N T Wright - Interesting reads

For some months, I have subscribed to an online e-mail group who discusses the writings of N. T. Wright. There's still more I DON'T know about him and his work than there is about things I DO know, but I find reading the daily digest or two from the group is something I enjoy each day. I don't participate. I'm a lurker.

Wright joined a conversation some years ago, begun by other scholars and theologians, about the times in which Jesus lived on earth and the culture in which Jesus lived. The idea is to get a better picture of the "real Jesus," something many believe we should do in every generation and culture because we are real Christians living in the now. Christianity is a living faith.

The Jesus Seminars were going on at the time, too, and one had to wonder where those were going to end up. In some of my reading back in those days, I remember thinking that some were so off the track that I was on that I just wasn't interested in reading them. I don't know if Wright comes from that tradition - or not - but I am convinced that this is a man who fully considers himself a Christian in the same vein that I consider myself a Christian. He is a believer and a worshiper. Wright is currently the Archbishop, I think, of Durham. I may have that wrong. I'm not an Anglican, so I very well could be misremembering what I've read.

Here's a site that has a huge collections of Wright's writings: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/

I think the site is worth reviewing, and his books look well worth reading. He has written so much, and he moves from the totally readable to extremely scholarly works. I am reading at the "totally readable" end of his spectrum.

Here's a quote, though, that I want to remember from time to time:

All writers about Jesus have to live with the old jibe that the historian is inclined to see his or own face at the bottom of a deep well and mistake it for the face of Jesus.

The quote is from his second book in the Christian Origins and the Question of God series - Jesus and the Victory of God. I found that I needed to have this book in order to understand another (easier-to-read) book he's written.

I think this statement applies not only to all "writers about Jesus," but about all students of Jesus, as well. We are always on the lookout for a "Christ like me" and "Christian friends like me" - and the thing to do is to remember to periodically check what Jesus is like and compare ourselves to Him instead of the other way around.