Before examining the way in which Christianity accepted and modified the Judaic understanding of Scripture, we should first attempt to uncover the presuppositions and axioms in both the Judaic scripture principle and the developed criteriology of Christian faith. We distinguish two basic presuppositions and a set of axioms ingredient in each (Edward Farley and Peter C. Hodgson in "Scripture and Tradition." Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994., p 64).
The first presupposition is salvation history, a comprehensive interpretive framework implicit in the religious thought of Israel, Judaism, and Christianity. Salvation history interprets the past, present, and future of a particular people (Israel, the Church) as a sequential story whose development and outcome is determined by God. God, the transcendent world-maker, also exercises world-governance, construed on the political model of the rule of a monarch over a realm. God exerts causality over world affairs by means of specific and decisive interventions, including not only global historical events but also specific theophanies, miracles, acts of inspiration, and punishments and rewards of individuals. The two themes of governance and interference are interconnected, since governance requires activities of governance, and thus some capacity to intervene-to punish, to correct, to maintain, and to inspire (Ibid.).
The salvation-history scheme yields certain axioms that prove indispensable to the scripture principle. One of these is described as the "logic of sovereignty," or the "logic of triumph." God, the infinitely powerful world sovereign, is always able to accomplish the divine will either indirectly through the contingencies of nature and the finite purposes of human beings or, when necessary, by means of a direct causality that assures the attainment of divinely purposed ends. A second axiom has to do with the periodization of history and the fixing of the time of divine revelation. History unfolds through distinct stages, each of which has its place in the overarching teleology, while revelation is confined to a particular period in the past. The latter claim would not seem to be required by the salvation-history scheme, since revelation, as a concomitant of divine redemptive activity, could be construed as an ongoing process. After the Diaspora, however, Judaism looked back to the pre exilic history of Israel as the time of the giving of the Torah, which made it normative. Under the conditions of dispersal, there could be no new revelation to the people as whole since the people no longer existed as a landed nation, thus cultic and social life must be governed by a previously given law, now continually to be reinterpreted, applied in new circumstances , while waiting for the return of the people to the land and the coming of the Messianic king. Christianity adopted, uncritically it would seem, the axiom of a past epoch of divine revelation, although it had to reperiodize salvation history in light of its belief that the Messiah had appeared. It is said "uncritically" because the logic of ecclesial existence, oriented to the experience of the continuing redemptive presence of the risen Christ, would seem to require a different understanding of revelation (Ibid.)
The second presupposition may be described as the "principle of identity"- an identity that is, between what God wills to communicate and what is in fact brought to expression in the interpretive act of a human individual or community. The locus of identity is sacred scripture along with the laws, doctrines, and teaching authority pursuant to it. The qualities of inerrancy, infallibility, and absolute truthfulness are ascribed to both to its locus of identity and to its content. A synthesis is presumed to have occurred between the divine communicator and human recipients, a synthesis brought about by the causal efficacy of God in the form of "inspiration." Thus an identity of content is assured between what is divinely willed and what is humanly asserted. The content is primarily of cognitive character, containing information about God's nature, activity, and purposes. Clearly underlying the principle of identity is the logic of sovereignty: if God wills to communicate information about divine things, God has the means to ensure that the information is correctly received and handed on (Ibid.).
Three crucial axioms follow from the principle of identity. They are: (1) Secondary representation. Since definitive revelation is restricted to a brief period epoch of past history, a means must be found to ensure that the original deposit is preserved and handed on. The salvation-history scheme framework justifies giving secondary representatives authoritative status comparable to the original bearers, for it sets in motion an inexorable teleological logic of fulfillment which requires perpetuation. Thus, divine providence oversees the transition from charisma to tradition, from oral tradition to written deposit, from written deposit to definitive commentary, from commentary to institution. (2) Leveling- Originally, the identity resided in the content of the message, but later the focus shifts from message to vehicle, and the distinction between vehicle and content collapses. Now the whole of the contents and the vehicle itself are regarded as divine. Divine truth, in other words, is equally distributed throughout the vehicle, and all parts of the latter are accorded equal status. (3) Immutability-The identity cannot be occasional or provisional; rather it is universally applicable. What was given as true for the charismatic prophet or original apostle is immutably valid for all future generations. Tradition consists in the application of an unchanging law, gospel, or teaching to new times and places, an application requiring great interpretive ingenuity, such as the work of rabbis, theologians, church historians, and the like (Ibid.).
In Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, the oral tradition, which gave way to an inscripturated revelation, is considered as authoritative, infallible, and normative as the Scriptures themselves, since the Church, in their theology, was brought into existence by the Holy Spirit, and since Christ, through the Holy Spirit was present, guiding the Church through its leadership (Magisterium and the consensus of the bishops) prior to the writing of the Bible. To a certain extent, it can be said that the Magisterium in Roman Catholicism, and the consensus of the bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, are considered to be the "locus of identity" which defines the Church and its life, ministry, and theology.
In Protestant Christianity, there is no direct claim to give the Sunday School lesson books, or the doctrinal and theological books of the respective Protestant denominations and their institutions (Bible Institutes and seminaries), the same divine status as Scripture. These are considered, at least in theory, to be secondary or even tertiary sources of doctrine and theology, subordinate to Scripture. The major problem with these groups claiming the "authority of Scripture," is that they, in essence are following the "authority" of their particular biblical hermeneutic. In the case of the independent or so-called "non-denominational" Protestant or evangelical churches, is that it leaves room for private individual interpretations of Scripture, and then any "Joe Blow," or "Mary Jane" becomes the ultimate authority in the life of the Church because of some supposed "private pipeline to Heaven." The historic and mainline Protestant churches do not have a Magisterium as such, or a "consensus of the bishops," but they do believe there should be a "consensus" of inquiry by both lay and ordained persons in the formulation of a biblical theology.
One of the problems with the sacralization of Scripture in the Protestant tradition, as Swiss pastor and theologian Karl Barth pointed out, is the danger of "bibliolatry," i.e. worship of the Bible, rather than worship of the one who inspired it and speaks through it. Barth called those Christians who sacralized Scripture in this manner, of creating a "paper Pope," i.e. attributing to the Scriptures, what the Roman Catholic Church attributes to the Pope, i.e. inerrancy and infallibility.
The other problem with the notion of "biblical authority" in Protestantism, is the question as to whether these attributes are to be ascribed to only the original autographs or to the translations and versions as well. Protestant Christians who tend to go "by what the Bible says," ignore the history of the original biblical languages, the original autographs which have disappeared, the manuscripts (both earlier and latter), as well as the literary dependency of the translations and versions on those manuscripts.
So the question remains for us, as Christians, regardless of our ecclesial affiliation: What is the locus of our identity both as individual Christians and as a Church?
Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona
Past Professor of Theology
Tainan Theological College/Seminary
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