The Right Questions

I have for some time struggled with the contours of what we Christians call the "inspiration" of the bible--"inspiration" being a term pulled from 2 Timothy 3:16. Though I have been unable for a long time to put words to my quandary, I generally sensed a disconnect between the plain text of the bible and descriptions of the bible, common in the circles I run in, which use words like "inerrant" and "infallible" to describe our sacred texts.

I have found in the writing of James Barr (Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism, Westminster Press, 1983), work which formulates with precision the questions I have done only roughly myself. And, of course, being a Regius Professor at Oxford, Barr has gone much further. In this book he describes in clear and readable detail some of the necessary boundaries and possible horizons of our understanding of scripture.

The book presents a series of lectures, which makes the content at once more accessible and, I think, less deep than I ultimately wish to go. One of the regrettable features of the book is, in spite of its title, that it spends a good deal of time on criticism, a good deal more on canon (especially in critiquing the school of "canonical criticism"), and not nearly enough time on authority. Though I appreciate the precise attention to the landscape of canon and criticism, my present goal is to find a proper understanding of authority.

The authority of the bible is of singular importance to Christians, of course. But as soon as we declare that it has some authority over our lives, questions abound. Particularly poignant to me is how the New Testament, so interested in relating an experience and stunningly uninterested in establishing a new written law, can be seen as an authority for the Church. How can one affirm the authority of a text without somehow diminishing or setting aside the authority of the One to whom it points?

A good beginning. On to the next read.

~ emrys