Thursday, January 05, 2006
Bible and authority part three
The next question follows on from the first:
How can any ancient text function as authoritative? If you were a Jew, wanting to obey the Torah (or, perhaps, obey the Talmud) you would find that there were all sorts of difficult questions about how a text, written so many years ago, can function as authoritative today. Actually, it is easier with the Talmud than with the Bible because the Talmud is designed very specifically to be a rule book for human beings engaged in life in a particular sort of community. But much of what we call the Bible—the Old and New Testaments—is not a rule book; it is narrative.
How can any ancient text function as authoritative? Well...First of all our definition of authoritative needs to be sharpened a little. A dictionary definition might look like this
1 able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable : clear, authoritative information and advice | an authoritative source.
• (of a text) considered to be the best of its kind and unlikely to be improved upon : the authoritative study of mollusks.
2 commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed : she had an authoritative air | his voice was calm and authoritative.
• proceeding from an official source and requiring compliance or obedience : aut horitative directives.
I'm struggling to find a fitting definition. Hopefully as I consider how the term works (as I'm doing in these posts) I'll find something that I can agree with and put into clear words.
A draft:
A text considered to be normative for the community that follows it.
I'm sure I'm stealing that from some long-forgotten reading.
I guess questions of the Bible and authority centre around how the text is considered to be normative.
So, how can an ancient text be authoratative? Firstly, I'd suggest one needs to trust that ancient text. Without a reasonable level of trust, one should not let any influence become authoritative. I, personally, (and can I suggest for the Christian church?) place my trust in the corpus of Christian tradition. This has its own problems, but for now it serves me well.
In terms of application I'd suggest the following starting points.
a) Immersing oneself in the words and, to the best of our ability and knowledge, in the world of the text.
This can be done through study and prayer. There can be no better way to do this than to listen to and read the Biblical stories, laws and poetry; read similar stories set in that time and place; and discuss, study and pray.
b) Finding truly comparable cultural situations before trying to apply anything.
We must be part of culture and apart from culture in order to understand it. Being in our culture allows us to feel the pulse of life; being critical of it allows us to see strengths and weaknesses and how to apply the authority of the Bible.
Both propositions above are rooted in Fee and Stuart's quote, "A text can never mean what it never meant".
c) Looking for "scripts" to live from rather than rules to follow.
More on this in part four, but perhaps a spirit-led way to invoke the story of God in our lives is to live out of that story.
NOTES:
Bible and authority part one: here
Bible and authority part two: here
Bible and authority part four (a): here
Bible and authority part four (b): here
Read NT Wright's essay here
2 Comments:
Thanks for your thoughts...it's certainly interesting how the medium of blogging demands short "posts" rather than extended "articles".
I appreciate that we, as individuals, may not find fresh insight from the Bible at various times. For me, I couldn't re-interpret that as meaning it wasn't authoritative.
I wonder where your definition of authority would leave faith communities -- especially our 'christian' communities.
We'd be held together by the name of Jesus, but trying to decide what that means would be even more difficult that it is now...and it's difficult now!
But the timeless truth certainly has to be presented in an understandable way. Great point.
There's a big part of me that wants to jump onboard with the naivette, but I worry about losing the challenge and alien-ness that the bible brings. Perhaps we're back to the issue of large group process vs small group process. A small group can self-correct, where a large group is less likely to do so.
I agree the Bible's been abused in the past and present. It will certainly be abused in the future. But I think removing it from Christianity will bring more abuse into God's family rather than less.
It's pastoral issues like these that make me interested in how the Bible can be seen as an authority.