NOTES to Bird's "The Authority of the Bible"   1. The term evangelical is used in this article to designate a broad segment of American Protestantism that understands itself as maintaining traditional or orthodox belief over against positions that are described variously as "liberal," "neo-orthodox," or "modernist." In this broad usage it includes groups that may be defined by others as "fundamentalist," as well as those who prefer the label "neo-evangelical." Conservatives or traditionalists outside the Reformed tradition are less likely to adopt the evangelical label, although they often share closely related views concerning the Bible and biblical authority. For the function of scriptural hermeneutics, and views of scriptural authority, in defining positions within evangelicalism, see Gerald T. Sheppard, "Biblical Hermeneutics: The Academic Language of Evangelical Identity," USQR 32 (1977) 81-94.
2. See, e.g., the critique of Rogers and McKim by Avery Dulles, "Scholasticism and the Church," TToday 38 (1981) 339, noting the omission of all Roman Catholic theologians since the Reformation.
3. See, e.g., the new United Methodist statement on the primacy of Scripture in "Theological Guidelines: Sources and Criteria," contained in the 1988 and 1992 Book of Discipline, and the recent study document issued by the United Church of Canada, entitled "The Authority and Interpretation of Scripture," Theology and Faith Committee, 1989 (review by A. M. Watts, Touchstone, May 1990).
4. Ellen Flesseman-van Leer, ed., The Bible:' Its Authority and Interpretation is the Ecumenical Movement, Faith and Order Paper 99 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1980) 1-4.
5. Richard F. Smith," Inspiration and Inerrancy, " in Raymond E. Brown et al., eds., The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968) 500-12; Paul J. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture: Problems and Proposals, Biblical Perspectives on Current Issues (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).
6. E.g., Robert Gnuse, The Authority of the Bible: Theories of Inspiration, Revelation and the Canon of Scripture (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1985) 14-65; Robert Johnston, Evangelicals at an Impasse: Biblical Authority in Practice (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979) 15-47; Luis Alonso-Schokel, The Inspired Word: Scripture is the Light of Language and Literature (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972) 58-73.
7. See esp. Gnuse, Authority, 105-36.
8. See Flesseman-van Leer, The Bible, 7.
9. Dictionary definitions are helpful in showing the wide variety of ways in which authority is exercised or expressed, e.g., through knowledge, prestige, and personal influence, as "weight of testimony" or "reliability of a source or witness" (Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, 2nd College Edition [New York: Prentice Hall, 1986]; and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English 6th ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976]), but they tend to stress the power of the subject (e.g., Webster's New World Dictionary defines authority as "the power or right to make commands, enforce obedience, take actions, or make final decisions") and neglect the relationship in which it is exhibited. Authority is imputed to a subject from its effects on another subject, who obeys, follows trusts, believes, etc.
10. Darrell Jodock, The Church's Bible: Its Contemporary Authority (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 105-10.
11. The question of appropriate response, or use, is critical and often neglected, and it is the most difficult because it cannot be answered in purely formal terms. It concerns the way in which the Bible's authority functions in particular life situations, e.g., in ethical decisions (such as those relating to abortion, immigration, taxation, and the environment). In practice, the Bible as an authority for faith interacts with other authorities in complex ways that are not adequately represented by formal declarations or doctrines. See David Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) for one attempt to analyze how appeals to biblical authority function in the work of selected modern theologians. Cf. Johnston, Evangelicals, vii-viii, who laments the inability of evangelicals, all claiming a common belief in biblical authority, to agree on what this means in relation to many major issues of the day.
12. Community is used here as a flexible term for any communal entity with a sense of common identity. It may at times correspond to an entire people, nation, or religious group and at other times represent a particular party, church, or subgroup. Both of the two major faith communities with which we will be concerned were at all times internally diverse, so that the concept of community does not imply unanimity. The same qualifications pertain to such collective designations as "Israel," "the church," "the synagogue," etc.
