N. T. Wright - Paul and the Faithfulness of God

Paul and the Faithfulness of God is the summa (but surely not the final work) of a great mind and indefatigable scholar who has devoted decades to understanding the New Testament and particularly, as here, the letters of Paul in their fullest historical and theological contexts. This book will surely be the defining standard, the Bultmann for our age, the text from which everyone will work and argue and revise their (and his) thinking about Paul for the next decade at least.

Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Talmudic Culture

University of California, Berkeley

A wonderful book! It has all the marks of a classic. Wright tackles the most interesting and difficult issues surrounding Paul, integrating historical, literary, philosophical and theological approaches superbly, and drawing us deep into the complex world of the first urban Christians. He explores Pauls extraordinary achievement in reworking his Judaism around Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah, uniting theology, prayer, politics, community-building and inspired improvisation. Wrights language is as fresh, intense and at times combative as Pauls, conveying its messianic newness. He bridges the gap between Paul and today in a way that does justice to the strangeness of the first-century world while also enabling Paul to speak powerfully and relevantly now. Above all, he illuminates the multi-dimensional reconciliation with God, one another, and all creation at the heart of Pauls thought and practice, and opens up the most radical, embracing mystery of all: the love of God in Jesus.

David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity

University of Cambridge

Only once in every other generation or so does a project approaching the size, scope, and significance of Paul and the Faithfulness of God appear. Pauls world(s), worldview, controlling stories and theology spring to life through Tom Wrights brilliant scholarship and spirited writing. Arguing for narrative and theological coherence in Pauls thought, Wright seeks to overcome numerous dichotomies that have characterized recent Pauline scholarship. Readers will be richly rewarded and challenged at every turn even when they do not fully agree. Most importantly, each chapter of this book reveals something profound about the surprising faithfulness of the God freshly revealed in Jesus the Messiah and conveyed to Pauls communities, and to us, by the Spirit.

Michael J. Gorman, Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology

St Marys Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland

Breathtaking, mind-expanding, ground-breaking and more it is easy to run out of adjectives to describe what N. T. Wright has already accomplished in his multi-volume account of New Testament history and theology. This fourth volume in the series is likewise a game-changer, above all for its adventurous presentation of Pauls mindset and theology, so thoroughly contextualized at the confluence of the apostles Jewish, Roman and Greek worlds. This is Wright at his best part historian, part exegete, part theologian, part pedagogue.

Joel B. Green, Professor of New Testament Interpretation

Fuller Theological Seminary, California

This long-awaited book is the fruit of more than thirty years of Tom Wrights intense, loving and imaginative engagement with the apostle Paul. In a magisterial reading of Pauls letters, Wright integrates sustained, fine-grained exegesis into a sweeping interpretation that places Paul on the map of Mediterranean antiquity in fresh and sometimes surprising ways. The apostle that he portrays is deeply grounded in Israels faith and, at the same time, passionately concerned to carry the gospel of Israels Messiah Jesus to the pagan world of his day. Everyone who reads these pages will be drawn into deep and provocative reflection on the historical figure of Paul. But there is more: no one can grapple seriously with Wrights readings without also being brought face to face with the world-transforming message that Paul proclaimed.

Richard B. Hays, Professor of New Testament

The Divinity School, Duke University, North Carolina

Tom Wrights big book on Paul has long been eagerly awaited. And here it is! Massive in every sense of the word, this is a synthetic, scholarly and comprehensive analysis of Paul, worked out using the key categories outlined in The New Testament and the People of God, showing how Paul, as a Jew in the Roman Empire, reworked the framework of monotheism, election, and eschatology around Jesus and the Spirit. Written with elegance and humour, full of detailed exegesis and engaging with a wide range of contemporary scholarship, this major achievement will be a landmark in the field of Pauline studies for many years to come.

David G. Horrell, Professor of New Testament Studies

University of Exeter

Endorsing this book would be an exercise in superfluity. Even saying that Wrights Paul and the Faithfulness of God is without peers is simply to state the obvious.

Bruce W. Longenecker, Professor of Religion

Baylor University, Texas

Breathtaking! The integrated theological imagination of both the apostle and his twenty-first century interpreter is amazing.

Brian Walsh, Adjunct Professor of Theology of Culture

Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

With magisterial vision, energetic scholarship and lucid illustration, Tom Wright unveils the mysteries of Pauls theological imagination. This compellingly argued and absorbing study takes us beyond the bifurcation of salvation and participation that has long pervaded Pauline studies. Combining the passion of Augustine with the ambition of Barth, Wrights Christian Origins series has inscribed itself into the canon of scripturally soaked theology, where it will remain for generations to come.

Samuel Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square

and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at Kings College London

Tom Wrights long-awaited full-length study of St Paul will not in any way disappoint the high expectations that surround it. From the very first sentence, it holds the attention, arguing a strong, persuasive, coherent and fresh case, supported by immense scholarship and comprehensive theological intelligence. It is a worthy successor to his earlier magisterial studies of the themes of the kingdom and the resurrection: lively, passionate and deeply constructive, laying out again very plainly the ways in which the faith of the New Testament is focused on Gods purpose to re-create, through the fact of Jesus crucified and risen, our entire understanding of authority and social identity.

Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge

CHRISTIAN ORIGINS AND THE QUESTION OF GOD
VOLUME 4

PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

N. T. Wright

PAUL AND THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

Fortress Press Edition 2013

Copyright Nicholas Thomas Wright 2013

This book is published in cooperation with Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, England.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/contact.asp or write to Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN55440.

Unless otherwise stated, quotations from the New Testament are either the authors own translation or are taken from his The New Testament for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2011; published by HarperOne, San Francisco, as The Kingdom New Testament), while those from the Old Testament are either the authors own translation or are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, reprinted by permission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.