Tom Wright downplaying Abraham

I have had some further thoughts on Watson’s essay (see previous post) and how it relates to Wright’s version of the New Perspective. My first thought is that Wright seems to have inherited the Israel-centric ideas of Second Temple Judaism. What I mean is that his focus is primarily the Exile of Israel, then the history of the nation of Israel as a whole, then creation, and like in Second Temple Judaism Abraham gets downplayed. Maybe that is unfair but that is my perception, and according Don Carson in his lectures on the New Perspective (see here) other people have noticed this Israel-centricity too. Perhaps this emphasis is due to Wright’s Historical Jesus studies, which rightly downplay Abraham’s importance to the discourse of Jesus with Palestinian Jews, but which, because of Wright’s evangelical confidence in the unity of the bible, have influenced his reading of Paul. I realise I may have opened a can of worms there but I will move on. On reflection my other thoughts are probably pap so I won’t bother writing them.

-----------------UPDATE (3rd July 2005)-----------------

On reflection, and having read an article by Wright in The Climax of the Covenant, I suspect that all that I wrote above is probably totally wrong. But I will leave it here as monument to the perils of 'push button publishing'.