‘It is no exaggeration to say that all across the theological spectrum the great reversal had taken place; interpretation was a matter of fitting the biblical story into another world with another story rather than incorporating that world into the biblical story.’ These words of Hans Frei, from his masterly The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, summarise the profound changes that occurred in the way that Christians have read the Bible since early modernity. Where once Scripture had been read both literally and figuratively according to the ‘world’ depicted by its ‘history-like’ narrative, in the wake of ‘the great reversal’ it came to be read according to the ‘world’ depicted by early modernity’s story – the story of modern science and history, the world we now take to be real. Figural reading gave way to a new kind of literalism, and the meaningfulness of Scripture became dependent on the veracity of its depiction of this new, real world. Thus were born the quest for the historical Jesus, young earth creationism, and experiential readings of Scripture. But does the Church have to accept the great reversal? Frei’s work, and recent work in the history of ideas, suggest that it does not.