I've begun reading N.T. Wright's "Christian Origins and the Question of God" series, a three-volume behemoth weighing in at something like 1200 pages. I don't expect to finish any time soon, but my project of reading it is far less ambitious than his work in writing it!
The first 144 pages of "The New Testament and the People of God" is about how to study the New Testament, how to read it, authorial intent, and narrative. I considered skipping past it in order to get to the "real stuff," but my patience has been rewarded.
His treatment of story and narrative as a significant component of early/proto- Jewish -- and indeed human -- knowing is beautiful. Wright suggests that narrative has an inherent transformative (even subversive) quality in that by entering into a conversation with someone whose life is deeply embedded in a story, we tend to walk away transformed by the encounter. And what more true or more powerful story is there than that of the dynamic relationship between the Trinity, humanity, and creation? Our story is one of paradise lost, community, new creation, and perfection through resurrection.
Wright sums up his brief treatment of narrative with a simple cliché: "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." Perhaps this could be true of life among the people of God as well.
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