Customer Reviews

Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2)

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Is it coincidence that it falls to a British scholar, Tom Wright, to be, arguably, the major stumbling block in the way of an ever-active Jesus Seminar with its witty, aphorism-producing Jesus? British scholarship has always been more conservative than that produced in the States and this is shown here in Wright's argument for a Jesus who sees himself as a representative both of God and of Israel, one who is seen as releasing Israel from exile and the power of her enemies (spiritual and temporal) and "reconstructing Israel around himself".

Wright's thesis, for all his conservatism, is both bold and distinctive. He holds to an "eschatological" Jesus, one who has a future aspect to his theology and also one who, in Crossan-like ways, has compassion for the poor and the outcast of Palestinian society in his acts of healing and eating. Wright though, in distinction from Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, is, it seems, looking to give an historical account of the historical Jesus which can dovetail nicely with a more traditional reading of the Synoptic Gospels and the New Testament more generally. In this book you will not find a plethora of references to either the Gospel of Thomas or to the Q Gospel. Instead, you will find historical argument, replete with numerous biblical and extra-biblical Jewish quotations and texts, which aims to build up a picture of a Jewish prophet and more than a prophet. This does not, in my opinion, spill over into worship or sycophancy but the argument is carefully pitched so as not to upturn too many applecarts. One might almost call it "historical evangelism" but I hope that by using that term readers wil not think that this book is either crassly evangelistic or proselytizing; it is neither. But Jesus is clearly here a hero of sorts and someone who, for the writer, answers questions of deep and meaningful significance which can only be understood by present readers within the matrix of Christianity (though Wright goes out of his way to show Jesus off as a Jew in every sense of the word).

I really liked this book and valued its argument. I think Wright procedes along the correct line of interpretation to view Jesus as eschatological(in a future sense, though not simplistically so) and I think he argues correctly for a Jesus who saw himself connected both to the Jewish God and to Israel. I also think that Jesus fits into the paradigm of "leadership prophet" and I think that he had a distintive "prophetic consciousness". So I think that on a number of things Wright is right. But the reason I would recommend this book is because it offers a coherent and cogent opposition to a nascent belief in the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar. That Jesus has many aspects which I would disagree with, and disagree with on historical grounds. This book critiques and causes damage to the arguments of the Jesus Seminar ON HISTORICAL GROUNDS and if that is where the battle takes place then Wright's book should be welcomed and read by all who have an interest.

N.T. Wright, in this exhaustively documented work, sets the standard for Historical Jesus research. By virtue of his explicit agenda to set forth a portrait of Jesus based on his understanding of a parsimonious hypothesis which situates Jesus between 1st century Judaism and the early church, Wright brilliantly examines every aspect of his model for doing history-praxis,story symbol,questions and beliefs- which makes his Jesus historically credible. The portrait which emerges is a Jesus who is an eschatological prophet/messiah whose mission is to proclaim, implement and embody YHWH's Kingdom program, climaxing in the establishment of a new covenant for the renewed Israel he is forming. What is so impressive about this study is the detailed arguments advanced which make his portrait of Jesus plausible in terms of his fit within his socicultural context and, at the same time, shows how Jesus' work was the root of, yet different from the early church's interpretation of him. Finally, one outstanding,yet underemphasized, aspect of this book is Wright's attempt to ground Christology in the life of Jesus, the 1st century Jew. His novel thesis, that Jesus' prophetic/messianic vocation led him to attempt certain tasks that were ascribed to YHWH in the OT, sets the stage for further fruitful research in both biblical studies and theology, at a time when the Church needs to develop Christologies grounded in the "Jewishness" of Jesus. These aspects of this work, along with a scholarly and theologically insightful survey of previous Historical Jesus research, makes this the premier work of this kind available today. It is a must read for any serious student of Jesus-whether believer, non-believer or agnostic!

When I read A. N. Wilson on Jesus, I closed the book and thought, "That's a pretty good book, about Wilson." When I read Crossan, I thought, "Here is the man who should have written the Book of Mormon." Wright first suggested to me the hope that historical criticism might actually have something of value to say about Jesus.

