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N. T. Wrights Hermeneutic:
An Exploration
Robert Stewart
N. T. Wright is one of the more significant biblical scholars in present-day
Protestant theology.1 The first two volumes of his proposed six-volume New
Testament theology series,2 Christian Origins and the Question of God have
been widely read and very influential. Richard Hays writes concerning the
series:
The sweep of Wrights project as a whole is breathtaking. It is impossible
to give a fair assessment of his achievement without sounding grandiose:
no New Testament scholar since Bultmann has even attemptedlet
alone achievedsuch an innovative and comprehensive account of
New Testament history and theology.3
This article will first describe Wrights hermeneutical method. The next issue
will include an overview of his conclusions concerning the historical Jesus
and evaluate how his hermeneutical method affects his conclusions as to
who the historical Jesus was.
Wrights Critical-Realist, Worldview Hermeneutic
Wrights hermeneutic integrates several different methods into a harmonious
whole. Examples include narrative structural criticism, worldview analysis, and
a critical-realist epistemology. This section will answer four major hermeneutical
questions, after first considering Wrights epistemologycritical realism.
Wright consistently approaches knowledge from the perspective of critical
realism. Critical realism is a term borrowed from the philosophy of science4
and carried over into theology and biblical studies. Critical realism is, in van
Huyssteens words:5
...neither a theological nor a scientific thesis, it is a philosophical, or even
more accurately, an epistemological, thesis about the goals of scientific
knowledge and the implications of theoretical models in science. Hence it
should not be seen as a theory about truth, but rather as a theory about
the epistemic values that shape scientific rationality.6

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Critical realism is both post-Kantian and post-Kuhnian in that it recognizes

that one can never have knowledge of the thing-in-itself and that all
knowledge is necessarily theory-based in nature. Critical realism recognizes
that all knowledge is socio-historical in nature, but rejects the claim that
religious language provides only a useful system of symbols that can be
action-guiding and meaningful for the believer without being in any sense
reality depicting in its cognitive claims.7 Yet advocates of critical realism are
quick to insist that all knowledge is provisional, and thus subject to revision.
Related to the efficacy of language, critical realists do not hold that words
are derivative of an objective world, only that they represent and refer to an
objective world.8
Wrights brand of critical realism forges a middle road between epistemological
certainty as characterized both by pre-modern dogmatism and modern
subject-object dualism, on the one hand, and post-Kantian phenomenalism
and postmodern deconstruction, on the other. The former view, which Wright
labels positivism, is nave, while the various forms of phenomenalism often
lead to solipsism.9 Wrights diagram of the positivist position is below.
Observer------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Object
simply looking at objective reality
tested by empirical observation
if it doesnt work, its nonsense10
His diagram of the phenominalist position is also reprodiced below.
Observer------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Object
I seem to have evidence of external reality
<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------but I am really only sure of my sense-data11
Critical realism retains the strengths of each position. Like positivism it
recognizes the reality of objects out there. Like phenomenalism it recognizes
that all knowledge is mediated. Critical realism thus acknowledges the reality
of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence realism),
while also fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies

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along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the

knower and the thing known (hence critical).12 His diagram of the critical
realist position is reproduced below.
Observer------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Object
initial observation
<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------is challenged by critical reflection
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
but can survive the challenge and speak truly of reality13
Wright is not asserting that critical realism leads to certainty, only to
knowledge. All assertions that critical realists make are provisional in nature,
and thus subject to revision.14
The crucial question that must be addressed isare there sufficient similarities
between scientific theorizing and historical reconstruction to justify the
translation of critical realism from one field (philosophy of science) to the
other (historical Jesus research)? Wright believes that there are. He writes that
historical knowledge is subject to the same caveats as all knowledge in general.15
All knowledge is arrived at through the process of hypotheses, or imagination,
tested by asking particular questions of the available data.16 One area in which
the two are similar is access to the details of events. In both science and history,
the objects of investigation are often beyond the realm of direct observation
or literal description. Yet both the physicist and the historian are able to write
meaningfully about phenomena that they cannot directly observe.17
The critical realist recognition that all knowledge is culturally situated in
nature leads Wright to the conclusion that ones worldview serves as the
grid through which hypotheses are formed and data evaluated.18 This leads
Wright to build his hermeneutic around the idea of evaluating worldviews
according to specific criteria. In this way he consistently applies his criticalrealist epistemology to historical Jesus research. In every area of his project
it is either the explicit or implicit epistemology from which he forms his
hypotheses and by which he draws his conclusions.

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The Nature of Texts about Jesus

Wright maintains that texts are best conceived as the articulation of
worldviews, or, better still, the telling of stories which bring worldviews into
articulation.19 All texts, with the possible exceptions of tickets and directories,
communicate an implied narrativea story that at least conceivably may be
discovered within the text.20 Worldviews are expressed through: (1) stories
that order ones view of reality; (2) symbols (shorthand statements of the
stories); (3) answers to four ultimate questions (who are we, where are we,
what is wrong, and what is the solution?); and (4) praxis, a way of being in
the world. In any of these the entire worldview can be glimpsed, although
stories contain the fullest expression of a worldview.21 Texts contain these
expressions of worldviews, which provide the reader with a fundamental tool
with which to discern the meaning of the text.
The hermeneutical positivist believes that through the proper application
of critical methods the right meaning can be found while the hermeneutical
phenomenalist denies that any such meaning exists. Wright, in contrast to
both, posits that:
A critical-realist reading of a text will recognize, and take fully into account,
the perspective and context of the reader. But such a reading will still insist
that, within the story or stories that seem to make sense of the whole of
reality, there exists, as essentially other than and different from the reader,
texts that can be read, that have a life and a set of appropriate meanings
not only potentially independent of their author but also potentially
independent of their reader; and that the deepest level of meaning
consists in the stories, and ultimately the worldviews, which the texts thus
articulate.22
In short, texts do not put one directly in touch with the thoughts or feelings of
an author. That is a positivist dream, whether the positivist is a rationalist or
a romanticist. Yet they are not entirely removed from the author because they
express the worldview in which the author is situated. One must understand
that, for Wright, worldviews are never understood individually until they have
first been understood corporately.23
In The New Testament and the People of God, Wright reconstructs the
worldview of Second-Temple Judaism.24 This step is foundational for

