N.T. Wright’s thesis that the historical Jesus conducted his prophetic career in the context of a widespread belief that Israel was in a protracted state of exile has courted much controversy. This study sketches Wright’s articulation of the return-from-exile theme in Jewish literature, describes some of the scholarly criticisms to this view, and defends a chastened view of Wright’s thesis that return-from-exile remains a useful category for understanding Judaism and Jesus even if it does not necessarily carry the meta-narratival freight that Wright attributes to it.
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Cf. generally Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, pp. 203–204, 209, 234, 242–43, 428–30, 436, 445–46, 470, 576–77.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 128; idem, New Testament and the People of God, pp. 371–443.
Casey, ‘Where Wright is Wrong’, p. 99; Downing, ‘Exile’, p. 148; Dunn, Jesus Remembered, p. 473. Alternatively, in Tg. Hag. 1.8 it is thought that the divine presence had not yet returned.
Bryan, Jesus and Israel’s Traditions, p. 12. To which Wright (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, p. 151 n. 304) responds by pointing out that Ezra spoke of the returnees as still in slavery (Ezra 9.9), and so the irony ‘is thus not mine, but Ezra’s’.
Casey, ‘Where Wright is Wrong’, p. 99; note Wright’s response to this charge: ‘I do not, incidentally, use the alignment of "forgiveness" with "return from exile" as an argument for the existence of the latter as a theme in Jesus’ ministry’ (N.T. Wright, ‘Theology, History, and Jesus: A Response to Maurice Casey and Clive Marsh’, jsnt 69 [1997], p. 111).
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, pp. xvii-xviii, and similarly pp. 576–77. He says elsewhere (p. 127 n. 8), and with some degree of overstatement, that: ‘Anyone who supposes that all these things had happened by the time of Jesus, or that any devout Jews of the period would have imagined that they had, has simply not learned to think historically’. Interestingly enough Downing (‘Exile’, p. 168) takes up Wright’s rhetorical challenge when he writes: ‘Perhaps only an imaginary Jew who agrees with Wright qualifies as serious, etc. But one would have to answer, prophecy fulfilled to the letter? Of course not completely fulfilled. Pagan power broken? Undermined but of course not abolished. yhwh had returned? Not everyone thought he’d left, and of course it’s in the Temple that we’ve gone on praying to him, maintaining the cult. Covenant renewed? He never reneged on his covenant (Rom. 9.4), and many of us think we’ve been keeping to its term pretty well, certainly we’ve meant to. Our sins awaiting forgiveness? Of course he forgives; why else do you think we all share yom kippur (even if it’s the only day in the year some observe)? The final ingathering (your "new exodus"!), of course not. The final Temple? (before 70 ce). We can always hope it will never be desecrated again (after 70 ce). Clearly it wasn’t final, but it was fully valid till we lost it. And, the exile’s not really over? Oh, you’re one of those Qumran fanatics, think your lot are the only true Israelites, your founders made the only valid return from exile? No one else agrees with you … The interpretive device of "protracted punitive exile" has no place in our interpretation of formative Israel, so neither has it any place in our understanding of Jesus and his first followers.’
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teachings (trans. Herbert Danby; London: Allen & Unwin, 1929), pp. 169–70.
John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1987), p. 60; M.A. Knibb, Jubilees and the Origins of the Qumran Community (London: King’s College, 1989), pp. 7–11; G.L. Davenport, The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 1971), p. 46. Against Bryan (Jesus and Israel’s Traditions, pp. 17–18), Jubilees does not downgrade the significance of exile as much as it orientates exile to its wider Deuteronomic context that included a litany of various curses as well.
Wright, New Testament and the People of God, p. 159; idem, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. xviii.
Mark Knibb, The Qumran Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 20; idem, ‘Exile’, vol. I, p. 276.
Evans, ‘Aspects of Exile and Restoration’, p. 280; idem, ‘Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel’, p. 90.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. xviii (italics original).
Fuller, Restoration of Israel, pp. 48–49 (on cd, 1 Enoch, and 4 Ezra, pp. 52–84).
See Garnet, ‘Jesus and the Exilic Soteriology’, p. 111; Evans, ‘Aspects of Exile and Restoration’, p. 273; idem, ‘Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel’, p. 85; Bryan, Jesus and Israel’s Traditions, pp. 16–17; Snodgrass, ‘Parables’, p. 62.
Evans, ‘Aspects of Exile and Restoration’, pp. 281–92; idem, ‘Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel’, pp. 91–100.
See J. Manek, ‘The New Exodus in the Books of Luke’, NovT 2 (1955), pp. 8–23; Pao, Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus; Fuller, Restoration of Israel, pp. 197–269.
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N.T. Wright’s thesis that the historical Jesus conducted his prophetic career in the context of a widespread belief that Israel was in a protracted state of exile has courted much controversy. This study sketches Wright’s articulation of the return-from-exile theme in Jewish literature, describes some of the scholarly criticisms to this view, and defends a chastened view of Wright’s thesis that return-from-exile remains a useful category for understanding Judaism and Jesus even if it does not necessarily carry the meta-narratival freight that Wright attributes to it.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1085 | 103 | 12 |
Full Text Views | 334 | 11 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 201 | 33 | 3 |