Wright's approach has many virtues. He is intimately familiar with an incredible amount of scholarly literature on the subject, and refers to it in a way that is always thoughtful. He seldom arbitrarily discards evidence merely because it doesn't fit his theory, as many do. His favorite critical device is what he calls the principle of "double similarity, double disimilarity." He shows that, while most of the synoptic material makes sense both within the Jewish community, and as the template for the new Christian religion, it also differs from both traditions in ways that strongly suggest the marks of individuality, that neither ordinary Jews nor Christians would have invented for Jesus.

This is a helpful approach, in my opinion, though not so unique as Wright seems to think. Readers with literary or psychological sensitivity have been making similiar, less systematic but sometimes even more insightful, observations for a long time. See, for example, G. K. Chesterton (Everlasting Man), Philip Yancey (The Jesus I Never Knew), M. Scott Peck, Per Beskow (Strange Tales About Jesus) or C. S. Lewis (Fernseeds and Elephants -- an essay Wright scoffs at, but that grows in my estimation the more I read of modern Biblical criticism). I think any reader can discern the unique style of Jesus in the Gospels. To a certain extent, Wright is just approaching the unique character of Jesus' sayings in a more formal, and less intuitive, manner.

As a scholar who studies the (often amazing) ways in which Christianity fulfills Asian cultures, I especially appreciated Wright's deep insights into the relationship between the Jewish tradition and the life of Christ. Wright argues that these elements were not retroactively inserted in the narrative, but most probably derive directly from Jesus. I don't recall that Wright places much emphasis on it, but in a sense, much of the argument here could be summarized by Jesus' statement: "Don't think I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets . . . I have come to fulfill them." I believe that applies to more than Jewish culture, but that is another story.

The greatest drawback of this book is that Wright takes himself and his colleagues too seriously, in my opinion. When Wright says, "All agree that Jesus began his public work in the context of John's baptism," he means, "all we scholars." The fact that billions of other readers usually come to the same conclusion, is, to Wright, irrelevent. The same, when he tells us, "It is apparent that the authors of the synoptic gospels intended to write about Jesus, not just their own churches and theologies," (really!) that "one of the chief gains" of the last 20 years of scholarship has been to link the crucifixion of Jesus to his cleansing of the temple, (my grandma could have told them that) and that when Jesus cursed the fig tree, he was acting out a parable against the Jewish religious rulers. Biblical scholars resemble the emperor's fashion experts, who, after decades of involved debate, and several fads in nudity, make the astonishing discovery that the emperor has no clothes. They pat themselves on their backs and complement one another for their brilliance, as the little boy, who first made the observation decades before, rocks in his chair in a retirement home nearby.

Chesterton said, one of the ways to get home is to stay there. Wright allows that Biblical criticism is taking a more circuitous route, (he himself uses the metaphor of the Prodigal Son), and he almost makes me think the view along the way might be worth it. But if he choses to lecture about the layout of the family farm when he returns, he ought to acknowledge that some of his hearers have been on that ground for a while already. Wright seems less kind to his conservative Christian "elder brethren" than to younger (separated) brethren still sowing wild oats in the far country of historical speculation. This attitude troubles me.

After hundreds of pages of argument, Wright rather abruptly asserts that "Jesus did not know he was God," at least not as one knows one "ate an orange an hour ago." He thinks such self-knowledge would be unbecomingly "supernatural." (Though he doesn't quibble with multiplied loaves or the resurrection.) At this point one gets the feeling that Wright's conclusion (or guess) is based less on historical evidence (which, as another reader points out below, ought to include John, Paul, and other Jewish Christians), but on a desire to keep a souvenir from the far country -- perhaps to show other scholars. Or maybe he just doesn't want to sound too conventional -- publish novelties ("discoveries") or off with your academic head. In any case, one wonders if his own dogmatically expressed opinion about Jesus' sub-divine mode of consciousness itself has a supernatural origin. He offers no other sources, in this case.

