"How the NT Uses the Old" in Marshall, ed

Since the authority is divine, it is both final and timeless. It is final in the sense that on matters of revelation it is the last court of appeal. The Bible takes precedence over tradition, creeds, churches, philosophy, psychology, and even sys­tematic theology. This authority is timeless in the sense that changing cultures or circumstances do not abridge it; it is as binding in the 20th century as in the 1st. The authority is inherent and un­changing, therefore not subject to the fluid tides of human thought.

This authority is limited to the Bible itself; it does not extend to its interpreters or to particular theological opinions. These lesser authorities are relative because they do not possess the same kind or degree of inspiration which God invested in the Holy Scriptures.

Furthermore, biblical authority is in each part only as it is properly related to the whole. Some parts of the Bible, when isolated from the whole, may carry no divine authority at all, then or now, as for instance, words of Satan or foolish or evil men.

Or, the authority of parts in isolation from the whole may be obsolete; the parts were relevant to a particular time and place, and no longer are binding, e.g., the requirement to attend the an­nual feasts at the Tabernacle or Jerusalem.

The locus of biblical authority keeps step with the unfolding stages of progressive revelation. In that locus, and surrounding it, are some strands of truth which are cumulative, gathering power and radiance until they shine in the effulgence of Christ's glory. The NT gathers up these strands into itself and transmutes them into gospel. Though ancient, going back to Moses, David, or the prophets, they are never outmoded. Even so, the authority of their OT strands is in the light that Christ shines upon them.

Equally, there are other strands in the OT which are finished, because fulfilled, to be qui­etly laid aside as a spent garment. To distinguish old wine which has become new from old wine­skins which are to be discarded, is a primary task of biblical interpretation. Only as this is properly done will our understanding of biblical authority be truly biblical.

Furthermore, the authority of the Bible is rele­vant to matters about which it claims authority. This means that its authority is absolute in two basic areas: what we are to believe (of a religious nature), and how we are to live. More specifical­ly, it is authoritative in its teachings about God, man, sin, God's plan of redemption of Christ, God's provision and will for man now, and God's program for the future. Hence culture, morals, social relationships and institutions—including the Church, the family, and the state—as well as the substance of doctrine (truth), all come within the province of biblical authority. The fi­nally authoritative answers to such questions as, What is man? Why is he here? or What is his des­tiny? are to be found only in the Scriptures. Sci­ence offers additional information, e.g., man's chemistry and anatomy; but only the Bible can inform man about himself at deeper levels.

Biblical authority, moreover, is not only dy­namic, in governing those who read it, but aca­demic, in assuring its own internal integrity. That is, events which the Bible narrates as plainly his­torical are to be accepted as historical. Yet be­cause the Bible contains literary forms of story, parable, and drama, aimed to teach spiritual truths rather than record actual happenings, careful discrimination is needed.

This caution notwithstanding, the Genesis ac­count of origins should be accepted as author­itative. There are in the narrative chronological gaps, no doubt, and certainly the material is highly selective; moreover, there are some events which bear symbolic and typological meanings imbedded in their historicity. Nevertheless, the sober teaching is that the human race began with a primal pair in a God-prepared garden, living with a challenging assignment and under an im­posed law; that they disobeyed, thereby plung­ing themselves and their posterity into an incredible morass of sin and depravity, and thereby precipitating all the complex actions of the Triune God which we call Redemption. This is history, the truthfulness of which provides the spine and continuity of everything which fol­lows, from Genesis to Revelation: and this his­tory we are to believe. It is a teaching guaranteed by biblical authority.

It is sometimes said that the Bible is culturally conditioned. This is true in the sense that many



BIBLICAL CRITICISM, LOWER—BIBLICAL INERRANCY

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While apostolic regulations for the adminis­tration of the Church in that culture were in­spired, and still authoritative in principle, they were not in the same category as the Decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps the differ­ence may be somewhat similar to the federal Constitution, applicable to a nation, versus county or city ordinances, applicable to the local situation, and readily subject to change.

See bible, inspiration of the bible, proposi-tional revelation, propositional theology, pro­gressive revelation, bible: the two testaments, biblical inerrancy, canon.

For Further Reading: Taylor, Biblical Authority and Christian Faith; Pinnock, Biblical Revelation; Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and Its Authority.

Richard S. Taylor

BIBLICAL CRITICISM, LOWER. See textual

criticism.

