Paul J. Achtemeier's Inspiration And Authority

In Paul J. Achtemeier’s book, Inspiration and Authority, he offers an alternative view on the inspiration and authority of Scripture than that of the liberals and conservatives. He maintains that the inspiration of Scripture did not cease with the close of the canon but that it is ongoing due to new traditions developed out of an ever changing culture. To accomplish this, he looks at both the liberal and conservative view in detail, discusses how we obtained our Scripture and then briefly concludes with the implications of his theory and how it relates to the authority of Scripture.

In his chapter on the locus and mode of inspiration, Achtemeier discusses the three loci of inspiration (individual authors, the actual words, and the meaning that the authors intended to communicate) along with varying levels of inspiration such as Origen’s belief that Scripture is a combination of inspired material but also is partly made up of the author’s opinions. He also touches on differing beliefs on the mode of

inspiration such as Philo’s belief that authors were divinely possessed. Achtemeier discusses the view of inspired content and the thought that it is directly dictated to the author by God and how inerrancy connects to this this view of inspiration. Regardless of one’s view on inspiration, he contends that it affects one’s “certainty of faith, on the way the authority of Scripture is understood, on the way the unity of the Bible is expressed, and on the relationship between the Bible and revelation” (pp. 22-23) and that without a proper view of inspiration, a believer is likely to misunderstand other teachings within Scripture.
Achtemeier continues laying the groundwork on inspiration by examining two current schools of thought on the subject: the liberal view and the conservative view. The liberal view stresses the human side of inspiration espousing the belief similar to Origen that one must determine on his own when Scripture is inspired as God’s word versus when it is simply human words. Liberals believe that Scripture is only authoritative when it affirms their life experiences, making it a highly subjective view. However, Conservatives believe in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible, a view which has its roots in the belief that God is the source of all Scripture and that “because God cannot lie or contradict himself, the Bible cannot contain any error or inconsistencies” (p. 37). Their belief in inerrancy provides them with the foundation of their belief in the authority of Scripture. He lays out strengths and weaknesses of both views and ultimately declares that both are lacking. To understand these deficiencies, he provides the reader with a brief synopsis on how we obtained our Scriptures.
He begins by looking at secular writings of the time describing how they were often handed down orally over many years and came from many sources and links this process with the development of Scripture.

It is through this process that new biblical traditions were developed. The writers of the Gospels told Jesus’ story based on the audience for whom the Gospel was intended. He writes that “the word of God is a dynamic reality which does new things in new times and which is therefore not bound to the past” (p. 74). This dynamic reality allows us to truly understand the word of God and that conservatives’ attempts to harmonize away supposed discrepancies “lose the dynamic witness of the Scriptures” (p. 77). His view of Scriptures is one in which the form we have “is the form used and shaped by the community as it struggled with its own traditions” (p. 78) and we must understand Scriptures in the light of ongoing inspiration as we struggle with our

traditions.
In light critical scholarship, Achtemeier declares that proponents of the liberal view have, regardless of the evidence provided, “abandoned any final sense of Scripture’s authority” and that conservatives have refused to acknowledge any evidence unless it proves the inerrancy of Scripture. Regarding the prophetic model of inspiration, one in which Scripture was dictated to an author, he gives several reasons why he feels it is no longer a valid option such as the difficulty of identifying specific authors for many books and the fact that most stories began as oral traditions, not written ones. It is this critical scholarship, therefore, that moves him to propose an alternative locus of inspiration.
Achtemeier’s theory of inspiration is discussed in relation to traditions, situation and respondent. Traditions “are the means by which the community understands itself in relation to its past” (p. 109). He discusses the framework of biblical tradition and demonstrates that the development of traditions are ongoing, calling for “a faithful response to the past in the light of the changing situation of the present” (p. 111). As communities of faith are presented with new situations, they must review traditions and determine whether reinterpretation is needed. His example is that of the prophets that used existing covenant traditions, but reinterpreted them based on their new situation in order to harmonize the past, present, and future. His third component in his view of inspiration is that of the respondent, “anyone who contributes to the formulation and reformulation of tradition in specific situations” (p. 116). Having established his view of inspiration, he moves on to consequences of this view.
First, the Holy Spirit is always at work in the ongoing inspiration of Scripture for without the Spirit, “the Scripture remains mute in its witness to the truth” (p. 123). Second, inspiration is pointless until it is proclaimed, or preached. This continuing proclamation involves reinterpretation of traditions based on new situations as Achtemeier has already presented. He stresses that the proclamation must not happen in isolation, but within a community of faith. His thoughts on the nature of biblical content point away from the inerrancy of Scripture to its infallibility. He turns again to conservatives stating that the certainty can only come from God and “not in the form of Scripture, but in its content, and any attempt to give more importance to the former will in the end work counter to a certainty of faith” (p. 140). It is this content and “the effects the Bible has produced within humankind” (p. 142) that assures us of divine inspiration.
Having detailed his position on inspiration, Achtemeier moves onto the authority of Scripture. When looking at Scripture, we find that it points to Christ who then points to his Father as the ultimate authority. While liberals have abandoned the authority of Scripture altogether, the conservative view is too small because it points “to itself as the source of inerrant truth” (p. 146) rather than to the Father. Although it is the power of the Holy Spirit that “underlies the shaping of Scripture” (p. 147) and without it, “Scripture lies dumb at best” (p. 147). Ultimately, however, he professes that faith is what determines whether one believes in the inspiration and authority of Scripture. When
When describing the two poles of belief, I found Achtemeier’s view to be quite extreme with no option for any belief in between. I felt as if the chapter was quite unbalanced with the overwhelming majority of attention being focused on the conservative view. The passion for his opinion about the conservative view throughout the text could be mistaken for a sardonic tirade. Perhaps if the chapter would have been more balanced between the two views, it wouldn’t have felt so long and tedious.
I don’t know that I agree with his logic that the authors cannot be inspired just because we cannot identify authors for many books of the Bible.