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everything Wright does in seeking the historical Jesus. Wright thus insists
that one discover the worldview of a text from within the text itself, not impose
a Sitz im Leben derived from outside the text upon a text.25
Because a critical-realist reading is by definition provisional and constantly
subject to revision, knowledge of the worldview the text communicates is
provisional, and constantly open to revision. This means that a text may refer
to persons, objects, or events beyond itself, but the reader can never be
certain that he or she has correctly grasped that to which the text refers.26
Against the backdrop of a particular worldview, however, some readings are
more appropriate than others.27
The Role of the Reader
The reader must first discern from a text an understanding of the worldview
it articulates. This is foundational. When one fails to grasp the worldview
of a text, one cannot hope to understand it correctly. To understand the
worldview of a text, one must analyze the story that the text is seeking to
affirm, address, or undermine.28 To this end Wright recommends a cautious
use of elements of A. J. Greimass narrative structuralism or actant analysis
of stories.29 Recognizing that Greimas method is decidedly anti-historical,
Wrights intention is not so much to follow it slavishly, but to reuse a particular
aspect of it.30 The fact that narrative analysis does not focus on the meaning
of texts, but on their function, seeking to understand plot moves that are
invariably made within the story, forces the reader to pay close attention to
how the story actually works. Because the gospel stories are so familiar to
Christian scholars, exegetes often approach them as if they already know
how they work and thus overlook their structure. Wright sees the application
of narrative analysis as a means to guard against this tendency.31
Although he grants that narrative analysis will not work for all texts,32 it is
clear that he believes that it may be used fruitfully in a broad sense for many, if
not most, biblical texts. Even Pauline passages may be more readily understood
for their full worth when this approach is applied.33
One difficulty in applying this model in practice is that the gospels in
particular, and the biblical texts in general, are not simple in form. In the
gospels one often finds one or more stories within a story. Therefore one

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role of the reader is to understand how the smaller stories function within the
larger story that Jesus is telling. One cannot afford to lose sight of either the
forest or the individual trees. Wrights use of narrative analysis is intended to
keep the forest in sight. One should not suppose, however, that the shorter
units are unimportant. In various ways they also relate the overall worldview
story. Short poems and aphorisms are what the snapshot is to the story of
a holiday, a childhood, a marriage.34 But like the snapshot the shorter, noncontextual units are understood against the backdrop of the overall worldview
story. Wright thus emphasizes the larger story over the smaller stories one
finds within the overall worldview story.35
Not everyone is convinced that narrative analysis and critical realism belong
together. J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh reject the nomenclature of
critical realism. They write:
Our problem with critical realism is that such an epistemological
framework still carries too many overtones of a realism that has proven
to be bankrupt and has legitimately been deconstructed by postmodern
thought. Critical realism could be a cover for a chastised, more humble
(kinder and gentler) realism. But as a realism it seems to hide a pretentious
aspiration to get it right. If only we are sufficiently self-critical, the
critical realist seems to be saying, then we will finally get to the thing
itself. Such an aspiration, however, is epistemologically impossible to
realize.... Indeed, it rests upon the conviction that a final, universally true
perspective can be achieved. But more important, in the light of a biblical
understanding of reality, such an aspiration is undesirable because it
invariably (if unwittingly) ends up in a totalizing stance that is idolatrous
in character. Simply put, critical realism does not seem sufficiently to fill
the requirements of epistemological stewardship.36
They recommend that one adopt a narrative approach to truth apart from any
form of realism, critical or otherwise.
Van Huyssteen, on the other hand, holds that narrative approaches to
knowledge are consistent with critical realism, so long as the narrative is open
to critique from other sources.37 Gary Comstock distinguishes between pure
narrative theologies and impure narrative theologies. Pure narrative theologies

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are not open to philosophical analysis whereas impure narrative theologies

