The Meaning and Telos of Israel's Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright's Reading of Paul

N. T. Wright offers a systematic and highly influential metanarrative to account for Paul's theology of Israel. However, Wright overlooks or underemphasizes important dimensions of Paul's thinking, leading to problematic distortions. Thus, Wright claims that God rejected the historic peopl...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Kaminsky, Joel S. 1960- (Author) ; Reasoner, Mark (Author)
Contributors: Wright, N. T. 1948- (Bibliographic antecedent)
Format: Electronic Review
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2019]
In: Harvard theological review
Year: 2019, Volume: 112, Issue: 4, Pages: 421-446
Review of:Paul and the Faithfulness of God ; Book 2: Parts III and IV (Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 2013) (Kaminsky, Joel S.)
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Wright, N. T. 1948- / Bible. Jesaja 40-66 / Pauline letters / Israel / Israel (Theology) / Substitutionstheorie
IxTheo Classification:CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
HB Old Testament
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
Further subjects:B Book review
B Supersessionism
B Isaiah 40-66
B Israel
B N.T. Wright
B Paul
B Romans 2, 5, 9-11
B Election
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:N. T. Wright offers a systematic and highly influential metanarrative to account for Paul's theology of Israel. However, Wright overlooks or underemphasizes important dimensions of Paul's thinking, leading to problematic distortions. Thus, Wright claims that God rejected the historic people of Israel due to their failure to missionize the gentile nations, an idea not easily found in the Hebrew Bible texts Paul utilizes or in Paul's own statements concerning his fellow Jews. Wright relies heavily on the diatribe of Rom 2 to build a Pauline theology of Israel, but he downplays the many positive things Paul says elsewhere about Israel's status. Particularly troubling is Wright's use of Rom 5 to argue that Paul characterizes Torah as divinely intended to draw sin onto Israel, with the expected consequence that human sin would reach its zenith within Israel, a view that moves Wright toward the very supersessionism against which Paul cautioned his gentile followers. These exegetical decisions, which form a tightly structured messiah-oriented understanding of Israel's election, ignore what the Hebrew Bible and Paul affirm: while God accomplishes certain larger aims through Israel, God's election of Israel is ultimately grounded in God's inalienable love for Israel and Israel's ancestors.
ISSN:1475-4517
Contains:Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0017816019000221