There seem to be two ways to "see" Jesus. One is the scholar's approach, which is that of blind men touching an elephant -- each connecting with that which communicates, with special vividness, a focused reality. The other method is that of the unwashed masses, who see the whole, though dimly at times, as through a fog. To see Christ as he is, yet without reductionism, has not proven an easy task for anyone. I do not know if it is the holiest, wisest, humblest, or just the most desperate, who come closest. Wright shows that, if a blind man touches the elephant in enough places, and takes scholarly theories for the narrow simplifications that they tend to be, he may begin a fairly recognizable and systematic mapping of the shape before us, which, in the end, may help see the elephant once again. It is a brilliant and insightful work. And, I am beginning to think, one very patient elephant, to put up with modern criticism, and not step on anyone.

Pardon the long review. The book is longer. Be warned....

Wright attempts to portray Jesus by examining the synoptic accounts in light of the appropriate 1st century setting; challenging the views of other scholars on all sides along the way while offering what he considers to be the most probable historical reconstruction. In the process, he offers original and distinctive interpretations that bring the materials to life.

Traditional scholarly criteria for determining the authenticity of Jesus material primarily utilizes the criterion of similarity (if it was the same or similar to his environment it was not authentic) and dissimilarity (if it was not something found in his environment it was authentic). Wright, as many other scholars finds these to be insufficient and arbitrary. The probability is that Jesus was both like and unlike contemporary Judiasm and the early Christian community, which is to say that there must be both continuity and discontinuity between Jesus and Judaism and the the early community.

In his first volume to the series, The New Testament and the People of God, Wright has laid out the worldview of 2nd temple Judaism, as well as that of the earliest Christian community. In the present volune, Wright sets the Jesus material in this context.

C.K. Barrett once stated that after years of study he was now reluctant to claim that the synoptics portrayed Jesus as Messiah. Wright, by setting Jesus in the context of the Judaism of his day, finds such a claim on virtually every page. Instead of focusing, as traditional scholarship has done, on individual words, phrases, forms, etc., or on explicit testimony, he shows that the symbols and stories everywhere portray Jesus as the eschatological prophet and Messiah of Israel, who speaks and acts for YHWH and embodies the coming of YHWH as King.

According to Wright's standards for determining which portrayal is the best historical picture (e.g., simplicity, coherence of all data, explains other facts), discussed in his first volume, and the fact that his portrayal meets the criterion of double similarity and double dissimilarity with Judaism and the early Christian community, Wright urges that his historical reconstruction is most probable among all other views on offer.

Several considerations make Wright's portrayal so convincing: 1) He thoroughly and carefully lays out the 2nd temple Jewish worldview via an extended treatment of its praxis, symbols, stories and beliefs. 2) The synoptic materials naturally fit into this framework and come alive. 3) His portrayal best meets the numerous and various critical standards and criteria for historical reconstruction. In short, Wright does not just argue points, he offers a massive reconstruction that allows us to see a real historical human being coming to meet us, as the actual embodiment of YHWH.

