← Ask NT Wright Anything
Ask NT Wright Anything
Can you clarify substitutional atonement, Tom? Which OT should Christians use? Northern tribes question
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Mike Bird
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Mike Bird
Welcome to this episode of Ask Anti Write Anything, the program where we try to answer your questions and about Jesus, the Bible and the life of faith. I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College and
- [03:20]
Tom Wright
I'm joined with Tom Wright from Wycliffe hall in Oxford.
- [03:25]
Mike Bird
Tom, we've got a question this week about exile, about the northern tribes who went into exile, 722 taken away by the Babylonian empire. Let me ask you, Tom, before we get into it, where would be the best and worst place for you to be sent into exile? Where would be the place where you go, oh, fine, send me to the Outer Hebrides. That'd be great. Or like, oh, gosh, please don't send me to Australia with all the other convicts. Where's the best and worst place to go into exile?
- [03:57]
Tom Wright
You're reminding me of a famous bishop from a previous day who said that when he was a young man called to ordination, he said, lord, I'll go anywhere you like, but please, not Southeast Asia, not the Arctic, and not Birmingham. And he said, well, so having then spent a long time as a missionary in Singapore, now as bishop of Birmingham, I'm waiting for my call to the North Pole. In other words, God can take our plans and turn them around different directions for me. Yeah, the lovely places to be exiled might be where I am right now, sitting here in the Outer Hebrides. Or it might be somewhere lovely like New Zealand, which I know you appreciate, Mike, even though you're from across the. That bit of the sea. I haven't visited that much of the world, so I'm not quite sure which bits I would really find unpleasant. I suspect very cold or very hot places would not be congenial to somebody from my background. But also I think some places I have been to, some places which seem to carry really sad and dark memories, where bad things have happened, where you walk into a town and you just have a sense that this is not a happy place. Now, it may be that as a minister of the gospel, one is called to go to such a place from time to time, but at my age, I'd rather not, thank you very much.
- [05:24]
Mike Bird
Yeah, I could definitely share the the idea of Birmingham being a bit of a penal posting. But I, I don't want to. I don't want you speak ill of Birmingham. I guess for me the best places to be exiled to would be the Sunshine coast or North North Sunshine coast in Queensland or somewhere in North Carolina. I really do love. I do love North Carolina.
- [05:45]
Tom Wright
I think worst hot in the summer, doesn't it?
- [05:48]
Mike Bird
It is, but I love it in the winter. Probably the worst place for me to go I think the worst place for me to go would be any coffee shop that smells of coffee. That is literally because I can't stand the taste or the smell of coffee. So if anyone wants to punish me, basically imprisoning me to be a barista would be. Would be my idea of something terrible.
- [06:12]
Tom Wright
It. It wouldn't help if they allowed you to put salted caramel flavoring in it.
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Mike Bird
Yeah, I could try. I've tried the half decaf Machachino with extra sprinkles and a shot of caramel, but it. It just didn't work for me. But anyway, Tom, let's. Let's get away from exile and get back into biblical exile. We've got a question from Gideon Carlton in Northport, usa about the fate of the northern tribes. He says this hello, I have been loving the podcast, especially the bonus episode. So glad to hear. Gideon, no FOMO for you. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the restoration of the northern tribes. This seems to be a big theme that I think either gets overlooked or it's the subject of hyper fixation. Ezekiel 37, 1523 has some curious statements that are connected with the reunion of Israel and Judah. Anything surrounding Israel nowadays is controversial, it's definitely true, but I think that having a solid understanding of the topic can help overcome a lot of dispensationalist and adjacent beliefs. I would love to hear your thoughts, as I have spent many hours studying similar topics and I still find it difficult to grasp. Tom, any strong thoughts on the Northern tribes? Because I know for you the the end of exile is a big theme. That's a big biblical theme. It's in Second Temple Judaism. It's in Qumran. I think it's. I agree with you. It's in the Gospels. There's hints of it, I think, in Romans as well. Do we have any idea of the fate of the northern tribes who went into exile not in Babylon, but in Assyria? You know, taken to northern Iraq, in effect.
