Wright (and Tilling) still wrong on exile and curse
A couple of days ago I picked Chris Tilling up on his espousal of Tom Wright’s ideas about the exile. In a comment on my post he has clarified his language, but holds determinedly to the point.
I meant that the two exiles were an obvious fact to the first century Jew. The law showed itself to become a curse, as Moses said.
I am entirely unsure how you describe anything as an obvious fact when there is so little evidence for it. Indeed, I am not sure anyone before Wright really held this view with any conviction. That makes it a strange “fact”.
One of the points Wright makes very forcefully elsewhere (and regularly) is that just because Jewish and Christian writers used the language of cosmological transformation and earth-shattering change, that does not mean that they were expecting the literal end of the world. (He follows his mentor Caird on this one.) We should, says Wright, learn to read metaphor sensitively, and not woodenly. Just so. Exodus and Exile metaphors are a fundamental part of the vocabulary, both of describing the relationship between God and his people, and this kind of world-transformational eschatology. If we are sensitive to metaphors, then we might realise that, and not assume that any ) first century Jew necessarily thought he was literally and factually in exile, and awaiting restoration.
That observation goes double for language of the Law being a curse. There is nothing Paul says about his pre-Christian past to suggest that this idea is anything other than his later Christian theological reflection. In his persecution of Christians his behaviour accords with the idea that he esteemed the Law highly, and defended the purity it conferred on God’s people by seeking to eradicate those who challenged it. This is not the behaviour of one who thought it was a curse. If then Paul, the only Jewish writer who speaks of the curse of the Law so definitely, came to see this as the situation after his Damascus Road experience, but in no way saw it as such beforehand, surely any idea that other Torah-observant Jews saw it as a curse is seen to be quite untenable.
February 1st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
If we are sensitive to metaphors, then we might…not assume that any first century Jew necessarily thought he was literally and factually in exile, and awaiting restoration.
Doug, I’d be interested to know what you think a first century Jew would have understood by the metaphor of exile? I don’t think NTW is suggesting that any of them literally and factually thought they were still in exile (’Gosh, these Babylonian streets sure do resemble good ol’ Jerusalem!’).
February 1st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Actually, I think Wright does take this kind of literally. The land they live in is not theirs, but Rome’s. To answer your question about how I think the metaphor is used, I really need pointing to a specific use of the metaphor. Most of those that Wright finds fail to convince me.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Perhaps Chris had in mind Deuteronomy 28:15-68. Even if you don’t accept it as a fact that Moses spoke these words, surely you can accept it as a fact that this was part of the Scripture of first century Jews and so considered by them to be “obvious fact”. And the language of large parts of this passage, especially the last part about exile, is specific enough that it cannot be rejected as merely metaphorical. Just as first century Jews believed in a literal Exodus from Egypt, they believed that Moses warned of a literal exile, and that it took place literally in Babylon.
I wonder if the phrase “the curse of the law” was originally intended to refer to these curses found in the books of the Law, the Torah, rather than any suggestion that the law as a whole had become a curse.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Er … Most of your comment misses the point, Peter. Wright claims that (at least some) first-century Jews believed they were in literal exile under the Romans, and that therefore they were under the curse of the Law that had been threatened by Moses. I don’t think they did believe that. I am saying that language about the literal exile is applied metaphorically (if at all) in the first century.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
I really need pointing to a specific use of the metaphor.
Doug, how about the use of Isaiah 40 to launch the ministry of Jesus? That’s clearly return from exile language.
February 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Okay, yes Richard. Good one. While I don’t think we can assume the use of the text is John’s rather than that of later Christian tradents (who did use the exile metaphor) I do think John’s group is restorationist. However, I submit that this was part of what made him unusual, and so he provides evidence that “exile and restoration” were not common beliefs, far less facts on the ground. Equally the metaphors are well known enough to be both instantly intelligible and powerful.
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Doug, if it was the conviction of a restorationist group in Jesus’ day, perhaps represented by John, do you think Jesus was in accord with their conviction?
And were the gospel writers the tradents you had in mind? They all 4 of them align the use of Is. 40 with John but never seem to critique that position; rather, they tacitly affirm it. It would seem strange for all 4 of them to do so if such a view was not entirely in accord with the ministry of Jesus and their understanding of the times.
Further, would you allow that much of Isaiah from chapter 40 onwards has a return from exile flavour to it? If it does, it seems that the NT writers have a strong liking for that taste, as did Jesus himself.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Richard - I’m not arguing against the idea that the Jesus movement generally drew on this language. They did. I am arguing that it was not a shared view of things – a fact as Chris calls it – by Jews generally in the first century. So I don’t have anything to disagree with in your comment, but equally don’t think it disagrees with me.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
“I am entirely unsure how you describe anything as an obvious fact when there is so little evidence for it. Indeed, I am not sure anyone before Wright really held this view with any conviction. That makes it a strange “fact”.”
Hi Doug, I think you missed my point. Whether or not Moses actually said anything was not at all the issue but that Jews read and believed their scriptures - and my point was the factuality of the exiles for these Jews. I would add that the Babylonian exile in Kings is decribed in a way that makes me think we are not in Gen 1 land.
I think you are making a second point, though I think they got junbled together at some point. As for the exile-return motif, it certainly wasn’t invented by Wright, or only held with conviction by the bishop. The evidence for a Christian understanding of Christ in light of exile and return is persuasive. How the Gospel stories are framed: Matt genealogy, Luke’s story of the dedication of baby Jesus (cf. there the echoes to Isa 40), the first sermon of Jesus in Nazareth, the way the Baptist is presented, and with what scriptures. But also, in the Prophets we see the return from exile linked with such themes as the giving of a new heart, new covenant, new creation, etc. Certainly Paul thought so (2 Cor3, 1 Cor 11), but according to Luke we have the “new covenant” in his blood - return, implying what Simeon and Anna in Luke 2 were stating, return from exile. Actualyl, I find this motif, with its associated metaphors, to fill the Gospels.
I said this in my previous comment but I think you must have miussed it: The “fact” I tried to say I was affirming was the jewish perception of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. Do I think it a fact that Jews believed these exiles happend in the first century. Absolutely.
Did Jews think they were still in exile in the first century? I’m closer to Pitre than Wright on this, but I also think the evidence is sufficient to affirm that the return from exile motif is the controlling story for the synoptics.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
A small correction to my last but one parag which could cause a misreading (its getting late here!)
“Do I think it a fact that Jews believed these exiles happend in the first century. Absolutely.”
I meant:
“Do I think it a fact that Jews, living in the first century, believed these exiles to have happend. Absolutely.”
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 am
At the risk of revealing my naivite, I think exile in N.T. is a kind of concrete metaphor for a paradigm that has changed but is not completely discontinuous with its past context, which has a basis in real history. Paul coopts whole narratives within Israel’s story and uses specific terms like exile and law and curse and resurrection precisely because he sees them fulfilled in Jesus in unexpected ways. Likewise, the exile narrative the evangelists threaded through the gospels is redefined around Jesus. So, you’re right that, I think, that the situation in 1C Palestine didn’t have a 1:1 correspondence to O.T. exile. But Jesus, the evangelists, Paul, and even Wright, see it as something from the past bringing truth to bear upon a radical new present.
February 3rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
OK, Chris. I admit I have misunderstood you. I think we agree, and I shall do a separate post (mainly to annoy Jim)
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:04 pm
“mainly to annoy Jim”
A good cause if ever I heard one!