Danutz, a couple of thoughts that rather pull in opposite directions…

First, the contextualized, historical reading of the Gospels in particular has given me more, not less, confidence in the essential historicity of the narrative - labelling everything as metaphor seems increasingly an unnecessary hermeneutical strategy. This is not to say that there is no metaphor or myth in it, or that every detail is historically accurate. But the overarching story that is told about Jesus makes such good historical sense - on the one hand, against the backdrop of Jewish beliefs, and on the other, in relation to what we know of Israel’s situation in the first century. What emerges from this is a compelling understanding of Jesus as a powerfully imaginative, creative and courageous figure who, in the Spirit of his Father, forged a unique vocation for himself from the interaction of scripture and history. Anyway, the simple point for me is that contextualization reduces the need for metaphorical or allegorical readings of the texts.

Secondly, however, the emphasis on narrative appears to offer something of a mediatory position between our respective approaches, between the historical and the metaphorical readings, between Wright’s hermeneutic of trust and the search for a meaning that transcends the historical. Arguments about the resurrection aside, how much does it really matter, as we tell the story, whether it is believed as history or believed as metaphor, whether we suppose that it determines our existence diachronically or synchronically? Either way, one might argue, we take it seriously enough to let it shape our existence, our sense of God, our worship, our vocation.

I still wonder why, if we can allow the promise - obstacle - fulfilment pattern to define our real experience of God now, we should want to deny to the community that gave us the New Testament the option of communicating their own real experience of that reality. But should we get so worked up about the fact that for one of us the story feels like history while for the other it feels like metaphor?