Paragraph two of the Preface to What Saint Paul Really Said:
I have lived with St Paul as a more or less constant companion for more than twenty years. Having written a doctoral dissertation on the letter to the Romans, a commentary on the letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, and a monograph on Paul’s view of Christ and the law — not to mention several articles on various passages and themes within Paul’s writings — I still have the sense of being only half-way up the mountain, of there being yet more to explore, more vistas to glimpse. Often (not always), when I read what other scholars way about Paul I have the feeling of looking downwards into the mist, rather than upwards to the mountain-top. Always I am aware that I myself have a good deal more climbing yet to do.
—N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really said (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 7.
Allow me to paraphrase:
“I have been studying Paul for over twenty years. While I still have a lot to learn [Humblebrag!], I am pretty much the expert, the go-to guy if you want to understand Paul. Very few other Pauline scholars get him like I do. For two millennia, he has been a mystery. Only now, at this late day in the twentieth century, has one man begun to break the code. That man is me. So throw out all those useless commentaries and let me tell you what all those ignorant boobs have been missing: What Saint Paul Really Said.”
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5 Comments:
#1 || 11·07·13··11:07 || Daniel
N.T. Wright doesn't impress me, and never has.
#2 || 11·07·13··16:15 || David Kjos
I actually gave him till p. 22, where he ridicules those who “use [Paul] to legitimate an old-style preaching of the gospel in which the basic problem is human sin and pride and the basic answer is the cross of Christ.” Then I bailed for good.
#3 || 11·07·13··17:57 || Joshua Newington
So, I guess you're skeptical about whether one of the most accomplished New Testament scholars of our time could honestly feel that he still has a lot to learn?
#4 || 11·07·13··19:17 || David Kjos
Nice job, Joshua. You missed the point spectacularly.
#5 || 11·07·13··19:56 || Joshua Newington
David, perhaps I was being disingenuous, perhaps ignorant (maybe both, if that's possible). If the point can be summarised as something along the lines of- N.T.Wright is really arrogant- then I think I might have picked up on that.