N.T. Wright on Mere Christianity

[Guest]

Here's an interesting article I read with a review of Mere Christianity by Bishop N.T. Wright:

[Karen]

If you haven't already, read Wright's Simply Christian. It's in one sense a Mere Christianity for the 21st c., and he tries to address the places where, as he points out in the article, he feels Lewis is weak. It's a very good book.

[nomad]

[Sven]

Tom Wright has just come out with two new DVDs. Both are 50 minutes long and come with a group study guide. The first is titled Evil, costars Desmond Tutu, and is intended to be a companion to Wright's new book Evil and the Justice of God. The second DVD is Resurrection, and is a basically a digest of his book The Resurrection of the Son of God. Amazon has both of them (don't forget to go via our bookstore link above if you order them!).

[Karen]

Thanks for the tip, Sven. *wonders if she has room on her shelves for even more NTW stuff*

[moogdroog]

[ancientdogma]

[Karen]

[nomad]

Karen, as the local expert on NT Wright, have you read any of his three-part historical work? If so, would you suggest that to a professional historian doing research in the history of religion and ideas, who is also a skeptic? (Specifically of interest to this person would be commentary on how enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought affected our interpretation of Jesus.)

I'm just reading The Challenge of Jesus, which seems to be a condensed version of his take on the historical Jesus. It's good, but I think a historian would want the complete version.

[Karen]

I've read or, more accurately, extensively dipped into, all three of the volumes he's so far published (I think he has five planned). There are certainly bits of what you're talking about in there, but I don't know that I'd recommend them, at least at first: it might be a case of overkill, and a kind of theological specificity that your friend isn't looking for.

Instead, I might start with , which contains some things found in Jesus and the Victory of God (vol II in the series). Also, in Wright's The Last Word, a slim little volume about the authority of scripture, there's a chapter entitled "The Challenge of the Enlightenment" which is very good. And I wouldn't hesitate to give your friend The Challenge of Jesus: it's excellent, and if s/he wants to delve deeper there are always the bigger books.

[nomad]

Thanks Karen! That article will give her a good idea of what he's on about. It has a lot of bits that are in Challenge too. The only thing with that book is that there's an awful lot of "I can't go fully into that right now...", which I think would frustrate an academic reader.