The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was & Is

by N.T. Wright

Today a renewed and vigorous scholarly quest for the historical Jesus is underway. In the midst of well publicized and controversial books on Jesus, N. T. Wright's lectures and writings have been widely recognized for providing a fresh, provocative and historically credible portrait.

Out of his own commitment to both historical scholarship and Christian ministry, Wright challenges us to roll up our sleeves and take seriously the study of the historical Jesus. He writes, "Many Christians have been, frankly, sloppy in their thinking and talking about Jesus, and hence, sadly, in their praying and in their practice of discipleship. We cannot assume that by saying the word Jesus, still less the word Christ, we are automatically in touch with the real Jesus who walked and talked in first-century Palestine. . . . Only by hard, historical work can we move toward a fuller comprehension of what the Gospels themselves were trying to say."

The Challenge of Jesus poses a double-edged challenge: to grow in our understanding of the historical Jesus within the Palestinian world of the first century, and to follow Jesus more faithfully into the postmodern world of the twenty-first century.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Christianity, Religion, Nonfiction, History, Biblical Studies

202 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1999

About the author

N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England (2003-2010) and one of the world's leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. He has been featured on ABC News, Dateline NBC, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air, and he has taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford universities. Wright is the award-winning author of Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Last Word, The Challenge of Jesus, The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the much heralded series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

He also publishes under Tom Wright.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book continues the gulf between NT Wright's academic works and his summarized works meant for a popular audience, at least in my opinion. Wright sort of tries to plug his entire "New Testament and the People of God" series into a thin paperback. It's not that anything he says is wrong...it's just that a lot of the fascinating things he's saying come out simplistic and easily misunderstood when he omits the great deal of context that allowed him to derive those things in the first place. Also, while I find his writing style sometimes annoying in the academic work, the shortcomings stick out a lot more in a popular-targeted piece where presentation is everything.

I like NT Wright. A lot. His insights into Jesus's life and Paul's theology have meant the world to me. But I think those insights lose a lot when he tries to summarize them for these audiences. Perhaps I'm not his target audience for this book, but I'm willing to bet that another writing using Wright's other work as a starting place could have written a much better version of this book that got the same message across in a more coherent way.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

N.T. Wright?s aim in this work is to explore the person of Jesus from post-Enlightenment eyes. He addresses the issues from a different stance than the typical liberal or fundamentalist: He affirms that Jesus actually existed but that He (Jesus) saw himself differently than we see Him. Wright says that he has three concerns in this book: historical integrity in talking about Jesus, Christian discipleship that professes to follow Jesus, and empowering Christians with a vision that will transform the world (10-11).



The Challenge of Studying Jesus

In the first chapter Wright discusses the recent history of the ?Quest for the Historical Jesus,? noting that a merely ?supernatural? Jesus?a Jesus that actually lived and was divine in our sense of the word?can easily degenerate into the ?Superman? myth, a myth that is actually a dualistic corruption of Christianity (15). That being said, Wright then critiques liberal scholars for dismissing the Scriptures outright while trying to speak confidently of the most important person of the Scriptures. In this chapter Wright sets the tone for much of the book: ?Christianity, as we shall see, began with the througoughly Jewish belief that world history was focused on a single geographical place and a single moment in time...The living God would defeat evil once and for all and create a new world of justice and peace? (21-22). Wright will take this theme and tie it in with the ?exile-exodus? theme for an early Christian narrative built on a Jewish worldview.



The Challenge of the Kingdom

The challenge of the Kingdom was a challenge that was first given to the nation of Israel. Christians, like the Israelites, were called to be a light to the Gentiles. Israel?s failure to be that light merited its judgment that was played out in the Exile. The message that Jesus preached was, among other things, a repeating of this agenda. Jesus preached his message using symbols and confronting other kingdom agendas: the Herodian compromise, the Zealot revolt, the Qumran pietism. Wright takes a parable dear to many Evangelicals and interprets it through the lens of Exile and Restoration. Instead of the Prodigal Son merely being a message about forgiveness, it was an announcement that the return from Exile was happening through Jesus?s own work (42). In calling His people ?Jesus was calling them to give up their agendas and to trust him for his way of being Israel, his way of bringing the Kingdom, His kingdom-agenda?(44).



