-
September 19, 2010 by Jason Hood
Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty
For the joy of parody, and in something of the spirit of that great classic, Bultmann Reads Mother Goose, I offer the following:
Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Clearly the writer is telling an Israel story, and here alludes to the Temple. This echoes other lines in early 2nd Nursery Literature, such as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard (the “storehouse” of the Temple) and the bone (resurrection life) which she sought for her dog (“Gentiles”). “But when she got there, the cupboard was bare and the poor little doggie had none.” The temple had nothing to offer the Gentiles, and they thus remained in their state of Adamic sin and decay.
So here, too, one should not be surprised to discover that the Temple and its “wall” are bankrupt. The next line, then, is not a shock, but an expectation:
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
Again, this is patently a forecast of the Temple’s destruction (and contra Crossan and Borg, an entirely possible historical forecasting). Doubtless this claim is intended to lead the reader to ponder the eschatological recreation of the Temple. Since Humpty stands for the Temple, he seems to be sharing in the divine identity, functioning as the locus of God’s presence, not outside of, but within creation.
Of course, this fall is an exile of sorts, the loss of God’s presence. The tension is palpable: how will humpty’s story not turn out dumpty? In other words, this line presupposes what I have called elsewhere the great metanarrative of humpty, not least the promise of resurrection.
But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put humpty together again.
So the Temple will be built again, but not by human hands. Many have undertaken to suggest that this passage runs counter to a belief in resurrection. But this atomistic reading of the text lacks imagination. Of course, it is the king himself who will put humpty together again, and this great act will complete the metanarrative.
After all, Humpty is the place where the Creator God is resident with his creation. But the human inability to recreate Humpty does not negate all human effort for creation, which should be done in light of the proleptic nature of the king’s restoration of Humpty and all creation.
Written in Durham Cathedral, dedicated to Rowan Williams’s left eyebrow.
Leave A Comment
About the SAET Blog
Welcome to the SAET blog. Herein you will find the theological/pastoral ramblings of the Rev. Matthew Mason, the good Doctor Jason Hood, and Pastor Gerald Hiestand. All three write under the premise that theology and the pastorate belong together, and that (at least some) pastors must once again function as writing theologians for the wider church, for the ecclesial renewal of theology and the theological renewal of the church.
Contributors
Gerald Hiestand
Gerald has served as the SAET board president since 2006. He has been in pastoral ministry since 1999, and serves currently as the Senior Associate Pastor of Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, IL. He is pursuing a PhD in Classical Studies from the University of Kent, Canterbury.
Jason Hood
Jason is a graduate of Rhodes College, Reformed Theological Seminary, Highland Theological College and the Univ. of Aberdeen. Jason works as Scholar-in-Residence and director of Christ College Residency Program at Christ UMC. He's trying to figure out the twitter thing, @jasonbhood, and sometimes writes for ChristianityToday.com.
Matthew Mason
Matthew earned an MTh at Oak Hill College, London. He is an Assistant Pastor at Church of the Resurrection, Washington D. C. (Anglican Province of Rwanda).
SAET Blogs
Blog Categories
- 1 Samuel (4)
- Academic Theology (14)
- Advent (1)
- Anglican (3)
- Apocalyptic (2)
- Apologetics (9)
- art (2)
- Articles (2)
- Ascension (1)
- Athanasius (2)
- Augustine (12)
- authority (2)
- Bernard (2)
- Bible–OT–Genesis (4)
- biblical studies (45)
