In Reply to: Re: Question Everything posted by CB on August 02, 2010 at 09:44:17:
It was required reading for one of the courses I took. We had to hand in a critique of the book. Maybe someone is interested in what I saw in the book?
Reading Critique/Wright
BINT 222319 CE Life of Christ
Pastor Don
August 18, 2007
1. I fully read the book that is described below as required for this course.
2. The title of the book I read is The Challenge of Jesus. The author of the book is N.T. Wright. I read 197 pages.
3. I believe Wright was multi-purposed in the writing of the book. Predominant throughout the book is the focus on Jesus in the historical light of first century Judaism. Wright wants to pass on to the reader the historical Jesus that walked and talked in first century Palestine. With this the reader can have a true picture of Jesus in Jesus’ time. Also in this book Wright is bridging the gap between the 1st century and the 21st century. As I learned in another book I studied there are four steps in the study of scripture and Wright follows them well. He takes a hold of Jesus in His town, looks into the differences between the 1st century audience and the 21st century audience; he then crosses the bridge between the two and finally brings applications to these principles to our town. In calling the book The Challenge of Jesus Wright takes the historical Jesus and puts Him in the context of the now Jesus to challenge the readers to a greater faith and knowledge of the Gospels and to impart this to others.
4. One thing that I was not aware of before reading this book is that some who came before us did not see Jesus as human but wholly divine and Jesus did not wrestle with the things humans wrestle with. I was unaware that herein were the roots of Gnosticism, something I have heard much about, but had no understanding of what it was or where it came from. From having contact with people with new age views, the light that was shed on Gnosticism was a great help. Another point or points I was not aware of was of all the symbols of Judaism and their relationship to Jesus. First there is the Sabbath, which to the Jews was holy, but with Jesus came freedom with the Sabbath with Him being lord of the Sabbath. With the Jewish dietary laws Jesus turned it around on the Pharisees, with telling them it is what comes out rather than what goes in that makes one unclean. Other symbols I learned about were the nation, land, and temple.
5. Although a very difficult read, the most helpful part of the book was all the historical descriptions of 1st the century world view, and 1st century Judaism, with knowing this it helped to draw the other parts of the book into a form that was more easily understandable.
6. On page 184 is a quote which states: “Humans were made to reflect God’s creative stewardship into the world. Israel was made to bring God’s rescuing love to bear upon the world. Jesus came as the true Israel, the world’s true light, and as the true image of the invisible God. He was the true Jew, the true human. He has laid the foundation, and we must build upon it. We are to be bearers of his redeeming love and his creative stewardship: to celebrate it, to model it, to proclaim it, to dance to it.” For me this is a summation of our mission as Christ followers; to go and do likewise as He did. With this will come great joy. Now Dance!