13. To say this is not to deny that it is also the product of inspired speakers and writers or that it is ultimately the work of God. It is, however, to focus on the necessary communal act of recognition, without which there would be no Scripture.
14. The doctrine of inspiration has been particularly useful and appealing, despite its inadequacies, because it provides a means for affirminthe divine origin of what are clearly human writings (Gnuse, Authority, 4). Not until the modern period, however, was attention given to the question of how inspiration operated. See Richard F. Smith, "Inspiration and Inerrancy," in Brown et al., The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 505.
15. Exceptions in the OT are the book of Deuteronomy (1:1-3) and a number of the Minor Prophets whose superscriptions identify the contents of the book as "the word of the LORD" spoken or revealed to the prophet (Hos l: l; Joel l: l; Mic l: l; Zeph 1:1; Mal 1:1). In the NT, only the book of Revelation 1:1-2) makes a comparable claim, placing itself in the OT prophetic tradition. In contrast, the letters of Paul are clearly pastoral writings that make no attempt to present themselves as divinely inspired writings.
16. Since the time of Origen, the two parts of the Christian Bible have been referred to as the OT and the NT. Several candidates to replace the confessional nomenclature with more neutral descriptive terminology have been suggested, e.g., "Hebrew Bible/Scriptures" or, less frequently, "First Testament." These necessary and useful attempts to find nondiscriminatory language do not, however, represent the customary or current use of either of the two faith communities involved. Since this article is concerned with the meaning of these writings precisely in their function as authoritative for faith, the traditional nomenclature has been retained.
17. S. Dean McBride, Jr. "Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy," Int 4l (1987) 231.
18. Ibid., 232-33.
19. Ibid., 229.
20. Ibid., 233.
21. The history of the Pentateuch is currently debated, both in respect to its component parts and the circumstances of its final composition. That it is a composite work, however, is recognized by the majority of scholars, who also acknowledge the separate character of Deuteronomy within the "Five Books." This article assumes the existence of early narrative traditions (J, E) employed in the construction of the larger work, along with smaller complexes of traditions of various sorts.
22. The view of canon formation presented here is essentially that of Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988) 48-66. For a view that minimizes the differences among Jewish canons as well as between the Jewish and Christian OT canons, see Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).
23. See James A. Sanders, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 18-19, for a view that emphasizes the priority of story in the canonical process.
24. See James A. Sanders, "Hermeneutic in True and False Prophecy," in Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Authority, ed. George W. Coats and Burke O. Long (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 24-41; James L. Crenshaw Prophetic Conflict, BZAW 124 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971); Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 133-44; and Gerald T. Sheppard, "True and False Prophecy within Scripture," in Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. Gene M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 262-82.
25. Rowan A. Green "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," Part Two in Early Biblical Interpretation, by James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 120-21.
26. See Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 40-51, for a helpful attempt to discern the primary themes and motives in this diverse literature. Kugel suggests that many of the writings from the Restoration and its aftermath exhibit attempts to link current history and experience with a "canonical" past or "canonical" models (46).
27. McDonald, Formation, 50.
28. Sanders, Sacred Story, 140; and Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) xiv-xv.
29. Associated with the time of Ezra in 1 Macc 9:27; 4:45-46; Josephus, Against Apion 1.8.14; McDonald, Formation, 50-51.
30. The precise origin and meaning of the expression are debated. See G. W. Anderson, "Canonical and Non-Canonical," in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome, eds. P. R. Ackroyd and C. E. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 114. What is clear, however, is that this manner of designating authoritative Scripture rests on liturgical use, rather than on concepts of divine origin (inspiration). Liturgical orientation is also exhibited in the term rabbinic Judaism came to use for the Scriptures as a whole: miqra', "that which is read [aloud]." Judaism never employed the term canon (Greek kanon, "standard"), which Christians adopted in the fourth century CE to designate their authorized corpus of scriptures. (See ibid., 114, 134, 156).
