Bishop NT Wright on the resurrection
A transcript of NT Wright recent talk on the resurrection of Jesus can be read at Transcript
The New Testament often talks about visions and dreams, and the way people believed that what happened in them was real.
Here is what NT Wright says about claims that people would be believed if they said they had a vision or a dream. 'It's impossible'.
There you are. It was impossible for the author of Luke to believe that Joseph really had been visited by an angel in a dream.
It was impossible for Peter to believe that he had been told in a vision that all foods were clean.
It was impossible for Paul to believe that a real person from Macedonia had spoken to him in a vision.
Here is what John's Gospel says.
John 4:39 'Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did."
Here is what NT Wright says 'Whether we like it or not, women were not regarded as credible witneses within the ancient world.'
Wright trashes the claims of his own Bible in his eagerness to come up with something, anything at all, to support claims that Jesus corpse got up and ascended into Heaven.
And, of course, Wright gives no evidence for any resurrection of a corpse. His only evidence that he puts forward is his faith in his ability to tell us what people of 2,000 years would have written and behaved if they were making things up.
For example, Wright makes the absurd claim that if Jesus had not been resurrected, then early Christians would have called James 'the Messiah'.
That just is not even an argument.
And it goes without saying that Wright has no explanation for why early Christian converts simply scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse.
The New Testament often talks about visions and dreams, and the way people believed that what happened in them was real.
Here is what NT Wright says about claims that people would be believed if they said they had a vision or a dream. 'It's impossible'.
There you are. It was impossible for the author of Luke to believe that Joseph really had been visited by an angel in a dream.
It was impossible for Peter to believe that he had been told in a vision that all foods were clean.
It was impossible for Paul to believe that a real person from Macedonia had spoken to him in a vision.
Here is what John's Gospel says.
John 4:39 'Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did."
Here is what NT Wright says 'Whether we like it or not, women were not regarded as credible witneses within the ancient world.'
Wright trashes the claims of his own Bible in his eagerness to come up with something, anything at all, to support claims that Jesus corpse got up and ascended into Heaven.
And, of course, Wright gives no evidence for any resurrection of a corpse. His only evidence that he puts forward is his faith in his ability to tell us what people of 2,000 years would have written and behaved if they were making things up.
For example, Wright makes the absurd claim that if Jesus had not been resurrected, then early Christians would have called James 'the Messiah'.
That just is not even an argument.
And it goes without saying that Wright has no explanation for why early Christian converts simply scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse.
posted by Steven Carr at 11:45 AM
1 Comments:
Once, in an online discussion group that I belong to, I commented on an N.T. Wright quote that someone had posted which questioned the scholastic validity of the work of the Jesus Seminar.
I noted the post's clear lack of understanding of the organization being critiqued and I dared to call Wright "stodgy" and "haughty."
Two of the "elders" of the group then tried to browbeat me, saying that I was "jumping up and down" accusing someone of something that I offered no evidence for.
I calmy reminded the Wright devotees that I was not in fact jumping up and down at all. My post was a calm and sober reaction to what was obviously a partisan and uninformed quote.
And my calling him those two things was based on my reading of his work. His refusal to even entertain that any New Testament verse could be either contradictory or simply "errant" makes him stodgy. His I'm-a-more-thorough-scholar-than-thou posture makes him haughty.
These are not accusations; they are conclusions I came to after reading the man's words on paper. I honestly think that anyone, regardless of partisan inclinations, could easily come to the same conclusion.
Luckily, another group member came to my defense, pointing out that it was pretty obvious that I had spent way more time reading Wright than Wright had spent reading the work of the Jesus Seminar, the very organization he was now so vociferously and pretentiously and "authoritatively" dismissing out of hand.
And to think that I had actually tempered my wording . . .
What I could have written was that he is a smug windbag.
Y'know?
peace
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