are. Comstock notes that pure narrativists are anti-foundationalist, culturallinguistic, Wittgensteinian-inspired descriptionists, while impure narrativists
are revisionist, hermeneutical, Gadamerian-inspired correlationists.38
Related to this, David Tracy maintains that narratives contain all sorts of
historical, psychological and metaphorical claims and therefore invite the
critical inquiry of historians, feminists, and philosophers.39
Like virtually everyone who uses narrative criticism, Wright believes that
the starting point for theology should be the biblical story, not philosophical
reflection. But Wright does not discourage either philosophical reflection
upon the biblical story or systematic theologizing.40 What he does reject
is beginning with theological propositions and moving to the story, rather
than approaching theology from the foundation of story.41 Wrights use of
narrative analysis in the service of historical research is thus consistent with
Comstocks category of impure narrative theology.
The fact that story is by far the most important expression of the four worldview
indicators Wright has identified does not mean that the other worldview
indicators are unimportant. In fact they play a role in making the worldview
story that much more clear. Symbols point to what the group understands to be
significant, and at the same time also function as boundary-markers: those who
observe them are insiders, those who do not are outsiders.42 Praxis indicates
what is given priority in that group. In seeking to analyze praxis and symbols
one evaluates not only texts written by members of a group, but also texts
written by others about them, as well as other expressions beyond writing,
such as art or worship materials.43 Praxis, more than any other element of a
worldview, is crucial to determining the aims, intentions, and motivations of
historical characters.44 More on aims, intentions, and motivation will be said
below. From ones conclusions concerning praxis and symbols as they relate to
the overarching worldview story, implicit answers to the four questions (who are
we, where are we, what is wrong, and what is the solution?) can be drawn.45
All the indicators of a worldview merit the readers attention. Additionally all of
the worldview indicators relate reciprocally to all of the others. Wrights diagram
illustrating this relationship is reproduced below.46

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Story-telling humans------------------------------------------------>Story-laden world

initial observation (already within a story)
<--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------is challenged by critical reflection on ourselves as story-tellers (i.e.
recognizing that our claims about reality may be mistaken)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
but can, through further narrative, find alternative ways of speaking truly
about the world, with the use of new or modified stories
Story, Praxis, Questions, Symbols47
Once the reader has discerned the larger worldview story that the New
Testament texts are articulating, modern critical disciplines such as form
and/or redaction criticism may fruitfully be used, albeit without Bultmanns
faulty presuppositions.48 Wright stresses that form criticism was not
originally intended to discover Jesus, but rather to discover the forms of the
earliest Jesus stories. This sort of information can be very useful to biblical
scholars of all persuasions. Wright contends that attention to the form of the
Gospel stories affords one insight into their oral history. An oral history simply
outlines how stories concerning Jesus developed to the point at which one
finds them in the Gospels. One need not assume that such stories were
created out of thin air or had no historical referent. An oral tradition, on the
other hand, results from a teachers instructing his disciples concerning both
the form and the content of the message that they are to convey.49
Traditional form critical methods have made much of various criteria of
authenticity. Two criteria often used, despite the fact that they are on the surface
contradictory, are those of dissimilarity and similarity.50 Wright links the two
and insists that the passages that are most likely to be authentic are those that
show Jesus as both similar and dissimilar to both first-century Judaism and the
early church. He thus advocates double similarity and double dissimilarity as
one criterion.51 When something can be seen to be credible, though perhaps
deeply subversive (similar yet dissimilar) within first-century Judaism, and
credible as the implied starting-point, though not an exact replica, of something
in later Christianity (similar, yet dissimilar), there is a strong possibility that one
is in touch with the genuine history of Jesus.52 This is crucial for historical
research of new movements and significant individuals. Because new
movements spring out of existing movements, there will necessarily be some
similarity between the old and the new. But in order for the new to be genuinely

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new it must also be distinctly dissimilar to the old. The fact that followers are
never fully able to imitate their master also supports Wrights criterion of double
similarity/dissimilarity.53
Redaction criticism helps one to understand the intention of the evangelist.
Stories are neither told nor retold without a reason. One may thus recognize
a development in intention concerning Gospel pericopae. As with form
criticism, none of this requires that Gospel pericopae necessarily do not
come originally from Jesus.54
It is thus clear that the reader must operate on two levels. Form and redaction
criticism are required at the level of the smaller (or inner) stories, the gospel
pericopae (not individual logiaat least not initially). Narrative analysis is
necessary both at the level of the gospel pericopae and the larger story
of Israels God fulfilling his covenant (through Jesus) in actual space-time
events.
One might say that Wright proposes both a micro-hermeneutic (refined
form and redaction criticism, built around the criterion of double similarity
and double dissimilarity) and a macro-hermeneutic (narrative structural
analysis). In this way Wright combines the diachronic methods of modern
literary criticism (form and redaction criticism) with the synchronic methods
of narrative criticism (narrative structural analysis). But the reader must first
give attention to the narrative structure of a passage because that is the level
at which the worldview becomes clearest through the vehicle of story. By
giving attention to the form of a passage against the backdrop of the overall
worldview the text affirms or addresses, one can better grasp the intention of
the author.55
In this way, Wright reverses the order in which New Testament critical work
has been done for the better part of this century. Instead of working from
the minute (Gospel pericopae) to the general (larger narrative sections), he
posits that readers should work from the greater to the more minute.
All of the above has dealt with how the reader reads the text. But the reader is
not only responsible to discern the worldview of a text, but also to understand
his or her own worldview. Wright stresses that we cannot stand outside our
own worldviews, any more than we can see without our own eyes.56 It thus
becomes clear that readers must not only study the text before them, but also

