What It’s About

In Scripture and the Authority of God, N.T. Wright explores the concept of the authority of the Bible, focusing not so much on whether or to what extent the Bible is authoritative, but on what “authority” should mean in the first place when it comes to reading, studying, and following the Bible.[1] Wright, a scholar of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews and a former Anglican bishop, writes from a Christian perspective and primarily, it seems, for a Christian audience, but also with a clear concern for the way the Bible is understood outside the Church and in wider culture. One of his central claims in the book is that the authority of scripture should be understood as “God’s authority exercised through scripture”[2] – that it is not a separate source of authority from the authority of God Himself, but is rather one medium through which God exercises authority over the whole of creation. Additionally, he argues that the overall form of the Bible, as that of a grand narrative, means that each passage ought to be interpreted with careful attention to its precise context within that narrative. Importantly, this narrative remains unfinished, with the Christians of today, in a sense, “improvising”[3] the final act. All of this has significant implications for how the Bible is to be understood, interpreted, and followed today, and Wright provides some suggestions for and examples of how these implications might be carried out in practice.

Wright bases his view of the Bible’s authority most heavily on two sets of evidence – the testimony of scripture itself and the role scripture has played historically among both Jews and Christians, especially during the centuries surrounding the life of Jesus. Citing passages in both the New and Old Testaments, Wright reveals that when the Judeo-Christian scriptures speak of “authority,” they most often point to God or Jesus as the ultimate authority, rather than to themselves, and because most of the Bible is not comprised of straightforward lists of rules or systematic theological formulations, but actually “can best be described as story,”[4] its authority is exercised primarily as story, or narrative. Additionally, the Bible usually describes God’s authority in terms of His sovereignty, or Kingdom, a concept which, Wright maintains, should be understood in reference to the problem of evil: “To speak of God’s Kingdom is . . . to invoke God as the sovereign one who has the right, duty, and the power to deal appropriately with evil in the world, in Israel, and in human beings, and thereupon to remake the world, Israel and human beings.”[5] It is this larger purpose – that of establishing God’s Kingdom and thereby fulfilling the original goodness of all creation – in which scripture plays a crucial role, both as a narrative record of the process of its fulfillment and as part of the means by which it is fulfilled.

In the ongoing process of God’s renewal of creation, it is Jesus who plays the pivotal role, who brings “the story of scripture to its climax.”[6] In the Gospels and other New Testament books, and in the view of the early Christian community even before the compilation of the NT, Jesus is understood to be finally ushering in, or inaugurating, the long-awaited Kingdom of God. This means that the New Testament was indeed new in the sense that it marks the promised renewal of God’s creation, complete with a newly expanded covenant people, new forms of obedience to God, and new understandings of previous scriptures. This point is key to Wright’s overall thesis because it helps explain how all of scripture can retain its authority even as some parts may no longer remain relevant or applicable to life in the way they once were. Among other things, it explains many of the apparent contradictions between the Old and New Testaments regarding specific prohibitions or prescriptions (e.g. circumcision, sabbath, monogamy). For Wright, as for the early Church, these are not flat-out contradictions but discontinuities arising as a consequence of changing circumstances in an ongoing narrative, a narrative which remains continuous throughout in other respects, not least in the overarching theme of God’s renewal of creation. For the early Christians, an important part of discerning just how to live both in continuity with the old and in light of the new was the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

So, what does all this mean for reading and following scripture today? Here, Wright seems to suggest that the basic principles applied by the early Church regarding scripture should be applied today, bearing in mind that there are significant differences between a 1^st century context and a 21^st and thus significant differences in the way these principles might appear in practice. In a sweeping historical sketch of the last 2,000 years, he outlines some significant changes that have occurred within the Church’s view of scripture, all of which together constitute a gradual abandonment of the early Christian emphasis on narrative and, in exchange, an increased use of the Bible as a rule-book or tool for individual devotion as well as increased dependence on additional or alternate sources of authority, such as “tradition” (in the medieval era) and “reason” (in the Enlightenment/modern era). Finally, the post-modern critique of the modern emphasis on objective reason and certainty has left us with a lack of clarity, polarized and fruitless debate, and general confusion in the present-day Church and the world. Wright’s solution to this problem is to return to an understanding of the “authority of scripture” much like that of the early Church – one which “offers a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to be implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community.”[7]

A Few Thoughts

I found Scripture and the Authority of God to be a stimulating and enjoyable read. In most places, Wright strikes a good balance in his writing, avoiding the overly-technical/specialized without sacrificing too much in clarity or detail where necessary. His central thesis is clear and well-argued throughout, with no lack of supporting examples or evidence. His perspective is refreshing, as he purposely avoids limiting himself to any one “side” in long-standing disagreements over the Bible. One of the most interesting and helpful sections is a short chapter in the middle wherein he lists common interpretive mistakes made by both conservatives and liberals in their readings of the Bible (I must admit, I identify with several on the liberal side), mistakes which he hopes can be avoided with the adoption of his interpretive framework and method. Also helpful are the two final chapters added to the latest version of the book, each of which provides an example of his theory put into practice in answering a particular question. The two questions he tackles are the sabbath (when, how, and why it should be kept) and polygamy (whether or not it should be practiced). These chapters are helpful not just because of the answers he provides, but because the way he arrives at those answers helps demonstrate the effectiveness of his framework in handling very practical concerns for today’s Christians. Finally, for those interested in further reading on this and related topics, he also provides a very helpful set of suggestions on where to start, including recommended versions of the Bible, reference works, commentaries, and other scholarship.

