Sola Scriptura: Scripture's Final Authority in the Modern World

"Sola Scriptura is an admirably accessible work of fine scholarship. The book is well argued and constructed, lucidly written, and makes its case very well. It also takes on one of the most pressing issues in contemporary culture, namely the nature and location of authority. As always in his work, Ben Witherington ranges widely through a large and diverse literature, and he has an excellent familiarity with the more tangential literatures."

—

Philip Jenkins

, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University

Dr. Witherington, as a seasoned scholar, presents a much-needed defense for the authority of Scripture with concise historical context for renewed significance for contemporary crises of faith untethered from the foundations of Scripture.

—

M. Sydney Park

, Associate Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School

"Questions about the canon, authority, and trustworthiness of the Bible are commonplace, even among Christians, and in Sola Scriptura Ben Witherington offers answers to those questions. He argues his thesis through his own historical summary and critical analysis of Jewish and Christian views on sacred texts, making the case that the Bible should be the final authority for Christian faith and practice today. This text is a gift to Christians who desire to ground their trust in the Bible with accessible historical evidence and offers much to ponder for Christians across the theological spectrum."

—

Holly Beers

, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Westmont College

In this valuable volume, Ben Witherington III tackles a large topic—biblical authority. He does so insightfully and, for my part, convincingly. Tradition, reason, and experience notwithstanding, Witherington contends that sacred Scripture is the final and ultimate arbiter for matters of faith and practice. Whether or not you are inclined to embrace this theological position, you will benefit from reading this thoughtful and timely book, written by one of the foremost biblical commentators of our time.

—

Todd D. Still

, Charles J. and Eleanor McLerran DeLancey Dean & William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures, George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University

"Ben Witherington has written commentaries on each of the twenty-seven texts that constitute the New Testament as well as engaged in larger, more holistic theological and ethical reflection on the message of these texts. Now he reflects deeply, and in a manner richly informed by the history of the church’s engagement with scripture, on the nature of scriptural authority itself. This is a timely and well-nigh prophetic work in its examination of authority in the Christian churches throughout the millennia and the place of scriptural authority within that matrix. It should help us to think past worn and tired Protestant-Catholic divides as well as find a balanced center in the current confusion concerning authority in the Church Universal."

—

David A. deSilva

, Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek, Ashland Theological Seminary

"Ben Witherington’s Sola Scriptura is a timely book. Many people refer to the principle of ‘Scripture alone,’ but don’t really know what it means or where tradition fits in. Consequently, the application of this important principle is off-target. Witherington provides us with a helpful corrective that will assist theologians and biblical interpreters as they wrestle with the meaning and application of the sacred text."

—

Craig A. Evans

, John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins, Houston Christian University

Ben Witherington is one of the best, wisest, clearest, smartest, most sensible, most prayerful, and most inspiring Bible scholars around. Everything he writes is worth reading. And everything he writes will help you open up the Living Word of God.

—

James Martin, SJ

, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

Sola Scriptura

Scripture’s Final Authority in the Modern World

Ben Witherington III

Baylor University Press

© 2023 by Baylor University Press

Waco, Texas 76798

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Witherington, Ben, III, 1951- author.

Title: Sola Scriptura : Scripture’s final authority in the modern world / Ben Witherington III.

Description: Waco : Baylor University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: Chronicles the development of beliefs about Scripture’s authority and the concept of Sola Scriptura to the present-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023025954 (print) | LCCN 2023025955 (ebook) | ISBN 9781481320467 (hardback) | ISBN 9781481320498 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781481320481 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible--Evidences, authority, etc. | Bible--History.

Classification: LCC BS480 .W575 2023 (print) | LCC BS480 (ebook) | DDC 220.1--dc23/eng/20230714

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025954

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023025955

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Baylor University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

You have studied the Holy Scriptures, which are true, and given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unjust or counterfeit is written in them.

