Chapter 3

 

N.T Wright’s Historical-Exegetical Methodology

 

The task of the theologian, according to Wright, is to understand the past through the lens of its foundational documents in order that the present Church can live as the people of God. Wright, thus, adopts an historical, exegetical method of biblical interpretation and theologising, believing that an understanding of the New Testament in its historical context can help to provide the theoretical framework for the Church in the 21^st century.[1]  This historical methodology requires that the doctrine of justification must first be understood in its original Pauline context before we can see the value of the doctrine in its contemporary situation.

 

Karl Barth, as we saw in the previous chapter, approaches the text of the Bible with a subordinationist hermeneutic. This requires a person of faith, when reading the text, to ‘listen’ to the Word of God in the Bible. The meaning which God intends to communicate through a text is revealed in the existential event of reading, whether that reading be by an individual or a community. In contrast N.T Wright advocates a reading of the text which finds the primary meaning in its original historical situation and when its authorial intent is uncovered. The text of the Bible is not approached with questions such as, “What is God trying to communicate to through the reading of this text?” but is first and foremost approached with the question, “What was Paul trying to communicate in the book of Galatians?”[2]

 

In order to give insights into the foundations from which Wright builds his doctrine of ‘justification by faith’, it is necessary to sketch out some of the major contours of his historical approach.  Wright discusses his methodology in detail in The New Testament and the People of God.[3]  He adopts a (1) critical realist approach of (2) hypothesis and verification which he uses to reconstruct the (3) Judaic Worldview. This reconstruction, and in particular his view on  covenantal nomism, is the backdrop from which he interprets Romans and from which he derives his doctrine of justification by faith.

 

1) Critical Realism

 

Wright adopts the hermeneutical position known as ‘critical realism’ and, in doing this, seeks to distance himself from two other epistemological extremes; positivism and phenomenalism. He rejects what is known as “the optimism of the positivist position” as he believes that the finite knower can never have solid and unquestionable knowledge. For Wright, as with the postmodern critique of modernism, there is no “god’s-eye-view”, for one can simply never know ‘straight facts’.[4]

 

Wright gives us the following diagram which helps to show how the positivist would look at historical documents. “The positivist conceives of knowing as a simple line from the observer to the object”[5]

 

Observer----------------------------------------------------------►Object

-         simply looking at objective reality

-         tested by empirical observation                                                                         

-         if it doesn’t work, it’s nonsense

 

On the other side of the fence, and more obviously opposed to traditional historical enquiry, is that of ‘phenomenalism’[6]. This position turns away from objective certainty and adopts “a kind of epistemological humility” which “translates talk about external objects (this is a mug) into statements about sense data (I am aware of hard, round, smooth and warm feelings in my hand).”[7]. With reference to the study of a text, the phenomenalist would have to abandon any claims to authorial intent and would, instead, only be able to offer readings of a text without any reference to its meaning in its original historical situation. Wright again gives us a helpful diagram:

 

Observer----------------------------------------------------------4 Object

-         I seem to have evidence of external reality

Observer 3--------------------------------------------------------- Object

-         but I am really only sure of my sense data

 

Critical Realism is, in one sense, a half-way house, adopting the strengths of both the ‘positivist’ and ‘phenomenalist’ camps but moving away from the extremes of either a simple objectivity or a total subjectivity.

 

The ‘positivist’ strength is that it “acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower”. Hence the word ‘real’ in ‘critical realism’. The  strength of ‘phenomenalism’ is that it recognises the role that subjective ‘sense’-data has to play in acquiring knowledge. Critical-realism acknowledges “that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence critical)”[8]. Wright gives us the following diagram:

 

Observer----------------------------------------------------------► Object

Initial observation

◄---------------------------------------------------------

Is challenged by critical reflection

----------------------------------------------------------►

but can survive the challenge and speak truly of reality

 

2) Hypothesis and Verification

 

Linked very closely with critical realism is Wright’s method of hypothesis and verification. For Wright, the historian—whether he is discussing the life of a person, or the meaning of an ancient text—proceeds by way of hypothesis and verification.  For example, when Romans is being read it is necessary to construct an hypothesis regarding questions of language, historical location, and theology. These hypotheses, which are “essentially a construct, thought up by a human mind, which offers itself as a story about a particular set of phenomena,”[9] can then be verified by a close reading of the text.