- [07:58]
Tom Wright
Yeah, yeah. Yes. I mean, taken to northern Iraq, what we now call northern Iraq and it seems to me dispersed thereafter. And I don't think that there's anyone who, in the ancient world who writes about those tribes in such a way that would make us now think, ah, so tribe of Reuben went off there and the tribe of Manasseh went off there. I just don't think we know that. So the sense of the land being denuded of three quarters of the Israelite population, that's an extraordinary thing, which of course leaves a vacuum which then is filled by the Samaritans and filled by lots of non Jewish, non Israelite peoples who come in. So that by the time some of the Judeans come back from Babylon, they don't all because there's still a thriving Judean community in Babylon for a long time thereafter. But when some of them come back, they're not coming back to take over a whole land. There was no nation called Israel in say the first century bc. There were simply some places where some Judeans had rebuilt cities and towns. And that district, the area around that town was populated by Judeans who'd come back from Babylon. But there's a lot of misunderstanding about that. But when it comes to the northern tribes, I really don't think we're told very much. And the passage in Ezekiel, which actually we are recording this in Holy Week in 2026, and there are terrible things happening in the Middle east right now, unspeakable things happening in the Middle East. And some people I am told, are quoting Ezekiel 37 and 38, which is all about the judgment on Gog, those Gog and Magog and so, and Magog is the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. And I know that there are some people who've taken those passages and allied them to some kind of dispensationalist vision of the so called end times and said, well, this was God's judgment on a promised judgment on the nations surrounding Israel and threatening Israel. And so what we are now seeing in the bombing of Iran and so on is God's judgment on Gog or whatever it may be. Now that's a very long shot. Quite apart from everything else, there's nothing in the text here about a great army from across the sea to the west coming to do this or whatever. So there's all sorts of oddities about it, but also the whole of the last section of Ezekiel, the latter parts of the 30s and on into the 40s, is all seen in the New Testament as fulfilled in Christ. So that particularly the return of the glory of God to the Rebuilt temple is not interpreted in the New Testament as an actual physical third temple, with then the divine glory coming to dwell there. Rather, when we see images of the temple and the glory coming to dwell there in the New Testament, this is about Jesus himself. The Word became flesh and tabernacled in us midst. And he spoke of the temple of his body, and then Paul spoke of the temple which was the church and also individual believers. Now, I say that not just to admit that we really don't know very much about the northern tribes, but as a way of saying we have to be very careful how we interpret a great passage like Ezekiel, because Paul says in Second Corinthians that all the promises of God find their yes in the Messiah. And that flies completely in the face of those who have said for the last 150 or so years, actually slightly more than that with the Scofield reference Bible and so on, that actually some promises were held in abeyance and that the prophetic clock has now restarted and we're back on track for that. And that I think is so full of dangerous mistakes that we ought to say as firm a no as we can to it. In terms of the northern tribes, my mind goes to Romans chapter 9, where Paul quotes not just from Hosea, but also from Isaiah, when he says, if the number of the sons of Israel have been like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will be saved, because God will do a word which is a completion and a cutting off. Logon gar sun telnon kai sun temnon, a finishing off and a cutting off. And that goes in my mind with all those prophetic passages which speak of God cutting down Israel to a stump. Think of Isaiah chapter 6, where the prophecy is about a tree which is cut back and cut back, and then even the stump is burnt out. And then the holy seed is the stump, but all the rest of that tree has gone. And that seems to be the message of Isaiah. And so when we have it here, Paul quoting from hosea in Romans 9:25 and following, and then from Isaiah chapter 10 in verse 27, and then in Isaiah chapter 1 in Romans 9:29, if the Lord of hosts had not left us sperma a seed, it's that seed theme again. We would have been like Sodom or Gomorrah. It's as though don't imagine that God's purpose is to say, okay, let's just gather them all back again and then it'll all be all right. God doesn't seem to put the clock back like that, that those northern tribes were warned that if they persisted in the idolatrous ways of the pagan nations surrounding them, then they would be lost, they would be destroyed, they would be sent off into outer darkness. And it look as though that's the story which the Old Testament as a whole tells. And I don't see anything in the New Testament that says, oh, by the way, when God restores Israel, whatever that means, then they will all be brought back. Now, it's possible, it's possible that for some in the early church, the Gentile mission may have been seen at least partly in terms of God sending his messengers out to call the scattered lot back home again. I don't think that's actually what's going on, but I can see that some people might have read it like that, that there's lots of God's people who've been spread all over the face of the earth. They need to hear that the Messiah has come. I don't think that's how it works. I think in Acts we see Paul going to the synagogue communities and telling the story of Israel and saying that the Messiah has come, but I don't think he ever says in Acts. So some of you who may after all be descended from Manasseh, Reuben, or whoever it may be, it's your time to come back. That comes through into later Christian speculation in the 18th century, when people are thinking maybe the lost tribes went to South America. Maybe if we go to South America, we'll find them again and we'll be able to tell them the good news and then the end will come. There was lots of millennial speculation of that sort, but that's much, much, much later, many centuries later than the New Testament. And I think where the New Testament doesn't give us really anything to go on, it behoves us to be a bit reticent, a bit humble about saying we know what the answer is. Now, if anyone listening to this has a new answer that you and I haven't thought of, then do please write in and tell us, because it would be fascinating, but I'm not aware where such a thing will be found.
