I continue reading The New Testament and the People of God in chapter 5 (pp 121-144), on theology, authority, and the New Testament. This is the final chapter in the first part of this book, where he is laying out his epistemology for his entire multi-volume work. I think in this chapter what he is addressing is an objection (among the many) that the New Testament does theology, not objective history; he is attempting to demonstrate why all of these things (literature, history, theology) come together in the New Testament. He does this by taking the reader on a deeper dive into what constitutes a worldview.
Wright opens the chapter by hoping he has made the reader aware there is no such thing as 'objective history.' All history is written in a time, place, culture, and within its author's worldview. History is always selected and interpreted. This does not make it right or wrong; but it does communicate something to us (ie, why this and not that). And the more we are aware of the worldview of the author (and our own), the more we will be able to better understand what is being communicated.
Wright argues that worldview can be seen in the four elements of what it does (pp 123-4): it provides stories through which human beings view reality which provide answers to the basic questions of human existence expressed through cultural symbols and which is visible in the way people act (praxis). I didn't discuss his four basic questions of human existence when first introduced, but he goes through them again in this chapter (pp 132-3): who are we; where are we; what is wrong; what is the solution? We are story-telling beings, so it is natural that we would express answers to our basic questions in the form of stories. We are embodied beings, so it is to be expected that our answers will be expressed in physical, symbolic forms and acted out/upon. As an example, in first century Israel Passover was a powerful symbol that was acted out in the Passover meal as the story was retold of God's salvation from Egypt because He had chosen them as His people.
Worldviews, through which we view the world, are seen in basic beliefs and aims which then give rise to consequent beliefs and intentions (p 125-26). Wrights suggests that most conversation occurs at the level of consequent beliefs while the basic beliefs and worldview assumptions remain unspoken. Thus, one of the tasks of Wright is to peel back and expose the basic beliefs and worldview elements of the first century in order to better understand some of the 'surface' of the New Testament.
What then is the function of theology? Wright argues that "theology highlights what we might call the god-dimension of a worldview" (p 130). Unfortunately, and I am guilty of this, we should not separate Christian theology from its underlying worldview and stories to make it serve a truncated purpose of answering dogmatic or abstract questions.
Wright sums up, "The Christian reader of the New Testament is committed to a task which includes within itself 'early Christian history' and 'New Testament theology', while showing that neither of these tasks... can be self-sufficient. And this fuller reading... includes as one vital part of itself the task of telling the story of Jesus, with the assumption that this story took place within public history." (p 139) In short, combining literature, history, and theology.
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