31. Ibid., 134, 156.
32. McDonald, Formation, 53; cf. James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983) 55-56.
33. Henry M. Shires, Finding the Old Testament in the New (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974) 21; cf. 62.
34. Thus, e.g., Psalms (the most frequently cited book) is used in the same way as Deuteronomy and Isaiah (the most frequently cited books of the Pentateuch and Prophets), although as literature it has an entirely different character. And while its words are typically identified with David, the Holy Spirit is understood to speak through them. See ibid., 126-27; see esp. 35-64 for analysis of varying uses of Scripture by different NT authors, as well as the extent of the corpus of sacred writings. See also Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 126-54.
35. Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 114.
36. Barr, Holy Scripture 14.
37. Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 112, 114, 202; McDonald, Formation, 66.
38. McDonald, Formation, 61-62; cf. Karlfried Froehlich, trans. and ed., Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, Sources of Early Christian Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 2-3.
39. See Albert C. Sundberg, "The Bible Canon and the Christian Doctrine of Inspiration," Int 29 (1975) 58-59; McDonald, Formation, 178.
40. Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 116.
41. McDonald, Formation,, 86-88; Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation, 10-11.
42. McDonald, Formation, 76-77.
43. Although the words of Christ were accorded Scripture-like authority from the beginning, there is disagreement among scholars about when in the second century that authority was extended to the books as a whole. See ibid., 74; Hans von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972) 118-21.
44. Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 155-57, 163-74.
45. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.11.8, 9.
46. Ibid., 1:10.1.
47. Greer, "The Christian Bible and Its Interpretation," 124, 157.
48. For a discussion of several criteria for a NT canon, see McDonald, Formation, 146-63.
49. Montanism was an enthusiastic revival movement that spread rapidly through the church in the late second century, emphasizing the imminent return of Christ and the new gift of the Spirit. The Montanists stressed the new revelation given by their prophets and set forth their visions in new apocalypses, claiming superior authority for the "New Prophecy of the Paraclete" over the former revelation. See von Campenhausen, Formation, 221-23.
50. Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation, 6-7; Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979) 11-12, view the notion of accommodation as a key and constant feature of pre-modern exegetical theory, which was lost by Protestant orthodoxy and its heirs in their defense of the Bible against modern criticism. Their reconstruction of the historical understanding of biblical authority has been challenged on several grounds, especially in regard to the concept of inerrancy. See, e.g., John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 19821. Nevertheless, it remains a useful historical survey.
51. Augustine, Contra Epistolam Manichaei Fundamenti, V. 6.
52. Scholasticism refers to the teaching that flourished in the schools of the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries. See Rogers and McKim, Authority, 36-48.
53. E.g., Henry of Ghent (d. 1293); see George H. Tavard, Holy Writ Or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (New York: Harper and Bros., 1959) 22-79.
54. See B. A. Gerrish, "Biblical Authority and the Continental Reformation," SJT 10 (1957) 342-43; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 75-88.
55. See Rogers and McKim, Authority, 89-176; J. K. S. Reid, The Authority of Scripture: A Study of Reformation and Post-Reformation Understanding of the Bible (London: Methuen, 1957) 29-55.
56. See Tavard, Holy Writ, 196-209 for a detailed account of the debate, and 113-91 for the various positions taken in the preceding three decades.
57. H. J. Schroeder, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London: Herder, 1941) 17, 296.
58. See Tavard, Holy Writ, 202, 205, 208, 244-45.
59. See the Lutheran description of Scripture as norma normans, "the norm that governs," and the tradition or the confessions as the norma normata, "the norm that is governed [by Scripture" (Book of Concord; see Gnuse, Authority, 8).
60. Schroeder, Canons, 19, 298; Thomas Aquinas Collins and Raymond E. Brown, "Church Pronouncements," in Brown et al., The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 627; cf. Gerrish, "Biblical Authority," 339.