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Mike Bird
Yeah, I mean, I've done a little bit of a study of groups in northern Iraq, like in places like the Adiabani, you know, like between basically Armenia and Persia. They're sort of like buffer kingdoms. And I mean, there were some isolated Jewish communities, but who knows what their origins were. I mean, the, the Assyrian empire did fall, but unlike the fall of the Babylonian empire, there wasn't A Cyrus figure who set all the captives free and said, you know, of course, go back to your homeland, rebuild your temples, worship your ancestral gods. The, the Assyrian kingdom never had a Cyrus like moment. So it's going to be a little bit different than the story that unfolds for the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
- [16:54]
Tom Wright
Yeah, yeah. And, and I mean, those prophecies that Paul quotes in, in Romans 9 are very much saying, actually God could and quite possibly should have exiled you all forever, but in the mercy of God, because he promised Abraham what he promised Abraham, then the Lord of hosts has left us a remnant. But then he stresses it's a remnant by grace. It's not that there were some of the ancient Israelites for whom, after all, the ethnic status was going to work, after all, as it were. And in other words, if there is a remnant of Israelites who've come to faith in Jesus as Messiah, then this is a work of grace, not something that they were able just to sit back and wait for it to happen. Because after all, we're children of Abraham. So it's going to work out, isn't it? Paul would say, absolutely not. Just like John the Baptist would have said.
- [17:53]
Mike Bird
Okay, well, Tom, let's change topics. Let's go from exile to some exegesis of Paul's letters about the atonement. We've got another question from Vladimir Lebedev in Vernon Hills, Illinois about penal substitutionary atonement. This is what Vladimir asks. Michael and Tom, thank you very much for your discussions on important theological topics. Tom interprets 2 Corinthians 5, 21 more adequately in my view, than than the traditional emphasis on Jesus somehow imbibing human sin and injecting his righteousness into believers in return. But in his writings, that's Tom's writings, he only vaguely relates his interpretation to the Old Testament sacrifices, also mentioning the substitution of the Savior for the sinner in Paul and the faithfulness of God. From his otherwise helpful comments, it is not clear what he makes of substitution in light of the Old Testament background, given that he does not support penal substitution, well, again, that's not quite 100% true, but does not support it everywhere. Hence, a twofold question. First, if the element of substitution is present in the Levitical and other Old Testament systems of belief, is the element penal also present and definitive? And if so, should it be present in 2 Corinthians 5:21, at least in the back of Paul's mind, and thus serve to support the penalty substitutionary atonement theory? Then second, in the case of 2 Corinthians 5. 21, does this support penal substitution? Is there any point referring to substitution of humans by the Messiah at all when there is such a great helpful, practical and transforming emphasis in the Bible on the believer's participation, involvement, unity and co working with the Messiah in God. He died. All died. We died with him. So that's Vladimir's question. That's a little bit wordy, but if I can unpack it, I think he's asking, what does penal substitution have to do with 2 Corinthians 5. 21? Do we find the same thing there or is completely different? Now, I should say, Tom, this is something we've gone over many times before. You do believe in a view of substitutionary atonement, but you've got to unpack it precisely rather than go for the somewhat stereotypical view of it. And anyone who's familiar with your exegesis, exegesis of Romans, you know, the heart of Romans, that great book where you set this out. So you've articulated a view of substitutionary atonement. But I think it's fair to say two things. We can raise a big question as to whether the Old Testament sacrifices were substitutionary. I'm not a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, but I know some Hebrew Bible scholars, and when they talk about sacrifices and purity and cleansing and blood, they see it maybe in a slightly different system or framework than perhaps what you get out of the Reformation. Okay, that. That's my understanding of scholarship on the Levitical sacrifices in Hebrews. And in order for substitution atonement to be legitimate, it doesn't have to be everywhere. So it doesn't need to be found in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. And when I think of 2 Corinthians 5:21, I think of that the idea of exchange. You know, Mona Hooker wrote a famous good on article on this, an exchange in Christ. Actually why I'm here. Why don't I read out 2 Corinthians 5, 21 and I'll use your New Testament for everyone translation. So for people who are following the podcast, I'll now read out the verse in question. Okay, the Messiah did not know sin, but God made him to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might embody God's faithfulness to the covenant. Tom, what's your take on Vladimir's question? And where does this amazing verse in 2 Corinthians sit in relation to sacrifice, atonement and substitution? Can you pull all the threads together for us?