The Challenge of the Symbols

Jesus?s challenge of the symbols was a challenge to the Jews to let their symbols go. The symbols that the Jews cherished were leading them to destruction. The challenge of the symbols must be seen in light of a political agenda generated by eschatology. Jesus did not reinforce, but challenge the revolutionary zeal (58). The Sabbath. When Jesus picked grain on the sabbath he brought down the Jews question of ?Does He exhibit symbolic action by which a loyal Jew would show gratitude to God?(60). Instead of seeing Herod?s temple as the Incarnation of God to His people, Jesus was the Temple and so, the Incarnation to the Jews.



The Crucified Messiah

Jesus saw himself as the temple consummating what the sacrifical system pointed to. Jesus saved his people from the exile of sin that they were in?he was telling them that the exile had ended. The challenge to the Jews was that they must see him as the new Temple and the new hope for Israel. Clinging to the physical temple would not save them from the Romans. If the Romans crucified the Messiah, the leader of Israel, how much more so would they judge the Jews? Why did Jesus have to die? He had to die to undergo the punishment that would fall on the nation.



Jesus and God

Before answering the question, ?Was Jesus God?? Wright first defines what God is with reference to 1st-Century Judaism: a) God had created the world and b) will come again to vindicate his people. Wright answers in the affirmative and then qualifies it by noting: 1) the Temple was the incatnational reality of the Jews?Jesus was the temple according to the prophecy given to David in Second Samuel. Furthermore, Jesus viewed the Torah as the Word of God administering the ?Shekinah? among his people?Jesus assumed both roles.



The Challenge of Easter

Wright argues for the Resurrection (the full argument is too deep for a book review) by noting that Christiantiy arose as a ?kingdome-movement, a resurrection-movement, and a Messianic-movement.? Wright then employs Paul?s argument for the Resurrection by noting: the Resurrection meant that the Scriptures had been fulfilled, the old-age had passed away, and the Kingdom of God had arrived. If that is so, the Resurrection is the future re-embodiment of the Christian dead and the em-bodiment of the Christian living.



Overall I found the book intriguing. I will never look at the prophets in the same light again. Nevertheless, he did makes some stereotypes of Reformed people that I thought were groundless. He had a powerful conclusion and a practical application.

[Lavon Herschberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciate N.T. Wright because he makes me think. He presents a compelling macro perspective of God's story with Jesus as the focus. He's intellectual, but understandable.

The last few chapters of this book are in particular very compelling. He nearly made me jump out of my chair and fling open my front door, ready to get about doing my mission now that the exile is over and new creation has begun.

Nonetheless, perhaps this is only worth 4-4.5 stars. Not everyone will appreciate Wright's more academic style. The book also struggled with cohesiveness, being somewhat of a consolidation of his more inaccessible earlier work (so I’ve heard). He also didn't give clear answers to some of his questions, like how Jesus thought of himself (though to his benefit, maybe there aren't clear answers).

I'll leave you with this gold from page 172 (expanding the road to Emmaus story in Luke 24):
"Foolish ones," replies Jesus; "How slow of heart you are to believe all that the Creator God has said!
Did you never hear that he created the world wisely? and that he has now acted within his world to
create a truly human people? and that from within this people he came to live as a truly human
person? and that in his own death he dealt with evil once and for all? and that he is even now at
work, by his own Spirit, to create a new human family in which repentance and forgiveness of sins
are the order of the day, and so to challenge and overturn the rule of war, sex, money, and power?"
And, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, and now also the apostles and prophets of the New
Testament, he interprets to the in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book, one of the best theologically-oriented books I've ever read. The idea behind it is to look at how the things Jesus did and said would have challenged his 1st century audience and then from that discuss how Christians are called to follow in His footsteps today. There was a lot here that was enlightening, including how the resurrection functions as a symbol for the renewal of the Covenant between God and His people, the significance of the temple in the Gospel, and in what sense Jesus "knew" he was God. All very interesting stuff, clearly written and very solidly founded in historical study.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, as the title would suggest, is a challenge, for a couple of reasons. First it is a challenge because Wright's intense historical analysis leads him to say some unexpected things about Jesus and early Christianity, casting doubt on the traditional understandings of certain passages in the bible, and on some aspects of how the church understands Jesus. Wright, for his part, insists that what he is doing is worth it, and I am inclined to agree on that point. You may not agree with all of his conclusions, but once you realize that Wright is a sincere believer and is not actually in any way threatening basic orthodox Christian belief, the worries will go away (at least that was my experience).