61. Formally, the Protestant claim locates the authority in Scripture itself, speaking of the "self-interpreting word." In practice, however, authority rests with the individual interpreter and/or the faith community of the believer. Recent Protestant critique and ecumenical discussion have led to the recognition that the authority exercised by Protestant confessional groups closely resembles that formally claimed by the Roman Catholic magisterium.
62. Mary Ann Tolbert, "Protestant Feminists and the Bible: On the Horns of a Dilemma," in The Pleasure of Her Text: Feminist Readings of the Biblical and Historical Texts, ed. Alice Bach (Philadelphia: Trinity International, 1990) 11-12.65. See Rogers and McKim, Authority, 147-261.
63. The distinction between Bible-centered and liturgy-centered worship is breaking down today as a result of liturgical changes occasioned by Vatican II and the growing phenomenon of communal exegesis in base communities.
64. An exception to the dominant Protestant pattern has been the African American church, which developed its own distinctive (counter) hermeneutics and in which biblical authority was not tied to textual or scientific claims. Trust in the message was combined with suspicion of its interpreters, ancient as well as modern.
66. See ibid., 462-72 ("Appendix: Reformed Confessions on Scripture") for a useful collection of texts. The articles on Scripture commonly stand at the head of the confessions and tend to become progressively longer and more detailed as illustrated by the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566 and the 1646 Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (the Westminster Confession).
67. Cited by ibid., 180. Turretin was a key figure linking seventeen century Reformed theology in Europe to nineteenth-century theology in America. His textbook, Institutio Theologiae Elencticae (1674), dominated the theology of Princeton Seminary during its first century (1812-1912). In it, 355 pages were devoted to the doctrine of Scripture, which he believed to be the most important subject in theology (Rogers and McKim, Authority, xvii, 175-76).
68. W. Neil, "The Criticism and Theological Use of the Bible, 1700-1950," chap. VII in The Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. 3, The West from the Reformation to the Present Day, ed. S. L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) 251-79.
69. Ibid., 257-63.
70. See ibid., 268-72, 279-82, 287-89.
71. Jerry Wayne Brown, The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America 1800-1870: The New England Scholars (Middletown, Conm: Wesleyan University Press, 1969); summary treatment in Phyllis A. Bird, The Bible as the Church's Book (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982) 59-61.
72. Debate over the authority of the Bible centered in the Reformed tradition as carried in this country primarily by the Presbyterian Church; hence our attention to this debate, which made front-page news at the time. The resulting polarization in that church, however, has affected most American denominations, especially those that define themselves as theologically conservative or have significant segments that do. Churches with strong liturgical traditions (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopalian), liberal orientation (Congregationalist/United Church of Christ), or charismatic emphasis (Pentecostals, until recently) have been less affected, or differently affected, by these debates. See below for the continuing debate.
73. Cited by Rogers and McKim, Authority, 169.
74. To which all Princeton faculty were required to subscribe; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 200-203, 279-80, 357-58.
75. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960) 1:154.
76. E.g., Hodge declared that "the Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of science. It is his store-house of facts; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches, is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches" (Systematic Theology 1:10)
77. Anti-intellectualism does not define fundamentalism, but represents a deep-seated and broad impulse in American religious consciousness. It does provide fertile ground, however, for fundamentalist arguments, as illustrated by Harold Lindsell in his widely read book The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970). In it, he attempted to win over the Southern Baptist Church to the inerrantist position by sounding the alarm against the critical biblical interpretation invading the seminaries. "Godly men through the ages," he argued "have come to the Scriptures without advanced theological training and have been better interpreters and more spiritual leaders than many who have undergone the most rigorous theological training" (7). Lindsell's is not the first, nor the last, attempt to rally devout laity against the seminaries, or to control intellectual inquiry.
78. See Garry Wills, Under Cod: Religion and American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990) 97-124, for a discerning analysis of the religiopolitical aspects of the trial.
