N. T. Wright's Great Story and Its Relationship to Paul's Gospel

Abstract

From his own study of the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, N. T. Wright reconstructs what he calls "the great story" of God's relationship to the created order, to the human race, and to Israel. His insistence that Paul's gospel of the crucified and risen Messiah is to be interpreted within the framework of this threefold great story employs an approach that is contrary to Paul's own: Paul understands God's relationship to the creation, to humankind, and to Israel within the framework of the gospel rather than the reverse as claimed by Wright. Paul's approach is a function of his apocalyptic understanding of the Christ event as God's eschatological invasion of the human cosmos to effect its liberation from evil powers. Wright fails to do sufficient justice to this and other aspects of Paul apocalyptic theology, particularly as this comes to expression in Galatians.