- [22:12]
Tom Wright
What a Great question. But of course it will take at least a book to answer it. Fortunately, I have written one such book, though it's not a complete answer. My book, the Day the Revolution Began, is specifically aimed at understanding the biblical doctrine of penal substitution over against sub biblical doctrines of penal substitution. And I say that to make it quite clear there is a biblical doctrine of penal substitution. The clearest passage, I think is actually in Romans 8:1:4, where Paul says, there is no condemnation for those who are in the Messiah, because the law of the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Because God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as a sin offering, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the dikaeoma tu nomu, the just requirement of the law, might be fulfilled in us who believe now very clear, this is penal. He condemned sin in the flesh, Therefore it is, and it is also substitutionary. He was condemned, therefore there is no condemnation for us. So no question there is a biblical doctrine of penal substitution. My problem is that the way that that has come through really ever since Anselm a thousand years ago, whenever it was, is within the wrong narrative. And the narrative that we've all learned from early age as ordinary Western Christians, goes something like this. God wanted to have people come and join him in heaven. The problem is that humans are sinful, and so they can't go and be with him in heaven. Therefore God has to find a way of dealing with their sinfulness so that they can, after all, go to be with him in heaven. So God finds a way of punishing somebody else in their place. And in answer to all the questions as how is that fair? And how does that work? Well, endless discussions of that. But so that then if we believe in this, and why belief should have anything to do with it at that point isn't quite clear in the theory. But still, then, phew, we're all, we will get to go to heaven. And now in my book, the Day the Revolution Began, I've said that is the wrong narrative. It's not that the idea of penal substitution is wrong. It's that if you put it in the wrong narrative, you actually mess it up, you falsify it. And the way I say it there is that we have Platonized our eschatology. That is, we've thought in terms of our souls going to heaven. Therefore we have moralized our anthropology that instead of thinking in terms of the human vocation to be God's image bearers in his world. We've simply seen being human as God setting us a moral examination which we all fail. And therefore we have paganized our soteriology. Because it's in the ancient pagan world that you find gods who are cross with somebody and so demand that somebody else gets killed. Think of the old Greek dramas and so on. And some Christians have said, oh, those Greek dramas about people being sacrificed in order that the winds would blow in the right way, or whatever it was, they were a preparation for the Gospel. I want to say, no, they're not. They are a paganization of any such thing. So that what you've got in the New Testament instead is not about how does my soul get to heaven even though I'm sinful. It's about how will God come and dwell with us even though we are sinful? And that's the question to which the tabernacle in the wilderness and its whole attendant Levitical ceremonies in the book of Leviticus, they are the initial answer to that that God wants to come and dwell in the midst of his people even though they're sinful. And that the blood of the sacrifices is nothing to do with those animals being killed as a punishment in place of the worshippers, but it's the release of the blood of which then acts as the cleansing agent. Because the blood is the life. And God has given this life. Because what's keeping God and humans apart is death. Death is the ultimate horror. And sin matters really, because it's heading towards death. It's turning away from the God of life. And so if the death gets wiped away by life, then God will come and dwell with his people. As I've often said at the end of the book of Exodus, the. The tabernacle is set up with Aaron as the chief priest. And the whole thing, God comes to dwell in the tabernacle. And for that you need a strong health and safety code to cope with God coming and dwelling. Turn over the page and you've got the book of Leviticus. And that's basically what it's all about. And then likewise with Solomon's temple. So that the point about the temple and the sacrifices. And here I'm very much with the Hebrew Bible scholarship and my former colleague in St. Andrews, David Moffat, has written all this up in terms of the letter to the Hebrews, who say that the sacrificial system was not