My favorite quote from the previous lecture (lecture 3):
We ought not to speak of God incarnate until we have studied the incarnate God.
This wonderfully succinct quote is an excellent demonstration of the way Wright brings together history and theology in his larger project. It is worth sitting and pondering how the two parts of that statement fit together.
Here is the fourth lecture, “The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective”
I am really enjoying this lecture series. I hope that it eventually gets published as a book too. One thing I appreciate about N.T. Wright is his ability to see the parts in light of the whole. This applies equally to his readings of Holy Scripture, his grasp of the history of biblical scholarship, and the nexus between those two.
On a separate note, here is my favorite quote from lecture 2:
The idea of first century Jews, including Jesus and his early followers, expecting the literal and imminent end of the world is in fact a modern myth…a story invented by a community to sustain its common life and purpose. In arguing against this myth, I therefore intend to kill a fatted sacred cow. Any prodigals hoping for a feast should come home right now.
Boom.
Here is the third installment of Wright’s Gifford Lectures:
After watching the first lecture, I have only two words: MIND BLOWN. I find it incredibly interesting, if deeply ironic, that the most recent New Testament scholar to give the Gifford Lectures before Wright was Rudolf Bultmann. Hmm.
The first 6 lectures (out of 8 total) by N.T. Wright are available to watch online (via YouTube) from the University of Aberdeen. I will post one at a time since probably not many of us have time to watch more than one lecture in a single sitting.
The Gifford Lectures—held regularly at the four ancient Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Aberdeen—were established under the will of Adam Lord Gifford, a Senator of the College of Justice, who died in 1887. His bequest allows the University to invite notable scholars to deliver a series of public lectures on themes related to ‘natural theology’, broadly construed.
The 2018 Lectures here in Aberdeen will be delivered by world-renowned biblical scholar Professor NT Wright (University of St. Andrews) under the overall title Discerning the Dawn: History, Eschatology and New Creation.
Here is the title of each of the available lectures:
Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism
Lecture 2 – The Questioned Book: Critical Scholarship and the Gospels
Lecture 3 – The Shifting Sand: The Meanings of ‘History’
Lecture 4 – The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective
Lecture 5 – The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom
Lecture 6 – A New Creation: Resurrection and Epistemology
Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism
The Cruciform Pen 