- Biblical Theology (33)
- Bonhoeffer (3)
- Book Review (19)
- Book Reviews (16)
- Bruce Waltke (2)
- C. S. Lewis (5)
- Calvin (9)
- Calvinism (3)
- Canonical Approach (1)
- Carl Trueman (2)
- Catechesis (4)
- Chris Bruno (1)
- Chris Wright (5)
- Christology (17)
- Christopher Bechtel (1)
- Church (4)
- Church History (11)
- classroom (1)
- Commentaries (2)
- Conference (3)
- consumerism (1)
- covenant (2)
- Creation (12)
- creeds (1)
- Cross (6)
- Culture (7)
- D. A. Carson (2)
- David (1)
- David Rudolph (2)
- Death (2)
- discipleship (3)
- Doctrine of God (6)
- Doctrine of Scripture (7)
- Doug Sweeney (1)
- Dualism (1)
- Ecclesial Theologian (13)
- Ecclesial Theology (50)
- Ecclesiology (6)
- Ecumenism (1)
- Eric Bargerhuff (1)
- Eschatology (11)
- Ethics (5)
- ETS (3)
- Eucharist (2)
- Evangelicalism (4)
- Evangelism (1)
- family (1)
- film (1)
- First Fellowship (5)
- Gender (4)
- General (448)
- George Marsden (1)
- Gerald Hiestand (140)
- Global Christianity/Theology (2)
- Gospel (8)
- grace (5)
- Hell (9)
- Hermeneutics (9)
- Historical Method (2)
- History (5)
- Holiness (1)
- Holy Spirit (5)
- Idolatry (7)
- Image of God (6)
- Incarnation (4)
- Inerrancy (2)
- Interviews on Politics and Theology (14)
- Irenaeus (4)
- Isaiah (2)
- James Jordan (1)
- Jamie Smith (4)
- Jason Hood (210)
- Jay Thomas (1)
- Jeff Hubing (2)
- Jew/Gentile Relations (1)
- Jim Samra (2)
- Joel Lawrence (1)
- John (1)
- John Frame (5)
- John Paul II (2)
- John Piper (4)
- John Stott (2)
- John Webster (7)
- John's Gospel (4)
- Jonathan Edwards (2)
- Joshua (1)
- justice (4)
- justification (2)
- Karl Barth (4)
- Kevin Vanhoozer (7)
- kingdom (10)
- Kingdom of God (6)
- Leadership (1)
- Literature (9)
- liturgy (1)
- Love (7)
- Luke's Gospel (6)
- Lying (1)
- Mainline Protestantism (3)
- Mark Noll (2)
- Mark's Gospel (6)
- Marriage (4)
- Martin Hengel (1)
- Martin Luther (3)
- Matt Kim (1)
- Matthew Mason (66)
- Messianism (5)
- Michael LeFebvre (3)
- mission (8)
- Music (1)
- noetic effects of sin (5)
- off-topic (10)
- Oliver O'Donovan (2)
- Owen Strachan (4)
- Pastor Ministry (2)
- Pastor-theologian (35)
- Pastoral Ministry (2)
- patristics (2)
- Paul (4)
- pedagogy (1)
- Phil Tallon (1)
- Plato (5)
- Poetry (4)
- Political Theology (19)
- Popular Theology (4)
- porn (1)
- prayer (3)
- Preaching (6)
- Predestination (2)
- Preston Sprinkle (4)
- prophecy (1)
- Psalms (6)
- Reading (2)
- Redemption (10)
- repentance (1)
- Resurrection (6)
- Revelation (6)
- Richard Hays (3)
- Robert Jenson (2)
- Romans (3)
- Ruth (1)
- sacraments (3)
- SAET Fellow Publications (24)
- SAET Fellowship (10)
- sanctification (11)
- SBL (4)
- Scripture (3)
- Second Fellowship (12)
- sexuality (15)
- sin (8)
- sonship (2)
- Soteriology (12)
- sovereignty (2)
- Spirituality (3)
- Stephen Witmer (1)
- suffering (3)
- Symposium (7)
- Systematic Theology (9)
- technology (1)
- Temple (2)
- The Bible (3)
- The SAET (9)
- The Social Network (1)
- Theodicy (1)
- Theological Education (12)
- Theological Method (10)
- Theology (8)
- Thomas Aquinas (3)
- Tolkien (1)
- Tom Wright (11)
- Trinity (6)
- Truth (1)
- Uncategorized (8)
- via moderna (1)
- Wallace Stegner (2)
- war (1)
- ways to scare your children (2)
- Wendell Berry (2)
- Wider Theologians (3)
- wisdom (6)
- Worship (3)
- writing (3)
- Zacharius Ursinus (1)
Recent Comments
Talk about SPOT ON!!! That is hilarious! Thanks for sharing it Jason!
09/19/10 8:52 PM | Comment Link
Jason, this is so good, so funny. You just nailed him. I can “hear” him reading this. I hope this finds its way to him.
09/20/10 8:31 AM | Comment Link
That is GREAT. Thank you.
09/20/10 3:15 PM | Comment Link
A suggestive interpretation. I’d be interested to see Wright expanding his reading by drawing on his more recent fresh perspeggitve, to illuminate the implied critique of empire in the line “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.”
09/20/10 3:22 PM | Comment Link
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men … AND ESPECIALLY CAESAR … cannot put him back together again.
