The second main text in Wright’s
case is Genesis 15.6, and here also I think that his argument is unpersuasive.
After an account of God’s reassurance that he will fulfil his promise to
provide Abraham (technically ‘Abram’ at this point) with an heir, Genesis 15.6
states, ‘And he believed in yhwh, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness [tsedaqah
/ dikaiosynēn].’ Wright highlights that in the immediate aftermath
of this proclamation, Genesis 15 goes on to narrate God’s establishment of a
covenant with Abraham, and he suggests that the phrase ‘he reckoned it to him
as righteousness’ thus stands as a heading over this subsequent covenant
ceremony. This reading, however, is doubtful.
The book of Genesis consistently
uses righteousness terminology in the typical ethical or behavioural sense.
Noah is referred to as ‘righteous’ by way of contrast to the evil conduct of
his contemporaries, Abraham is commanded to teach his household to ‘do
righteousness’, Abraham attempts to negotiate with God over whether there are
enough ‘righteous’ (as opposed to ‘wicked’) people in Sodom in order to warrant
the sparing of the city, and Judah declares that Tamar is more ‘righteous’ than
he because he had wronged her by failing to give her his son Shelah in
marriage. Because of both this specific evidence from Genesis and the general
lack of evidence for the view that the Hebrew and Greek words for
‘righteousness’ ever mean ‘covenant membership’, I find unlikely the suggestion
that the temporal coincidence between this statement and the following covenant
ceremony indicates that ‘righteousness’ here means ‘covenant membership’.
Apparently, so did Paul’s
near-contemporaries. The first book of Maccabees 2.52 interprets the word
‘righteousness’ in Genesis 15.6 as a reference to Abraham’s subsequent
righteous behaviour, particularly his willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Philo
explains that faith in God is the most difficult and praiseworthy action
possible, and he thus concludes that faith is reckoned to Abraham as
righteousness because faith actually is the most righteous act that one can
perform (Her. 90–5). Later, the Rabbis appealed to this verse in order
to prove that Abraham practised righteousness (e.g. Midr. Prov. 16.31).
In all of these texts, it is clear that the interpreters thought that the word
‘righteousness’ in Genesis 15.6 means something like the typical meaning for
this term in the Jewish Scriptures – doing what is right or the status of
having done what is right, not covenant membership. Thus, it seems likely that
the reckoning of righteousness to Abraham is meant to be viewed as distinct
from his covenant with God, just as the evaluation of Noah as ‘righteous’ is
distinct from and prior to the covenant that God initiates with him. (J. Andrew
Cowan, “N. T. Wright and justification revisited: a contrarian perspective,” in
One God, One People, One Future in Honor of N. T. Wright, ed. John Anthony
Dunne and Eric Lewellen [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2018], 449-50)
