Deeper understandings Authority of the Bible A conversation between—and for—Lutherans
Editor’s note: This series is intended to be a public conversation among teaching theologians of the ELCA on various themes of our faith and the challenging issues of our day. It invites readers to engage and dialogue with the ELCA’s teaching theologians.
The series is edited by Philip D.W.
Krey, president of the Lutheran Theo- logical Seminary at Philadelphia, on behalf of the presidents of the eight ELCA seminaries.
By Diane Jacobson and Erik M. Heen
Diane Jacobson: To tell the absolute truth, I’m always a bit nervous about addressing the issue of the authority of the Bible for us as Lutherans. My nervousness stems from the tendency to make this into a very theoretical and cerebral conversation about getting our theology straight. The discussion tends to end up in a very American argument about what the Bible is. My sense is that as Lutherans we are far more interested in what the Bible
does, rather than what the Bible is. Does this ring true to you?
Erik M. Heen: Yes it does. When people talk about the “authority” of the Bible, they often assume it func- tions something like a casebook of precedent in legal decisions. That is, the Bible gives very specific guid- ance on how all people should live their lives (so the Ten Command- ments end up on courthouse walls) as well as order church life. Not only is the biblical sexual ethic normative for all, women should not be priests and so on.
The sticky wicket here is the lan- guage of the ELCA’s constitution: “The church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments as the inspired word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith and life.” This language is open to a vari- ety of interpretations. The important question, of course, is how the Bible defines our “proclamation, faith and life.”
Jacobson Heen
Jacobson is the director of the ELCA Book of Faith initiative and professor emeritus of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., where she taught from 1982 to 2010. Heen is professor of biblical studies at the Lutheran Theological Semi- nary at Philadelphia where he has taught New Testament and Greek since 1996.
20 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Jacobson: I think we do have some clue about how this works from our tradition and its concern about what the Bible does rather than what the Bible is. The Bible functions as the word of God in our proclamation, faith and lives insofar as God speaks to us through the Bible. And the cen- tral word that God speaks to us in the Bible is Jesus.
As Martin Luther says, in the
Bible “you will find the swaddling clothes and the manger in which Christ lies.” The Bible doesn’t just point to Jesus, it births Jesus in our hearts, lives and communities. Would you say this differently?
Heen: Maybe just ever so slightly. I restrict “Jesus” language to refer to the historical person of the incarna- tion. “Christ” language seems better to express (a) pre-existence (e.g., 1 Corinthians 10:4)—because Christ is at the center of the Old Testament as well as the New—as well as (b) the presence in all times and places of the risen Lord. In the great Emmaus story of Luke 24, Cleopas and the other dis- ciple, who had been engaged by the risen Christ, go back to Jerusalem and discover that the other disciples were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon!” In other words, the risen Christ isn’t bound by time and space in the same way Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, was. I don’t think your use of “Jesus” language is wrong. Yet for me “Christ” language resonates more deeply when it comes to express- ing the real presence of the Christ of Scripture. Secondly, the metaphor of the “birthing” of Jesus begs some com- mentary because, as the Lutheran emphasis on law/gospel suggests, our hearts aren’t naturally receptive to the word of God. One example is Paul who, when he first heard the gospel of Christ crucified, responded by persecuting the church. Even before Damascus, Paul had a very “high” understanding of the authority of Scripture. He used Deu- teronomy 21:22 as a prooftext against the Christian claim of a crucified Messiah of Israel (Galatians 3:13). Post-Damascus, Paul’s understanding of the authority of Scripture evolved into something completely different. The cross had become revelatory of God, turning upside down his
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76