 

Verification of the hypothesis, according to Wright, can take place under the following conditions.

1)     The hypothesis must  include “all the data. The bits and pieces of evidence must be incorporated without being squeezed out of shape any more than is inevitable.” [10]

2)     The hypothesis, or construct, must be coherent and “basically simple” [11]

3)     The proposed hypothesis must also “prove fruitful in other related areas” and it “must help to explain other problems.” [12]

 

In Wright’s opinion hypotheses must be abandoned if they cannot be verified. In this the task of biblical interpretation finds a close affinity with that of ‘the hard scientist’.

 

He [the ‘hard scientist] would observe that the physical scientists are strong at two points at which theologians tend to be weak. The first is the ruthless spirit of self-criticism in which the scientist tests his own work; he asks himself again and again whether the hypothesis he is putting forward is really related to the phenonoma which it purports to explain, or whether some other explanation is equally possible. In all scientific progress there is an element of inspired intuition, one may almost call it adventurous guess-work; but this is followed up by a long process of experimental verification, before results are put forward with any confidence that they are reliable. The second strength of the scientist is in the rejection of hypotheses that have failed to stand up to the tests to which they have been subjected. The elimination of the impossible and the highly improbable clears the way for the emergence of the highly probable or the certainly established truth.[13]

 

We have seen already (Chapter 1) that Wright rejects a Lutheran reading of Romans. This is because he sees it as a hypothesis which does not make sense of Romans as a whole. If we are to come close to a true historical reading of a text which is to prove fruitful for Christian doctrine, we must face up to one of the greatest needs of today; many hypotheses, including those on the doctrine of justification, must be abandoned.

 

Perhaps one of the greatest needs today is the clearing away of a vast amount of dead wood, of traditions which survive from the past, views which have never been tenable, interpretations which have lost such validity as they had, in order that the possible lines of advance may become clear, and that the student may go forward unperplexed by the irrelevancies of the past to such discoveries as will genuinely illuminate the future.[14]

 

It is clear that Wright makes use of the critical realist method of hypothesis and verification throughout his writings. It is perhaps best illustrated in the book Jesus and the Victory of God.[15] Whereas other historical Jesus scholars would seeks to isolate nuggets of authentic tradition and then  proceed to sketch out a portrait of Jesus, Wright proceeds by the method of hypothesis and verification. His hypothesis is that Jesus is an apocalyptic prophet who sought to bring about a return from exile and see Israel restored. This hypothesis finds verification from across the Synoptics. Wright not only uses the method of hypothesis and verification in his study of Jesus but also in his reconstruction of Judaism and in interpretation of Pauline texts. Exegesis, according to Wright, can only take place by a method of hypothesis and verification, for it is only in this method that the exegetical pitfall of naïve realism can be avoided.

What method, then, is appropriate to use when dealing with questions of Pauline theology? Unquestionably the right starting point is exegesis. But we cannot come to exegesis pretending to be neutral. We join the hermeneutical spiral, travelling (we may hope) in an upward direction as we go round from text to hypothesis, or vice versa, and back again. We need at least some preliminary questions to ask, and their choice is far from neutral…. One of the tests of whether a rationalization is valid or invalid is whether, in the course of making it, its proponent is prepared to modify the position being rationalized. If so, then the scientific method of hypothesis and verification is being followed, and there is no need to grumble.[16]

 

N.T Wright is aware that the discussion of justification by faith cannot take place without a reconstruction of the Judaism of Paul’s day and without a reconstruction of the worldview of Paul. These reconstructions take place within a critical realist reading of the sources using the method of hypothesis and verification.

 

 

 

 

Critique of Critical Realist and Hypothesis-Verification Approach

 

There can be no doubt that Wright offers an approach to history and to the texts of the New Testament which is more epistemologically aware than many  biblical interpreters of previous generations. However, I believe, for the following reasons, that a critical realist approach of hypothesis and verification can only proceed with a high level of caution.