about God punishing animals in the place of humans, the only animal that has sins transferred Onto its head is the one animal in the whole thing which doesn't get killed because it's now impure. You couldn't offer it as a sacrifice. That would be an insult to God. So it gets driven away into the wilderness as a sign of the sin being driven away. But that's not to do with the killing of the animals. Now there's been a whole raft of misinterpretations of the New Testament on the basis of that wrong idea of sacrifice. Once we clear that out of the way, then room can be made for what I see in the Gospels, which is the announcement of God becoming king despite the fact that the world has been taken over by evil powers. And the way that God becomes king is through the King of Israel, the Messiah dying, the death of the ungodly, in order to defeat the principalities and powers that have used the ungodliness of human beings as a way in to start control. Well, to continue controlling the world. I mean, humans have the responsibility, the vocation to bring God's wise order into the world. When humans don't do that, when they worship idols, instead they give to the idols their power. And the idols say, thank you very much, we will now run the world because we represent mammon, money, Mars, war, Aphrodite, sex, etc. And we will tell humans what to do. And they will have to do it because we have the power to do that. And what you see in the gospel, as Paul says, is that God disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them because they did their worst and to God's Messiah. And as Paul says in First Corinthians, if they'd realized what they were doing, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of Glory because it was the powers were signing their own death warrants. But how did the crucifixion of Jesus defeat the powers? And the answer is clear in the gospel narratives, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Because the Messiah is taking the place of sinners, Jesus takes the place of Barabbas. Bring it on. The cross says this man has done nothing amiss, but we are getting what we deserve. There is the note of substitution is woven in not as a dogma imposed, but as structurally part of the narrative. But it's a narrative of God's victory over the powers. Now, I could go on all day about that, and I sometimes do, but that is all there in my book the Day the revolution Began and in various other places. When it comes down to 2 Corinthians 5. What I want to make quite clear is that 2nd Corinthians 5:21 is not a detached statement of atonement theology. It has regularly been taken that way. But what is going on here is Paul's apologia for his own particular apostleship and for the ministry of the apostolic ministry of the church in general. Because he says in verse 19, God was in the Messiah reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the word of reconciliation. That's the first time he says it. So God is doing what he does on the cross and he's giving us this ministry of reconciliation. Then he says, so we beseech people on behalf of the Messiah to be reconciled to God. Because then verse 21, the one who did not know sin, he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might be, and we should expect by now a statement of Paul's apostolic ministry. And that's precisely what we get, that when Paul is doing what he's called to do, then this is the way in which God is extending his covenant into the wider world. Which is why immediately. And forget the chapter division immediately. At the beginning of chapter six, he quotes from Isaiah 49, 8, at the acceptable time, I listened to you and the day of salvation, I helped you. And the very next verse is, I have given you as a covenant to the people. The whole passage is about Paul addressing the Corinthians puzzlement on the odd nature of his apostleship. And he's saying, no, this is how it works. God did it in Christ. And now I have this ministry of reconciliation which extends God's covenant faithfulness into the wider world. So the whole theory, which has come from Anselm, through the Reformers, through a lot of 19th century teaching into the present day, we have to put that on hold. There's a lot of truth in it, but it doesn't get the overall narra narrative right. When we do get the overall narrative right, the whole question of sacrifices becomes a different sort of question about God living with us, not us living with God. And then it frees up passages like this to be what they really are, which is an exposition and defense of Paul's apostolic ministry. Now, as I say, I've written a lot about this and so our correspondent and anyone else can go and find it, but that would be the sum and the center of what I think is going on.