In terms of the historical information presented, Wright lays out, in terms that the average person can understand, the basic conclusions (and the arguments for them) that he has come to in his historical work on Jesus and early Christianity. What is most appealing to me about this is the great sense of historical narrative that Wright has--the theme of God redeeming the world through Israel, and how Jesus understood himself as fulfilling that vocation in his own life and person, and eventually, through his suffering and death on the cross. The overall picture Wright paints gives the reader a good sense of how well Christ fits into the overarching narrative of scripture, and beyond. The book contains a good summary of Wright's brilliant historical defense of the truth of the resurrection.

The last two chapters are the second reason that the book is a challenge: a challenge to the church and to each of us to live the message of Jesus. They are beautiful, and make the entire book worthwhile. Wright gives his vision of where the narrative of God's work in the world is at today, and what Christians are called to be in the current world, which he characterizes as post-modern. Basically he says that what Jesus was for Israel, the church is to be for the world. He envisions the church bringing hope to a world that has just experienced the failure of a false narrative (modernity's humanistic vision of salvation through rationality, individuality, and technology), by living out and demonstrating in many ways the reality true narrative, which is the work of God's redeeming love through Christ, the defeat of evil and the forgiveness, hope, healing, new life, and fulfillment of our ultimate purpose that is available to us through him:

"The radical hermeneutic of suspicion that characterizes all of post-modernity is essentially nihilistic, denying the very possibility of creative or healing love. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus we find the answer: the God who made the world is revealed in terms of a self-giving love that no hermeneutic of suspicion can ever touch, in a Self that found itself by giving itself away, in a Story that was never manipulative but always healing and recreating, and in a Reality that can truly be known, indeed to know which is to discover a new dimension of knowledge, the dimension of loving and being loved."

[Jack Mullins]

I enjoyed this book -- much more than I did Scripture and the Authority of God, the only other book of Wright's that I've read.

Having recently read Borg's more historically skeptical account of Easter, I was most interested in Wright's historical arguments for his belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection. For example, Wright points out that bodily resurrection was absolutely essential to every version of early Christianity, even our earliest sources from ~55 C.E. Wright asks how the earliest Christians would have arrived at this idea, even when, as he describes at length, it subverts Jewish messianic expectations.

Also of interest, in both of his books I've read, were his discussions of Christian thinking in modern versus post-modern contexts. In this book, he focuses briefly on re-defining the church's mission in the post-modern world. This, to me, seems crucial. I agree with Wright that Western Christianity "bought a bit too heavily into modernism," causing many of the popular disaffections with the church today.

Overall, this was an engaging, concise-but-not-too-dense summary of Wright's "historical Jesus" arguments with some extra pontification on mission and Christology.

[Halle Wassink · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I believe, to the contrary, that each generation has to wrestle afresh with the question of Jesus, not least its biblical roots if it is to be truly the church at all—not that we should engage in abstract dogmatics to the detriment of our engagement with the world, but that we should discover more and more of who Jesus was and is, precisely in order to be equipped to engage with the world that he came to save."

I have never read a book that examined Jesus in a historical and cultural context such as this one. My only complaint is that I would have LOVED more. Each chapter could have been it's own book to study.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the reasons I appreciate N.T. Wright is that he asks the most important questions about Jesus (who he was, why he died, etc.), and gives new insights and details into the answers that are rooted in Christian Orthodoxy. My understanding of Jesus comes into sharper relief when I read Wright's work, and I'm grateful to him for his efforts.

[Matthew Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[Mathew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pick up your copy

But as we do this, we must remind ourselves again and again—as the liturgies of the traditional churches do in so many ways—that when we are telling the story of Jesus, we are doing so as a part of the community that is called to model this story to the world. –N. T. Wright

The Challenge of Jesus challenged my understanding of who Jesus was and is. In a way that Wright often does, he chops the feet off both conservative evangelicals and liberals. This can be both a strength and weakness. I found my understanding of the significance of the Temple for Christ’s vocation and for the gospel story expanded (more on that later). My only gripe if I must have one was that in several places bold statements are made without citation (see 45, 106, 131, 147). In many cases, these were statements I quite agreed with and wanted to further dig into, but there was nothing to follow up on.

In The Challenge of Jesus, Wright is at his best. He interacts with the historical Jesus crowd and he does so on their terms as a historian and, in my opinion, conclusive shows that Jesus was a real person who actually died and actually was raised from the dead. He also very deftly situates his task within the its proper context. He shows why we needed the Enlightenment (19-20), where modernism failed, and where postmodernism took over and where it too failed, and he does all this with an eye towards who Jesus is and was.

