During Lent I'm sharing a series of thoughts and summaries from reading N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. They will be from the second half of the book dealing mostly with the New Testament Narratives...
Wright believes the reality that early Christianity was by nature messianic in orientation is very important for proper understanding of the Scriptures and the story of Jesus’ people. The general shape of Jesus’ messiahship was totally compatible with the fulfillment of Israel’s Messiah. However the messiahship of Jesus added meaning, significance and further revelation to the Old Testament concept of messiah. There is a school of scholars who cite “Q” and other so-called early sources of the church as evidence that the role of Jesus as messiah was inconsequential. Wright rebuts this notion, “’Q’ itself gives clear signs of messianic belief, as we can see from Matthew 11:2-6 and Luke 7:18-23. But even if we were to allow at least a non-messianic early form of ‘Q’, we would have to comment that such a strand was quickly swallowed up in the thoroughly messianic movement that emerged almost at once; Messiahship is already so embedded in the thinking of the early Christians that it is taken for granted.” Chapter Twelve, Page 554
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