"The Day the Revolution Began" - Wright or wrong? (1)

This is going to be the first of a series of blogs on Tom Wright’s recent book, The Day the Revolution Began. I intended this to be just a single, or perhaps two, posts, but it seems to be growing arms and legs! So there are going to be several. I am writing this as I read through the book, so there is the risk I will run out of steam, but I hope not! It also means I am writing thoughts as I read through the book, so I may change my mind on some things as I work through it. One of reasons I write things down, in particular my daily Bible blog, is that it helps me to order my thoughts, ie it is as much for my own benefit as for others. However, I hope some of you find this interesting. You, of course, free to disagree, and as I am writing as I read, not all my thoughts are carefully worked out.

I have enjoyed reading many of Tom (or N.T.) Wright’s books and usually find them stimulating, though I don’t always agree with him. He has written a number of books on the so-called New Perspective. These are very interesting and certainly helped me to have a greater awareness of the background to the New Testament writings and an appreciation of the Bible. One example is the dispute between Paul and Peter that is recounted in Galatians and is sometimes airily dismissed as being a big fuss about nothing. NT Wright’s writings certainly put paid to that. However, as I said earlier, I don’t always agree with him. He makes a point of saying Romans chapter 2 is something of an embarrassment to traditional evangelical interpretation, and at first I thought there was something in what he was saying. However, a year or two ago I worked through Romans again and chapter two made perfect sense looking at thing from what might be called a reformed perspective.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a couple of podcasts by WIlliam Lane Craig on the atonement, where William Lane Craig gave a very good defence of the penal substitution view of the atonement, and also made some remarks about some things that Tom Wright had said in the “The Day the Revolution Began” that were rather troubling, so I thought I’d better read the book. So I did, and here are some thought on the book.