High View of Scripture?, A: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon [Paperback]

This book is part of a series of works aiming to bring patristic scholarship to bear on problems in interpretation and proclamation for evangelicals. The author makes simple observations - that the canon of scripture was not solidified and closed by the second century (as Harnack claimed) and that there was indeed a church before there was a canon. The first of his two observations is more controversial than the second, but has better support from patristic sources. Allert challenges the dominant evangelical understanding of "theopneustos" in 2 Tim. 3:16 by recourse to the patristic sources that use the same apellative to describe phenomena unrelated to scripture.

This is not a book that offers easy answers to the difficult questions surrounding what we mean when we say that scripture is inspired. Also, I would have appreciated a bit more interaction with the source material like the review of recent scholarship on the effect that Marcion, Montanism and Gnosticism had on the development of the canon. But as an introduction is it quite sufficient and I expect to use the footnotes to guide further study of this area of interpretation.

I have been very grateful for the "Evangelical Ressourcement" series put out by Baker. To their credit, the series challenges many popular beliefs among Evangelicals regarding the nature of authority, church, scripture and tradition. One of the main critiques that is leveled against Evangelical Protestants is that their understanding of the nature of the Bible is highly ahistorical, anachronistic and circular, claiming the Bible is the word of God because it says so, without ever addressing how the Bible was written and collected together in the first place, totally ignoring the worshipping tradition of the early faithful. In such a view, there is no room for human agency. Such question begging is the wobbly leg of the chair, and this book seeks to remedy that problem without throwing the scriptural baby out with the evangelical bathwater. The author himself, by the way, is a committed Evangelical Christian, so he has no bone to pick with anyone. He is seeking to strengthen the case for a truly "High View" of the Bible that can bear historical critique and benefit from those who defended the message of Christ with their lives.

This addition to the series essentially poses these questions: "How did the Bible come about and what was the human activity involved in that process? And once we answer that question, what does that mean for our understanding of the nature and authority of the Bible?" While it is not always an easy pill to swallow, the truth is that modern American Christianity of the Protestant variety, and even the Lutheran Church in the more conservative synods (MS, WS), teach a view of the scriptures that is not in line with the early Church, and theoretically and functionally more akin to the Muslim view of the Quran. The author, Craig Allert, seeks to remedy this distortion by retracing the nature and tradition of the canonization of the Bible, and in particular the New Testament. In the process of this investigation, Allert covers some key doctrines of modern Evangelical hermeneutics (or their presuppositions) that he claims are in disjunction with the Apostolic/Patristic eras, and really with the Bible itself.

Challenging the idea that only those who hold to a verbal plenary understanding of inspiration can claim to hold a "High View" of the Bible, he shows convincingly that such a theory is not at all required to safeguard the inspiration of Scripture and is in fact not historically based and does a great deal to actually weaken the authority of the Scripture by providing critics of the Bible with straw men to flog and burn.

Here is a brief summary of his main points in chapter order: 1. Evangelicals have developed a mistrust of the historic tradition of the Church as a reaction to their understanding of Reformation history and the abuses of the Roman Church and also, more recently, in the reactionary theology that has characterized the movement since the mid-1800s. The narrowest narrowing of such a reactionary theology is centered around the nature of the Bible, which has become what I mentioned above- verbal plenary inspiration akin to the Islamic view of the Quran (the author himself never makes that comparison by the way, it's mine). 2. The canon was indeed open into the fourth century, although the influence of Adolf Von Harnak has tainted some to believe that it was closed by the end of the second. Moreover, the Rule of Faith (tradition) served as the true canon of the early church in defense against the heretics, not the New Testament. Canon does not equal NT. However, the criteria for scriptural canonicity had to do with how the Christians received the letters or gospels from the beginning and how they measured up against the tradition (Canon of Truth, Rule of Faith), and not as self-authenticating. 3 and 4. The Scriptures are the book of the Church, and they do not precede the Church like a pop-up book, and what constituted scripture in the early church differed from place to place and father to father- it was not a uniform collection; but that was fine, since the tradition safeguarded the gospel. 5. By examining lists of scripture, it is clear that it is anachronistic to claim that sola scriptura existed in the first four centuries. 6. Historical reflection shows us that we must trust that the Holy Spirit did not abandon the Church which formalized the canon of Scripture based upon her tradition. The Spirit is alive and active not only in the written word, but in the very life of the community which interprets the word. Scripture does not interpret itself, which is why sola scriptura was never used to combat the heretics, but rather the Rule of Faith was used to show how heretics were picking and choosing only the parts of the bible that suited their fantasies. This fact refutes the popular myth of a post-apostolic fallen church, a myth that was devised to divide the Scriptures from the Church, since much of the early tradition doesn't look Protestant (all those liturgies, saints, fasting, sacraments!). Moreover, the Bible does not give a clear teaching about what inspiration actually means, so we should be slow to make inerrancy the logical conclusion of it. In other words, we need to take the Bible on terms established by both itself and the community (Church) that created it by the grace of God, rather than imposing our own hermeneutical lenses upon it.

There is also a useful appendix that samples the fathers' writings to show that a closed canon of Scripture was not the case until the fourth century.

Other useful books include: Tradition, Scripture, and Interpretation: A Sourcebook of the Ancient Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future), Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future), Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought (Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future), Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants, Reading Scripture With the Church Fathers, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism and By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition. Enjoy!

Allert found it curious that evangelicals--and he calls himself one--rarely studied the historical process which formed the canon of the New Testament. For himself, he felt that "a high view of Scripture demands an understanding..of the Bible's very formation" (p 13).

About 1900, Zahn had argued that the canon was formed by the end of the 1st century. Harnack saw the canon as settled during the 2nd century, which became the standard approach for many evangelical biblical scholars.

As Allert dug deeper, he realized this was incorrect. In 1 Clement and the letter of Ignatius there are references to a common set of dogmas or tradition. "This tradition is guarded by the church leadership" (p 62).

Harnack may have argued that the canon was settled by the 2nd century, but the facts do not fully support this thesis. The church fathers cited many noncanonical literature as Scripture. Their view of what formed the books of Scripture was clearly broader than ours today.

In fact, "the Bible grew in and was mediated through the church...Scripture and church function together--they coincide" (p 84-5). He notes that Irenaeus stresses the process of succession from the apostles to the bishops. Against the heresies of the Gnostics, Irenaeus points to the body of doctrine proclaimed by the church as consistent everywhere.

A well thought out and well argued approach. Much recommended.

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