A High View Of Scripture?: The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon, by Craig D. Allert

This book is a very useful one, but is likely to cause a great firestorm over the touchy issue of a canon as well as the dicey area of the legitimacy of our scriptures. Though the book is written for an evangelical audience, it is of use to audiences outside of that (particularly the Church of God view, which seems to have adopted, without a great deal of thought in the matter, the evangelical arguments for an extremely early canon). The book is sober and nuanced and modest in its claims, but that is not likely to make those who are not amenable to his arguments any more fond of what he has to say. For what it’s worth I think the book is well-argued, but it certainly provokes a lot of difficult questions on the authority and legitimacy of our particular body of scriptures [1].

The book does not pull punches. In particular, the book seems most determined to distinguish between the high respect for the books of the Bible as scriptures, given their own cultural context and understood on their own terms, and also in viewing the arguments between “the Church” (and the importance of “the Church” as a vital factor in nourishing scriptural understanding) and various heretical groups as existing on the plane of interpretation rather than canon. The book comments repeatedly that a closed canon would not generally be helpful in schisms because arguments exist mostly in the realm of interpretation (where the question is based on authority) and not on the realm of what texts are sacred in the first place.

The book as a whole seems to take aim at major weak points in the Evangelical mindset (many of these are also weaknesses in the Church of God mindset as well). For one, the book shows how an empty traditionalism leads to a lack of spiritual depth and to a loss of connection with the living roots of a genuine biblical faith. Additionally, the book shows the delicate and controversial relationship between the formation of our canon of scripture with a Church that was already fairly corrupt in the third and fourth centuries (and even beyond), bringing into question the fact that we trust that corrupt Church with questions of canon but not in other aspects (such as Sabbath observance or the nature of God). Additionally the author has some trenchant comments to make on the inexact way in which people view inerrancy, failing to consider that most contentious questions revolve around interpretation (who is allowed to interpret scripture and which rules and boundaries of interpretation are acceptable) and not questions of regarding the scripture as truthful.

This book is not strictly a canon history, but is rather a book that seeks to wrestle honestly and openly with the difficult questions of authority as well as a sincere attempt to understand how the early Church of God used scripture and meant by the term scripture. It would appear, from the author’s numerous citations, that “scripture” and “inspiration” included a wide variety of materials, not only in the Bibles we now hold, but including apocryphal and pseudographical works, aside from outright pagan sources on occasion. It would appear, though the author does not make precisely this case, that the apostles and especially the “early Church Fathers” partially accepted and cited and used a wide range of sources that agreed with their previously determined “rule of faith,” even if the authors themselves were only considered inspired by God in a limited or partial way. They did not appear to think of a closed canon as we do for many centuries. And even now the struggles we have over beliefs are not generally in the realm of what is accepted scripture, but rather who has the right to interpret them and which interpretations are considered orthodox or heretical.

And the author points out wisely that Protestants have an uncomfortable middle position in this particular struggle, enjoying the use of scripture to pillory obviously corrupt practices of the Roman Catholic Church but not enjoying the critiques that commoners or independent minded “sectarians” would give to them. The author would seem to argue that scripture cannot be divorced from a functioning church body that provides structure and order and that is strongly based on some sort of tradition that is outside of the strict and narrow reading of the scriptures themselves, as well as in speaking against the tendency of prooftexting or crude harmonization as ways to resolve the genuine difficulties of certain passages.

So, this book is an excellent one. It is well-researched, nuanced and careful in its conclusions, modest in its tone, provocative in its content, and full of fascinating and interesting tidbits of information (including the comment that the Greek Orthodox Church to this day does not include any lectionary readings from Revelation, a stark contrast to the high view of Revelation in certain religious traditions, including my own). In addition, it is fairly short (just under 200 pages, including its appendices) and easy to read. I highly recommend the book, especially to my more open-minded and historically inclined Christian readers, as long as you can read it without feeling insulted.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/a-vicious-circle/