 

i)                   N.T Wright suggests that a hypothesis should make use of all the data. For a scientist working within a laboratory this would work fine, as experiments can be repeated time after time to bring forth the required data. Yet as with regards to historical enquiry—whether it be the quest for the historical Jesus or the construction of a theology of Paul—we simply do not have all the data. We obviously do not possess the totality of Paul’s writings, nor are we sure in academia as to whether 2 Thessalonians, Collosians, Ephesians, 1&2 Timothy, and Titus are authentically Pauline[17]; we also have the problem that his writings may contain pre-Pauline sayings and hymns[18].  Bringing these points to bear does not invalidate a critical realist approach but suggests to us that a critical realist approach should approach the data with caution and that it should be used in conjunction with a more critical historical method. Wright fails to do this in Jesus and the Victory of God.

 

ii)                 Wright also makes the point that a good hypothesis will, while using all the data, be ‘basically simple’ and coherent. In a controlled laboratory this is surely the best approach, yet  with the complexity of social factors in the formation of worldview and theologies we may ask whether a simple hypothesis can best explain the data. For Wright’s reconstruction of Judaism in the New Testament and the People of God we may ask whether a totalising unified approach is suitable for studying the plurality of 1^st century Judaisms. Some sympathy can be shared with Luke Timothy Johnson who accuses Wright of “an artificial unification into a single story that he can term ‘the authentic first century Jewish worldview’.”[19]  I will discuss this in more detail in part three of this chapter with particular reference to covenental nomism.

 

iii)               Wright’s also uses his method of hypothesis and verification in his study of the Pauline texts when he assumes that they are coherent: “Ultimately, the best argument for any exegesis ought to be the overall and detailed sense it makes of the letter, the coherence it achieves.”[20] So a historical study of Romans must, according to Wright’s method and praxis, allow the text of Romans to “hang together and make both theological and situational sense.”[21]

In contrast to Wright’s assumption of coherence I suggest that Paul was not writing with a scholastic logic but as with other Jewish theologies would have been content to have held theological assumptions which were dialectically opposed to each other[22]. In other words, I suggest that it is not necessary, for a historical reading of Paul, for Romans to be harmonised into a coherent theology and unified worldview. I believe that Richard Hays, in responding to an article by Wright, rightly questions whether “all the pieces fit into a single picture, like the bits of a jigsaw puzzle? or is it possible that Romans might contain tangents and digressions not logically unified with its main line of argument?”[23]  This serves to remind us that working behind a epistemological stance of critical realism are historical, theological and textual assumptions.

 

3) Reconstruction of Judaic Worldview

 

In The New Testament and the People of God Wright intends to “describe the authentic first-century Jewish worldview…in order to correct some normal ‘Christian’ understandings of Jesus, Paul and early Christianity.”[24] He contends that to understand Paul, and to understand ‘justification by faith’, it is necessary  to understand the Judaic worldview.

 

While his  portrait of Judaism cannot be discussed in detail,  it is necessary to draw attention to one aspect of Wright’s reconstruction: covenantal nomism.

 

Covenantal Nomism

 

The landscape of Pauline studies changed considerably with the arrival of E.P. Sanders book Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977. [25] In this book Sanders argues that second temple Judaism, and in particular Palestinian Judaism, had been misunderstood as a legalist religion. In contrast to this Sanders puts forth the thesis that the Judaic view of the law is best described as that of ‘covenantal nomism’. That is, the law functioned as a covenantal boundary marker, for it was the mark by which the covenant people could be recognised as the elect of God. Thus the Law,  functioned not as a way of ‘getting in’ or ‘getting saved’ but as a way of telling which group in the last day would be vindicated[26].