Concerning Wright’s thesis itself – that the authority of scripture is really the authority of God exercised through the ongoing narrative of scripture – I have mixed feelings. As I mentioned, I think it is clearly stated, well-argued, and well-supported. If I allow for some of the premises under which he seems to be operating, I find it quite compelling, and I hope more mainstream Christians read and consider his arguments and the implications they hold for Biblical interpretation. However, as someone who finds himself a fair distance outside mainstream Christianity, it is precisely his underlying premises that I find unconvincing. For instance, Wright seems to put a lot of stock in the idea that what Jews and Christians in the centuries around the time of Jesus believed about scripture is what we today should believe as well. He suggests some reasons for this, such as that scripture itself seems more internally consistent under such a view and that such a view gets us closer to the actual context in which various scriptures were originally written and received, and therefore closer to the originally intended meanings of those scriptures. I think these are both valid points so far as they go, but I don’t think they go quite as far as Wright seems to suggest.

First, the internal consistency of the Biblical narrative counts for a lot: it helps legitimize the New Testament as a continuation of the Old; it helps defend the legitimacy of both Testaments on the basis of their consistency with one another; and it helps to make the whole Christian view of history – the whole grand Biblical narrative – more coherent, reasonable, and plausible – in a word, more believable. This, as I said, counts for a lot, but it doesn’t count for everything. What internal consistency by itself doesn’t do is demonstrate external consistency; it doesn’t show definitively that the Christian view of history is actually the true view of history. This is because regardless of how internally coherent a narrative may be shown to be, it doesn’t by itself tell us much about whether that narrative is in fact true, whether it coheres with reality as well as with itself.[8]

Of course, Wright does not appeal to internal consistency alone, which leads us to his second point – that the Jews and Christians in the centuries around the time of Jesus were close to the context in which the NT scriptures were first written and read, and therefore provide us with the best perspective through which to interpret those scriptures. Again, however, this only takes us so far. So, when we read the Bible like an early Christian might have done, I think we can reasonably assume that we get closer to understanding how the writers of the NT intended their books to be understood, what the earliest readers of the NT books understood them to mean, and perhaps even how the star subjects of the NT books – Jesus and the apostles – understood themselves and their actions. However, I’m not convinced that any of this necessarily gives us a good idea of whether those understandings are in fact true, whether the claims of the NT regarding Jesus, God, and God’s Kingdom are to be trusted. To clarify, I am not suggesting that the NT documents are wholly untrustworthy or that they tell us nothing about real events or people. I think there is much in them that is valuable evidence, and all their claims should be taken seriously, not dismissed out of hand. However, I do think there is good reason to be skeptical of at least some of the claims they make, and where this is the case, it is important to go beyond the mere interpretation of scripture and open it to critical evaluation. To do this responsibly involves the consideration of all sorts of evidence – extra-Biblical historical evidence, archaeological evidence, textual-critical examinations of scripture, personal experience, and (perhaps most importantly) other views of history – alternatives to the grand Biblical narrative, against which it may be measured.[9]

So, where does this leave us? Should we view scripture in the same way as did the Jews and Christians around the time of Jesus? Here, the distinction between interpretation and evaluation is helpful, and I would suggest we consider this as two different questions. Should we interpret scripture in the same way as the early Christians? I think Wright makes an excellent case that we should. Should we ultimately believe that interpretation is true? This is a much more difficult and controversial question that is going to depend on all those pieces of evidence mentioned in the previous paragraph.[10]

Once we open the Bible to critical evaluation, another important question arises: Why should we consider the Bible as one cohesive unit in the first place? Why not focus on examining individual books (while recognizing that they are situated in a context shaped in large part by previous books)? Wright makes a good case for how the whole Bible works together to form one coherent narrative, but, as I have already argued, that doesn’t by itself mean that narrative is entirely true. Nor does it mean that if a part of it is false, the whole thing is false. Rather, parts of it could be false and other parts true, and there are ways to evaluate which are more trustworthy or reliable. As an historical problem, this has much to do with the process of canonization, the process by which the Bible came to be the Bible. Wright doesn’t spend much time in his book focusing directly on this process or whether it is to be trusted, but he makes it clear that, while the process is “no doubt complicated by all kinds of less-than-perfect human motivations,”[11] he trusts it implicitly.[12] This is a complex issue all its own, so without going too deep into it, I will just point out that it is very much questionable to many (myself included), for what I think are good reasons, that the books of the OT and NT canons are, in their entirety, reliable descriptions of real events or truths about ultimate reality. Even if we grant that the process of canonization was extremely reliable at identifying those books which are the most trustworthy based on historical criteria, this by no means indicates they must all be the inspired word of God.

