Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2000 by Hasel, Frank M

Inspiration and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture. By Paul J. Achtemeier. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999, 166 pp., $9.95 paper.

The issue of the inspiration and authority of Scripture continues to occupy Christians of diverse theological persuasions. Nineteen years after the widely read publication of The Inspiration of Scripture: Problems and Proposals (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), distinguished scholar Paul J. Achtemeier has send forth his book a second time. It comes with some modest revisions and additions and under a new title. Achtemeier has added a short chapter on the authority of inspired Scripture (pp. 144-156) and slightly enlarged the discussion in the main body of the book to incorporate some pertinent literature and issues that have appeared since 1980. Unfortunately, however, he has drawn heavily on likeminded authors but has not adequately interacted with other scholars who have made significant contributions and proposed alternative solutions that take serious the self testimony of Scripture. The book now has footnotes rather than endnotes, which makes it very reader-friendly.

Achtemeier has not changed the thrust of his earlier argument. He skillfully proposes a doctrine of Scripture that seeks to maintain a unique status and authority of Scripture for its content and intention while at the same time accommodating and upholding historical-critical scholarship without falling prey to its excesses (p. 146). Achtemeier perceptively observes that "to lose the authority of the biblical witness is to become captive to the culture and its ruling norms" and points out that "the Christian community that abandons the authority of the biblical witness becomes little more than the mouthpiece of whatever current cultural norms catch its fancy" (p. 148). The key question-how can one maintain the canonical authority of Scripture so that it continues to play a meaningful role in the church while at the same time clinging to the discoveries of modern critical scholarship?-is tackled by Achtemeier in an attempt to transform and shift the process of inspiration from Scripture to the community out of which it grew and for which it was written (pp. 99ff.). For Achtemeier inspiration is located and occurs as much within the community of faith, out of whose experience traditions were formulated and reformulated, as in individual authors or the process of giving final shape to Biblical books (p. 102). The close relationship between community and Scripture indicates that Scripture cannot be understood in isolation from the community of faith (p. 103). This means that "the locus of authority lies beyond the text itself" (p. 147) and that the authority of Scripture is demonstrated not in the literary form in which it has been cast but rather in its power to create, shape, and author reality (p. 151).

Such a position raises several crucial questions. What is the nature and role of Scripture in theology? Is Scripture the sole source of its own exposition, or is the community of faith the authoritative interpreter of Scripture? It comes as no surprise that Achtemeier's earlier book was very well received among Roman Catholic scholars. Despite his attempt to maintain some form of canonical authority where the incarnation and the witness to other foundational events function as a rule for the faith of the church, Achtemeier frankly admits that "the canon does not give the kind of unanimous witness that would be necessary for it to function exclusively in a positive way, as an indication of content" (p. 154). This has repercussions for the issue of the unity and clarity of Scripture as well as for its real authority. Once the inspiration of Scripture is no longer acknowledged as coming from above and pertaining to some extent to the text of Scripture, the unique authority of Scripture as infallible Word of God and authoritative norm for the church cannot be consistently maintained. To elevate the proclamation of the community of faith and its witness to the living Lord to the level where it becomes "the word of God in all its timely relevance for the historic juncture at which we live" (p. 159) does not adequately account for any distortions and unfaithfulness in the proclamation and witness of the church. Without a divinely inspired Scripture as guiding norm, the proclamation of the church and its teachings becomes a "wax nose" whose actual shape depends on theological creativity.

Unfortunately, Achtemeier has not really advanced the discussion on the question of the inspiration and authority of Scripture in his revised edition. Instead we are left with a Scripture that has been muted to a "functional authority" (p. 146). To transform the lives and experiences of the community, however, Scripture needs to be joyfully acknowledged for what it really is: the living and authoritative Word of God.

Frank M. Hasel

Seminar Schloss Bogenhofen, St. Peter/Hart, Austria