SerpApi.Org
Famed New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop Tom “N.T.” Wright says he’s not sure whether some of the most famous figures in the Holy Bible actually existed.
In an April 5 episode of the “Ask NT Wright Anything” podcast, the 77-year-old Wright either deferred comment on or outright denied the historicity of four key figures in the Bible, including Adam. While it’s not the first time Wright has suggested a Bible character is fictional — he’s made similar arguments in the past — his latest comments elicited strong reactions on social media from fellow theologians and pastors over the relationship between literary interpretation, historical confidence and doctrinal implications.
Rather than dwell on their historicity, Wright cited limited external evidence for figures like Moses, Job and Jonah, and instead urged Christians to focus on the messages in their respective stories, such as Job's faithfulness in suffering, Jonah's call to enemy-love and mercy, Moses' humble leadership, and Adam’s unique role in God's redemptive plan.
Here’s what Wright said about four of the Bible’s best-known figures.
Adam and Eve
Likely the most debated portion of the podcast concerns the biblical Adam and Eve, who Wright said were part of what he called "a very careful, layered ancient Middle Eastern story” in Genesis 1.
Rejecting a literal 24-hour creation week, Wright said he is “inclined to see an original human pair” in the figures of Adam and Eve, referring to them as “hominids” and “humanlike creatures.”
“We might even call them proto-humans for many generations, perhaps for many thousands of years before the time we're now talking about,” he added, proposing instead that the Bible’s original couple was called, like the patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah, for a “special purpose” to “bring the, at the moment, rather random and chaotic world under [God’s] saving sovereign stewardship.
“So that seems to me [to be] a way of saying that if there was an original Adam and Eve, that would be what it was all about,” Wright added.
Job
Wright suggested the book of Job, the oldest book of the Bible, functions as a crafted morality tale or folk tale, possibly from the post-exilic period, with elaborate Hebrew poetry resembling a Shakespeare play rather than verbatim dialogue.
He likened Ezekiel's reference to Job as a righteous man to that given to a folk hero. “I don't think there's anything in the book of Job which forces me to say, ‘No, actually, there was this chap and he did have three friends and he did have all these sons and daughters,” he said. “... It looks to me very much like either a morality tale or a folk tale to make a particular point.”
Noting the book contains what he called “odd vocabulary,” Wright — who acknowledged he finds Hebrew, the language in which Job was written, “quite difficult” — compared the book’s style to a Shakespearean drama.
“It's clearly been written up almost like a Shakespeare play,” he said. “Interestingly, did Hamlet really exist? Possibly not. Did Richard III really exist? You bet he did. But the way Shakespeare has put words into Richard III's mouth is to make a particular point and so on. So it may be asking the wrong question as to whether they really existed, and it can become rather reductionist.”
Jonah
One of the best-known accounts in all of Scripture, Jonah’s adventure in the belly of the great fish is referenced by Jesus Himself in the Gospels.
But for Wright, he sees the book of Jonah as “very much like a folk tale” involving a reluctant prophet, a great fish, and ultimately preaching to the people of Nineveh. When asked about Jesus’ reference to Jonah in Matthew 12:39-40 and Luke 11:29, Wright said he personally "tended to take Jesus' reference to Jonah as a reference to somebody whom Jesus at least thought was a real person."
“It could be that you could say that when Jesus says that, he's referring to the well-known folktale,” he added. “Like, as I hinted, somebody in today's world referring to Hamlet or Macbeth or King Lear, or somebody who's a well-known character in the literary history of our country and our culture. I don't think that would matter hugely.”
Moses
When it comes to the historicity of Moses, Wright expressed little doubt about whether the leader of the Israelites was real.
"I'm sure there was a historical Moses,” he said. “... It would be very difficult to invent somebody like that."
Pointing to the biblical description of Moses as "very meek" as a potential mark of authenticity, Wright added, "Why would the writer say that if you're constructing this picture of this great leader?... I think that's a historical memory."
Help keep The Christian Post free for all. Make a donation to The Christian Post.
Join over 450,000 other Christian Post readers to get the top stories curated daily, plus special offers! Subscribe for free