09/20/10 4:08 PM | Comment Link
This is possibly the most esoteric blog satire in the history of the internet, and it is absolutely hilarious. Well done.
09/20/10 5:23 PM | Comment Link
Of course, the reformed Dumpsters claim that Humpty represents the ‘true’ Israel, including the gentile Dumpsters living in the age of the great crack.
09/20/10 5:27 PM | Comment Link
An oldie but a goodie: Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty | said...
[...] HT [...]
09/20/10 7:36 PM | Comment Link
N.T. Wright’s exegesis of Humpty Dumpty « Son of the Fathers said...
[...] N.T. Wright’s exegesis of Humpty Dumpty Hilarious. [...]
09/20/10 10:51 PM | Comment Link
What If N.T. (Tom) Wright Exegeted Humpty Dumpty? | mgpcpastor’s blog said...
[...] from the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology in which features a parody which takes Tom Wright exegeting Humpty Dumpty as its premise. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Clearly the writer is telling an Israel story, and here [...]
09/21/10 3:55 AM | Comment Link
Too few complex sentences with endless subordinate and relative clauses. Funny, however. Reminds me of Bauckham’s analysis of the community to which Winnie the Pooh was written.
09/21/10 4:05 AM | Comment Link
Coffee Mug Browsing « Biblical Paths said...
[...] For the joy of parody: Tom Wright reads Humpty Dumpty. [...]
09/21/10 5:00 AM | Comment Link
Matthew and Ted,
That’s an excellent addition.
09/21/10 6:24 AM | Comment Link
Morning links (9/21) « scientia et sapientia said...
[...] rhymes were a big hit yesterday. It all started with NT Wright reading Humpty Dumpty, and soon we had Bultmann reading Mother [...]
09/21/10 8:54 AM | Comment Link
Interpreting Humpty Dumpty in light of other “2nd nursery rhymes” - White Horse Inn Blog said...
[...] in light of both our appreciation and criticism of Wright, we offer up this post from the funny fellows of The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology: how N. T. Wright would read that great nursery rhyme, “Humpty Dumpty.” Tom Wright [...]
09/21/10 10:55 AM | Comment Link
Ah, but is there a hidden narrative with inclusion of “Dumpty”. Rather than the mere destruction of the Temple, does the formality of the moniker related to the organization of Temple leaders as well. Did not the horsemen of Rome tilt their windmill as well?!
09/21/10 11:27 AM | Comment Link
Thanks for this, Jason. Great stuff. I think I might have been tempted to put in a “precisely because” somewhere, one of NTW’s characteristic locutions.
By the way, when did you write this? I am curious watching how these things go viral and it will be interesting to see if it morphs into different versions. A quick google shows it goes back to at least December 2008. Is that right?
Cheers
Mark
09/21/10 2:16 PM | Comment Link
Yes, reminds me of the work you’ve done on sources in the development of urban legends, etc. (“precisely because”…indeed!)
Now some say that the record shows two hands at work, a Humptist and a Dumptist, and that the Dec 2008 version is the work of the former. (Another school of thought is that a later redactor, “The Poet Writer,” smoothed it all out.) But the Dec 2008 piece was Ur-Humpty, and the current piece is Humpty. I hestitate to say “canonical humpty” or “final humpty” because one never knows. I took a few minutes the other day to freshen it up, as I thought it’d make a nice opening post as I start blogging here.
What I really need to do, though, is write a “Secret Tom”. Unfortunately my prose is just not as good as Tom’s. Maybe Stephen Carlson can tackle that project.
09/21/10 2:31 PM | Comment Link
Delightful … thanks for posting!
09/21/10 3:41 PM | Comment Link
This is brilliant. Thank you!
09/22/10 3:07 AM | Comment Link
LOL. Thanks, Jason for a great parody.
09/22/10 3:34 AM | Comment Link
Sharp, witty and hilarious! I almost fell off the wall I was sitting on!
09/22/10 11:39 AM | Comment Link
humpty dumpty as israel story « native pilgrim said...
[...] Read the whole thing. It gets better. [...]
09/22/10 9:37 PM | Comment Link
Link to a Nursery Parody of the New Perspective on Paul « Literary Ales said...
[...] Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty [...]