Read the entire review here

[Jillian Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

N.T. Wright’s brilliant work about the historical and spiritual meaning of Jesus is definitely going in my favorites of the year pile. This is one that I’ll come back to time and time again both because it took all my mental space to absorb what I could and because his writing is beautiful and meaningful. It’s not a light read by any means, but if you’re wanting to dig deep and challenge yourself, I highly recommend it! I listened to the majority on audiobook which I don’t recommend only because it’s too hard to take in.

A favorite quote: “Shaping our world is never for a Christian a matter of going out arrogantly thinking we can just get on with the job, reorganizing the world according to some model that we have in mind. It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point. Because Jesus bore the cross uniquely for us, we do not have to purchase forgiveness again; it’s been done. But because, as He Himself said, following Him involves taking up the cross, we should expect, as the New Testament tells us repeatedly, that to build on His foundation will be to find the cross etched into the pattern of our life and work over and over again.”

[Salvador Vivas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre es retador leer a Wright y releerlo. Sus premisas cuestionan nuestra manera teológica de ver a Jesús, con buenos argumentos históricos. Ahí donde nuestra teología se vuelve inflexible las preguntas de Wright nos mueven a una reflexión viva y dinámica de la fe. Este libro está destinado a ser un clásico de la cristología.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great.

[Janessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started off really liking this book, especially since the first half is about establishing a historical perspective of Jesus, Jewish culture, etc. But the second half of the book was extremely difficult to follow & I felt like it was riddled with a lot of “replacement theology” when talking about Israel. Some things definitely went over my head while some things I just didn’t agree with. The final chapter was the book’s redeeming feature.

[Adam Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by N.T. Wright and I found it nearly as eye opening as the first: Surprised by Hope. I love learning about the scriptures through the lens of the first century audience, and this book did not disappoint. While I found the writing to be a bit convoluted at times, for the most part it was to the point and understandable for this non-seminary trained student of the Bible. He really helped me understand the parables of Jesus in a new light and supplemented my understanding of the Kingdom of God so often talked about by Stanley E. Jones and the BibleProject guys. I recommend this read for sure.

[David Clouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I either didn't quite like/agree with some of the beginnings of this book, or I just wasn't quite paying good enough attention. Anyways, as the book went on there were some cool or challenging thoughts that I liked. Wright helps tackle a more comprehensive way a Christian should live in the world because of who Christ is and what He has done.

[Laurel Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think Mr. Wright and I read the same Bible.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very insightful at times but his view of Jesus's self understanding of his deity (or not) is very problematic and strange.

[Hannah-Rose Basson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astounding. Illuminates the Gospels through in-depth study of Jesus’ words and vocation- the way I read and understand the Gospels has completely changed because of this book.

[Greg Atkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted a book about the historical Jesus written by a Christian author. This book appeared on many people's lists of top books on the subject.

It was awful. It veered between speculative details that can't be known and generalities. The number of time the author wrote something to the effect of "but that topic is out of the scope of this book" was infuriating.

This book is the Christian-Rock of books: a crappy product that people fool themselves into thinking they like because it praises Jesus.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few New Testament scholars are able to write a book that is at once scholarly, inspirational, and well-crafted, but N.T. Wright has such a gift. This book sometimes seemed to jump around quite a bit, but tackling major themes and nimbly jumping from one part of Scripture to another seems to be Wright's style (as in Paul in Fresh Perspective). I appreciated a lot of the thought-provoking material, and the last chapter on what it means to be a Christian in our postmodern culture is absolutely outstanding.

A sample quote:

Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even--heaven help us--Biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically-rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way...with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom. I believe if we face the question, "if not now, then when?" if we are grasped by this vision we may also hear the question, "if not us, then who?" And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?

[Angus Mcfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a challenge worth taking! The endeavour to discover the historical Jesus has been attempted by many and there are probably few people in the world without some opinion on it. Forming an opinion about Jesus that finds agreement from someone else is therefore pretty easy: Investing the time and effort to dig into the facts much harder (both emotionally, intellectually and, well, financially!). NT Wright belongs in the latter category, making the read a treat and regardless of 'faith', worth listening to.

Central to Wright's thesis is the idea that Jesus belongs to first century Judaism and regardless of ideas formed about him since then, his identity must remain consistent with his original context. There is no such thing as a blank slate of course, but I felt that despite coming from a 'believers' perspective, Wright is sufficiently dispassionate to be removed from blatant sectarian or ideological bias. Whilst these may have their place at times, it is refreshing to hear the basics again (as I remember feeling when I first 'discovered' Jesus as an adolescent, albeit with more depth than I did then).

