The Function of Scripture

What is the function of Scripture today? Depending on who you ask you will get an answer that supports a certain theological position. There are some who believe Scripture is given to us as a guide through the ups and downs of life. Others believe Scripture is given to us as a means of knowing God. Still others believe it is a historical book that shows us what God has done since the creation of the world. I recently had the opportunity to ask my New Testament professor (Dr. David Watson) his thoughts on Scripture; he said some pretty insightful things, but what I remember the most is his comment that Scripture is meant to be viewed soteriologically. That seems like a common sense statement, but the implications are huge, especially for someone like me who had a very fundamentalist view of the Bible. The fundamentalist view leaves many trusting in the exactness of Scripture. That means we look at Scripture and say "since it is the word of God it must be without error, and it must be historically accurate." But if the Bible is a soteriological text, the minor errors are just that, minor errors; they do not diminish the fact that it is a text that speaks to us about God's salvation. I cannot recount the number of arguments I have been in trying to explain to someone the reason one gospel says something different than another gospel. I viewed the gospel as a text that must be perfect, therefore it must match up from Genesis to Revelation, and that is clearly not true of Scripture.

Unfortunately their are many in the world that are raised with this fundamentalist understanding of Scripture, and when they cannot explain away a minor error they decide that the whole Bible must be false, they turn from being fundamentalists to what Dr. Watson calls "reverse fundamentalists." A famous biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, comes to mind when I think of such an individual. He had a fundamentalist upbringing, he was educated at the Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton, and Princeton, this goes to show that he was and is very knowledgeable about the Bible. In Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, Dr. Craig Evans tells of how Ehrman encountered discrepancies in the Bible that his fundamentalism could not account for. Evans writes,

"It was the study of textual variants⎯the usual myriad errors and glosses that are found in handwritten books from antiquity and the Middle Ages⎯that caused Ehrman to question his faith. In short, he found what he took to be errors in Scripture. Errors in Scripture, thinks Ehrman, mean that the words of Scripture can no longer be viewed as God's words." 1

These discrepancies led Ehrman to fall away from the Christian faith, and write books in opposition to it... All because of a flawed understanding of Scripture.  I'm certain that Ehrman is not the only one that has had their faith shaken because their understanding of Scripture ended up being porous.  It is good to have our faith tested, and beaten, so that it can be reformed and strengthened.

A healthy understanding of the Bible needs to be discovered in churches across America. Unfortunately it seems as if most Christians put their faith in the inerrancy of the Scripture rather than trusting in the God who inspired it. I am not here advocating a new movement where the Bible need not be read, that would be foolish; but it needs to be read and understood in light of what it is. And it is a group of books that tell about God's great salvation through Jesus Christ.  I think Dr. Watson is on the correct path when he says the Bible should be viewed soteriologically; of course new questions arise with that perspective, the first one that I can think of is what this means to the authority of Scripture?  I'll try and get my feeble mind around that sometime in the near future.

[1] Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006). Pgs. 26-27