Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:46:21.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2019

Joel Kaminsky  and
Mark Reasoner
Joel Kaminsky*
Affiliation:
Smith College
Mark Reasoner*
Affiliation:
Marian University
*
email: [email protected]
email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Keywords

PaulelectionIsraelN.T. WrightRomans 2, 5, 9–11Isaiah 40–66supersessionism
Type
Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 112 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 421 - 446
Copyright
© President and Fellows of Harvard College 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 N. T, Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Book 2; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013) 863. Hereafter abbreviated PFG.Google Scholar

2 Any Christian reading of the Hebrew Scriptures is likely to involve some form of supersessionism, by which we mean that the early Christians came to believe that their reading of Israel’s scriptures superseded other earlier and contemporary readings of these sacred texts by other Jewish readers and that God’s acting through Jesus’s death and resurrection had ushered in the beginning of the eschaton, thus opening a path for gentiles to participate in God’s promises to Israel. We are here concerned about more pernicious forms of supersessionism in which the Jewish people are completely replaced by the nascent church.

3 Wright, PFG, 811.

4 Ibid., 806.

5 Joel, Kaminsky and Anne, Stewart, “God of All the World: Universalism and Developing Monotheism in Isaiah 40–66,” HTR 99.2 (2006) 139–63. This essay examines the few passages, such as Isa 56:3–8; 59:19; 60:3; 66:18–23, that touch upon the question of various non-Israelites being attracted to the worship of Israel’s God.Google Scholar

6 Wright, PFG, 810–16.

7 Joel, S. Kaminsky, Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007) 137–58.Google Scholar

8 Brooks, Schramm, The Opponents of Third Isaiah: Reconstructing the Cultic History of the Restoration (JSOTSup 193; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 122.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 122.

10 Kaminsky, and Stewart, , “God of All the World,” 159.Google Scholar

11 Wright is not only commenting on Paul’s reading of Isaiah but also on the actual contextual meaning of these Isaiah passages. On PFG, 811, Wright argues that the contextual meaning of Isa 42 and 49 is that “the Jew” has a responsibility to pass the Torah’s truth and knowledge on to the world in a missionary manner. In n. 116 on this page, Wright assumes that the “light to the world” imagery calls on Israel to bring Torah truths to the gentiles.Google Scholar

12 Wright, PFG, 803 (“worldwide salvation . . .”), 804 (“faithfulness . . .”); on 804–5, Wright explicitly grounds his instrumental reading of Israel’s election on Isa 42:6–7; 49:5–6.

13 See ibid., 804–5, for a sampling of his highly extrinsic, instrumental view of the election of Israel.

14 Shaye, Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), persuasively argues that the possibility of conversion to Judaism as a religion only developed in the late Second Temple period, and Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), has raised doubts about how central a role conversion played even in the New Testament. Finally, Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), argues that many groups of Jews in this period would have thought only someone circumcised on the eighth day after birth could be a member of the Jewish people and that Paul may have adhered to such a view (see Phil 3:5).Google Scholar

15 Wright, PFG, 1178.

16 Ironically, contra Wright and other New Perspective scholars (and in disagreement with Paul as well), according to Isa 56 gentiles who wish to worship in Israel’s temple cultus must observe Sabbath and practice circumcision, commandments that Wright calls “Torah badges” used to keep others out! Similarly, note the attention to maintaining strict holiness standards in the eschatological vision found in Zech 14:20–21.

17 E. P, Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 489–90; idem, “Paul’s Attitude toward the Jewish People,” USQR 33 (1978) 175–187Google Scholar, here at 176; John, Gager, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 43–45.Google Scholar

18 Sigurd Grindheim, “Election and the Role of Israel,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, WUNT 2/413 (ed. Christoph, Heilig, J., Thomas Hewitt, and Michael, F. Bird; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) 329–46, here at 344. Grindheim here in part draws on elements of arguments put forward in Kaminsky’s Yet I Loved Jacob, 153–58.Google Scholar

19 N. T., Wright, “The Challenge of Dialogue: A Partial and Preliminary Response,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul, 711–68, here at 738. We have already dealt with Paul’s use of Isaiah on Israel and the nations. We do not find Paul explicitly employing Ezekiel for an instrumental portrait of Israel.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 733.