I first read NT Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God as an undergrad who was extremely interested in the historical Jesus and his message and in the contours of biblical theology in general. Since then, I've come back to this book again and again. In fact, it has done more to shape my personal views and personally impact me than any other book aside from the Bible. It is literally one of my favorite books ever written and NT Wright has quickly become one of my favorite authors.
The book is Wright's second in his magnum opus Christian Origins and the Question of God and follows on the methodological and historical foundations laid in the first volume, The New Testament and the People of God. One need not read this first volume to successfully wade through JVG but it certainly helps. In particular, many of the methodological or historical questions that might arise when reading JVG could probably be answered from a reading of NTPG. The diagrams he uses in JVG are also very confusing and not very well explained If one wants to understand them thoroughly, a look at the sections in NTPG where these diagram types are introduced will be necessary both to interpret them and learn of their uses. That said, JVG stands on its own fairly well (I myself did not read NTPG until several years after I had first read JVG).
Jesus and the Victory of God is definitely not for the casual reader - it is dense, scholarly, extensively foot-noted, and thoroughly argued. Those looking for a light read, brief apologetics arguments, or instant theological gratification will not find this book to their tastes. This long book is itself just the second part of a multi-part series building one big, long argument about the origins of Christianity (hence the title of the series). Wright is incredibly thorough in his arguments, careful to forestall as many objections as possible, whether good or bad, and marshall the full weight of the historical and textual evidence in favor of his views. This of course makes the book rather long and the arguments, for someone of limited attention span, hard to follow and therefore not as convincing as if they were laid out in summary. If one can keep one's eye on the thread, however, you can see that the many words are there for good reason and put to good reason - this is a scholarly work after all, not a book for the novice. Anything shorter or less nuanced in a scholarly work of this sort on a subject like this would be unthinkable. In fact, the book and its arguments could easily have been made much longer and the evidence in favor of traditional christology been supplemented even more. But of course that would have made a long book even longer. If you want a shorter version of Wright's views and arguments I recommend some of his shorter, more popular works on Jesus.
In this book, Wright distinguishes three periods or strands of scholarship on the historical Jesus - which he calls the First Quest, the Second Quest, and the Third Quest respectively. The First Quest is most ably represented by Albert Schweitzer, the Second by folks like many in the Jesus Seminar, and the Third by Wright, Dunn, Witherington and others. The Third Quest Wright links with the First Quest in taking Jesus' Jewishness seriously (though disagreeing with much of what the First Questers have said). Wright ably refutes the otherwise convincing arguments of Second Questers like Crossan and others and shows how their methodologies and therefore their conclusions are inherently flawed, no matter how nice they may have sounded at first blush.
Having argued against other approaches and laid the groundwork for his own, Wright sets about constructing his own version of Jesus' message, ministry, and self-conception. For one unused to such things, Wright's Jesus will seem both intimately familiar and yet unabashedly foreign to us with our twentieth century pop-versions of the Man from Nazareth. Wright presents us with a Jesus who is unmistakably and thoroughly Jewish - this is not a European, Catholic, or Lutheran Jesus but one who is firmly set in his own time and culture and yet who, in both continuity and discontinuity with the Jews of his day, lays the groundwork for what would become Christianity, itself both continuous and discontinuous in various ways with Jesus.
Rather than presenting us with a divinity who walked around pretending to be a human or with an uber-spiritual Jesus whose only interest is in getting to the dying part of his life so he can provide people with spiritual fire insurance, we find an apocalyptic, eschatological Jesus at the center of whose message is the Kingdom of God, the coming of YHWH to reign, and the return from exile and complete restoration of Israel as reorganized around his Messianic person. This is a prophet preaching the end times and the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets and other scriptures in his person, ministry, and followers - a representative for God's People whose job is to restore Israel from the curse of the Law by taking its punishment on himself in its stead.
Wright masterfully draws on the Old Testament and Jewish background of the time to probe into what Jesus really meant, what he really said, and what he really thought. I found this particularly compelling and mind-blowing when I first read it - suddenly much of the New Testament and Old Testament and the relations between them started to make sense.
If you use this book for nothing else, then looking up individual verses from the gospels in the index and reading Wright's compelling exegesis is well worth the cost of the book. I found it to be more valuable in leading a Bible study on Mark than most full-length commentaries.
Some caveats:
1. Though Wright has set out an amazingly strict methodology, there are a few places in his interpretation of specific verses where he doesn't seem to follow them to a T and you get the feeling that he's stretching a bit. Thankfully, these places are not super common and his arguments are such that even if some of his individual interpretations are questionable, the weight of the evidence he brings and the multiplicity of sources on which he draws makes this almost irrelevant for the strength of his arguments and the validity of his reasoning.
2. Since this is only the second volume in his series, there are many topics where he just leaves us hanging wanting to know more or expecting a fuller development. This may at times lead to grave misunderstandings of Wright's position on the divinity of Christ, the Second Coming, and the Atonement (among other things). A casual reader, for instance, may easily get the impression that Wright thinks of Jesus as divine but that Jesus did not know that he was divine. While Wright does support the idea of the trinity (see especially some of his other works) his position on Jesus' knowledge of his own divinity is more nuanced than a simple 'He didn't know'. What Wright says, in fact, is that, in a sense, he did know, but in a sense he didn't. Wright makes a distinction between at least two different kinds of knowledge and affirms Jesus' knowledge in one sense and denies it in the other. What those two kinds of knowledge are supposed to be is incredibly unclear and that people misunderstand him here is probably inevitable. Another easy misinterpretation is to think that Wright thinks that the Second Coming happened in AD 70. If you read carefully, however, (and if you have read anything else by him) you will see that he does believe in a still-to-come physical Second Coming that will usher in the consummation of God's Kingdom. He just doesn't think Mark 13 is about the Second Coming and for some very good reasons (though I'm still debating in my head whether he is right about the 'Son of Man' verse). Another easy misunderstanding is to think that Wright's position is that the Atonement did not provide forgiveness for individual sins. It's purpose, according to Wright, is to provide atonement for Israel's national sins but he also thinks that by doing this it also provides atonement for individual sin (though, unfortunately, he doesn't say this in this particular book).
3. Wright does not use John's Gospel very much. This is not because he thinks it is less trustworthy than the other gospels or because he wants to suppress it or its evidence. Instead, his attitude seems to be that he is not ready to take it into account or work on it - given his academic background, the synoptics are a much easier place for him to begin and if his conclusions or arguments need to be changed later to take John into account, then so be it. I believe, though, that he personally thinks that his views are all compatible with the evidence from John even if he doesn't always explicitly argue as such.
All this being said, I would heartily recommend this book for the person who:
1. Is able to read scholarly works.
2. Wants to do so.
3. Is interested in any topics like Jesus, the gospels, the origins of Christianity, Christianity's relation to Judaism, theology, the Bible, history, etc.
4. Is open-minded and willing to read and think carefully.