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critique themselves both before and during the reading of a text. Much of
Wrights approach to analyzing the New Testament worldview was developed
by Brian Walsh and J. Richard Middleton57 as a way to analyze contemporary
worldviews and communicate the gospel cross-culturally. This means that it
may also be used effectively by a reader to discern his or her own worldview
and hopefully guard against reading a text through a worldview that is foreign
to it.
In summary, the first role of the reader is to discern the worldview of a text by
analyzing the structure of the story that the text is seeking to affirm or subvert
as well the other worldview indicators (symbol, praxis, ultimate questions).
The second role of the reader is to analyze the smaller individual stories
within the overall worldview story by application of revised form and redaction
criticism. Finally the reader must critique his or her own worldview and make
every effort not to allow their own worldview to hinder their understanding of
the worldview of the text.
What Constitutes a Legitimate Reading
As mentioned above, a critical-realist approach to texts insures that the
meaning one deduces from a text will be necessarily provisional and open
to revision. But there are some readings that are inappropriate, or at least
less appropriate than others. In other words, a text may have more than one
meaning, but not an infinite number of equally valid meanings. If the reader
allows his own worldview to override the worldview of the text, the resultant
reading cannot be one of Wrights more appropriate readings.
So how exactly does one discern an appropriate reading from an inappropriate
one? Wright directs the reader to Anthony Thiseltons assertion that for many
speech-acts there must be a fit between what is said in the text and events
in the extra-linguistic world.58 Wright seems to mean that by discerning the
worldview that the text articulates, one can apprehend something similar to
what Schleiermacher calls the life-world of the text, and thus roughly arrive
at Thiseltons fit.59 It appears that Wright sees his use of worldview to
be roughly synonymous to Schleiermachers use of life-world.60 Legitimate
readings provide meanings that fit within the worldview of the text.
More specifically Wright insists that a legitimate reading of the Bible will
take seriously Scriptures historical, literary, and theological dimensions. If a

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reading does not allow for all three, it is deficient. Reading a text simply for
its (modern) historical meaning (what did it mean when written?) results in
the loss of contemporary and personal relevance. Robert Morgan (with John
Barton) writes that such an approach results when New Testament critics
mistake a historical method for the historical goal.61 But when a text is read
simply for its (postmodern) literary effect (what does this mean to me?), it
often is stripped of its public relevance.62 Critical realism demands that
the story that the Bible tells be understood as public, not private in nature.
Therefore a purely private reading is not a legitimate option.63
Finally, biblical texts must also be read in such a way that they are allowed
to speak in a theological sense, that is to say a word about God, and to say
that word in a normative fashion. A theological component is not merely an
addendum to biblical hermeneutics; it is a necessary ingredient.64 The main
reason a theological component is necessary for historical research is that there
is a necessarily theological component, either explicitly or implicitly, within the
stories that are inherent in worldviews.65
Asking theological questions of a text thus goes hand in hand with posing
historical or literary questions. Wright points out that it is hermeneutically
inconsistent to treat statements that are theological (about God) any differently
than statements that are political or sociological. Theological language is
therefore on the same footing as language about anything else and as such
one should, affirm the right of theological language to be regarded as an
appropriate dimension of discourse about reality.66
Wright does not propose to bypass literary or historical concerns. Neither does
he assume that theological language is gifted with a perspective that other
language lacks. Consistent with critical realism, theological language is public,
that is, subject to critique and correction.67 In this way he seeks a theological
reading that will enhance both literary and historical dimensions.68
A theological reading must be part of a biblical hermeneutic because
a concern for theology brings out a dimension of the worldview that
historical and literary criticism are not equipped (or intended) to address.
This dimension is the dimension of the symbolic.69 Furthermore, theology
suggests certain ways of telling the story, explores certain ways of answering

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the questions, offers particular interpretations of the symbols, and suggests

and critiques certain forms of praxis.70
What of reading the Bible in a normative sense? Wright proposes a model
for biblical authority in which the Bible is understood in similar fashion to an
extant portion of a Shakespearean play lacking most of the final act. The
play is entrusted to experienced and sensitive Shakespearean actors, who
are charged with immersing themselves in the earlier stages of the play
and acting out for themselves the final act.71 The completed portion of the
play would be the authority for the ending. The ending could be challenged
as inappropriate. All possible conclusions would have to demonstrate their
consistency with the extant part of the story that the play told. But there could
be no authorized, once-for-all ending. Shakespeares words would never
be confused with the words of the cast. But Shakespeares words would
exercise some authority over any cast, and every suggested ending would be
judged by his words. In the same way, Scripture and theology are not to be
confused. The authority of Scripture comes from God himself.72 The authority
of theological statements is derived from Scripture in much the same way that
harmonic overtones in music are derived from an original fundamental.73 In
the same way, theological statements are only authoritative to the degree that
they are derived from Scripture.
Wright insists that a legitimate reading will fit within the worldview of the
text, and a legitimate reading will include historical, literary, and theological
dimensions. Because the reading is based upon a critical-realist epistemology
it cannot be understood as objectively true, but neither can it be understood
as private. An appropriate reading is mindful of these concerns and continues
to be open to critique and revision, but not to revision apart from critique.
Hermeneutics and History
Wright contends that the task of historical reconstruction is impossible if one
fails to understand the interpreted nature of all historical inquiry. He does
not deny either the reality of objective events in the past or that people often
speak of history in this sense. He simply wants to disabuse his readers of
the idea that there is such a thing as mere history.74 That idea is a positivist
myth. On the other hand, history is not created by hermeneutics in an
ontological sense. History does not consist of either bare facts or subjective