- [33:22]
Mike Bird
Well, Tom, I thought that was vintage right, right there. So seriously, I would urge listeners to the program. Go back to about the 34 minutes or not 34. The 24 minute mark and roundabout there and listen to the way Tom explains what the Old Testament sacrifices do and don't do and about the scapegoat and about that will be mind blowing for you and for a lot of your friends and how he then ties into the story of Jesus and then Paul's own apostolic ministry.
- [33:52]
Tom Wright
That.
- [33:52]
Mike Bird
That is good stuff. Yeah. I think that the main thing you said there, Tom, is right. It's not about how can my sinful soul find peace in the presence of God's heaven. It's about, and now the dwelling of God is with men. Okay. It's almost as if it's about God's homecoming. You should write that down, Tom. And that could be a good name for a book. I think it's got potential.
- [34:16]
Tom Wright
I quite agree. I quite agree. And of course, that's part of what Paul is saying extraordinarily about his own apostolic ministry. That when he is suffering and being shipwrecked and being beaten up and being condemned by courts and so on, that this is actually displaying to the world what the gospel is all about. It's displaying Jesus to the world. And. And this is for Paul, God's homecoming through the Spirit. In his apostolic ministry. It is God on display before the world through the suffering of the apostle and all those who are bringing the gospel into the world.
- [34:56]
Mike Bird
Great. Well, Tom, I think we should take a break there. There's a lot we've been into. Let's take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about which version of the Old Testament should we get into? Should it be the Hebrew, the Latin, the Greek? We're going to get into that topic right after this message. Pastor, you spend hours every week on your sermons, but come Sunday morning, are you absolutely sure of what your congregation needs or are you just guessing when people quietly slip out because they're fighting a battle you can't see? It's heartbreaking. What if you could see exactly where your church is growing, where it's not, and what to do next? That's Next Step for church. Backed by 200 years of American Bible Society research, this free assessment gives you the tools you need to stop guessing and start knowing for sure. Imagine seeing the big picture of what your church is dealing with. Imagine getting ideas to support people who need it most. And imagine tracking and celebrating their progress year over year. The team behind Next Step for Church is hosting a live Q and A to show you exactly how it works. Grab your spot@nextstepforchurch.org After a quick overview, they'll answer your question so you can see how it fits with your specific congregation. Sign up today at nextstepforchurch.org it's time to turn the lights on and stop guessing about what your people need. Save your seat@nextstepforchurch.org you can't reason with the sun.
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- [37:57]
Mike Bird
And welcome back. Hope you're enjoying this episode of Ask nt Write Anything. Remember, you can send us your questions by going to askntirite.com and just submit a question. Maybe you'll get on the program. Maybe a question like the one we've got from Swaroop Pidakala. Hope I pronounced that correctly. From Boston usa and this is a question question about versions of the Old Testament. And this is what Swaroop asks if Scripture is the supreme authority for the church, which Old Testament canon should Christians regard as authoritative? The Hebrew canon or the Septuagint? The Septuagints, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Since the early Church made extensive use of the Septuagint and the New Testament often reflects it, how should Christians think about the relationship between scriptural authority, canon formation, and the church's role in recognizing Scripture? Also, please respond to why traditions are not given authority in Protestant denominations as compared to Scripture. So Tom, yeah, a big question there. I mean, for people who don't know the Bible was a written Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic and then After Alexander the Great conquered the, you know, the, the Middle east effectively, a lot of the Hebrew Scriptures were then translated into Greek because a lot of Jews in Alexandria, in Ephesus, Greek was their main language. And then that became the Old Testament of the early Church. And then later on it gets translated into Latin. That becomes part of the Vulgate of the early church. And there's also a lot of other Greek books that were not in the Hebrew Bible, like 1 and 2 Maccabees or the Book of Sirach, although it did had a, that did have a Hebrew origin that got, that was more popular in Greek. There's you know, one Esdras and a number of other books that were, you know, important for Greek speaking Jews but were never part of the Hebrew Bible. Tom, maybe we could put this question down to do you like your Bible with an Apocrypha? For those who don't know those books that which are in the Greek Old Testament but not in the Hebrew Bible, they're often called Deuterocanonical or they're called the Apocrypha. I found out the Greek Orthodox Church just calls their Bible the Anno Geneskinomenon. Stuff to be read. That's what they call it, stuff to be read. It's a very simple name, cuts through all the problems. But Tom, do you like your Bible with or without an Apocrypha?