 

Wright, sharing company with other new perspective scholars such as J.D. Dunn, follows Sanders in rejecting what he believes to be a legalistic caricature of second temple Judaism. [27]

 

The ‘ works of Torah’ were not a legalist ladder, up which one climbed in order to earn the divine favour, but were the badges that one wore as the marks of identity, of belonging to the chosen people in the present, and hence the all important signs, to oneself and one’s neighbours, that one belonged to the company who would be vindicated when the covenant God acted to redeem his people. They were the present signs of future vindication.[28]

 

For Wright, covenantal nomism is the necessary backdrop from which Romans should be read, and from which a valid hypothesis of justification is to be constructed.

Within the Pauline corpus, ‘justification by faith’ is seen as the antithesis of justification by ‘works of the law’.[29]  Prior to this covenantal nomist view of the law ‘justification by faith’ was essentially seen as the opposition to legalism. The Jews, it was believed, were trying to earn salvation, whereas in contrast Paul was asserting in his doctrine of ‘justification by faith’  that salvation cannot be earned but can only be received by faith.

 

 In essence this legalist view of ‘works of the law’ is something held in common by Barth and Evangelicalism, as justification is located in soteriological categories. The difference of course is whether this justification is best understood as occurring in the objective event of the atonement (Barth) or in the subjective act of an individual’s faith (Evangelicalism).

 

In stark contrast to this a covenantal nomist approach. such as Wright’s, cannot read the Pauline texts in this way for the Jews of Paul’s day were not trying to earn salvation by keeping the law. Wright commenting on Romans 3:28 offers the following interpretation which seeks to do justice to covenantal nomism and without having to resort to Pelagian-Judaic caricature.

Anyway, Paul’s point in the present passage is quite simply that what now marks out the covenant people of God, in the light of the revelation of God’s righteousness in Jesus, is not the works of the Torah that demarcate ethnic Israel, but the ‘law of faith,’ the faith that, however paradoxically, is in fact the fulfilling of Torah. There is no problem in adding the word ‘alone’ to the word ‘faith’—a tradition that goes way back beyond Luther, at least to Aquinas—as long as we recognise what it means: not that a person is ‘converted’ by faith alone without moral effort, nor that God’s grace is always prior to human response, but that the badge of membership in God’s people, the badge that enables all alike to stand on the same flat ground, at the foot of the cross, is faith[30]

 

It is clear, therefore, that the adoption of ‘covenantal nomism’ in Wright’s reconstruction of Judaism plays a vital and fundamental role in his interpretation of ‘justification by faith’.   Paul, according to Wright, is stating that in the light of Jesus as the Messiah, the law no longer functions as a boundary marker, but faith. [31]  This can be seen as a move away from a soteriological understanding of justification to one which locates it in ecclesiological/sociological categories. It does not answer the question: How do we get saved? but, Who are the true people of God?

 

Critique of Covenantal Nomism understanding of ‘works of the law’

 

We must ask then whether Sander’s description of Judaic thought and praxis is basically correct and whether we are able to follow Wright in regarding Sander’s thesis as basically secure. [32] Yet the answer to this cannot be given by the biblical studies research student as either a simple Yes or No due to the complexity of the subject matter, the vast amount of textual data which needs to be covered, and the fragility of being dogmatic about historical reconstructions, which often spring more from the mind of the historian than from the data themselves.  However, despite not having a full grasp of all the sources, I believe that covenantal nomism as a description of second temple Judaic thought and praxis does not fully take into account the variety and complexity of textual evidence, that is, as a hypothesis it fails to find verification from the sources. This is not to say that I am proposing a reversion back into a Lutheran reading of Paul, but rather that we need a reading of second temple Judaism and of the key Pauline texts which goes beyond the new perspective[33].  A reading, that is, which makes sense of both the Hebrew Bible, extra canonical material and ultimately of  Paul.

 

In a traditional Lutheran framework law and grace are seen as working in opposition. Whereas in a covenantal nomist framework, such as Wright’s, the grace of God is seen in the election of Israel and in the giving of the law.  If it were simply a choice between either/or, the latter would certainly be more representative of the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures. However in seeking to move on from a ‘covenantal nomist’ position we are able to say that the Hebrew Bible testifies to further displays of God’s grace to his elect people on the condition of adherence to the law.  Deuteronomy 8 illustrates this point. [34] In the narrative Moses urges the representative group of Israel to remember the previous blessings of the Lord (v. 2) in his leading of his elect people through the wilderness. The people of God are promised the blessing of a new land on the condition that the commandments of the Lord are kept (vv. 7-9). However, if the law is not kept then the covenant will not be renewed and destruction will come to the people of God (vv. 18-20). Election, according to the writer of Deuteronomy is not a guarantee of blessing and vindication, but adherence, whether that be of the community or the individual, to the commandments of God.

