Reference no: EM131580229

Because of their impact on our understanding of scriptural authority, the questions of whether the Bible is without error (inerrant), and how it is or is not, have been greatly discussed within Evangelicalism. One historical development of interest concerned Robert Gundry, emeritus professor of New Testament at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA, a sister school to Colorado Christian University. In 1983, Gundry was forced to resign his membership in the Evangelical Theological Society because of his views on the Gospel of Matthew. In his book, Matthew: A commentary on his literary and theological art (1982), Gundry argued that in composing his gospel account, Matthew freely edited existing material written about Jesus (from Mark's account and another, hypothetical source) in order to make his own theological points. It is this editorial work that explains some of the differences between Matthew and Luke (e.g., different genealogies, visit of the Magi in Matthew and shepherds in Luke).

While ETS leadership had several problems with Gundry's claims, one of the most significant seems to be the extended role Gundry alleged for the human author. Matthew would have been afforded a great deal of latitude by God in employing his unique personality and decision-making, whereas God's role in the composition of the gospel would have been somewhat less direct and more like superintending the finished product. Indeed, God would have allowed Matthew even to embellish certain details of a given narrative in order to draw a certain theological conclusion. Because ETS requires its members to sign a statement of biblical inerrancy, and its leadership in 1983 felt such embellishment amounted to willful error on the author's part, the organization forced Gundry to give up his membership.

You were assigned two readings for this session, which bear on the relative weight of God's authorship versus the human's in the composition of scripture. Charles Hodge (The Christian Theology Reader, 2.32) argues that unless God's influence extended to "verbal, plenary inspiration" of the texts, the Bible is not fully trustworthy and authoritative. N. T. Wright (The Christian Theology Reader, 2.50) disagrees. He contends that the Bible's authority is a more dynamic affair than mechanical consistency between every biblical account based in God's impress. For Wright, by the Spirit's illumination the church follows God's will like an unfolding drama, living as if it was obediently playing out another act in God's story on the basis of what it discerned from the earlier acts (the Bible), whether those acts contain some humanly-derived inconsistencies or not.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of putting the decisive weight in the Bible's writing on God's side? And on the human's? Which is a better (i.e., more biblically adequate) way of construing the Bible's authority: mechanical consistency, as in Hodge, or dynamic obedience, as in Wright? Why?