Danutz,

Point taken on my comment on Borg and Crossan. I think your point about narrative (NT Wright) versus individual stories (Borg and Crossan, if I read you rightly) is exactly right. It's this which I have picked up from the bits that I've read from both men (and from Wright and others), and basically what I was aiming at in my comment. A major question is, of course, how one defines artificial. The criteria for determining communities, as well as the criteria for assuming an interlocking narrative, can be equally subjective.