N. T. Wright

Nicholas Thomas Wright (b. 1948) is an English New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham (2003–2010), now Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, after holding the Research Professorship of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews (2010–2019). Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, Wright has produced a multi-volume project, 'Christian Origins and the Question of God', whose first three volumes (The New Testament and the People of God; Jesus and the Victory of God; The Resurrection of the Son of God) develop a critical-realist historiography of first-century Judaism and emergent Christianity. He argues that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the best historical explanation for the rise of early Christian belief, against mythicist and reductive psychological accounts. In Pauline studies he is a leading voice of the 'New Perspective on Paul', emphasizing covenant, exile, and Israel's vocation, which has provoked debate with Reformed critics (notably John Piper) over justification. His historical-Jesus work has been criticized by Dale Allison and others for over-confidence in reconstructive method, and by Luke Timothy Johnson and James Crossley on questions of historical method and theological framing. Wright is also a prolific popular writer (the 'For Everyone' commentaries; Simply Christian) and a public apologist engaging contemporary atheism and secularism.