- [40:34]
Tom Wright
Well, I have for many years carried a Bible which has an Apocrypha in it. This is a new edition. But I've used that partly because there is, as the questioner said, so much of what's in the Apocrypha which has echoes in the New Testament, that it's very helpful to me to be able to go back. I think, particularly for instance of the way in which the book called the Wisdom of Solomon, which is almost certainly roughly contemporary with Jesus, give or take 50, 60, 70 years. The wisdom of Solomon has a lot in common with Paul, with Romans, for instance. And people have written dissertations and books on the interplay between Paul and the Wisdom of Solomon. Now for me, that's fascinating because what I think wisdom. Let's just start off with that. What I think wisdom of Solomon is doing is wrestling with some of the big questions facing the Judaic peoples in roughly the first centuries BC and AD and how they then are rereading their Scriptures, particularly retelling the story of the Exodus and not least interpreting some of the Psalms, the Psalms of suffering and vindication in terms of then their own suffering and vindication. That they were facing at the time. So that I've often thought that the first five chapters or so of the book called the Wisdom of Solomon could be seen as a large scale unpacking of Psalm 2. Why are the nations raging and fighting and so on? Actually, God has got all this in control and he's going to vindicate his people in the end. And that's a theme which you find in Daniel and elsewhere. So for me, those apocryphal books are very helpful in understanding how people in the time of Jesus, give or take a few centuries, were understanding their Scriptures. And again and again, even though I wouldn't necessarily want to preach from those books, I certainly wouldn't, if I was engaged in a doctrinal discussion, I wouldn't quote those books as evidence for a particular point of view. Nevertheless, they help me to be sure that I'm thinking first century Jewishly about the New Testament rather than superimposing stuff from much later centuries back onto the New Testament. And so they help to keep me grounded in the world of the first century Judeans. That for me is enormously important. Now, now, in terms of the New Testament's use of the Old, yes, the New Testament does frequently quote the Septuagint. And as a Pauline scholar, I've noted all sorts of places where Paul seems to be working with a particular Septuagint verse, whereas when we go to the Hebrew, it may seem to be saying something a bit different or in some cases quite radically different. And it seems to me that Paul and the others are not as worried about that as some 18th century rationalists would be. There's a problem here in that ever since the 16th century Reformation, the reformers said we don't believe in the authority of the Pope, we believe in the authority of Scripture. And then of course the question bounces back and says, which Scriptures and which version and what? How does that work? And so the question comes out of this kind of nervous where is our real authority and do we believe that it's verbally inspired and did God inspire the Septuagint and, and all those sorts of things. And then when you get 18th century rationalists who are responding to the rationalist Deists of the time, they are trying to take a kind of ultra Protestant view which says, well, no, since Scripture is the authority, it must be verbally inspired, it must be inerrant, it must be infallible, it must be this, that and the other. And really the early Church I think would say, lighten up guys, that's not the point, tell the story, read the story, pray the story, live in the story. This is the book that God wanted you to have. And from that point of view, I'm very much with what you said about the Greek Orthodox. This is the stuff we read. You know, we don't, we love Shakespeare, but we don't read Shakespeare in church. We love all sorts of books, but we don't read them in order to form our faith. Whereas when we read this book, the Bible, and when we learn to understand it as the first century Christians would have understood it, then we are formed and built up around Jesus the Messiah. Now those apocryphal books, if taken to their logical extreme, would actually lead you away from Jesus ultimately, but they show you the world of thought within which Jesus first hearers and expositors were living. I mean, if you take the book of Sirach, the wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, then ultimately the great revelation of God is when the high priest is in the temple looking grand in all his robes and so on. And well, we know what Jesus said about the people who ran the temple and all that. So that though there is enormous wisdom in the book of Jesus, Ben Sirach, the book book we call Ecclesiasticus, I wouldn't say that's a guide to Christian reading of the New Testament. It's a guide to understanding the world in which some of the New Testament writers were living. For instance, the great list of heroes towards the end of Ben Sira is one of the early versions of what you then find in Hebrews 11, a list of the heroes of faith, Noah, Abraham, etc. So we can see through that the way they were thinking rather than trying to say was it verbally inspired or wasn't it verbally inspired? So I think the books are there to be read. And as you read them, and especially as you read them while you're reading the Gospels and Paul and Acts and Revelation and Hebrews and so on, then you are discovering what it's like to think like a first century Judean following Jesus the Messiah, rather than like a 16th century or 11th century or 19th century Christian who's only focused on the traditional debates that are going on at that time. I hope that's helpful. There are many other questions.
