I did it!

Coming in at 987 pages, NT Wright and Michael F. Bird’s The New Testament In Its World is the longest book I’ve ever read (taking that Title from Augusine’s The City of God). This behemoth is a New Testament survey with one-third devoted to theological/contextual/structural material related to the nature and purpose of the New Testament, and the remaining two-thirds spent going book-by-book through the New Testament. Wright and Bird offer a survey of the scholarship concerning each book’s authorship, date, context, and occasion and then make a case for their conclusions on those issues. Next, they present a summary of the book’s teaching and then walk through an outline that they have developed for each.

Wright and Bird are two premier New Testament Scholars, and they load this book with the work of their peers as well. It is an excellent and up-to-date presentation of the best scholarship concerning the New Testament. They (and their publisher) seem very aware of the possibility of this book being used as a seminary textbook, and it certainly feels like one as you’re reading through. Sometimes that can be a little frustrating (pedantic). But it is not just a textbook - it is a really good textbook. It would certainly be the assigned reading for any New Testament Survey class that I taught at the seminary level. It would really push the limits (and page-count limit) of an undergraduate student.

I’ll highlight two aspects of this book that I loved:

Though Wright and Bird fall firmly in the “orthodox” (small - o) school of theology and Biblical studies, they do not shy away from critical scholarship. Their approach to newer scholarship related to the authorship and dating of New Testament texts is one that accepts and deals with critical work frankly yet maintains a confidence in the nature and significance of the text. You won’t find Wright and Bird jumping through hoops to argue Petrine authorship of 2nd Peter, or that the apostle John himself wrote all the Johannine literature in the NT, but they do regard the text as authoritative and remain faithful to it. Evangelical scholarship, at times, has failed to treat modern scholarship fairly or approach questions of provenance with integrity or open-mindedness. The way forward that Wright and Bird have carved out in this book is a good one.
The pictures of places and artifacts in this book are great and plentiful.

Some Quotes:

The New Testament exists because God wants to involve real humans, thinking, breathing, loving humans, in the ongoingn work and life of the kingdom… The New Testametn is therfore desiigned - designed, I would say, by the holy spirit! - to be the book which, hwne we read it, shapes and energizes and directs us not only for worship but also for mission. (42)
When God wants to change the world, he doesn’t launch missiles. Instead, he sends in the meek, the mourners, and the merciful. When God wants to put things to right, he doesn’t scramble combat jets; he calls people to love and do justice. Through those kinds of people the blessings of God’s reign begin to appear in the world. (207)
Romans 4 thus not only shows that for Paul the resurrection opf Jesus was a life-giving event, overcoming death itself by the sheer power of the creator God. It was part of the larger story in which the covenant God was demonstrating his faithfulness by vindicating all those who believe in him, as he had promised to Abraham. (305)
The sceret (in Mark) is this: in the person of Jesus, God has become king, launching the restoration of Israel and the inaguration of the new creation. this secret was shocking. This was not hos Jesus’ contemporaries had imagined the prophecies being fulfilled. It was not how Mark’s contemporaries expected a world ruler would emerge (556)
Matthew takes us into the synagogue, where the people of God are learning to recognize Jesus as their king, their Emmanuel. mark writes a short tract, challenging his readers with the very idea of a crucified king and turning it into a handbook on discipleship for followers of the servant-king. Luke addresses the educated Greek world of his day and paints a big picture of God’s purposes through Israel’s Messiah for the whole world. John, by contrast, takes us up the mountain and says quietly: “Look - from here, on a clear day, you can see fore ever.’ We beheld his glory, glory as of the father’s only son. (648)

I would recommend this book to pastors and burgeoning theologians everywhere. You don’t necessarily need to read the whole thing. If you remove the book-by-book section of this work you’d be left with about 400 pages of fantastic New Testament background information. then you could read their entry on each Bible book as needed to prepare for a sermon series or Sunday school class. I anticipate picking up this book to re-read the book-specific chapter every time I begin a new New Testament sermon series. The only aspect of this book was the way it would frequently play down to the academically uninitiated (especially in the “Emails from the Edge” features), but I understand that they do this in a chance that it gets used as an undergraduate textbook.

The New Testament In Its World, N.T. Wright & Michael F. Bird