Marginal Christianity

For some years now Andrew Perriman at his blog and in his books has been forming and re-forming what he calls a “narrative-historical” hermeneutic or approach to interpreting the Bible. His chief concern is to extend an N T Wright-type of approach to read the NT in a fully historical manner rather than stop at the end of the 1 st century a.d.  As he puts it, “What I say is: a narrative theology ought to be able to account for the  whole experience of the people of God, not just the beginning, middle, and end of it. We may give some sort of priority to the early biblical sections of the narrative, but the  story doesn’t stop with the events of the New Testament —even those future events which are foreseen in the New Testament. We are still part of that story, and so is  our  future” ( https://www.postost.net/2019/03/testing-times-narrative-framework-renewal-western-church?fbclid=IwAR28U5wmrfCodsjrYIXyFUUpiJn-dWG3vUPAz-5QnR6Ej6RNkNB0IRBuiUI ). So far as I’m aw...

Recently Andrew Perriman posted a comparison and contrast of his own narrative-historical model of biblical interpretation that N. T. Wright’s Five Act Play dramatic model and Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen’s slightly revised version of that model ( http://www.postost.net/lexicon/all-world-stage-narrative-historical-revision-wright-five-act-play-hermeneutic ). The chart below reflects those three models along with my own proposal. Below the chart are my brief assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of each followed by a more extended exposition of my own proposal. Wright Bartholomew and Goheen Perriman Wyatt Prologue: Creation and Fall Bookend 1 of biblical story: Creation/New Creation theme (Gen.1-2) – Presence (Temple) Act 1: Creation Act I: God Establishes His Kingdom: Creation Act 1: The people of God and the land Act 1: Catastrophe (Gen.3-11) Theme of si...

For some years now in books and blog posts Andrew Perriman has been developing what he calls a Narrative-Historical Hermeneutic. His book Re: Mission sketches the biblical story from this perspective. His post at http://www.postost.net/2015/06/10-good-reasons-switch-narrative-historical-hermeneutic-it-s-too-late gives a list of the benefits he finds in following this approach. In his post today “This changes everything” http://www.postost.net/2015/12/changes-everything ) Perriman provides a convenient glossary of terms and concepts as they appear from the perspective of his Narrative-Historical Hermeneutic. In some respects, Perriman is extending the approach of N. T. Wright by taking the underlying narrative of the biblical story in a fully historical direction (see “Eschatological Horizons” below). In other respects, it demands a radical rethink of our theology (evangelical in Perriman’s case, though his rethink takes him well outside the bounds of what most would accept as ev...