Re: Why the historical Jesus matters

For me, the choice is not between a historically contextualised reading of the gospel story and an abstract/evangelical/modernist reading, but between which historically contextualised version we are going for. In any reading of the gospels, the story of the cross is always just as historical for Christian believers as the Exodus was for Jews. It is told repeatedly whenever bread and wine, in whatever tradition, are taken. It is told even better when the historical context of the last supper informs the act, pointing to the new Exodus; the new Passover lamb; the new covenant - Israel’s story brought to a climax in the person of Jesus, and that in his death on the cross.

The creational purpose of the gospel story is just as real in alternative tellings of the story to the one Andrew proposes. It is more real, in fact, since the new creation is located in the resurrection of Jesus himself, and in believers in relationship with him - emphases which are not given in Andrew’s version.

Gnosticism is rather more of a danger in Andrew’s version of the gospel story than in the traditional, orthodox or evangelical version. In the latter, the events of Jesus’s life and death are the anchor for the on-going life of the believer. In the former, they are restricted to the lives of those in the immediate historical context, beyond which the on-going ‘creational’ mandate for believers rests on an agenda which is as hidden as gnosticism. There is no on-going biblical frame of reference in the NT against which the agenda can be measured. This latter reading is also regressive - shedding the more detailed fulfilment of the NT as normative for believers, and reverting to the far cloudier words given to Abraham 2000 years previously, despite the fact that Paul repeatedly asserts that the those words and promises were fulfilled in Christ, and, by relationship with him, in his church.

How are we meant to think biblically, when most of the biblical material, the NT and gospels in particular, is said to be of somewhat exclusive reference to the 1st century?

Andrew’s version of a historical contextualisation goes further than saying that it "has a great deal to say about a future chain of events culminating in judgment on his opponents and the vindication of his followers". It asserts that an event, the parousia, fulfilling the Daniel 7:13 narrative, took place separately from the life/death/ressurection/ascension/outpoured Spirit of Jesus, which becomes the primary assurance for the church of its on-going survival and success in the face of conflict and suffering then, and in relation to political powers now. Such is the emphasis given to this event, that it displaces the preceding events from any direct relevance to the lives of believing people beyond the 1st century. This is an incredibly novel development, and marginalises what for most people is taken to be central to their faith.

Further, I would argue that the central theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans (thereby asserting a solution to an issue which has perplexed theologians through the ages, but I’m only following Andrew’s example!) is not "the historical dilemma faced by Israel under judgment", but the covenant faithfulness of God to his creation - which included the dilemma of (unbelieving) Israel, and went beyond to a context of fallen creation stretching back to Adam. This is Paul’s interpretation of the OT, and the consistent position of the NT, which is not any different from Paul.

Andrew’s conclusions therefore, that we have to construct a new paradigm for the church and find a core narrative that is different from that found in all Christian traditions, is misguided. A more constructive task would be to discern how modernism has affected a reading of the core narratives in their application for believers today, and to extract from this the traditional readings and the biblical readings. And here, it is Andrew’s reading that does not go back far enough - beyond the story as constructed around Israel, to the story as provided in those early chapters of Genesis, resting on the great creation account of Genesis 1 & 2, and the falling away in Genesis 3. On these accounts, the whole troubled story of the patriarchs, judges and kings rests, finding its resolution in a messiah king and suffering servant, in whom the whole of Israel’s story and creation’s story had its fulfilment, and in whom the church has direct access to the heart of the new creation realities which it is the mandate of God’s people to bring into the world today.