21 Ibid., 736 (italics his).

22 Matthew, Thiessen, “Paul’s Argument against Gentile Circumcision in Romans 2:17–29,” NovT 56 (2014) 373–91, especially 378–88.Google Scholar

23 Sanders, , Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 441–47, 550; Grindheim, “Election and the Role of Israel,” 340Google Scholar; Kent, L. Yinger, The New Perspective on Paul: An Introduction (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011) 89.Google Scholar

24 For “Israel typology,” consider the following scenes in Gospel narratives. The authors seem to see Jesus recapitulating Israel’s national history in his own life: childhood time in Egypt (Matt 2:14–15), testing in wilderness for forty days (Matt 4:1–10), meets woman at well, as Jacob and Moses did (John 4:4–6, 12–14).

25 Other scholars have critiqued Wright on exactly this point. Larry Hurtado’s review of PFG (Theology 117.5 [2014] 361–365) states on p. 363: “Wright repeatedly accounts for Paul’s reworking of Israel by ascribing to the Jewish people a failure to be a light to the nations, and a selfish grasping of elect status for herself. Supposedly, in Paul’s view, Jesus then stepped in to make up for Israel’s failure. But to my knowledge Paul’s only expressions of disappointment with his Jewish kinfolk have to do with their unbelief in, and/or opposition to, Jesus and the gospel.” Similarly, John Barclay’s review of PFG (SJT 68.2 [2015] 235–243, here at 240) incisively notes: “That Jesus ‘represents’ Israel and fulfils its vocation—a ‘central’ point that gives everything in Paul a ‘tight coherence’ (pp. 815–16, 823–24, 839)—is more asserted than proved.” This is unsurprising because (as Barclay observes earlier in his review) few Jewish texts from this period envision God using Israel to rescue the world and, in fact, Paul never makes this argument.

26 For example, note Wright’s comments on 2 Cor 4:3–6 in PFG, 679 (his italics): “To speak of seeing ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Messiah’, in the context of a long discussion of Exodus 33–4, can only mean one thing. The God who abandoned Israel at the exile, because of idolatry and sin, but who promised to return one day, as he had done in Exodus after the threat of withdrawing his ‘presence’, has returned at last in and as Jesus the Messiah.”

27 Wright, PFG, 811.

28 See, e.g., how J. D. G, Dunn, Romans 9–16 (WBC 38B; Dallas: Word, 1988) 604, juxtaposes other ways that Deut 30:11–14 was read by Hellenistic Jewish authors and Targum Neofiti in his exegesis of Rom 10:5–13.Google Scholar

29 Wright, PFG, 895 (Wright’s italics).

30 J. D. G, Dunn, Romans 1–8 (WBC 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988) 299, on Rom 5:20.Google Scholar

31 Another author who seems to read Rom 5:20 in light of Gal 3:19 is J., Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997) 354–55.Google Scholar

32 Kari, Kuula, Paul’s Treatment of the Law and Israel in Romans (vol. 2 of The Law, the Covenant and God’s Plan; Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 85; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003) 196 (Kuula’s italics).Google Scholar

33 Charles, Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (rev. ed., 1886; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947) 330Google Scholar; Karl, Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (trans. Edwyn, C. Hoskyns; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933) 364–369; C. E. B, Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979) 510.Google Scholar

34 Wright, PFG, 895–96 (Wright’s italics and parenthetical comments).

35 Ibid., 1192 (Wright’s italics).

36 Ibid., 897.

37 Ibid., 1192.

38 Ibid., 510. This statement is followed by Wright’s quotation of Rom 7:14–23.

39 Ibid., 1192.

40 Ibid., 1190.

41 Peter, Abelard, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (trans. Steven Cartwright; Fathers of the Church Medieval Continuation 12; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), §67 on Rom 1:18; 113. See also the Cambridge Commentator (ca. 1141–52) in The Letter to the Romans (trans. and ed. Ian Christopher, Levy, Philip D. W., Krey, and Thomas, Ryan; The Bible in Medieval Tradition; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 79 on Rom 1:18.Google Scholar

