Temporal movement is not as such necessarily from the particular to the universal, but in the case of the biblical narrative it is. From Genesis 12 to Revelation the narrative is always in transition from a particular past towards the universal future. This is so definitively in the movement from the history of Jesus to his future coming and the coming of the kingdom of God in all creation. It is Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that open up God’s new future for all creation, and so it is only