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interpretations.75 It is apparent that all historical writing involves both a

process of selection (one event or person is written about while another
is not). What is not as readily apparent is that selection entails a process
of interpretation (selection is determined on the basis of what is deemed
meaningful).76 Clearly then, interpretation (hermeneutics) is as much a part
of writing history as it is of reading history. Wright attempts to write about
history as interpretation in a way that does not exclude history as real events
in the past.77 His understanding of the relationship of hermeneutics to
history is consistent with critical realism: history tells about objective events
in the past through interpretation, not apart from it.
Wright addresses some faulty notions concerning history. He applauds the work
of C. W. Fornara and Colin Hemer78 in rejecting the idea that ancient historians
did not understand the perspectival nature of writing history. He further labels
the idea that ancient writers felt free to create stories out of thin air or to blend
fantasy, legend, and fact together and call it history, a modern myth.79
Wright points out two other mistakes that readers of New Testament history
commonly make. The first is to assume that one already knows certain things
about a text or its contents before reading the text. This sort of approach
often leads one down a blind alley rather than to the texts most appropriate
meaning due to ones sifting out data that contradict what one already knows
to be the case. The second mistake is reading the biblical text purely with an
eye to organizing its data into theological conclusions. Both of these errors
evidence a misunderstanding of the nature of historical texts, be they religious
or otherwise.80
In Wrights opinion new tools are needed for doing New Testament history.
He recognizes that the pre-modern dogmatic approach to history is distorting.
He also understands that the modern approach to historical knowledge with
its distinctions between subjectobject and naturalsupernatural is even
more distorting. He therefore calls for both a new epistemology and a
new ontology.81 Both his suggested new epistemology and his suggested
new ontology involve the vehicle of story. Epistemologically one should be
prepared to listen to all sorts of stories about life and reality, even those that
may subvert ones own story. If ones story (worldview, ontology) is subverted
by another story, one must not be allowed to reject such a story for superficial

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reasons. The only responsible reaction to a story that makes more sense
of the world is to make it ones own, or at least to incorporate part of it into
ones own story.82
Wright understands the meaning of history, at its most important level, to
consist of the intentionalities of the characters concerned (whether or not they
realize their ambitions and achieve their aims).83 The goal of the historian
then is to move from event to meaning.84 To this end, Wright distinguishes
between aims, intentions, and motivations. An aim is the fundamental
direction of a persons life. An intention is the specific application of the aim
in a particular situation. Motivation deals with the specific sense, on one
specific occasion, that a certain action or set of actions is appropriate and
desirable (for accomplishing ones intent).85 All this implies that meaning
will necessarily be found on several levels, when one examines significant
events in history or the actions of historical persons. Wright lists three levels
at which meaning may typically be found: (1) the intentionalities of the
character in question (Caesar crossed the Rubicon to set himself above the
law of the Republic); (2) the contemporary relevance of the events (would-be
tyrants should be watched closely when they make vital strategic moves);
and (3) the revealed divine intention of an event (Caesars hubris did not go
either unnoticed or unpunished by God).
Wright maintains that he is not seeking to discover the psychological state of
Jesus mind.86 He contends that one may reasonably grasp the intention of
historical figures by evaluating their words and actions against the backdrop
of their worldview.87 Building upon the work of Ben Meyer,88 he seeks to
deduce Jesus intentions by evaluating his praxis (both verbal and visual)
within the context of the worldview of Second-Temple Judaism. He then
works from his worldview to uncover Jesus basic beliefs, aims, consequent
beliefs and intentions.
According to Wright, ones worldview becomes apparent on a day-to-day
basis through certain basic beliefs and aims that are discussed somewhat
regularly by those sharing a particular worldview. These basic beliefs and
aims then produce consequent beliefs and intentions. There may be some
variation and disagreement at both the levels of basic beliefs/aims and
consequent beliefs/intentions, without those holding to particular positions
necessarily changing their basic worldview. Wright illustrates how this works
through a political analogy: Modern Western materialists hold a worldview

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of a certain sort, which expresses itself in basic beliefs about society and
economic systems, and in basic aims about appropriate employment and
use of time....It is perhaps possible for someone to become convinced that
some of these basic beliefs and aims are misguided, and so (for instance)
to change from being a Conservative Western materialist to being a Social
Democrat Western materialist, or vice versa, without any fundamental
alteration of worldview.
These basic beliefs and aims, which serve to express and perhaps safeguard
the worldview, give rise in turn to consequent beliefs and intentions, about the
world, oneself, ones god. These, in their turn, shade off in various directions,
into opinions held and motivations acted upon with varying degrees of
conviction. Many discussions, debates and arguments take place at the level
of consequent belief and intentions, assuming a level of shared basic belief,
and only going back there when faced with complete stalemate.89 Wright
illustrates this model through the diagram below:

Worldviews
|
Basic beliefs<
|
Consequent beliefs<

>aims
|
>intentions

This model allows one to move from historical events to historical meaning.
When reconstructing the historical Jesus, he will use both this model and
worldview analysis to gain a historical understanding of Jesus.90
Consistent with critical-realism, Wright suggests a model of historical research
that is much like that employed by most sciences: hypothesis followed by
verification. There are three criteria by which any historical claim may be
evaluated. The first concerns the available data. Any hypothesis must include
all the data that one knows of concerning the subject.91 The second involves
the scope of the hypothesis. It must be no more complex than required by the
coherent inclusion of all the data.92 The third criterion is, in many ways, the
ultimate test of any historical conclusionit must actually make better sense

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not only of the available data, but also of other related fields, as well as life
as one lives it, than all other available hypotheses.93 As with every other part
of Wrights approach, this is all conditioned by critical realisms ongoing spiral
of knowledge. Historical knowledge, like all knowledge, is always knowledge
under critique, knowledge constantly subject to revision, as need be.
In conclusion, Wrights hermeneutic includes elements of Walsh and
Middletons worldview analysis, Greimass narrative analysis, Meyers analysis
of intentionality, and Wrights revised application of form and redaction
criticism. All these elements are applied in a manner consistent with Wrights
commitment to critical realism as his basic epistemology.
ROBERT STEWART is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Theology at
New Orleans Baptist Seminary.
ENDNOTES
1.

