Chris, I have the same problems with the insinuation that Wright is a ‘crypto-supersessionist’ that I have with my argument about the Son of man being labelled ‘preterist’. The labelling tends inevitably, I think, to suggest that the reading of the New Testament arises out of a prior dogmatic commitment and is likely to be distorted by the biases of that commitment. I think Wright would want to insist - and I would certainly want to insist - that what precedes the exegetical argument is not a dogmatic commitment but a hermeneutical commitment to, say, a historically contextualized, critical-realist reading of the texts, or however we wish to classify it. I accept, of course, that hermeneutics and dogmatism are not easily separated and that hermeneutical commitments are also in their way biased. But I don’t see how ringing the alarm bell of supersessionism or the alarm bell of preterism really helps the task of interpretation. Am I supposed to be shocked that Wright has ‘supersessionist leanings’? Does he emphasize covenant and election because he has ‘Calvinist leanings’ or because he finds that these are persistent motifs in the biblical narrative?

Mark is writing to argue that the Temple was destroyed because "the Jews" killed Jesus.

It’s only a minor point here, but is this the best way of putting it? Does Mark actually say this? In the parable of the tenants in the vineyard the owner destroys the tenants not simply because the tenants killed the son but because they persistently failed to provide him with the fruit of the vineyard. There is no suggestion, in any case, that the killing of the ‘son’ results in the destruction of the temple. Also note that the parable is directed not against the Jews as a whole but against the corrupt leadership of Israel.

It’s true that Paul has little to say about the temple and it is not certain that he foresaw its destruction in the way that Jesus did. However, he clearly envisaged the (possible? probable?) destruction of Israel in some sense (eg. Rom. 9:22), and historical and biblical precedent would suggest that the destruction of Israel would entail the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. He foresaw the desecration of the temple (I understand that this is disputed: see The Coming of the Son of Man, 134-136) in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, which in view of the narrative in Daniel is bound to have been interpreted as an aspect of God’s judgment on his people. He also regarded the congregation of believers as in some sense a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 3:16; cf. 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21). But as you say, his focus was elsewhere.

I fully agree with your comments on Rome. It is a central theme in New Testament eschatology that the imperialist enemy of YHWH first is the instrument of God’s wrath against his unfaithful people and then itself comes under judgment.

The question of whether or in what way the people of God in Christ replaces the people of God in Moses is a tough one and far too complex to address here. To my mind the larger argument is i) that when God called Abraham, he brought into existence a people for his own possession to be a new creation, and ii) that the message of the New Testament is that this ‘new creation’ is unsustainable other than on the basis of the grace demonstrated in Christ’s death. I find it very difficult to see why on biblical grounds (rather than on moral or political post-holocaust grounds) we should suppose that this ‘new creation’ has branched into two. I think that if Paul had written Romans after AD 70, chapters 9-11 at least would have read rather differently.

So does that make me a supersessionist as well as a preterist?