 

 Is it too much from this brief evidence to suggest that some Jews of the second temple may have said that God by his grace has provided the law so that if it is kept it will  bring the reward of blessing?  

 

Extra-Biblical textual support can be brought in as verification that at least some Jewish communities saw the law functioning, not simply as a boundary marker, but as what must  be done for rewards to be achieved and for future vindication to be achieved.  The Palestinian Targum  Gen 4:6-8—remembering though that the dating of Targum and Targumic tradition is difficult—suggests that the relevancy of good works for reward  was a debate amongst some Jewish communities in second temple Judaism.

Cain answered and said to Abel: ‘There is no judgement, and there is no judge and there is no other world. There is no giving of good reward to the just nor is vengeance enacted on the wicked.’ Abel answered and said to Cain ‘There is judgement and there is a judge, and there is another world. And there is a giving of good reward to the just and vengeance is enacted on the wicked in the world to come’. Concerning this matter the two of them were disputing in the open field. And Cain rose up against his brother and killed him.”

 

Throughout the Targums the biblical witness, as expanded above in the discussion of dueteronomic view of the law, is made more explcit.[35] For instance, Lev 22:31, which says ‘So you [Israel] keep my [God’s] commandments and do them. I am the  Lord’ becomes in the Targumic interpretation ‘And you shall keep the commandments of my Law and do them. I am the Lord who gives a good reward to those who keep the commandments of the Law.”[36]  From this extra-biblcial witness we can say that the Law, given by grace, was understood by some to be a work of human effort which would bring with it reward.

 

It needs to be stressed that this is not a simple legalism(Israel’s effort brings salvation), nor is the hope of eschatological vindication simply placed on the election of Israel(Divine action independent of Israel’s participation), but rather that it is working out of a covenant between two parties, with requirements and obligations given to both respective parties. Grace and obedience walk hand in hand, for it is only by grace that Israel can be obedient, yet this obedience can lead to greater blessing and more grace. Obedience is  not simply the “consequence of being in the covenant, or the requirement for remaining in the community”[37] but is also to be seen as the necessary requirement for eschatological vindication.

 

The Qumran community follows the writer of Deuteronomy in laying stress on both the divine action of God and human responsibility. The elect will be saved by mercy and grace (alone)(13:5-6, 5:22-23, 12:35-36, 15:29-31) but at the same time it is clear that the elect are to be distinguished from the non elect on the basis of obedience to the Torah.

         

Wright in adopting the covenantal nomist position  says that adherence to the law is to be seen as a sociological boundary marker from which the people of God can be distinguished from the gentiles.  Yet however much this is true in itself I suggest that the laws function cannot be simply reduced into sociological categories. The law not only defines the people of God in present but, I suggest, also functions eschatologically, for those who adhere to the law in the present could be sure in the final day that they would be vindicated, and soteriolgically, in that those who keep the law would be saved on the day of judgement. Again it is not that covenantal nomism is wrong as such, but that the term, and what stands behind it, are only one side of the story.  

 

In a recently published book on the topic of covennatal nomism entitled Justification and Variegated Nomism[38] ,D.A. Carson offers the following statement.

“Examination of Sander’s covenantal nomism leads one to the conclusion that the New Testament documents, not least Paul, must not be read against this reconstructed background. It is too doctrinaire, too unsupported by the sources themselves, too reductionistic, too monopolistic[39]

 

I essentially agree with Carson that Sanders is guilty in his covenantal nomist reconstruction of Judaism of being too reductionistic. My outline above suggests that the covenantal nomist viewpoint does not describe the totality of Judaic thinking as the data just cited shows how closely Jewish obedience is related to vindication and blessing. However, I am inclined, at present, to say that Carson takes his view to far in saying that Paul must not be read against this background.  Several writers, including Pamela Eisenbauum, have rightly drawn attention to the fact that Carson is more critically of covenantal nomism in his summary and conclusion than the actual essayists themselves.