N. T. Wright is Bishop-Elect of Durham. He is at present Canon Theologian of

Westminster Abbey in London. Prior to serving at Westminster Abbey, he taught at
Cambridge University, McGill University, and Oxford University. He also has served
as Dean of Lichfield Cathedral and as visiting professor for Alonzo L. McDonald
Family Professorship of Evangelical Theological Studies at Harvard University. Tim
Stafford, N. T. Wright: Making Scholarship a Tool for the Church, Christianity Today,
8 February, 1999: 42-46; personal conversation with Wright, November 21, 1999.

2.

At the time he was writing the first volume, Wright envisioned a five-volume
project. Wright, NTPG, xiii. The project has since increased by one volume,
personal conversation with Wright, August 16, 1997. Volume 3 of the series, (The

Resurrection of the Son of God) was released in March, 2003. If early erturns are
any indication, it will receive attention and acclaim similar to that received by the
two previous volumes.
3.

Richard B. Hays, back cover of Wright, NTPG.

4.

Useful texts on critical realism include, Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science,
2d edn. (London: Verso, 1997); idem, Reclaiming Reality (London: Verso, 1989);

idem, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation (London: Verso, 1986); Andrew
Collier, Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskars Thought (London: Verso,
1994); Peter Manicas, A History and Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1987). The roots of critical realism lie in the New Realist epistemology
of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. New realism was a type of

N. T. Wrights Heumeneutic: An Exploration

169

direct realism that served as a reaction to the idealism of the nineteenth century.
The critical realism of R. W. Sellars and G. Dawes Hicks served as a via media
between new realism and idealism by acknowledging the mediatory role of mental
concepts in human knowledge, while at the same time insisting on the independent,
objective reality of external objects. As an epistemological system critical realism
began to flounder in the 1940s, but Roy Bhaskars appropriation of it in philosophy
of science led to a contemporary revival of the concept. Cf. Andrew Collier, Critical
Realism in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 2. ed. Edward Craig.
(London: Routledge, 1998); C. F. Delaney, Critical Realism, in Robert Audi, ed.,

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1995); idem., New Realism, in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.
5.

A brief list of those who advocate the use of critical realism in theology and/or
biblical studies includes, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist

Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); idem, Theology and the Justification of
Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology, trans. H. F. Snijders (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989); Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen,
eds., Rethinking Theology and Science: Six Models for the Current Dialogue (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); Ben F. Meyer, Critical Realism and the New Testament,
Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1989); John
Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1998); idem, Science and Christian Belief: Theological Reflections of a

Bottom-Up Thinker (London: SPCK, 1994); Langdon Gilkey, Nature, Reality and
the Sacred (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993); Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and
Religion (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1971); Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral;
and Paul Hiebert, Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts: Affirming

Truth in a Modern/Postmodern World (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,

1999); Susan Gallagher and Roger Lundin, Literature Through the Eyes of Faith
(New York: Harper and Row, 1992); and K. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This

Text?.
6.

Van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology, 41.

7.

Ibid., 43.

8.

Ibid., 48.

9.

Wrights description of critical realist epistemology is necessarily broad. There

are, in fact, different varieties and expressions of critical realism. Nevertheless his
basic point is one that virtually all critical realists would agree with: one may not
conclude that, because all perception takes place in the mind, perceived objects
exist only in the mind. In other words, one may grant several tenets of idealism

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without conceding all its conclusions. It appears that Wright is primarily following
Ben Meyers exposition of critical realism, which Meyer indicates is influenced by
Bernard Lonergans phenomenology of knowledge. See Ben F. Meyer, Critical

Realism and the New Testament. For Lonergans perspective, see Bernard
Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London: Darton, Longman
and Todd, 1958); idem, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman and Todd,
1974).
10. Wright, NTPG, 35.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid. Wrights use of the adjective critical is different in function from Kants. For
Kant, reason provides a critique. For Wright, reason is critiqued. Ibid., 35, n12.
13. Ibid., 36.
14. Ibid., 35, 43. A critical realist reading is lectio catholica semper reformanda.
NTPG, 67.
15. Ibid., 34.
16. Ibid., 37.
17. Van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology, p. 44; NTPG, 81-92.
18. Wright, NTPG, 37.
19. Ibid., 65. For more on worldviews, see James Olthuis, On Worldviews, Christian

Scholars Review 14, no. 2 (1985): 153-64; Arthur Holmes, Contours of a

World View (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983); Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard
Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian Worldview (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity, 1984); J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh, Truth Is

Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity, 1995); James Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview

Catalog, 3d edn. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997); David Burnett, Clash

of Worlds (Eastbourne, MARC, 1990); Paul A. Marshall, Sander Griffoen and
Richard J. Mouw, Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science (Lanham, MD:
University Press of America, 1989); Michael Kearney, World View (Novato, CA:
Chandler & Sharp, 1984); Douglas A. Walrath, Frameworks (N.Y: Pilgrim, 1987).
20. Wright, NTPG, 65.
21. Ibid., 122-24. In JVG, Wright adds a fifth question: What time is it? JVG,
443.n.1.
22. Ibid., 66.
23. Ibid., 122.
24. Ibid., 145-364.