09/23/10 11:05 AM | Comment Link
Hello Jason. Thank you for the post. If I understand correctly, this is a parody written by you and not N.T. Wright. If that is the case, can you please state that clearly in the beginning of the post? The link to your post is spreading like wildfire around the internet, and it seems that many people think that Wright has actually taken the time to exegete a nursery rhyme.
09/23/10 9:22 PM | Comment Link
TG,
You’re kidding, right?
09/23/10 11:49 PM | Comment Link
Holiday At The Sea » Blog Archive » The Weekly Town Crier said...
[...] ha ha! Read this post from someone what it might be like for N.T. Wright to read Humpty [...]
09/24/10 7:59 AM | Comment Link
If you like NT Wright « Etcetera. Whatever. said...
[...] Tom Wright reads Humpty Dumpty No Comments [...]
09/24/10 11:58 AM | Comment Link
Bravo!
09/24/10 10:35 PM | Comment Link
More ancient and reliable manuscripts read:
“couldn’t put that fool back together again”.
09/25/10 11:14 PM | Comment Link
Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty – Justin Taylor said...
[...] seen this before, and (b) you’ve read a little bit of N.T. Wright, here’s a fun parody by Jason [...]
09/27/10 2:32 PM | Comment Link
This piece looks a bit like one written by the pseudonymous Eutychus years ago for Christianity Today.
09/27/10 4:51 PM | Comment Link
Ed Clowney’s original satire of source criticism using Humpty Dumpty can be found here
http://aboulet.com/2007/08/31/clowney-on-source-criticism/
09/27/10 5:35 PM | Comment Link
N.T. Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty « Pastor Matt said...
[...] http://www.saet-online.org/tom-wright-reads-humpty-dumpty/09/ [...]
09/27/10 8:13 PM | Comment Link
In actual fact Humpty Dumpty is the Anglican Communion. Obviously Wright knows this, so the piece is disinformation.
09/29/10 6:17 AM | Comment Link
The New Perspective on Humpty Dumpty | The Threshing Floor said...
[...] Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty [...]
09/29/10 10:51 PM | Comment Link
What I Read Online – 09/28/2010 (a.m.) | Emeth Aletheia said...
[...] SAET » Tom Wright Reads Humpty Dumpty » The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology <span class="“> – Annotated [...]
10/7/10 3:49 AM | Comment Link
SAET » Parody in Biblical Studies » The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology said...
[...] One of my favorite tools in the biblical scholar’s toolkit of the biblical scholar is parody. (It’s a dangerous tool, of course, but in point of fact all of the tools are [...]
03/14/11 11:36 PM | Comment Link
I thought “all the king’s horses” was supposed to be a direct reference to Deuteronomy 17!
Even Tom Wright would definitely not miss that!
Great job on this post though
06/24/11 6:52 PM | Comment Link
“Clearly the writer is telling an Israel story, and here alludes to the Temple.”
I’m surprised that no one has of yet deconstructed the name “Humpty Dumpty” itself. Remove the nonsensical last syllable from both words and you get “Hump” and “Dump”.
The former, especially with the mention of the “wall” as noted by Wright, is a clear reference to the Temple Mount. But note that instead of the Temple {“wall”) being on the Mount {“Hump”), the order is reversed in the rhyme so that the “Hump” is on the “wall”. IOW, everything has been turned upside down and is in chaos (It may also be a subtle allusion to Jesus’ “city on a hill” in Matthew 5:14, but once again, with the order upside-down). This is further strengthened by the “Hump” being combined with the “Dump”, as the name of Jerusalem’s dump is the well-known… Gehenna (or “Hell”), indicating an invasion of the unholy into the place of the sacred that echoes Jesus’ quote of Jeremiah 7:11*: “My house shall be called a house of prayer: but ye make it a den of robbers”.
Need Mother Goose paint a clearer picture than this of what is going on here?
*I’m tempted to make a Slurpee joke here, but will attempt to resist it.
12/1/11 3:50 AM | Comment Link
“Jesus’ quote of Jeremiah 7:11*: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer: but ye make it a den of robbers’.”
I meant to add “during the clearing of the TEMPLE after this line.
12/1/11 4:06 AM | Comment Link
Israel and the Inspiration of Scripture (Scripture and the Authority of God by N.T. Wright) « Dead Heroes Don't Save said...
[...] If you have not seen this yet, you should check out the satire, Tom Wright reads Humpty Dumpty. Share this:StumbleUponTwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry [...]
04/18/12 6:34 PM | Comment Link