of the role (and thence of the authority) of the Bible. I can do so out of my own knowledge and experience, and not at second-hand. I can testify that this book has an ‘authority’ no other book has, since it has produced an effect which no other book has. I can say this, whoever the authors of the particular books in the Bible were, and whether the books are on a list or not. If they are on the list, then I can understand why they have been put there. Since the uniqueness of the Bible is in what it does, we must, in accounting for this, give primacy of place to the function of the Bible. Questions about authorship and official lists are secondary.
What we are saying about these writings is that they have been the instrument for their own recognition. They were not ‘authorized’. They were recognized. The Christian community recognized that as Scripture was expounded, faith was nurtured, and the community was built up in the faith. They saw that that was enough to set these writings apart from all others. They continue to do so. So there is both an historical and a contemporary argument for setting these writings apart from all others. What they did in the past, they go on doing now. ‘These are writings which have accompanied the Christian movement; they are the best we have and they have proved themselves.’30
The term ‘self-authenticating’ is not the happiest one. It means not requiring support from something or someone external to itself. To be self-authenticating means that it authenticates itself to someone, the individual and the community for whom it has been effective. The kind of authority the book will have will depend on whether that effect is considered primarily in relation to the community’s life and piety, or primarily in relation to the community’s doctrine. What the church values will show itself in its doctrine of Scripture. The term ‘authenticate’ means (1) to show that an item is genuine i.e. has its origin in the person it claims to be its author or producer. To establish this connection is an historical task. A play is authentic Shakespeare if Shakespeare wrote it. A painting is authentic Vermeer if Vermeer painted it.
To show that a writing is authentic, in the historical sense i.e. coming from its purported source, one appeals to the available and relevant historical evidence. We have a similar case with a work of art. Whether this painting is genuine Vermeer or not is settled by examining the evidence. But an examination of the evidence may lead to a false conclusion. However whether the historical judgment is true of false, it makes no difference to the aesthetic value of the work.
Pursue the analogy for a moment. If a work of art is beautiful and evokes a positive aesthetic response, comparable to that of an original and authentic production then, aesthetically, it does not matter who painted it. It is beautiful and it evokes response. That it is not ‘original’ in the sense of ‘attributable to the author/artist’ does not matter. Originality value is often relic value. Such value has nothing to do with aesthetic judgment.
The term ‘authenticate’ also means (2) ‘shows itself by the response it evokes to be a worthy work of art, a worthy artefact.’ Such a work authenticates itself by evoking an aesthetic response. Such evocation does not depend upon the historical authenticity of the work. Such aesthetic value, and so such authenticity, is independent of historical knowledge. Authenticity in sense (1), with its opposite, forgery, fake, is historical. Authenticity, in sense (2), as (in the case of art) aesthetic value is not historical.
Now we turn to Scripture. The concept of authenticity as referring to the authorship of a book is an historical concept. The concept of authenticity as referring to the religious authority of the Bible is not historical. The authority, as for example, applied to the Bible, is independent of the historical evidence relating to the author of the book. That is authenticated by historical research. The other (so to speak) authenticates itself by what it does, i.e. in its functioning in the life of the community and in evoking appropriate responses. That this is so is the justification for using the notion of ‘self-authentication.’ It has reference to the influence the book has in the community in which it is recognised. Whoever produced the book, the book has influence of the appropriate kind in the community of faith.
The community of Christians, and the individual Christian, appeal to experience, and see the Bible as the instrument of the experience to which they appeal. They testify and then reason on the basis of this book, these words and this experience. Hence for the Protestant the claim sola scriptura, ‘the Bible and the Bible only,’ points to the position of primacy Scripture has in the life of the church.
Catholics also recognise that the Scripture has a primary function for the church. They formulate statements about that primary function differently from Protestants, setting it beside what they consider to be other primary functions for the church, in addition to that of the Bible. For the Catholic the Bible is one primary authority. The living tradition of the church is another.
We can now put our point in historical terms. When Christians testify to their present experience, they claim that the Bible has mediated to them the revelation of God and as such an instrument is an irreplaceable means of that revelation. By means of this book they have come to know his love, his demand, his forgiveness, his call, his succour. The claim about these writings from the very beginning is the claim that they are a part of the total event of God’s revelation through Jesus Christ, that they are instruments creative of Christian faith and of the Christian community. There was a point in history when Christian faith had its beginning. It is because of this event and of the connection of the Christian writings with this event that these books have an irreplaceable position in the church.
Historically, these books are those which came out of the total event in which God revealed himself in Jesus Christ and established the Christian community upon the grounds of faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is these particular books and not others, these books we now call the New Testament, which have this particular historical status.
The New Testament books have a certain historical primacy. They are the historical deposit of the movement of the first century of our era, which included the life and death of Jesus and the coming into being of the Christian church. These documents are unique in that they have survived from this crucial and formative period. Thus they cannot be replaced by later documents, important and even primary as such other documents may be. The historical primacy these documents, our New Testament, have, ensure their irreplaceability as mediating to us our knowledge of that Christian movement whose faith in Jesus Christ we have come to share. They bear witness to that faith. We, in our turn, bear witness to what they bore witness to. Something literary remains of their witness. These are our primary documents reporting it, recording it.
The Old Testament writings participated in this formative event, the Christ-event. They provided the ideas, the means for interpreting what happened. They make it possible for Christians to regard Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of human and Hebrew history. They provide the background for the events which had recently taken place when the New Testament began to be written. The New Testament writings are historically irreplaceable. They are the bridge from Jesus to the church. In this sense we may speak of their apostolicity. The apostles were those who first publicly proclaimed their faith in Jesus Christ, and interpreted his life and death from the viewpoint of their faith in him. They were the first leaders in the church and assumed the task of public witnessing. The term ‘apostolicity’ connotes their distinctive features, their priority as preachers of the Christian gospel. They provide the link with the earliest Christian faith and with the historical Jesus. So the term has sometimes been applied to the books of the New Testament.
Apostolicity does not mean that because a book is written by an apostle its special status is guaranteed. Conversely, it does not mean that we must demonstrate that a book is written by an apostle before we accept its authority. The specific identity of the author is relatively unimportant. The books are the instruments of God’s saving revelation in Jesus Christ without the author being specifically identified. To identify an author is an historical task, and the continuing faith of the church does not depend upon our success or failure at establishing such historical facts. Whoever wrote it, the book does what it does. That is the important thing. It does now and it did from