N. T. Wrights Heumeneutic: An Exploration

171

25. Ibid., 52-53. Craig Blomberg writes concerning form criticisms use of Sitz im

Leben, If one can discern how the early church used a certain aspect of the
Gospel tradition, one may better understand in what contexts today it may be
most useful.. ...But in most cases such reconstructions are highly speculative
because they are based on what other ancient cultures did in settings that are not
always closely parallel to the rise of Christianity. C. Blomberg, Form Criticism,
in Joel B. Green and Scott McKnight, ed., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels,
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1992), p. 245.
26. Wright, NTPG, 54-64.
27. Ibid., 67.
28. Ibid., 78.
29. Ibid., 69-70. Wright calls for use of Greimas-like narrative analysis. For more
on Greimass method, see A. J. Greimas, Structural Semantics: An Attempt at

a Method, trans. Daniele McDowell, Ronald Schleifer, and Alan Veile (Lincoln
& London: Univ. of Nebraska Press); idem, Du Sens (Paris: Seuil, 1970). For a
useful introduction to Greimass method, see Corina Galland, An Introduction
to the Method of A. J. Greimas, in Alfred M. Johnson, Jr., trans. and ed., The

New Testament and Structuralism (Pittsburgh: Pickwith, 1976). For general

introductions to structural exegesis, see Daniel Patte, What Is Structural Exegesis?
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976); idem, Structural Exegesis for New Testament

Critics (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990); and Patte and Patte, Structural Exegesis:
From Theory to Practice.
30. Wright, NTPG, 70. Wright is more directly influenced by Richard Hayss appropriation
of Greimass method than by Greimass own work. One finds a virtually identical
explanation of the method of narrative analysis in N. T. Wright, The Climax of the

Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991),
pp. 204-209. The only mention of Greimas is when Wright writes that Hays is
following the work of A. J. Greimas. Ibid., 204, n. 20. Cf. Richard Hays, The Faith

of Jesus Christ, pp. 93-125.

31. For more details concerning Greimass method, as well as a chart reproducing
Wrights appropriation of it, see the appendix (Part 2).
32. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 204.
33. The clearest example of how Wright uses such an approach to bear fruit in
studying Pauls writings is found in ch. 10 of The Climax of the Covenant. In
this chapter, appropriately titled The Vindication of the Law: Narrative Analysis
and Romans 8:1-11, the heart of Pauls magnum opus is examined from the
perspective of narrative structuralism. Wright concludes that when this passage is

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read in the light of narrative structuralism, it becomes clear that Paul is nowhere
near as negative in his understanding of the Law as some (e.g., Luther and
Bultmann) have supposed him to be. From this, one can see clearly that the law
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (8:2) and the law of sin and death (8:2b) are
not two separate laws, each opposed to the other, but one law, the Torah, working
in different ways at different times to achieve an overall divine purpose. Ibid.,
209-210. Wright also uses narrative analysis, although not so obviously, in What

Saint Paul Really Said. Cf. N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul
of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Oxford: Lion, 1997), pp. 113-34.
34. Wright, NTPG, 65.
35. Ibid., 69.
36. Middleton and Walsh, p. 168.
37. Van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology, pp. 189-90.
38. Gary Comstock, Two Types of Narrative Theology, Journal of the American

Academy of Religion 55, no. 4 (1987): 688. Other articles touching on the differences
within narrative criticism and narrative theology include, Gary Comstock, Truth or
Meaning? Ricoeur versus Frei on Biblical Narrative, Journal of Religion 66, no.
2 (1986): 119. The ranks of the purists would include Hans Frei, The Eclipse of

Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); George Lindbeck, The Nature of

Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster,

1984).
39. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology (New York:
Seabury, 1975), p. 52.
40. Wright, JVG, 653.
41. Wright, NTPG, 139.
42. Ibid., 123.
43. Ibid., 359-69.
44. Ibid., 124.
45. Ibid., 369. Middleton and Walsh note that the four questions correspond to
elements of a dramaWhere are we? relates to the component of setting; Who
are we? relates to casting; Whats wrong? reveals the underlying plot conflict.
Whats the remedy? relates to the component of plot conflict. Middleton and
Walsh, p. 64.
46. Ibid., 44
47. Wright, NTPG, 124.
48. Bultmann and his followers wrongly assumed that the early church developed

N. T. Wrights Heumeneutic: An Exploration

173

in a two-stage process from Palestinian Judaism to Hellenistic Catholicism.

They also wrongly assumed that the early church felt free to put words into the
mouth of Jesus, if it served their purposes to do so. Finally they misunderstood
myth as being non-historical rather than as stories of actual events invested with
ultimate (theological) meaning. NTPG, 420-27. For evangelical assessments of
the usefulness of believing form and redaction criticism, see Craig L. Blomberg,

Interpreting the Parables, pp. 71-131; Darrell L. Bock, Form Criticism, in New
Testament Criticism and Interpretation, ed. David A. Black and David S. Dockery
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), pp. 175-96; Grant R. Osborne, Redaction
Criticism, Stephen H. Travis, Form Criticism, in I. Howard Marshall, ed., New

Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans), pp. 153-64; Stephen S. Smalley, Redaction Criticism,

New

Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, pp. 181-95.