Whether you agree or disagree with Wright, he presents such a careful, cogent, and compelling argument that you must come to terms with his key position in working through your own. He has a rare talent for catching important points, making connections, viewing matters in their broader context, and putting things together in a manner that makes sense and is credible. The other reviewers have done a good job giving a flavor of the contents of the book; I wish to raise some questions pertaining to the Christological implications of his work.

In the last chapter of his book, in the section which deals with the aims and beliefs of Jesus, Wright's argument becomes a bit more confusing than his previous chapters, which is to be expected since here he attempts to draw his points together and indicate the Christological implications of his treatment. It follows, therefore, that this is the place where many of the key issues will emerge.

Wright maintains that certain key O.T. texts (e.g., Psalm 110 & Daniel 7) came together in Jesus' mind and, in their combination, constitute a claim to share the throne of God. He also argues this is the basic reason why he is charged with blasphemy at his trial. Wright seems to want to use this claim to support a view that Jesus was "more than" a prophet or the Messiah. While this might well prove to be the case, since even Wright himself points out that there were strands of Jewish thought which also held such belief, more will be needed to justify the claim itself that Jesus was "more than" these.

Throughout his book, Wright has insisted that we should not, and cannot, conclude the "divinity" of Jesus based on certain historical claims (e.g., that he was the "Messiah," "one like a son of man," etc.). He rightly points out that such claims in their various historical contexts do not (at least necessarily) carry this meaning. This raises the question, if such phrases cannot be used as a stepping stone to derive the divinity of Jesus, then how can we ever conclude his being divine?

Wright's main point is that when you put these various strands of thought (stories) together, particularly the underlying narrative that Jesus thereby intends to evoke, symbolize, and actually embody the coming of YHWH to Zion, this implies that he is "more than" simply a prophet or the Messiah. Is this where we must finally admit entrance of divinity into our concept of Jesus? Or, in view of the sharing of the throne, is the distinction between Jesus and God maintained? In many of his works, Wright (to use his own word) "teases" out the meaning, but seems to leave us asking, as Jesus' disciples, "tell us plainly."

