much later time.

17. Wright, Victory, p. 268, his italics.



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anyone forgiveness of sins. There are many circumstances in which

individuals and nations may be thought to need and/or be offered

forgiveness of sins: these circumstances should not be identified witheach other by means of such associative treatment of texts.

Again, Wright asserts that the parable of the rich man and Lazarus

(Lk. 16.19-31 ) is not... a description of the afterlife, warning peopleto be sure of their ultimate destination. He reinterprets resurrection

as return from exile and comments that Jesus invited his hearers to

see themselves as the true Israel, returning at last from exile, and

turning backto their

godas an

essential part of the process.&dquo;Here

again, while the text genuinely does concern Jesus hearers turningback to God, return from exile is imposed on the text by Wright.This reinterpretation also has the effect of removing evidence that

Jesus believed that people went straight to an afterlife without their

tombs being empty, a mode of survival contrary to that needed by

Wright to support his conviction that Jesus rose bodily from the

dead.9y

This takes us to further hermeneutical circles, by means of which

aspects of Jewish culture are shifted in a Christian direction. Perhapsthe most serious example is messiahship. This is a traditional Christian

category in which to see Jesus, and one that has traditionally been

interpreted in terms of Davidic kingship. It is however very improb-able that the term (t~)~T,tit~/~1~t~(~ 1) had already become a title, whichundermines the traditional understanding of some key passages. For

example, Wright treats Peters confession at Caesarea Philippi as a

significant historical event, the quasi-formal acknowledgement ofJesus as king, as Messiah .20As usual, however, Wright does not treatthis inAramaic, the language in which it would have been spoken if ithad been genuine. However, only a sentence like the following onecould have been translated to form the confession as we have it in Mk

8.29:

18. Wright, Victory, pp. 255-56.19. Cf. N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London:

SPCK, 1992), pp. 321-34; idem, Who Was Jesus? (London: SPCK, 1992). pp. 61-63, which could mislead many people into maintaining a traditional form of Christianbelief.

20. Wright, Victory, p. 470, and further pp. 528-30.



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This is not enough to be a major confession, nor indeed to form a

complete utterance at all. It merely says that Jesus is anointed, and

fails to specify which anointed figure he might be. It does not tell usthat he is being hailed as king, rather than high priest, prophet or

more generally someone appointed by God to do something significant

(cf. e.g., Lev. 4.3; 1 Kgs 19.16; Isa. 45.1). The high priest obviouslyexcluded, the context does not tell us this either. It follows that this

confession originated in Greek, and there was no originalAramaic.

We must infer that it is not part of the oldest tradition that came down

to Mark. It isdue

to the editorial work of theevangelist, working

in

Greek.

Again, Wright describes the triumphal entry as clearly messianic,

alleging that Jesus action spoke more powerfully than words could

have done of a royal claim.~ Yet the earliest account does not use the

term Xpt


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here and now, what you could normally get through the Temple cult,so that John presented a clear alternative to the Temple .2 This is

precisely what is not in the primary source material. It may, however,be congenial to people within the Christian tradition, for whom it is

very important that they have forgiveness of sins, who think of the

Temple cult as obsolete, and Christianity as superseding Judaism.

Again, Wright presents Mk 7.15 as a cryptic invitation to abandon

one of the most cherished boundary markers of Israel, the food-

taboos. 23 But it is Christians who need to live without the dietary laws

of Judaism: Jesus historic ministry took place within the frameworkof obedience to the Torah. Describing the invitation as cryptic does

not remove the major objection that it caused no dispute, as a genuineattack on the food laws would have done. Moreover, Jesus the Jew had

no motivation for attacking the dietary laws in the Torah. He was,

however, very opposed to scribes and Pharisees, who were so con-

cerned to keep their insides clean that they thought Jesus and his dis-

ciplesshould follow the tradition of

washingtheir hands before meals.

His general statement at Mk 7.15 implies that unclean food does notmake ones insides unclean, a reasonable interpretation of the fact thatthe Torah only forbids eating unclean food, it does not tell people how

to cleanse themselves if they have been sinful or mistaken enough todo so. This frame of reference is also necessary for understandingwhy the leader of the Twelve needed a vision after Jesus death andresurrection to persuade him to eat unclean food, which Luke recordshim as saying he had never done (Acts 10.9-16; 11.5-10). If anyonehad understood even a cryptic invitation, it would surely have beenhe. We must infer that Wrights interpretation is again controlled by ahermeneutical circle.

Another example is provided by Wrights comments on Jesus finalmeal with his disciples. Our oldest source makes it quite clear that thiswas a Passover meal (Mk 14.12, 14, 16 1t


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lamb, with an intended contrast between the Temple-system (ind

Jesus himself .2 This is the Christian imagination again, from the

main point of having Jesus separated from Judaism to the little detailof assuming that even an absent Passover victim must have been a

lamb, rather than a goat. Jesus himself, however, went to Jerusalem

with entirely Jewish disciples for the major feast of Passover, com-

manded in the Torah. Jesus the Jew and his Jewish disciples were

bound to celebrate the Passover. It also provided the symbolic context

in which he could offer an innovative interpretation of the bread and

wine.

Ironically, therefore, I must end with criticism that is almost the

opposite of the praise with which I began this critical review. It is

therefore especially important to repeat, and to stress, that one of this

books great virtues is its attempt to locate Jesus in his original cul-

tural context. That I have had to point out where it does not succeed isnot so much a measure of weaknesses in this book, but a sad reflection

on the current state of scholarship and a measure of how far the queststill has to go. Several of the points that I have sought to dispute wereinherited from G.B. Caird, many of them are widespread in scholar-

ship. If, therefore, we are to end the quest of the historical Jesus byfinding him, we have a mammoth task before us, one which mustinclude handling genuine material inAramaic, the language that Jesus

spoke: how much easier to complete hermeneutical circles withwhichever community makes us feel most ourselves!As we contem-

plate this task, this book must be seen as a genuine step forward, albeiton a path where there is still very much further to go.

25. Wright, Victory, pp. 554-59.

1998 - maurice casey - where wright is wrong. a critical review of n. t. wright’s ‘jesus and the...

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