A High View of Scripture? by Craig D. Allert was recommended by Shammah on his blog. If you haven’t checked him out, do so here. I put the book on my Christmas list and got it. Score.
I started reading it this past week and devoured the thing. The basic thesis of the book takes a detailed look at how we got the Bible we hold and the implications on the function of Scripture in the life of the Church, specifically how the Bible should function as an authority based on the genesis of what we now have as canon.
Caution: because of how some view the Bible, this book could seriously shake your faith …
Allert is correct by asserting that many evangelicals, because of their ignorance on the subject, have a feeling like the Bible was handed down to the Church by God Himself as this closed canon of work as if it just dropped down out of the sky.
Intense research into how these books and letters were eventually included in the canon paints an important picture of how the Bible was designed to function. This challenges modern notions of inspiration and inerrancy.
Not that Allert is saying the Bible is not inspired or not inerrant, but challenges the basis of why we believe that, and where the true authority of the Bible comes from. Here is where Allert brings the point home. The important concept of the book is that the corporate Church produced and approved of these documents, explaining and exemplifying doctrine they already held. In other words, things like apostolic tradition and corporate acceptance played into what books were chosen and which ones were left out more than some notion than God Himself appeared and chose them as canonical. Again, he makes it plain that this does not take away the work of the Holy Spirit in the process, just that the Holy Spirit was at work where it resides, in the Church.
So therefore the Bible is authoritative because it is a proper statement and product of the Church, in which Christ eternally dwells, the Church Christ built and established through the apostles. There was a successful, thriving Church that turned the world upside down before any of these documents in the New Testament were written, and it was almost 400 years before any need of a closed canon became a discussion and then reality into what we have as a Bible.
Because of an improper view of Scripture, most evangelicals can’t conceive of a thriving Church without the Bible. But it existed.
And yet that is the time and those were the men that produced these documents we hold dear and were ultimately included in a closed canon; therefore the Bible is an authority, but not separate from the Church. The Bible owes its authority to the Church, and the Church owes its authority to the Spirit, and that is Christ.
See how this could cause some to shake their faith?
I could say so much more, but I’ll leave you with those thoughts. I loved the book, but I already viewed scripture much in this light. I was already weird. I could put this book up there with Pagan Christianity and others that seriously question HOW we think about certain things that have been ignorantly assumed for a long time.
Peace.
I’m glad you reviewed this, Britt. I got irritated at the author at times for not properly introducing his arguments and then for repeating them too much. The guy’s obviously done his research, is obviously honest, and is obviously intelligent, so it was frustrating to me to feel like he peppered his arguments all over the book rather than presenting them systematically.
Nonetheless, I recommended the book because Allert knew what he was talking about, is an evangelical writing for an evangelical publisher, and even if his arguments are splashed across the pages, they’re there and they’re–to me–irrefutable.
So it’s encouraging to me to see that you got his whole message, liked it, and you didn’t have any complaints–at least not here–about how he presented that message.
I want to keep recommending the book because I don’t know where else to get that kind of breadth of quality information on the history of the Bible all in one place.
Sorry for commenting on such an old post. I missed this when you first put it up, and I only found it by following another link.
I love you guys. You’re doing an awesome thing! Much grace be with you!