This brings us to what is probably at the crux of many of my reservations about Wright’s book. The concept of the inspiration of scripture seems to me be integral to both the question of canonization and Wright’s central thesis. Wright himself links inspiration closely with canonization, asserting that through inspiration God has guided the various authors to produce the books of the Bible, and through canonization the Church has identified and set apart those inspired books.[13] Regarding Wright’s main thesis, inspiration helps explain how God can exercise His authority through human-authored texts, and thus how the Bible really can be God’s story about Himself rather than a merely human story about God. Inspiration thus helps explain a lot, but I don’t know that we should assume it to be at work throughout the whole Bible.

It is not that I am skeptical of inspiration in general. On the contrary, I have no doubt that inspiration occurs and occurs frequently – that humans find themselves suddenly aware of new ideas or insights and feel led or compelled to express them in some way. I am also quite open to the possibility that God is a source of past and present inspiration in humans. However, I am skeptical that the Judeo-Christian God is the only source of inspiration in humans or that we should responsibly assume all the books of the Bible were inspired by God. For that matter, I am not sure why we should rule out the possibility that all sorts of works outside the Biblical canon are inspired by God, whether in part or in whole.[14] Perhaps God is even inspiring works now; I don’t see why not. In short, it seems to me the idea of inspiration, which works so well as an explainer of how scripture might work as a medium for the authority of God, also serves to problematize the traditional Christian understanding of what counts as scripture in the first place. To put it another way, if scripture has authority at all, it is probably something like the sort of authority Wright describes, but especially if this is true, we need to take a hard look at what we include in or exclude from our scriptures and why.

The Bottom Line

If you are a Christian of any sort, I highly recommend Scripture and the Authority of God. There is much that Wright has to say that is informative, thought-provoking, and of practical interest for someone trying to understand and live out their faith today.

If you are a non-Christian, you are unlikely to be convinced to take the Bible or the major claims of Christianity more seriously through reading this book by itself, and you may be better off finding a work of apologetics, perhaps one that focuses on the historicity of the Gospels for a start.

If, like me, you are somewhere on the margins of Christianity, this book is certainly worth a read. Wright offers a refreshingly sophisticated analysis of both conservative and liberal views of scripture and some historically grounded, keen insights into how scripture can and should be interpreted more responsibly for today’s context.

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[1] Wright, N.T., Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (New York: Harper Collins, 2013).

[2] 21, 167.

[3] 127.

[4] 24.

[5] 34.

[6] 41.

[7] 115-16.

[8] The idea that a theory or set of set of propositions needs to be internally coherent in order to be reasonable or viable is sometimes called “coherentism.” I am not arguing here against coherentism in all cases but against coherentism employed alone, without other supporting evidence.

[9] I suggest that the consideration of other worldviews may be the most important piece of evidence to consider because it provides a much-needed wider perspective. In any investigation, when there is only one viable theory under consideration, that theory is the most reasonable by default. It always helps to have something to weigh it against, and there is a lot out there against which we can weigh the traditional Christian view of history.

[10] It is also worth noting that it was quite a controversial question in the few centuries after Jesus’s life as well. Most Jews of the time rejected the claims of the NT, presumably not due merely to a failure to understand what those claims were.

[11] 64.

[12] He goes on: “But, canonization was never simply a matter of a choice of particular books on a ‘who’s in, who’s out’ basis. It was a matter of setting out the larger story, the narrative framework, which makes sense of and brings order to God’s world and God’s people,” 64. Here Wright seems to suggest that the canon was chosen in part based on how well the books fit together into a coherent narrative framework. This makes sense, but I am concerned that if it was relied on too heavily (to the extent that other evidence was downplayed), it has led us to a sort of circular reasoning, whereby we trust certain books because they fit the overall narrative framework we’ve come to expect, and we trust this overall narrative framework because we have the books that fit it. In other words, I think it is open to the same criticism I would level against any sort of argument from internal consistency.

[13] As he puts it: “’Inspiration’ is a shorthand way of talking about the belief that by his Spirit God guided the very different writers and editors, so that the books they produced were the books God intended his people to have . . . The emergence of a ‘canon’ of scripture . . . was at its heart an attempt to track the way in which these books had become formative for the life of God’s people, to honor the fact that God had somehow given them to his people, and to remind Israel to honor them and attend to them appropriately,” 35-36.

[14] And, of course, there are some works which purport to do just that (e.g. The Qur’an, various Baha’i texts, and the Book of Mormon, to name a few).