BIBLICAL INERRANCY. In recent years inerrancy has come to replace infallibility by those who wish to place emphasis on a "high view" of bibli­cal authority. Obviously the term inerrancy means "without error," as its synonym infallible means "without fault." Both mean "without mis­take." The insistence on inerrancy is based upon the conviction that to admit the presence of mis­takes in Holy Scripture carries with it a diminu­tion of biblical authority. The argument runs: God is true and since the Bible comes from the God of truth, it contains nothing untrue. This fol­lows a deductive pattern of thought: Given the premise (inerrant Source), the consequence is logical (inerrant Product).

No one disputes the fact that our extant copies of Scripture contain errors, but most if not all of these are attributable to the human errors inevi­table in transmission and translation. Thus advo­cates of inerrancy limit their claim to the "auto­graphs." By "autographs" is meant the original documents direct from the hands of the canon­ical writers: prophets, apostles, lawgivers, wise men. Unfortunately none of the "autographs" are extant; they are not available for our inspection. Therefore to attribute to them inerrancy is to project from extant documents the prototypes to which extant scriptures are believed to bear wit­ness.

It is thus apparent that "inerrancy of the auto­graphs" must remain to a large extent a matter of faith rather than something demonstrable. Many who affirm inerrancy admit that such things as genealogies and the dates of the kings may have been copied from written documents which were not wholly free from errors of detail which the divinely inspired author-editor was not led to correct.

Some evangelicals would limit the concept of inerrancy to matters of "faith and practice." This implies that in the areas of scientific and histori­cal detail, inerrancy is not needed; but in matters pertaining to salvation, freedom from error is re­quired and is demonstrable in the canonical Scriptures.

Does the Bible claim for itself inerrancy? One may answer yes with certain qualifications. Scriptures do not pretend to present technically scientific data. Instead allusions are often made to the cosmos in pictorial terms (as today when we speak of seeing the sun "rise" in the east). Yet the Bible's basic cosmogony cannot be detached from its theology.

Jesus emphasized the importance of Scriptures and their fulfillment (Luke 24:44). The NT writ­ers refer constantly to the Scriptures as being fulfilled in the new covenant. They had no hesi­tancy in attributing to the OT full and complete veracity. In spite of the difficulties encountered in an affirmation of inerrancy, the alternative— to conclude that the Bible contains statements contrary to fact—seriously undermines its claim to faith and obedience. A widely accepted for­mula comes from the Lausanne Conference, which includes the statement: "without error in all that it affirms." The student today can scarcely make a more responsible statement of inerrancy.

See inspiration of the bible, biblical authority, bible: the two testaments.

For Further Reading: Beegle, The Inspiration of Scrip­ture; Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible; Taylor, Biblical Authority and Christian Faith.

George Allen Turner



BIBLICAL REALISM. The term is largely alien to continental theologians although such men as Oscar Cullmann and Otto Piper are correctly identified with it. The main body of British and Scottish scholars are comfortable with this ap­proach, especially such men as C. H. Dodd and James Denney.

Standing somewhere between radical liber­alism and conservative orthodoxy, the biblical re­alists seek to discover the essence of early Christian faith and apply it to contemporary life. The biblical realists accept the NT as, essentially, records of that which the Early Church believed and for which they died. Pressing through to the essence of the gospel, these men seek to apply these truths to 20th-century situations. Biblical realists neither depreciate the methods and con­clusions of historical criticism nor the truth of di­vine inspiration in their insistence that the content of the message is far more important than the matters of authorship, chronology, or the exact wording in which the message was couched. Convinced that the task of the Church is to announce rather than to adjust the message to its generation, biblical realists concern them­selves with the essence of the biblical message.

See hermeneutics. propositional theology.

For Further Reading: Ramm, A Handbook of Contem-
porary Theology, 22-23; Henry, Baker's Dictionary of
Christian Ethics, 403. FOREST T. BENNER

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY. Amid competing defini­tions, biblical theology may be said to be that branch of theological study in which the affir­mations and implications of the self-revelation of God recorded in Scripture are given coherent conceptual expression. This assumes that the * Christian Scriptures are bound together by a cer-' tain community of themes, concerns, and catego­ries such as can find expression in a recognizable conceptual unity. Even where individual theolo­gies are discerned (e.g., the theology of Paul or John), it is assumed that these can be subsumed in some fundamental sense under a single um­brella. Indeed, if this be denied, biblical theology would seem to be impossible in any meaningful sense. A further assumption is that in an impor­tant sense biblical theology is normative for the Christian faith. The way in which it is so has been variously defined, but that it enters indis­pensably into the formation and formulation of the Christian faith is beyond question. We may say therefore that biblical theology is the middle term between the record of revelation in Scrip­ture on the one hand and systematic theology on the other.

