N.T. Wright says this about repentance in The Challenge of Jesus:
Jesus' opening challenge as reported in the Gospels was that people should "repent and believe." This is a classic example...of a phrase whose meaning has changed over the years. If I were to go out on the street in my local town and proclaim that people should "repent and believe," what they would hear would be a summons to give up their private sins...and to "get religion" in some shape or form; either experiencing a new inner sense of God's presence, or believing a body of dogma, or joining the church or some sub-branch of it. But that is by no means exactly what the phrase "repent and believe" meant in first-century Galilee.
...Consider, for example, the Jewish aristocrat and historian, Josephus, who was born a few years after Jesus' crucifixion and who was sent in A.D. 66 as a young army commander to sort out some rebel movements in Galilee. His task...was to persuade the hot-headed Galileans to stop their mad rush into revolt against Rome and to trust him and the other Jerusalem aristocrats to work out a better modus vivendi. So when he confronted the rebel leader, he says that he told him to give up his own agenda and to trust him, Josephus, instead. And the word [sic] he uses are remarkably familiar to readers of the Gospels: he told the brigand leader to "repent and believe in me". . . (p. 44)
Thanks to Marc for this quote.
What do you like? What's not clear? What would you change?
This quote is too truncated. It has its feet planted in mid air. I am sure Wright is making a point but we don't get to see it. Jesus told people to repent and believe and so did Josephus. Fine. What's the point?
Just this observation about Jesus' call to repentance and faith. The quote makes it sound like Wright believes that Jesus just shouted out "Repent and believe!" I don't think that's what the Gospel writers intended us to think. The writers do not give word exact quotes. There was more context to Jesus preaching than just the words "repent and believe".
It would be interesting to read where Wright goes with this. I think the key words are "to give up his own agenda and to trust him."
Jollyblogger says:
"From this, Wright suggests that when we speak of repentance, we usually wrongly think of it merely in terms of a means of going to heaven when we die, or as an individualistic turning away from particular sins."
"To be sure, repentance and following Jesus includes going to heaven, but Wright suggests that Jesus first century hearers heard 'repent and believe in me,' in a different way than we hear it today. We hear it in individualistic terms and mainly in reference to what happens after we die. He says they probably heard it in more corporate/communal terms and with reference to the hear and now."
(http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/jollyblogger/2006/07/n_t_wright_on_t.html)
Darryl is right with the key words. That's the point---it seems to me this quote is able to stand on its own, but I'll look up some of the surrounding material