The last statement alludes to his identification by many as a member of the “Third Quest for the Historical Jesus.” Any quest for a “Jesus of history,” as distinguished from the “Christ of faith,” is mostly irrelevant to the Orthodox. It is not a fight in which we have a dog. For us, the primary question remains that posed by the Lord to St. Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” The Church answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is the Christ. We appropriate findings of scholars questing for a “historical Jesus,” when it suits the purpose of better understanding our Lord’s life and ministry, but we remain utterly faithful to the basic confession of the early Church, “Jesus is the Christ.”

Probably, Bishop Wright would agree with this on some level, but for the Church, it doesn’t really matter whether we can definitively pin down particular actions or statements to Jesus. The Church, through the evangelists and the approval of the canonical gospels, believed and taught that the Jesus of scripture was an authentic portrayal of the Word made flesh. She may be interested to know the historical development of that portrayal, but nothing will deter her from that assessment.

I’ll have to clarify Wright’s thinking on biblical interpretation because its clear I didn’t present it very well. Wright does not categorically dismiss allegorical understandings of the Bible. He actually calls for a return to the Reformer’s understanding of the “literal sense” of Scripture. Which, rather than meaning “take it all literally” as many modern fundamentalists would have it, means reading the passage in the way it was originally intended to be understood. Parables, prophecies, poetry, etc, were not intended as statements of literal fact and therefore should not be understood as such. If the original author intended allegorical or metaphorical usage then that is how we should try to receive it. Which is not always easy given that not all passages are clear as to this original intention, but it suffices for most of the text.

Nor does Wright completely dismiss the role of tradition in interpretation. He does subordinate it to the written word, as would be expected of any Protestant, but he talks as if there is a prima fascia case against any novel interpretation until it is rigorously proven from good exegesis and scholarship. Of course, Wright does believe that the Church has strayed from the path Christ set before her – not completely and not irredeemably, but she has gotten of course nonetheless. As you point out, his argument on interpretation hinges, at least in part, on a question of ecclesiology, so it is no surprise that he finds the frequent use of allegory in the Orthodox/Catholic traditions to be so troubling.

As to that final wikipedia quote, I’m not sure what you’re intending that statement to convey. Wright firmly believes in Nicene Christianity; he also believes that, in losing, or limiting, its self-understanding as the continuation of Israel, the church has lost a key aspect of the story of God’s redemptive action in history through Christ. He does not reject the later understandings of Jesus that are, perhaps, more philosophical or Hellenistic, but he does think they need to be rounded out by a healthy dose of that first-century perspective.