[Mary Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard this book as the original lecture series at the December 1998 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Graduate Student Conference in Chicago, Illinois. I had been invited to return from England to be involved in the conference and introduce NT Wright. I then used the book for teaching purposes from 1999 to 2005 while teaching at Asbury Theological seminary. Most students found it extremely helpful and challenging, many hated Chapter 5 as they basically were Docetists. I am someone who is extremely grateful for all this man's writings. I am grateful to his family for the time they have given us the church. His scholarly credentials are of the extraordinary level, his writing is so clear, he unveils text with clarity and personal humility. It and all hisother works - popular and scholarly - are worth reading. In the next 12 months his major work on Paul will be out.

I think that people need to remember this book was a series of talks.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was my first exposure to N. T. Wright, and I left it with nothing but respect for him as a scholar. Wright writes for a conservative audience, assuring them that Christians ought not to be afraid of applying biblical ibscholarship to their understanding of the scriptures. He warns them not to assume that all there is to know about Jesus is already known. Wright then proceeds for the rest of the book to take a second look at the world of the Jews, to understand what these first century Jews expected from their Messiah, and to think about how they would have interpreted the cross and the resurrection. Wright concludes with a renewed look at Christ's calling for Christians in a postmodern world.

The Challenge of Jesus was very readable and yet still scholarly. It encouraged my faith to walk through the essentials again.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

An edifying exposition of the first-century Jewish mindset--Wright reminds us to be careful not to read our modern and postmodern assumptions into the New Testament. He explains what words like Messiah and resurrection meant to the Jews of Jesus' day. He also fairly challenges liberal theologians' views of Jesus, recognizing that their questions are important but that they can be answered on the side of orthodoxy from a careful study of New Testament history.

Among the particularly remarkable points in this book is that in the Septuagint, the Greek word used in Samuel, when God told David that He would "raise up" a son who would build His temple, was the same word for "resurrect." In other words, the passage in Samuel can be interpreted as Messianic.

[Edngilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explores the question of the historical Jesus, not from the usual fact gathering and making a case for, but rather starting with the question of the implications of seeking the historical Jesus and the Evangelicals' resistance to that study. Wright also discusses at length the milleu of the first century and makes a point that unless we have some understanding of that the basis of our understanding of things like "salvation", "Kingdom of God", "Son of Man", etc. are all skewed by some 21st century filtering which would have been totally foriegn to Jesus and his contemporaries. Indeed furthrer revelation by God may lead us to a differnt place than 1st century mindsets but without understanding them we have no way of navigating the terminology. Read at your own risk!

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I read "The Challenge Of Jesus" for the first time nearly 11 years ago, in early 2003 (while I was in seminary), I just finished reading it again this afternoon (as part of my goal to read and/or re-read as much of N.T. Wright's written work as possible in 2014).

So, that said (or written here), I appreciated and enjoyed this book as much - probably more - on this second time around and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in looking for a solid biblical, theological and, especially, historical introduction to Jesus.

Note: Wright has written at much greater length and in much greater depth in his series on "Christian Origins and the Question of God," but "The Challenge Of Jesus" serves as a good, accessible introduction and starting point to his work there.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

What exactly did Jesus mean when he said, "Repent and believe!" What is the Kingdom of God according to the first century Jews and Jesus? Why exactly did the Pharisees set out to kill Jesus? What is the exact nature of the Messiah? This book looks at Jesus, the culture, and the people with whom he interacted to give a wide portrait that can answer all these questions; and the answers surprisingly describe different mindsets, different scenarios, and different definitions from what most believers understand. This is a great book to read if you would like a better understanding of the Jesus in history as opposed to how he has been interpreted through the ages outside of his context.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read by this author, and I will definitely read more. Wright challenges us to look at Jesus as he was (and is) and not how our traditions and culture desires for him to be. It is in that change of perspective that whole new avenues of "being Jesus with skin on" for our world open up. The book is always not an easy (or comfortable) read, but it is well worth the effort. The last chapter of the book alone is worth the price of the book. But you have to read the whole book to understand the last chapter. Great book. Highly recommend it.

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed thoughts. Mixed feelings. At times, N.T. Wright, *The Challenge of Jesus,* has great insights, and at other times, he leaves me scratching my head. The chapter, *The Challenge of Easter,* is worth the price of the book (a summary of a larger, academic work). But, the arrogance of some passages leave me feeling angry and frustrated. Wright writes as if he is the only person in all of the history of the church who sees what he sees and knows what he knows. Nonetheless, Wright does widen our understanding of Jesus from just a personal savior to the redeemer of all of creation.