{"id":2201,"date":"2011-07-22T15:04:02","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T22:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2201"},"modified":"2011-07-22T15:04:02","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T22:04:02","slug":"the-beauty-of-the-christian-faith-faith-introduction-sources-scripture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2011\/07\/22\/the-beauty-of-the-christian-faith-faith-introduction-sources-scripture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of the Christian Faith Faith: Introduction: Sources: Scripture"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the second part of the introduction.\u00a0 Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

The sources of Christian theology are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.\u00a0 Every variety of Christian theology draws on each of these sources.\u00a0 One of the first decisions we must make when thinking theologically is how to understand the nature of, and relationship between, these sources.<\/p>\n

If you grew up in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, for example, you might have believed that Christianity is all about \u201ctradition.\u201d\u00a0 If you grew up Protestant, particularly in an independent evangelical church, you might think \u201cscripture\u201d is the only source that matters.\u00a0 In fact, these poles are distortions.\u00a0 Neither pole properly reflects the interplay of sources in the historic Christian faith.<\/p>\n

It is true that Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants have had very different views about the role of scripture and tradition in relation to each other, and that this remains one of the basic differences between these streams of Christian faith.\u00a0 But properly understood, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism each emphasize both scripture and tradition as sources of theological authority, and each also in different ways draw on reason and experience.\u00a0 The perspective we will develop in this section is broadly Protestant, but we will also interact with Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views.<\/p>\n

Scripture<\/h2>\n

Scripture<\/em> is the canonical text of the Bible.\u00a0 By \u201ccanonical\u201d we mean those texts that Christians historically have recognized as authoritative.\u00a0 The Latin term \u201ccanon\u201d means \u201crule.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201ccanonical\u201d scriptures therefore are the \u201crule\u201d or standard for our faith and practice.\u00a0 For Protestants, this includes the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments.\u00a0 Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians also include some other books, some of which were written during the \u201cintertestamental\u201d period (between the Old and New Testaments).[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

The canon of Christian scripture was formed over an approximately three-hundred year period following the birth of the early Church.\u00a0 It included the portions of the Old Testament traditionally recognized as canonical by the Jewish people, as well as additional books written after the death and resurrection of Christ.\u00a0 Leaders of the early Church evaluated texts for inclusion in the canon based on whether the texts were \u201capostolic\u201d and consistent with the \u201cRule of Faith.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cApostolic\u201d meant that the book was believed to have been written by one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus (including Paul, who became an Apostle after Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection).\u00a0 The \u201cRule of Faith\u201d was a basic summary of Christian belief that emphasized the divinity, death and resurrection of Christ.<\/p>\n

This process of defining the Biblical canon took hundreds of years partly because there was not always full agreement on which texts met these criteria.\u00a0 This is an important point, particularly for those of us from independent Protestant churches:\u00a0 we only possess a \u201cBible,\u201d a canon of scripture, because the Church patiently evaluated different texts based on a tradition.\u00a0 The \u201cstory\u201d of Jesus \u2013 of his death and resurrection and his founding of the Church \u2013 predated the \u201cBible\u201d and in fact defined the \u201cBible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christians of various traditions agree that the Bible is not merely a human book.\u00a0 The Bible is \u201cinspired\u201d by God \u2013 it is \u201cGod-breathed\u201d (2 Timothy 3:16).[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Exactly what the \u201cinspiration\u201d of the Bible implies is a matter of debate, both within and across the different Christian traditions.\u00a0 Most Christians throughout history have always recognized that, although the Bible is \u201cinspired\u201d and is therefore not merely<\/em> a human book, it nevertheless is indeed a product of human authors and editors (\u201credactors\u201d).\u00a0 Modern Biblical scholarship continues to uncover the fascinating ways in which the cultural settings of the Bible\u2019s human authors and redactors informed their writings.\u00a0 Nevertheless, Christian theology asserts that because the Bible is \u201cinspired\u201d by God, it is uniquely trustworthy and reliable as the Church\u2019s text.\u00a0 The Bible is \u201cscripture,\u201d which means that we must read it, understand it, and apply it in a way that differs from a merely human text.<\/p>\n

As mentioned in the Introduction, even with this broad agreement about the Bible as \u201cscripture,\u201d Christians of different kinds agree that the Bible is a key source of theological authority, but we do not all agree on the precise nature and role of the Bible as an authority.\u00a0 All Protestants are heirs of the Reformation, which was an enormous and diverse theological, social, and political movement sparked in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.\u00a0 A central feature of the Reformation was an emphasis on \u201cscripture alone\u201d \u2013 \u201csola scriptura\u201d<\/em> \u2013 as the final source of authority for Christian faith and practice.\u00a0 This emphasis was part of the Reformation\u2019s break from the traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Sola scriptura<\/em> means that there is no source of theological authority that is higher than the Bible.\u00a0 It does not mean there are no other sources of authority \u2013 the slogan is not \u201csolo<\/strong>\u201d scriptura.\u00a0 But it does mean that, for Christians in the Reformation tradition, there is no court of appeal beyond scripture, and that no Pope or other person or institution can issue a finally binding statement about Christian faith or practice.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> A useful summary of differences among Christian denominations concerning which books are part of the Biblical Canon can be found here:\u00a0 http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Biblical_canon#Canons_of_various_Christian_traditions<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/a> The Greek work in 2 Timothy 3:16 is theopneustos<\/em>.\u00a0 Theo<\/em> is the root for the word God (theos<\/em>) and pneustos<\/em> comes from the root for the word \u201cbreath\u201d or \u201cspirit\u201d (pneuma<\/em>).\u00a0 This term is not used anywhere else in the Bible (scholars call this a \u201chapax legomenon\u201d<\/em> \u2013 literally, \u201ca word that is said only once\u201d).\u00a0 It is also a relatively rare term in classical Greek literature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m working on an adult curriculum titled “The Beauty of the Christian Faith.”\u00a0 It explores the basic elements of Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed.\u00a0 I’ll be posting excerpts as they’re done.\u00a0 Here’s the second part of the introduction.\u00a0 Prior posts can be accessed through the Beauty of the Christian Faith Page. Introduction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty-of-the-christian-faith","category-spirituality","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-zv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}