49. Wright, NTPG, 423.
50. Wright attributes the significance of dissimilarity, to Bultmanns presupposition
that though Jesus was historically a first-century Jew, his first-century Jewishness
was precisely not the place where his significance lay. Wright, JVG, 85.
51. Ibid., 85-86.
52. Ibid., 132.
53. Ibid., 86, 131-32, 226.
54. Wright also proposes yet another reason for the differences in the details one finds
in the gospel stories: Jesus himself told the same stories over and over in slightly
different forms and in different settings and contexts. There was thus some natural
variation in both the form and the intent of the stories even during the ministry of
Jesus. Wright, NTPG, 422-23.
55. Ibid., 378-403.
56. Ibid., 121.
57. Walsh and Middleton.
58. Wright, NTPG, 68. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, pp. 558-62. In
this section he discusses the hermeneutics of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Betti,
Wittgenstien, and Searle concerning the possibility of reconstructing the life
world or stream of thought of an author in such a way that there are multiple but
limited possible meanings to the text. He also summarizes Ricoeur as support.
See Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, p. 191.
59. Thiselton holds that Schleiermachers life-world and John Searles background
are roughly equivalent. He also points to the socio-historical work of Jerome
Murphy-OConner as a useful model of extra-linguistic research leading to a

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fit to world. From this it is clear that the life-world of a text is not found solely
within the text itself. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics, p. 561. See John
Searle, Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983), pp. 166-76; Jerome Murphy-OConner, St Pauls Corinth:

Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983).

60. Similarly Arthur Holmes sees the concept of worldview growing out of Diltheys
use of life-world. Holmes, p. 32.
61. Robert Morgan with John Barton, Biblical Interpretation, Oxford Bible Series
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 287.
62. Wright, NTPG, 66.
63. Ibid., 41-42, 130.
64. Clive Marsh suggests that Wright is consistent with New Historicism when he
insists on a corporate meaning and on allowing theology an explicit role in
interpretation. See, Quests of the Historical Jesus in New Historicist Perspective,

Biblical Interpretation 5, no. 4 (1997): 411-15. This does not mean that Marsh
understands Wright in the main to adhere to the New Historicist perspective. For
more on New Historicism as it relates to biblical interpretation, see A. K. M. Adam,

What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism?, New Testament Series (Minneapolis:

Fortress, 1995), pp. 45-58; Dan O. Via, New Testament Theology: Historical
Event, Literary Text, and the Locus of Revelation, Perspectives in Religious

Studies 19, no. 4 (1992): 369-88. Biblical Interpretation Vol. 5, no. 4 is devoted to
the new historicism.
65. Wright, NTPG, 127.
66. Ibid., 130.
67. Ibid., 133-36.
68. Ibid., 121.
69. Ibid., 126-30. Wright uses the analogy of politics as a way of discussing internal
motivations and decisions made within the same worldview. The writer is reminded
of Basil Mitchells insistence that speech about God is more akin to political
speech than scientific speech. See Basil Mitchell, The Justification of Religious

Belief (N.Y: Oxford University Press, 1981). There are some obvious differences
in application and focus between Mitchell (the question of Gods existence) and
Wright (New Testament interpretation), but both recognize that many of the
objections raised in the (Modern) past have resulted from a misunderstanding of
the nature of theological language. This results in a quest for a type of result that
theology was never intended to deliver.
70. Wright, NTPG, 126.

N. T. Wrights Heumeneutic: An Exploration

175

71. Ibid., 140-44. For his fullest discussion of this understanding of biblical authority,
see N. T. Wright, How Can the Bible Be Authoritative? Vox Evangelica 21 (1991):
7-32.
72. Ibid., 14.
73. Ibid., 25.
74. Wright, NTPG, 81-82, 88.
75. Ibid., 81-82.
76. Ibid., 83.
77. Ibid., 82.
78. Charles W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983); Colin Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting

of Hellenistic History (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990).

79. Wright, NTPG, 84.
80. Ibid., 87.
81. Ibid., 96-98.
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 95.
84. Ibid., 109-110. There are some similarities at this point between Wrights position
and action theory. Both distinguish between basic events and intended results.
See Hugh J. McCann, Action Theory, in Robert Audi, ed., The Cambridge

Dictionary of Philosophy, (Cambridge: CUP, 1995), pp. 6-7; Jennifer Hornsby,

Action, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1:37-41. For a useful
discussion of action and causality in relation to historical understanding, see
David Hellel-Ruben, Explanation in History and Social Science, in Routledge

Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 3:525-31.

85. Wright, NTPG, 110-111. Ibid., 95-96.
86. Ibid., 111. Blomberg asserts that to do so would be to commit the intentional fallacy.
C. Blomberg, The Wright Stuff: A Critical Overview of Jesus and the Victory of God,
in Carey C. Newman, ed., Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment

of N. T. Wrights Jesus and the Victory of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999), p.
23. Cf. W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley, The Intentional Fallacy in W. K. Wimsatt,
ed., The Verbal Icon (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1954), pp. 2-18.
87. Wright, NTPG, 109-12. Wright sees words and actions as being very closely
related. There are some similarities at this point between what Wright is arguing
for and speech-act theory. Both argue that intentionality is a vital component in
determining meaning. In other words it is through doing things, whether with
words (speech-act theory), physical actions (action theory), or both (Wrights

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worldview analysis) that ones intentions become clear to interpreters/historians.

On speech-act theory, see J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1962); John Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the

Philosophy of Language (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

88. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus, 19-21, 174-220.
89. Wright, NTPG, 125-26.
90. Wright, JVG, 142.
91. Wright, NTPG, 99-100.
92. Ibid., 100.
93. Ibid., 101-104.