Yarr! – The Weblog of Bob Heffernan

With regard to the idea of `perspicuity’ it seems to me that the history of Biblical interpretation rules this idea out of court. The scripture is evidently not clear and what one takes out of it depends strongly upon one’s context and the hermeneutical tradition to which one is heir.

The only way scripture can ever be `clear’ is through the action of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that any doctrine of scripture that wishes to argue that the scripture is in any way `clear’ must take the Spirit into account. This suggests that any doctrine of scripture is linked in a fundamental way to a doctrine of the Spirit, not just in the initial process of the writing of scripture but in the continual state of these inspired writings existing as scripture.

This raises issues of hermeneutics. Might it be necessary for a doctrine of scripture to take into account not only the documents themselves as scripture but the readings of those documents as, in some sense, scripture also. Can one read scripture as scripture without the Spirit mediating?

While we have no wish to dismiss flippantly the notion of verbal inspiration there are several indications that this doctrine may not correspond entirely with that of the apostles and early believers.

First there is the issue of translation. The earliest believers read and quoted from the LXX with impunity. There are several instances in which NT quotations of the Old Testament (LXX) are different from the reading we find in our Protestant bibles (where the OT is translated from the Masoretic text). In some instances the differences are quite large, although perhaps never to the point of contradicting the point being made. While the early believers would have been fully aware that the LXX was a translation this does not seem to have caused any occasion for pause. This makes one wonder how important the idea of verbal inspiration could have been to the early believers.

Secondly, with regard to statements about the `original autographs’, since we do not and never will have possession of these original autographs any assertions about verbal inspiration or any other properties are purely hypothetical. It seems to me that there is little point in basing any aspect of our doctrine of scripture on hypothetical documents. Any doctrine of scripture we espouse must deal with the actual documents were are dealing with and the actual means by which they have been transmitted. Moreover, since the early believers seem to have made little or no attempt to preserve these autographs it is unlikely that they were held in particular regard, over and against copies made from them.

Thirdly one might mention errors of grammar on the part of Paul, but this is perhaps a trifling point.

On what basis can we construct a canon of the New Testament? If we are to accept the ruling of the various councils, on what basis can we than say that scripture is the only authority for the church? On what basis can we say the canon is closed, or even should be closed?

Apart from Peter’s endorsement of Paul’s letters (including, perhaps, letters that are no longer extant) as scripture and John’s claim to have been told to record his Revelation (which is a claim to be writing scripture) we have little in the way of internal biblical evidence for the idea of a New Testament canon or for the idea that the NT writers believed themselves to be writing scripture. This is a later development. It is clear, however, that most of the NT writings were written as public documents and were intended for wide circulation.

Why subscribe to a notion of canon at all? There seems to be no evidence that the NT writers themselves did.

Apart from possible issues with the canon of the Old Testament (discussed in the previous post in this series) there is a definite problem when it comes to deciding exactly what constitutes the canon of the New Testament. The modern evangelical view of scripture is epitomised by the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, which states as one of its theses:

`We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.’

However, the canon of scripture was a product of early church councils. In this way, acceptance of the New Testament documents as scripture is a product of the very church councils that modern evangelicalism is otherwise (and justly) wary of. It seems to me that there are two options:

1. One can accept the decisions of the councils as binding in this matter and, consequently, as binding in their other proclamations also. It is difficult to justify a situation where the ecumenical councils spoke with authority only with regard to scripture. Modern evangelicalism has often tried to evade this point by arguing that the councils merely confirmed the status of what everybody already recognised to be scripture. However, this provides no basis for contending that the canon is now closed (since the closing of the canon was exclusively a function of the ecumenical councils).
2. Alternatively one must provide some other grounds for arguing for a fixed, and closed, canon.

[I am starting a series on Scripture which I will add to every few days for the next few weeks. It is my hope that these posts will generate some discussion, so if you're the sort of person who reads my blog but never comments, now is your chance...]

