Jesus, history, and revelation

: analyzing the impasse between Karl Barth and N. T. Wright

Abstract

There presently exists a widespread consensus that Karl Barth and N. T. Wright represent two fundamentally opposed streams of thought within the Christian tradition, with Barth prioritizing revelation, Wright prioritizing history, and never the twain shall meet. In this thesis I challenge such a view, arguing that these two thinkers converge at several points regarding Jesus as the historical reality of revelation, Easter and Pentecost as the conditions for the possibility of recognizing revelation, and the task of the historian. To make this case, my argument proceeds over the course of three parts. In Part I, I present Barth’s understanding of the relationship between history and revelation within the sphere of christology before (Chapter 1) and after (Chapter 2) the revisions in his mature doctrine of election. The central argument of this section is that Barth’s understanding of the relationship between the creaturely ‘form’ and the revelatory ‘content’ materially changes following his identification of Jesus as the subject of election — a change that opens up conceptual space for dialogue with the historical scholarship of someone like Wright. In Part II, by way of contrast, I detail Wright’s understanding of the nature and limits of the discipline of history vis-à-vis the man Jesus (Chapter 3), which is followed by a discussion of his understanding of the nature of divine revelation and the task of theology (Chapter 4). The aim of this section is to challenge the prevailing ‘Barthian’ caricatures of Wright’s work through detailed engagement with his recent Gifford Lectures. Part III brings the project to completion by calling into question the common consensus that presents Barth and Wright as being wholly at odds with one another. By identifying their heretofore unnoticed proximity, however, I do not dissolve the genuine differences that remain between them. Rather, it is precisely through identifying their points of convergence that the actual impasse between them may be identified and fruitful debate may take place.

Date of Award	16 Jun 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	Andrew Bartholomew Torrance (Supervisor) & N. T. Wright (Supervisor)