At one point in his book, he says about another theologian that his treatment of the materials does not justify, at the end, his suddenly concluding the traditional Christological formula. I simply raise the question, not whether Wright is justified, but what is the conclusion he draws? It is my own opinion that his treatment can be used as support for either view of Jesus (i.e. he was only a man, or, both God and man). I suggest that he intends neither--that he is working within a completely new model for which either of these options remains a parody.

With his book, Jesus and the Victory of God, N. T. Wright has made his most significant contribution the new historical quest for Jesus. This book is Wright's second in a series of five volumes.

For the most part, Wright uses the synoptic gospels as his primary biblical source of information, with occasional use of John and Acts, and extensive examination of Old Testament text. Wright sees the gospel stories as historically reliable. He arranges the material by themes rather than chronological events. He uses a technique of double similarity with double dissimilarity, where what is believable within first century Judaism and early Christianity, while at the same time enough dissimilar from both in some aspect, is likely to be historically accurate. Wright accounts for the variations in the synoptic stories by convincingly arguing that Jesus used the same stories on several different occasions.

The book is divided into four parts. In the first section, Wright surveys the history, from the nineteenth century to the present, of the quest of the historical Jesus. I feel the first two chapters are the weakest part of the book, and will be the first to date what should otherwise be a long enduring work. Wright seems overly concerned about pointing out the weakness of more liberal scholars, and spends much time critiquing their work. He seems particularly concerned with the works of Crossan, Mack, and the Jesus' Seminar. He attacks their methods of "criteria of authenticity," and their narrow focus on the individual saying of Jesus.

In the third chapter Wright presents some key questions in the study of Jesus and looks at how they are handled within the Third Quest. Answering these questions becomes the task of much of the remainder of the book. The largest section of the book, Profile of a Prophet, Wright shows that Jesus' public image within first century Judaism was that of a prophet, one who proclaimed the coming kingdom of Israel's God. The portrait of Jesus as a prophet fits well with what is known of his public career and praxis. Jesus, like John the Baptist before him, seems to consciously model himself after Elijah. Like John, Jesus issued solemn warnings about imminent judgement. Jesus delivers his prophecies with great authority, often in the form of parables. Wright sees the literary background of the parables as apocalyptic. As such, they were subversive stories told to articulate a new way of being a people of God. Jesus engaged in the characteristically Jewish activity of subversively retelling the basic Jewish story, accommodating them for the new situations. Wright argues that Jewish apocalyptic, for many, did not include the end of the world, but rather a renewed covenant with God was "this-worldly." Key to Wright's thesis, which he argues repeatedly, was that most first century Jews would have seen themselves as still living "in exile." The exile functioned, in the second-Temple period, as an eschatological hope, that the triumph over the pagan occupying rulers of Israel was yet to come. The Jews regarded themselves as still living in exile because of the Roman domination. While they had returned form exile in a geographical sense, the great prophecies of restoration had not yet come true. The coming kingdom of God is the true return from exile. Wright demonstrates that Jesus had prophetically announced that the promised restoration of Israel had started. This restoration was to take place in and through Jesus' ministry. Through Jesus, God is restoring his people.

Wright contends that Jesus proclaimed this return from exile was not to be an armed revolution against the Romans, but a divinely appointed task of leading the Gentiles to worship the one true God. Israel's history is drawing to a climax. Rome was not the enemy of Israel, but Satan, and the true victory was the liberation from sin.

Overall, I found Wright's book enlightening.

At several points throughout the book, Wright uses diagrams, with arrows and words, to illuminate his point. Unfortunately, for me, these did more to confuse me than clarify anything. I found Wright's suggestion that Jesus' death on the cross was for the forgiveness of the nationalistic sin of Israel, and not for individual sin, to be the most disturbing. I feel his case was well made within the synopotics, but it was not the understanding of the early church, and certainly not the understanding of Paul.