The question of the canon of the Old Testament is the first we must deal with. It seems to me that we can affirm that Jesus and the apostles would probably have considered all of the books in our canonised Old Testament as scripture. However, whether they would have considered other books besides these is open for debate, and whether they had much of a notion of canon at all is difficult to decide.

While it seems doubtful that there was a settled canon of the Old Testament during the time of Jesus it seems clear in the Gospels that Jesus accepted, without qualification, the existence of scripture. From his quotations and allusions to the Old Testament we can ascertain that he would have considered most (and so, probably all) of what we now call the Old Testament to be part of Scripture. It might be the case that Jesus accepted as scripture some books that were not added to the canon (some of the non-canonical portions of the LXX, for instance) but we have no direct evidence for this. He sometimes quoted scripture as the words of God and so clearly held to some notion of inspiration. So, it seems safe to say that what we now call the Old Testament is likely to have been accepted as inspired Scripture by Jesus himself.

When it comes to the attitudes of the apostles and early Christians it is again quite clear they held the same view. We have the clear evidence for Paul’s attitude — for example, in 2Tim 3:16: `Every scripture is inspired by God …’ — and we have an abundance of evidence throughout the Acts and the epistles in the way that the New Testament writers quote from and talk about Old Testament writings. Again, as with Jesus, the words of David, for instance, are sometimes referred to as the words of God and so there is again some notion of inspiration operating. The New Testament writers do, on occasion, refer to what would now be considered non-canonical writings and so there is some evidence that their canon might have been more inclusive than ours — perhaps comprising the entire LXX — but again this is difficult to say.

It is possible that the apostles and early believers, and perhaps Jesus himself, had no idea of `canon’ and may have seen scripture as something that could be added to. This is suggested by Peter’s willingness to consider the letters of Paul as scripture (cf. 2Pe 3:16).

An important question raised by the idea of `New Testament Christianity’ (see my last four posts) is the following:

• What is the place of the Bible in this framework?

This is an important question. If our aim is to live our Christian lives in the way that the Christians we read about in the New Testament did then we must recognise the fact that, while they held the Old Testament scriptures in high regard, they were not a ‘people of the book’. If we are to insist that there is no difference between the church prior to the closing of the canon and the church after the closing of the canon then several issues emerge. Why should we insist on such a thing as the canon of scripture in the first place? If we are going to profess suspicion of many of the developments of post-Constantinian Christianity, or even post-apostolic Christianity, why should we accept the rulings of the ecumenical councils on the matter of canon. If we really are to live in the same way as the first Christians, who had no New Testament, what place does the New Testament have in our Christian lives? Moreover, might it not be argued that the settling of the canon went hand in hand with the hardening of the hierarchical bishop-centred forms of Christianity that began to emerge after the first generation of Christians. If so, does a rejection of this hierarchical ecclesiology not necessitate a rejection of the idea of a New Testament canon?

To put it simply, the question is this: The earliest believers got along fine without a New Testament and relied primarily on the Spirit to teach them (through men such as Paul whom the Spirit equipped for this purpose). Why can’t we do the same?

Also, the existence of a New Testament surely gives rise to a dramatic change in ecclesial structure. Whereas before we have the spirit speaking through and to the church at large in a dynamic manner now we have scripture as a final and authoritative record of the spirit’s speaking. This gives rise to the need for the pastor as teacher/preacher whose job it is to interpret the scriptures for the church.

Rather than answer these questions, I think I will embark on a small series of posts outlining some issues and questions I have in this area. I am uncomfortable with the position many protestants seem to take, viz. we reject the idea that ecumenical councils have any authority and affirm that scripture is the only authority for the church. Well, ecumenical councils have authority in only one area, that is to decide what constitutes scripture. That is to say, we trust them on this one but nothing else. Those creeds might be nice, but need to be subjected to scripture. Why? Well…

It has always seemed to be an inconsistency that lies at the heart of much protestant thinking about the church and about God speaking. Not that I feel the need to reject scripture, but I am beginning to feel the need to restate and rediscover my ideas about it. My father and I have been discussing this sort of thing recently so in the next while I will trot out a few posts on scripture and questions I have in this regard to see if it generates any discussion.