79. Quoted by Wills, Under God, 112.
80. See George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991); cf. Sheppard, "Hermeneutics," 82-83.
81. See Donald K. McKim, The Bible in Theology and Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994) 52-62, 76-86; Mark A. Noll, "Evangelicals and the Study of the Bible," chap. 9 in Evangelicalism and Modern America, ed. George Marsden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) 103-21; and Sheppard, "Hermeneutics," for evangelical views and uses of Scripture.
82. Lindsell, cited by McKim, The Bible in Theology and Preaching, 89; see Noll, "Inerrancy," for a survey of evangelical debate over the term.
83. The "Chicago Statement" is a nineteen-article statement defining the "biblical and historic position on the inerrancy of Scripture," formulated by the International Conference on Biblical Inerrancy, an ecumenical assembly that met in Chicago in 1978. Norman Geissler, who edited the papers from the conference, introduces the "Statement" by highlighting the connection with authority: The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age .... Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority (Norman L. Geisler, ed. Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979] ix). In the statement, both "inerrancy" and "infallibility" are used to describe "the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture" (ibid., 493). See Articles XI, XII, and XIX.
84. McKim, The Bible in Theology and Preaching, 87-99.
85. Exceptions seem to depend on Roman Catholic contributors, exemplified by the final chapter in Gnuse, Authority, "Ecumenical Discussion: Scripture and Tradition," 113-21, and Avery Dulles, "Scripture: Recent Protestant and Catholic Views," Theology Today 37, 1 (April 1980) 7-26. Space is lacking in this article for an adequate review of the important series of consultations and documents sponsored by the World Council of Churches, in which both Roman Catholic and Orthodox views were represented, as well as a broad spectrum of Protestantism. See Flesseman-van Leer, The Bible.
86. Flesseman-van Leer, The Bible, 1-12.
87. Gnuse, Authority, 116.
88. Scholarly disputes generally remain within a common realm of discourse, however disparate the views; and they are not primarily governed by confessional differences.
89. See Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, "Feminist Perspectives on Bible and Theology: An Introduction to Selected Issues and Literature," Int 42 (1988) 5-18; Carolyn Osiek, "The Feminist and the Bible: Hermeneutical Alternatives," in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship, ed. Adela Yarbro Collins (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985); cf. McKim, The Bible in Theology and Preaching, 172-91.
90. Feminism is a complex movement uniting women inside and outside the church and in other religious bodies. Despite wide differences, most are united in condemning biblical patriarchy, and for many, including some feminist theologians and biblical scholars, this means rejecting the Bible's authority. Feminism is also characterised by an emphasis on the authority of experience, in particular, women's shared experience of oppression. Thus a key issue in feminist theology is the question of how this source of authority relates to the authority of the Bible and tradition. On the special problem of the Bible for Protestant feminists, see Mary Ann Tolbert, "Protestant Feminists and the Bible: On the Horns of a Dilemma," in The Pleasure of Her Text.' Feminist Readings of the Biblical and Historical Texts, ed. Alice Bach (Philadelphia: Trinity International, 1990) 5-23. There is no single feminist theology, and affinities with liberation theologies are not claimed by all feminists.
91. Feminists are not alone in questioning or rejecting the concept of authority. Rejection of authority has commonly been associated with liberal theology end a modern critical spirit. The association of authority with hierarchical systems of social organization and value is, however, closely tied to feminist analysis of patriarchy. Much of feminist, as well as general, critique of authority falsely identifies it with authoritarianism. Authority can be expressed in forms of mutual respect and obligation and does not depend on hierarchical structures or arbitrary exercise of power. For a feminist attempt at reformulating the concept of authority, and debate over the usefulness or necessity of the concept, see Letty M. Russell, Household of Freedom: Authority in Feminist Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987).
92. This is not a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture to awaken faith or serve as a ground and norm of belief; it is, rather, recognition of the inadequacy of all past knowledge.