In conjunction with the above points I also have a concern with an aspect of Wright’s hermeneutical method. As sometimes falsely accused, no one in Reformed circles, today or in the past, has denied that historical context or current culture and thinking of the Biblical writers is not important in understanding what the Biblical writers meant to say to us. However, in the past, Reformers placed the Biblical supposition that Scripture must interpret Scripture as the primary rule of interpretation (cf. Luke 24:24ff). Otherwise, without careful analysis anyone could cast a distorted, incomplete or fractured “historical context” upon a text or book and steer it’s message down a totally different path. In Wright’s case, he has “dropped in a different historical context” based on studies of second temple Judaism into discussion around Paul’s writings (eg. Galatians particularly) and used it as the primarily rule for understanding the rest of Scripture. But historical discovery or understanding of any historical period is hardly infallible and may not be the primary concern for the author for this particular circumstance! We need to be careful to the weight we give to our interpretations Scripture based on our interpretations of the author’s setting or own view of history. To quote my first seminary history professor- “historians can do one thing God cannot – change history”! It is a much safer enterprise to compare the body of Biblical and Systematic theology as we compare the teaching of Scripture with Scripture – allowing it to “bring out the history” of the text through the text of Scripture itself. Certainly the historical background that we gather from extra-biblical research is very important and should always be considered, but it should not be allowed to govern the doctrines or texts of Scripture when Scripture gives us presents us with the authors current historical setting from it own pages. This might be viewed as one aspect of the sufficiency of Scripture. Otherwise, any text can be made to mean anything if the right pretext of history is “dropped down on it”

I will give one quick example (Wright likes to use stories and so do I). When in Chicago I was privileged to see the Broadway play “Wicked”. Oddly, it’s the retelling of the popular movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’. But to my surprise and amazement, after I left the play in the final act, I left the theater with a TOTALLY different understanding of each of the characters I was first introduced to in the ‘original’ movie. You leave wondering “how could I have been so wrong about everybody the first time”. The bad witch it turns out was a good witch. The good witch turns out to be a flake. The scarecrow (spoiler) ends up marrying the bad witch and lives happily ever after (after faking the bad witch’s death scene). And the Wizard to everyone’s surprise was an old unfaithful spouse whose behavior gave birth to a green daughter who would later was labeled as ‘wicked’ due to her oppressed childhood. But the amazing part was that after you left the theater the reinterpretation of the characters made perfect sense in spite of what I had learned from the ‘original’ movie. The historical backdrop to the story changed everything about the way that I thought about each character and proved my initial impression entirely wrong. Why? because the play had masterfully ‘overlaid a historical context’ that justified a totally different reinterpretation of each character than what was presented in the ‘original’ movie. And of course this led to a totally different conclusion. Wright’s ’second temple Judaism’ looks like it brings that type of format or method into the discussion of Justification. And while this in itself may not be bad it appears to be reinterpreting certain passages in a way that disagrees with other related passages of Scripture or word usages across the board and in specific contexts. The issue with extra biblical historical primacy is that we must first agree that Wright does (or can) know in detail exactly what a second temple Jew was thinking during the first century and how their false interpretation would impact both Paul and Jesus discussion of things. And who are these ‘collective’ second temple Jews? Did they all believe the same thing? Could there have been more than one erroneous belief about old covenant theology or differing factions among the orthodox as we have today? Could Jesus and Paul be addressing one faction, a division of a faction or beliefs of totally different sects (e.g. Pharisees, Sadducees, Samaritans, Gentiles, Jewish political militants, secular governments, etc.,)? Not everything in the NT concerning the gospel or justification is aimed at just one specific group. And many of the epistles were passed from church to church for this reason. It certainly is not that unnatural to think that second temple Jews may have had as many versions covenant theology and eschatology as we do today! And are we reading second temple Judaism through 21st Century eyes, with 21st century issues at hand? The notion that justification needs to be broaden is no new idea (e.g. these discussions have been going on with Norman Shepherd since the 1970’s)/.

Perhaps a two pronged approached will help solve the debate. First, a through exegesis of the immediate contexts within the Biblical story supported by second, systematic formulation of doctrines that are harvested as we go along (allowing the texts to form and reform our understanding as each sheds more light on the other). Extra biblical data is useful but cannot be the controlling force behind all our interpretations.

Wright’s view of covenant membership in relationship to justification is very radical in comparison to doctrinal debates of the past. If Wright wants to take on a historical shift in thinking then he should expect nothing less than extreme examination and critique (he writes at times as if he’s shocked that Evangelical or Reformed scholars question him even though he does indeed clearly admit to holding different interpretations to key texts about justification). And this is exactly why his work deserves careful attention and scrutiny and why so many highly recognized evangelical and Reformed theologians are critiquing him with ‘raised eyebrows’. If he’s right, then a lot of Christian hero’s have missed the boat and have led millions into an area of erroneous belief by omitting or neglecting a critical aspect of justification, that is, that is it not just “punctual, once and for all” but is a conclusion on review of one’s entire life. And for some, this aspect of justification proper (in their mind) goes so far as to corrupt the gospel because it ’sounds like’ it does not distinguish between justification and sanctification as laid out in Scripture.

see a good concise critique here:

http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/nt/NT.h.Hill.Wright.html