I can't imagine anyone disputing the notion that
[1] Scripture can only be understood, when we place it properly in its historical context.
The problem is not with this principle it's rather with the application of it by the NPP/FV. The NPP writers, of which the FV are wholly derivative on the important 1st century questions, have drawn conclusions that are not warranted by the evidence they have adduced.
Everyone ought to read the third volume of Mike Horton's series published at WJKP. It's a brilliant refutation of the NPP and the best part of it, in this regard, is the way he shows that the best reading of the historical/archeological evidence favor the historic Protestant reading of the situation. The problem is not that of putting the Scriptures in their historical context. Rather, the problem is that the NPP fellows assume only two models: Pelagius, as it were, or Augustine. Their apparent ignorance of the history of theology blinds them to the existence of a third model, again speaking anarchronistically: semi-Pelagianism or a "grace and cooperation with grace" system.
This is what many of the rabbis were actually arguing and it's what the medieval church taught and it's what was rejected by the Reformation.
There's no good reason to step away from reading the Scriptures in their historical context. Does our knowledge of the historical context grow and change? Yes, of course. That's why good scholarship is so important. Remember that the Old Princeton folk and the Old Westminster folk (and their successors) always argued that the problem with liberalism is not that they were doing scholarship but that they were doing bad scholarship. There's no reason to fear evidence. I'm a Van Tillian and I'm not naive about what folks do with evidence, and I'm not accusing anyone here of avoiding evidence, but I'm encouraging us to continue to dig, to do good work, to gather as much historical evidence as possible so that we can read the text of Scripture in the light of its context.
rsc