Some Descriptions of Biblical Authority

When one thinks of authority, all sorts of images come to mind. When one thinks of the authority of the scripture, there are usually three. I would call these the absolute authority model, the provisional authority model, and the limited-authority model. The absolute authority model is most commonly connected to passages like 1 Timothy 2:15 or Jesus’ proclamation that not one jot or tittle will pass from the law (Matthew 5:18) (although this is quite inexact because it attempts to retroactively include the New Testament. The idea that scripture is absolutely morally binding opens all kinds of issues, but those proponents who take up this view usually want to say something about the relationship between God and the text. Part of this is that the authority that one hears in the words of Moses, John the Baptist, Paul, or Jesus comes from God. But because we do not know for certain what was said, the only way to make such a claim stick is to consider the text authoritative. It is actually more important that the writers and not their subjects are inspired to speak authoritatively because these witnesses (whether to the subjects themselves or their stories) are what keep the book relevant. Fundamentalists and Evangelicals usually inhabit this world, which makes up roughly 15% of the entire Christian community, according to the most recent Pew Research Forum data. Those who find themselves in the provisional-authority tend to be liberals who want to remain in some way in touch with their religious communities or with Evangelicals who tend to be a bit more subversive. This model is best described as one in which the person who approaches the scripture does so not as supplicant but as part of the story. They tend to accept scripture as a sacred and holy manifestation of an encounter between God and his people, but the realities of its transmission history, the many typographical and contextual errors between manuscripts, the differing internal theologies of the Bible’s writers, and the differences in interpretations that form the bulk of philosophical and ideological disagreements in the communities place the bible in a very human context. Looking outward as well, those in such communities see the same patterns in other religious communities where divine inspiration and authority must be set in the context of very similar problems. This does not mean that the Bible’s authority is provisional in the sense that one deems when it is in his best interest to engage it or not, but rather that one engages it suggests that its authority is in the reception histories of the communities who participate. Authority is not about doling out commandments that one understands it is his obligation to receive, but about engaging them. The limited authority model is similar in some ways to the provisional authority model in that it also sees the human community as being the interpretative filter through which order is achieved. But the position here tends to completely filter out the divine and instead focuses on the ways the text has been transmitted as a human project barring any investigation of their faithfulness to the spirit of that encounter. This tends to be more classically liberal. This group is of course also squared out by the non-religionists who see all religious history as an imaginative hope and wish for life eternal. The authority is limited because although it is denied, it is still about the human community, a part of it that in the course of history and evolution still represents the community, for better or worse. It therefore acknowledges not its faithfulness to God but its faithfulness as a part of history to the genuine history of humanity.