History. Biblical theology as a distinct disci­pline developed as a reaction against system­atized formulations of the Christian faith which were felt to impose on Scripture an alien and life­less rigidity. Of critical importance was the con­tribution of Johann Philipp Gabler who, in a lecture delivered in 1787, distinguished the his­torical aspect of biblical theology (i.e., what the biblical writers thought) from the normative (i.e., what the Bible as a whole teaches). The effect of this distinction was threefold. ,Firsf, biblical re­ligion as man's faith-response to God's self-revelation was distinguished from biblical theology understood as a correct conceptual ex­pression of the same. Second, the historical condi­tioning implicit in the progressiveness of God's self-revelation raised the possibility, not only of theological diversity among the biblical wit­nesses, but also of distance between their mind and that of readers in later centuries. Third, a clear distinction was made between biblical the­ology on the one hand and systematic theology on the other, the former being viewed as an in­dispensable, though not the sole, component in the latter.

It exaggerates little to say that the history of biblical theology since Gabler has consisted of a wrestling—with varying degrees of success— with these three problems. A conspicuous histor­ical expression of the discipline in the mid-20th century is what came to be known as the biblical theology movement which exercised great influ­ence, especially in the English-speaking world. Overemphasis on the differences between Greek and Hebrew modes of thought; on word studies; on the inseparability of theological concern from the practice of biblical study, and other matters have brought it under heavy criticism. It is im­portant to note, however, that the weaknesses of the biblical theology movement are not endemic in the discipline of biblical theology, and the dis­closure of the one does not necessarily involve the demolition of the other.

1. The validity of the descriptive method. Bib­lical theology presupposes the possibility of reconstructing the thought of the biblical writers: to echo a much-used phrase, "what they meant." Some have distinguished sharply between what Scripture meant and what it means, arguing that the former is a strictly historical or descriptive task, while the latter is a theological enterprise. Others have replied that, since the biblical au­thors were themselves writing from the stand­point of faith, the perspective of faith is necessary for determining what they meant.

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2. The problem of the center. With material so diverse as that contained within each Testament (not to mention both together), a major challenge with which biblical theologians have wrestled is that of establishing the unifying concept or ap­proach around which biblical theology is found to cohere. Little unanimity has been achieved. Among the suggestions made are: the kingdom of God, the covenant, communion with God, Christ, God's saving work in history, etc. If it is appropriate to look for a single, unifying center, then it would seem necessarily to have to be broadly conceived, embracing both God's saving activity and maris response thereto.

See bible, bible: the two testaments, systematic theology progressive revelation, canon.

For Further Reading: Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate; idem., New Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate; Childs, Bib­lical Theology in Crisis; Taylor, "Biblical Theology," ZPEB; Smart, The Past, Present, and Future of Biblical Theology; "Boers/What Is New Testament Theology?

Alex R. G. Deasley

BIBLICISM. This refers to certain extreme views of Scripture and of its function as the principal Source for Christian doctrine and practice. To say that one has no creed except the Bible is a form of biblicism. It implies that the Bible does not need to be interpreted, that it does not have any problem passages, and that one aspect of its teaching is as important as any other aspect.

A biblicist is likely to deny any real human ele­ment in the writing of Scripture—in which the writers' own personalities and circumstances col­ored what was written.

A biblicist is likely to tend toward bibliolatry, and to use the Bible superstitiously, as in bibli-omancy (e.g., opening the Bible at random for guidance).

See bible.

The judicial function of Peter or the disciples did not lie in a personal authority distinct from the gospel. Peter was a little stone (petros). Jesus himself is the living Rock (petra)—Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:8. The authority is in the Word of God pro­claimed. It binds and looses.

The perfect and future perfect tenses in all three verses indicate a caution as well as a com­mission in the gospel proclamation. These terms, properly interpreted, affirm that God has already bound or loosed by the gospel. The perfect tense in John indicates the present abiding result of completed action. The future perfect tense in Matthew indicates the future abiding results of the then-completed act. "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are [already in a state of having been] remitted," etc. The keys are the gospel and only the gospel.

See absolution, priest, priesthood of believers.