42 Wright, PFG, 1242–44 (italicized on 1242, repeated without italics on 1243–44).

43 Ibid., 1244–45.

44 Ibid., 1244.

45 J. D. G, Dunn, “An Insider’s Perspective on Wright’s Version of the New Perspective on Paul,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul, 347–58, here at 355.Google Scholar

46 Mark, Reasoner, “Israel in the Outline of Romans 9–11,” Letter & Spirit 10 (2015) 109–29.Google Scholar

47 Robert, B. Foster, Renaming Abraham’s Children: Election, Ethnicity, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Romans 9 (WUNT 2/421; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016) 3–4, citing Brendon Byrne, Romans (SP 6; Collegeville, MN; Liturgical Press, 1996) 284.Google Scholar

48 Charles, H. Cosgrove, “Rhetorical Suspense in Romans 9–11: A Study in Polyvalence and Hermeneutical Election,” JBL 115.2 (1996) 271–87, here at 284 (emphasis his).Google Scholar

49 N.T, Wright, Paul and His Recent Interpreters: Some Contemporary Debates (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015) 74–75.Google Scholar

50 Dunn notes that while the continuing exile motif certainly occurs in pre-NT writers, that it “was a continuing factor in shaping Paul’s (as also Jesus’s) teaching has hardly been demonstrated”; Dunn, “An Insider’s Perspective,” 350. Other essays in God and the Faithfulness of Paul (e.g., Steven Moyise’s “Wright’s Understanding of Paul’s Use of Scripture,” 165–80) raise similarly trenchant critiques against the central role Wright gives to this motif and more generally highlight the methodological difficulties of Wright’s attempt to employ an overarching metanarrative in his quest to explain Paul’s letters in a systematic fashion.

51 Walter, Brueggemann, “Wright on Exile: A Response,” in Exile: A Conversation with N. T. Wright (ed. James, M. Scott; Downers, Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017) 83–92, but esp. 87–88.Google Scholar

52 Jörn, Kiefer, “Not All Gloom and Doom: Positive Interpretations of Exile and Diaspora in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism,” in Exile: A Conversation with N. T. Wright, 119–34, here at 123–25.Google Scholar

53 J. D. G, Dunn, “The Narrative Approach to Paul: Whose Story?” in Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (ed. Bruce, W. Longenecker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) 217–30.Google Scholar

54 Grindheim, , “Election and the Role of Israel,” 343–44.Google Scholar

55 J. Thomas, Hewitt and Matthew, V. Novenson, “Participationism and Messiah Christology in Paul,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul, 393–415, here at 412.Google Scholar

56 Yinger, , New Perspective, 35–36, 88–89.Google Scholar

57 Dunn’s various critiques of Wright can be found in “An Insider’s Perspective,” 347–58, esp. 350 and 357, and his own view of the careful balance that Paul sought to strike is discussed at length in our concluding section.

58 Yinger, , New Perspective, 20–23.Google Scholar

59 Sanders, , Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 441–47, 550; Hurtado, review, 363; Grindheim, “Election and the Role of Israel,” 340; Yinger, New Perspective, 89.Google Scholar

60 J. D. G, Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1998) 45.Google Scholar

61 Wright, PFG, 367.

62 Ibid., 368 (Wright’s italics).

63 Ibid., 368.

64 Ibid., 367–68.

65 Ibid., 1194 (emphasis Wright’s).

66 Andrew, McGowan, “Ecclesiology as Ethnology: The Church in N. T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul, 583–601, here at 589–90.Google Scholar

67 Wright, PFG, 809–10.

68 Dunn, Theology of Paul, 45.