Pierre Whalon
1 min readJan 14, 2023

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You might be interested in a debate between Wright and an Australian Anglican archbishop, Peter Carnley.

In my book, "Choose the Narrow Path" (Peter Lang 2023), I wrote this:

"Wright published a major defense of the historicity of the empty tomb tradition in The Resurrection of the Son of God: Volume 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God.[1] What spurred him to write this book is among other things as a response to Peter Carnley’s 1987 The Structure of Resurrection Belief.[2] “There seems to be an implicit argument in his book … according to which (a) historical-critical scholarship has thoroughly deconstructed the events of the first Easter but (b) anyone attempting to engage with this scholarship is told that to do so is to cut the resurrection down to size, to reduce it to a merely mundane level.”[3] Archbishop Carnley has written a very sharp reply, Resurrection in Retrospect: A Critical Examination of the Theology of N. T. Wright.[4] He accuses Wright of trying to make the Easter event a mundane-level fact of history, open to any competent historian. In his History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology, his 2018 Gifford Lectures, Bishop Wright acknowledges that book’s criticism and promises to address some of the Archbishop’s concerns.[5][1] Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003.[2] Published by Oxford University Press.[3] Wright, Resurrection, 5.[4] Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019.[5] London: SPCK, 2019, 19; the lectures are available on the site of the Lectures: https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/discerning-dawn-history-eschatology-and-new-creation

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Pierre Whalon
Pierre Whalon

Written by Pierre Whalon

Episcopal Bishop, musician, composer, author, happily married. www.pierrewhalon.info. Read my books on Amazon! Now on Blusky: bppwhalon973.bsky.social

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