[T]he “Summary and Conclusions” provided by Carson seems at odds with the majority of essays. Most essayists find that “covenantal nomism” works fairly well as a shorthand way of capturing “the essence” (to the extent one can) of the ancient Jewish understanding of the relationship between Israel and her God. They also note exceptions and give greater nuance to this essence in relation to the specific set of texts or topics they have been assigned.[40]

 

In contrast to both Carson and Wright,  I believe that a more comprehensive and detailed view of Judaism, which includes within it the central tenants of covenantal nomism (contra Carson), would be an appropriate backdrop from which Paul should be read. However, it must be a reconstruction which reaches beyond the simplicity and uniformity of covenantal nomist position (contra Wright). There is no doubt, however, that as the popularity of scholars such as N.T Wright increases, critiques and counter-critiques of covenantal nomism will continue to be written over the next several years.

 

Justification and Boasting

 

A reading of the second temple literature has revealed to us some of the complexities of understanding the Judaic worldview(s). This complexity, I believe, has not been fully addressed by Wright in either his reconstruction of Judaism nor in his interpretation of Paul. This is illustrated in the way in which Wright interprets the boasting which is mentioned in Romans 3:27.

Pou` ou\n hJ kauvchsi"É ejxekleivsqh. dia; poivou novmouÉ tw`n e[rgwnÉ oujciv, ajlla; dia; novmou pivstew".

Wright interprets this boasting (kauvchsi") as the national boast of Israel. This boast is rejected by Paul as the covenant people are now no longer defined (justified) by the works of law but by faith.

This ‘boasting’ which is excluded is not the boasting of the successful moralist; it is the racial boast of the Jew,…Paul has no thought in this passage of a proto-Pelagian, of which in any case his contemporaries were not guilty. He is here, as in Galatians and Philippians, declaring that there is no road into covenant membership on the grounds of Jewish racial priviledge[41]…The revelation of God’s righteousness in Jesus’ death shuts out once for all any suggestion that there might be a ‘favoured nation clause’ for ethnic Israel.[42]

 

Wright abandons the traditional interpretation of Romans 3:27 and  places the discussion within the sociological categories of national identity—that is the boast that the people of God are to be defined by ethnic grouping. In my opinion this hermeneutical move should not go unchallenged as there are simply more options in an historical reading of the text than this simple either/or—Either it being about legalising moralists seeking to boast of creating their own salvation, or it being interpreted as simply a sociological boasting in one’s own identity.

 

Could not the boasting to which Paul refers, and this allows a third interpretative option, be that of the Jewish nation boasting in their future vindication in which they have great confidence because of their ability to keep the Torah and remain free from sin? 

 

This is not simply a boast of being in the covenant, nor is it the boasting of individuals who have managed to save themselves. It is the boasting of the nation that believes itself to be keeping the law, a boasting which has confidence in receiving future blessing and vindication on the basis of Torah observance.

 

I believe that this understanding of boasting (contra Wright) is heading in the right direction as it is not only a (i)possibility which presents itself from the Jewish literature at large, but is (ii) also an interpretation which makes sense of its context in Romans.[43]

 

i)  The second temple Judaic worldview was certainly capable, at times, of being boastful of their own righteousness and future vindication. The Wisdom of Solomon  demonstrates the confidence of some within the Jewish nation that they would not sin.

But you, our kind and faithful God,

Are Patient, and treat everything with mercy.

For even if we sin, we are yours, for we know your power.

But we will not sin, for we know that we are counted as yours.

For to know you is complete righteousness,

And to know your power is the root of immortality.

