Re: Metavista, narrative, and the historical-critical project

A simpler way of putting things would be to say that while there is a historical narrative underpinning the biblical story (whichever way one interprets the narrative), there are also many ways in which events occuring within the narrative have relevance for us today - beyond their particular historical contexts. Analogy would be a better way of describing how this works than allegory. We do not need to go back to the stultifying allegorical schemes which became a rigid and artificial means of scriptural interpretation in the middle ages. The development of the tools of critical and historical interpretation in the dawning modern period is something for which we owe the modern period a debt of thanks.

But as far as the supposed imperialism of metanarrative is concerned - why should we permit a postmodern agenda to determine that this is such a bad thing? Should we not be subjecting the postmodern paradigm itself to critical evaluation, rather than assuming that its tastes and preferences are normative for biblical interpretation? An overarching narrative need not be imperialistic - it can simply be a way of describing how things are. There is nothing intrinsically virtuous about diversity of explanation - though one would hope that permission is granted to exploration of diversity within modern and postmodern frameworks.