Playdough Locomotives and the Study of Paul

My graduate seminar, "Paul and Early Judaism," has just about reached the mid-point of the semester and we have also just now finished reading the first volume of N. T. Wright's two-volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress Press, 2013). Among our more serious discussions of Wright's book, my students and I have also taken time to appreciate the many metaphors that Wright uses to illuminate his views and the views of others. Whether it is tracking the path of insects in the bark of a particular tree instead of appreciating the forest, or carrying water a long distance in a leaky bucket to water a garden that lies next to a stream, Wright's prose is punctuated by picturesque language and imagery. Today, I came across Wright's depiction of a "Playdough locomotive," and for some inexplicable reason (childhood nostalgia?) this image tipped the scale for me to the point where I needed to note it here.

In his introduction to Part III (pp. 609-618), Wright introduces a diagram of a box that incorporates Wright's conception of three major themes of Jewish "theology" (monotheism, election, eschatology) on one side, includes the notion that these are redefined and reworked in light of the Messiah and the Spirit (on another side), has its base on the "Jewish Bible," and has as its top, the “pagan world." I am not sure I love the box diagram (maybe I'm just not really a diagram kind of person), but I do appreciate the attempt to bring together this wide range of perspectives--theological, historical, cultural, scriptural--and keep them together as part of our understanding of Paul.

Wright then explains: “All of this is complex, but necessarily so. Attempts to reduce that complexity in the pursuit of an easier comprehensibility are the equivalent of trying to make a model railway locomotive out of Playdough. Some parts may look familiar, but the train won’t run down the track.” (616)

Well, for my part, I've invested my fair share of time playing with Playdough and I can say with confidence that here is a point on which Wright and I strongly agree. But the point of the metaphor is a warning against oversimplifying what is, in reality, a complex picture. Nothing against Playdough, I take it, but without the gears, motor, screws, wires, wheels, and small plastic and metal parts--and all of these in the right place--one does not end up with a working model. Fun to create? Yes. Non-toxic? Maybe. Working? No. Wright continues:

The necessary complexity in question corresponds to the complexity of (a) the world(s) in which Paul lived, (b) the vocation he believed himself to have and particularly (c) the beliefs about the creator God and his purposes that formed the central material of his thinking. When we get these more or less right, the model locomotive will now work. We will find that Paul’s various letters, our primary material, can be located comprehensibly and coherently somewhere in this box. (616-617)

Having read this far in the book, it is clear to me that Wright has very many of the right pieces in place. He is certainly working with the right components and not simply playing with Playdough. Knowing Wright's earlier work, I expect his locomotive will run, in the end. But I also suspect that, given the complexity of Paul's worlds, his self-understanding, and his beliefs, some fine tuning of the parts that Wright has assembled will certainly be helpful.