For neither has the evil intent of human art led us into error,

Nor the fruitless toil of Painters (15:1-4)[44]

 

Here we see that some within Judaism were capable of having confidence in past obedience and also of an obedience in the future. It is to be noted that the passage still sets forth the faithfull obedience of the Jewish nation in the context of God’s covenant and mercy, but the confidence of the writer is not to be found in God’s mercy alone but in the ability of the individual or community to keep the law and abstain from sin. Simon J. Gathercole, in his book Where is Boasting?[45] , after bringing together a variety of texts from Jewish literature, summarises the content of them.:

“ Obedience, as well as election, is the basis of Israel’s confidence before God. This confidence is directed towards both God and gentiles: it is a confidence in the fact that God vindicates Israel in the face of the gentiles, either by destroying the gentiles or by not allowing the gentiles to harm Israel.” [46]

 

This does not necessarily prove that this is the boasting which Paul is talking about. However, it does illustrates that it is at least a possibility, as we can say that some Jews within the second temple period placed great confidence in their ability to keep away from sin. Their boasting may not only have been in their national idenity as the covennat people but could also have displayed itself in the boast of one’s own, or one’s own community’s, achievement.

 

ii) Yet it seems, in contrast to Wright, that it is not only possible that Paul is speaking against the boast of one’s own obedience to the demands to the law—thus against Wright who interprets the boast as the boast of national identity—but that it is also quite likely.  I offer the following reading of Romans.

 

 The first occurrence of Paul’s rebuke of the Jewish boast occurs in Romans 2:1-5 where it is set within the context of eschatological judgement (2:6-16, 2:25-29). This is supported by the view that justification, which is closely connected with boasting is to be understood, as Wright indeed does, as eschatological justification (3:27-28, 4:2).

 Paul enters into dialogue with his Jewish interlocur (2:1-5, 2:21-24, 3:10-20), bringing the accusation against him that he is not sinless. Some scholars interpret this as representing the Jewish nation as a whole. If this is the case then we see that Paul is accusing the Jewish nation of being sinfull. There is no doubt that Paul’s hypothetical and representational dialogue partner would have disagreed with him. This makes sense of what we learned from Wisdom of Solomon about some within the  Jewish community claiming to be sinless. This sinfulness, in my opinion, is not to be understood as simply judgementalism, although doubtlessly this is included, but as the doing of wicked deeds (2:1).

 

Having analysed Paul in this way we can appreciate that it is likely that the boast to which Paul is referring is the boasting of one’s own, or one’s nations, sinlessness. This makes perfect sense of Romans 4:2, as God, who sees the hearts of humanity, knows that Israel is not sinless(3:23).

 

 If Paul is read from this perspective then it becomes more convincing that the Jewish boast of 3:27 is to be understood as the boast in one’s obedience to the Torah. Although it cannot be discussed any further it is worth noting that this interpretation of Paul brings with it a serious critique of Wright’s position.

 

Summary

 

In this chapter I have sought to examine and critique the methodology and historical presuppositions of N.T. Wright. We have been able to examine his critical realist approach of hypothesis and verification and have been able to draw attention to the value of a covenantal nomist understanding of Judaism.  I was able, also, to offer an interpretation of Paul’s understanding of boasting which challenges some of the central tenants of Wright’s understanding of justification and related issues.

 

Conclusion

 

The purpose of this paper has been to examine the methodology and presuppositions of Karl Barth and N.T. Wright. We have been able to note that both scholars differ from the mainstream evangelical understanding of justification by faith. Karl Barth, as we saw in chapter 2, uses a theological method, whereas Wright, as was shown in this chapter, uses a historical exegetical approach.  I have sought to show that Barth allows his interpretation of the doctrine of election a dominant role. Barth achieves his unique interpretation by reading Ephesians 1:4 and John 1:1f in tandem. In Wright’s case we have seen how covenantal nomism has been a decisive and significant presupposition. The debate over the interpretation of justification by faith will continue in both academia and church praxis. I suggest in closing that this debate is essentially a debate over methods and presuppositions and that it is necessary before critiquing or defending one’s own position that these methods and presuppositions are understood. . Further research into the areas of election and covenantal nomism would be necessary if a fuller critique was to be given of Barth and Wright’s position.