- [47:08]
Mike Bird
I think it's very helpful. I think it's helpful. I mean, I've been doing a lot of work recently, Tom, on the Book of Jude, sorry, the Book of Judah, I should say, to get that right, where it quotes from one Enoch on the assumption of Moses. So I Mean, we should do an episode or maybe a bonus episode on something like that. But yeah, only a couple of weeks ago, because I'm teaching the Gospel of John and we're doing, you know, in the beginning was the Word. And I told my students, go and read Ben Sirach, chapter 24. You know, the story that, that wisdom came and tabernacled amongst the people and became effectively took place in the Torah. And I say that same kind of language which John is using, it's not just like Philo and Plato. This is sort of, you know, the Judean world of also Ben Sira, where he applies incarnation language to wisdom in the Torah, but John applies it to Jesus. The, the tabernacling is, is what happens with Jesus. So, yeah, there's a lot of good things we could do there.
- [48:08]
Tom Wright
Absolutely. And you mentioned one Enoch and so on. And that of course is not in the Apocrypha. That's in what we have loosely called the pseudepigrapher. It's a rather clunky word. There are all sorts of other books from roughly from the same period. I would include the Qumran scrolls in there. I would include Josephus. There's lots of other books which from different angles, show you how people were thinking at the time and what are the key issues that they're addressing. And then when you come back to the New Testament Testament and say they're addressing those issues, but they're doing so as Jesus followers, they're doing so as spirit indwelt people. And then all sorts of new pathways to understanding open up.
- [48:56]
Mike Bird
Yeah, that's great. Well, so you can definitely read the Apocrypha. It's much better than reading stuff like the Case for the Purpose Driven Left behind prayer of jbez, Shack code. So rather than read that kind of drivel, you should definitely read the Apocrypha. It'll be, it'll be informative, maybe not always edifying, but it'll definitely be informative.
- [49:17]
Tom Wright
And in fact, the church, Mike, to which you and I belong, the Anglican Communion from the Reformation onwards has said that here are the canonical books, the ones in the Hebrew script, Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures of the Old Testament. And here are the other books which we can read for edification but not to establish doctrine. And that's not a bad rough and ready thing. Of course, that's partly because what they had in mind was the passage in Maccabees where they're offering sacrifices on behalf of the people who were found to have pagan prayer symbols under their garments after they'd been killed in battle. Oh dear. Will they make the resurrection? Well, we better pray to God for them. And so the medieval church said, there you are. This is about purgatory. This is about we pray for the dead, that they'll get to heaven. In fact, as I've argued in the relevant bit of my new book, God's Homecoming, that's not what that passage in Maccabees is about at all. But that was partly what was driving the reformers to be wary of the Maccabean literature. But of course, but they said, but you can read all that stuff because it's helpful to build up your overall understanding, even if when you're having a doctrinal debate, if such is required, you wouldn't base anything on it.
- [50:39]
Mike Bird
Yeah. Well, on that note, Tom, I think we're going to call it a day. That's all we have time for. In our next episode, we're going to answer questions about more anxiety about a unhealthy syncretism between the maga world and Christianity. So we'll get a little bit political. We'll answer a question about the meaning and purpose of life. And, and I'm looking forward to this one, Tom, how to teach a Wrightian eschatology in your church. I'm looking forward to that one. And remember, we've got a great back catalog of episodes. So if you ever think, I wonder if Tom and Mike ever addressed a question on say, the Rapture. Well, we definitely did. You can go check us out in our back catalog. And also don't forget to have a look at the YouTube channel. You know, subscribe to that and check out some of the great stuff that Premiere puts out like the CS Lewis podcast and some other great stuff too. Otherwise then it's goodbye from me, Mike
- [51:39]
Tom Wright
Bird, and goodbye from me, Tom Wright.
- [51:41]
Mike Bird
And we look forward to joining you again on the next episode of Ask NT Wright. Anything.
- [52:03]
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