You ask all sorts of questions - about questions N. T. Wright should have or may have or might have or could have asked of the the Bible but did not, and for failing to ask the questions, his work is not to be taken seriously. I find that such a ridiculous proposition on its face i can hardly take it seriously. Wright also didn't ask about the physics or bio-chemistry of resurrection, or what the status of previous relations and relationships were after the resurrection; or if theose who, like Jesus (presumably, according to Christian doctrine) rise and are not ever going to die again, experience time, as time is merely the physical manifestation of the process of entropy; do those who are resurrected feel pain, bleed if cut, feel sexual arousal or grief. There are a whole host of question Wright did not ask, and a whole host of passages in the Bible he did not examine, some of them dealing directly with the topic of resurrection. As his task for the book was to place the Biblical idea of resurrection in both a broader context of the history of that idea, and a narrower context of conflicting ideas on resurrection within first-century Judaism, he didn't ask a whole lot of questions for the quite sensible reason that they weren't pertinent.
I can find fault with all sorts of authors for not answering questions they never set to answer, and may not even have been aware of. Or, maybe, just maybe, I can read an author for what he or she is trying to accomplish and judge the results based upon the authors stated intention (the first chapter of Wright's book on the resurrection is quite long and sets forth very clearly the context in which he is writing and who is dialogue partners are and why; he also setes for th his method and the questions he is persuing). So, yes, I guess it is nitpicking to criticize an author for not doing something that author never intended to do.
I hate repeating myself, but I shall say it again: I do not agree with everything Bishop Wright has written or said. What I appreciate more than anything else is his approach, which is unflinching in the face of so-called rationalist criticisms of Christian doctrine. I also like it because, as I shall explore in a post coming up, he sees certain radical implications in the resurrection that are even more militant than even a modest Anglican Bishop might recognize.
Virtual Tin Cup
