Chris Wright on Deuteronomy

Christopher Wright, Deuteronomy, New International Biblical Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996).

Hendrickson make available the Table of Contents, the Introduction, and the section on Deuteronomy 1-3 as pdfs.

The Introduction deals helpfully with all the usual suspects – Title, Structure, Date and Setting (1-8) – but also includes a section on Missiological Significance (8-17), providing what was an early taster of some of Chris’ more recent work on God and mission, and the missional basis of the Bible.

Items covered here include:

• The challenge to loyalty in the midst of cultural change
• The challenge of monotheism
• Israel as a model for the nations
• Deuteronomy’s theology of history

‘It can be seen… that although it is true to say that Deuteronomy is primarily absorbed with God’s dealings with, and requirements of, Israel, it contains perspectives on Israel and the nations that ultimately led “over the horizon” of its own context and that influenced and shaped the mission of Jesus and Paul in theory and in practice. Such perspectives, with their overall canonical significance, need to be the broader framework for our understanding and application of the relevance of the content of the book, both in its urgent rhetoric and in its earthy legislation’ (16-17).