Authority In The Bible

Scripture has throughout time held inherent authority with the people of God. The Old Testament Israelites clinged to the Torah as their perpetual connection to Yahweh. From the book of Matthew onwards the Old Testament, especially the Law, were held dogmatically by Judaism while the newer writings, the New Testament, were not only rejected but opposed violently when the Christians began to view the newly penned books as inspired. Moving past the first century into contemporary times it is still observed that the Bible, the Word of God, holds a place of life-altering authority in the minds and hearts of the Judeo-Christian religious. What however does it mean for the scripture to “have authority?” In Scripture and the Authority of God N. T.

Not a few people hold that the Word of God is merely one type of authority in the timeline of humanity. Whether this one type is devotional, as in nourishment for the soul, informational or nourishment for the fact-driven portions of the human mind especially the Jews whose lineage was utmost. The most common authority viewed about the Bible is the idea of a “court of appeals” where an individual may have idea and subsequently “check” to see if the idea or thought was “biblical.” Humans are constantly concerned with being “right” or having the “correct” answer regardless of whether they do or not. In Wright’s perspective using the authority of the scripture as a court of appeals is particularly dangerous due to improper interpretive methods leading to proof-texting and/or

Ultimately this way of thinking resulted in such a total chaos of biblical reading and understanding due to the lack of control this method possessed. A few scholars of the scripture took it upon themselves to put an end to this, thus begins the Reformation. One of the primary tenants of the Luther’s Reformation in Germany specifically was the idea of Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone. Luther’s idea then was to adjust the method of interpretation from the “four senses,” to the “literal” sense. Literal in terms of authorial intent driven contextually.

Finally the Enlightenment approaches which changes biblical interpretation yet again; only this time the contemporary church lives still in its wake. As human reason and experience makes its way into the minds of humanity in the Western world as a source of authority the scripture, and therefore God, loses position. Postmodernity is characterized by authority in a person’s life being subject to the individual which can fluctuate as often or as infrequent as desired. Authority, in reality, means very little in this