Wright's argument that the Second Coming was fulfilled in the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE is unconvincing in light of the rest of the New Testament's understanding, as well as that of the early church (page 341 and elsewhere). Throughout the book, Wright preferred to treat the synoptic text literally, but in the case of Mark 13, he inexplicably prefers the metaphorical approach. The writings of Paul and Revelation have more to say on the subject of the Second Coming, and they would make little sense if the fall of the Temple was all the Second Coming entailed. Wright does not give a rational interpretation the period of forty years that pasted between the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. From our vantage point today, the fall of the Temple did not usher in a new world, one in which evil no longer exist, and certainly not one where God's will was done on earth as in heaven.

I enjoyed most of Wright's book. Wright demonstrates that conservative viewpoints can be taken seriously. He is not a skeptic who reduces the historical Jesus to just a few lines of text. Wright believes that truth exists, and much of it can be recovered by historians. He does this without abandoning the Jesus of faith, as so many biblical historians have done.

Tom Wright has produced the standard study of the historical Jesus with which all others must attempt to engage. With rapier wit and stylish prose, Prof. Wright makes a signal demand of all those who seek to "do" Jesus research in the next decade: Ground Jesus in history! Using a devilishly clever highway analogy, Wright makes a proper distnction between those who are traveling upon the highway of thoroughgoing eschatology (following Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer) and those who clog the lanes of the "on-ramp" to the super-highway of thoroughgoing skepticism (following Wilhelm Wrede and Rudolf Bultmann). Prof. Wright correctly places the so-called Jesus Seminar in the latter group, while locating the so-called Third Quest (an epithet he coined) in the former group. His thesis that Israel still considered herself in the exile during the first century is provocative and worth the price of the book itself. My only caveat lies in the fact that Wright can, on occassion, be a bit redundant and so this very large book could have been a bit lighter. That, however is a minor critique and should not deter potential readers. This book is among a handfull of publications this century that will be required reading throughout the next; do not miss this one!

I am refraining from a very lengthy treatment of the topics in Wright's book largely because other reviewers have treated them in such depth. Overall, Wright sets forth an extremely well supported argument, placing Jesus's work in a context of the Jewish prophetic tradition which is completely orthodox yet far from what most would consider "conventional" devotional approaches. He well refutes "Jesus Seminar" types, though his tendency to dismiss prestigious scholars in a few sentences does seem a bit smug at times.

My difficulty was in being left with some rather puzzling questions, which is why I withheld a "fifth star." Much of Wright's thesis is built on Jesus's message having been highly grounded in an apocalyptic tradition (which Wright explains clearly and in depth), and on its being quite revolutionary (in the sense of "going against the grain," not inciting to violence.) Wright develops two points in this category - first, that Jesus's message greatly used familiar images yet presented them in a fashion which was shocking because it "re-wrote" the underlying tales of exodus and vindication and applied them to Himself. Secondly, Wright sets forth that these messages had to be carefully cloaked or they would have incited the people to riot. He particularly uses the parables' messages to illustrate both themes.

Unless the first-century hearers had read Tom Wright's work, there are several, glaring loose ends in this argument. However familiar images of exodus, exile, and restoration may have been, and however well embedded in the thought of scholars at Qumran, it does not seem credible that an audience of fishermen, carpenters, and tent-makers would have immediately connected the parable of the Prodigal Son with the images of Israel and Jesus as the deliverer King which Wright develops. Indeed, the Temple scholars may have seen the subtle message, but how would this cause a general riot, particularly if the message was deliberately obscure?

Many sections of the book are true "eye openers," particularly those dealing with the prophetic and apocalyptic aspects of Jesus's ministry. It is generally a brilliant work, well-suited for personal reading but also for use as a university or adult education text.

With this volume, Wright has made a significant contribution to the search for the Historical Jesus. With the possible exception of Meier's "Marginal Jew" series, I know of no better introduction to the field. Wright provides concise, accurate sketches of the views of other scholars and cogently explains his reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.
Of particular note is his (re-)definition of "eschatology"; indeed, this may be said to be his central thesis. Also, he sets forth five inter-related questions that any theory regarding the Historical Jesus must answer; these questions, alone, provide a needed "check" against some of the nonsense parading as "research" in this field.
One caveat: I strongly suggest reading the first volume in the series before picking up this volume.