The Bible as Holy Scripture

Abstract

The modern era has brought new elements to bear on the Doctrine of Holy Scripture: the centrality of Revelation and the character of the Bible as narrative. The first and second Vatican Councils exhibit these traits as much as do Karl Barth and Post-liberal theologians. This essay argues that the governing motif for a Doctrine of Scripture should be writing rather than speaking or disclosing, and Instruction rather than story. The pressure exerted by these modernist preoccupations has re-centered and deformed the proper weight and ordering of Scripture, diminishing Torah, elevating the Prophetic (historical) books, and bringing a Messianic reading of Scripture into sole possession of canonical interpretation. Paying close heed to Scripture's own self-identification as writing, as Book, brings the Five Books of Moses (the Pentateuch) to its proper place as head of the Scriptures, and places the New Testament as written text as proper complement to the Old.