1 Clement 45:2–3

It is so impossible for divine inspiration to contain any error that, by its very nature, it not only excludes even the slightest error but must of necessity exclude it, just as God, the Supreme Truth, must also necessarily be absolutely incapable of promoting error. Consequently, any who were to admit that there might be error in the authentic pages of the sacred books . . . make[s] God himself the author of error.

Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus

This study is dedicated to all my wonderful Bible and theology teachers over many years who have gone to be with the Lord in the last several decades—Bernard Boyd at UNC; David Scholer, Richard Lovelace, Meredith Kline, and now Gordon Fee at Gordon-Conwell; Bruce Metzger at Princeton; Krister Stendahl at Harvard; and C. K. Barrett, Charles Cranfield, John Rogerson, and T. H. L. Parker at the University of Durham. Without you I would never have become a New Testament scholar. Without you I would never have known how to be faithful to the Lord and to his Word while becoming the sort of scholar and teacher who does not fear dealing with the most difficult intellectual and historical challenges such a scholar faces all the time. They say you become what you admire. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you and give you all his peace.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος,

BW3

Contents

Preface

1 The People of the Book

Early Christian Appropriations and Additions

2 The Origins of Sola Scriptura

3 The German and Swiss Reformation

Scripture as the Final Authority

4 The English Reformation and John Wesley

Anglican Views of Scripture

5 The Rise of Modern Science and the Conservative Christian Response

6 The Modern Quadrilateral, Inerrancy, and the Overruling of Scripture

7 Quo Vadis?

The Legacy and Future of Sola Scriptura

Appendix: As It Turns Out—The Bible Is Not Pro-slavery

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index of Subjects

Index of Scripture and Ancient Sources

Preface

In a previous book entitled The Living Word of God, I explored at length issues involving the inspiration of the Scriptures, the canonizing of the Scriptures, and related matters. This study is not a repeat of that but rather focuses on one particular notion that has been applied to the Scriptures, particularly by Protestants ever since the German Reformation, namely that the Bible is the sole authority for the church and for Christian life. Interestingly, however, the Latin phrase sola Scriptura, as we shall see later in this study, was neither invented by Protestants, nor first applied to the Bible.

Furthermore, there is often a lack of clarity as to what is meant by the phrase—does it mean that the Bible is indeed the only authority or rule for faith and practice for the Christian, or does it mean the Bible is the final authority, allowing nonbiblical traditions, human reason, and perhaps even experience to have some authority in the church? The Bible could be the norm among norms, the final court of appeals in disputes if the phrase was meant to connote something other than sole authority.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Evangelical Protestants have often been the most strident advocates for the notion that the Bible is the only real authority, the only real litmus test of truth and true Christian praxis for the church, but is this how early Jews and early Christians who wrote the biblical books viewed their sacred texts? And what counted as those sacred texts? I have shown in The Living Word of God that there was a concept of not merely inspired persons (e.g., prophets) but also of inspired texts. This is surely what 2 Tim 3.16 makes clear. There were God-breathed texts, and there were other texts that might convey some truths but were not divinely inspired.

So, let’s go back to the time of the writing of the Bible and look at what is said about them, with a specific focus on how the authority of such texts was viewed, and then walk through Christian history until we get to point where the phrase sola Scriptura actually appears as an authority claim of some kind. Surprisingly, it doesn’t show up until the fourteenth century A.D. and not in the writings of a Protestant. Thereafter, we will examine how the phrase continued to be used in the various Reformations and into the modern era.

But at the same time, we will need to examine the rise of science, the effect of the Enlightenment, and changes in views about human sexuality that have affected the discussion of sola Scriptura in various ways. One thing is for sure, this is an under-discussed subject, if by that we mean a subject studied across history and in various contexts. This study will not be exhaustive but illustrative of the process of the church trying to best understand the inspiration and authority of the Bible and their implications.

There are several good reasons such a study is needed not only by Bible students and budding scholars but also by pastors and laypeople at this juncture: (1) A profound historical amnesia is affecting even churches that are bibliocentric. They don’t know the history of the Bible or the history of the struggle to affirm its final authority in Christian life. What exactly does the phrase only Scripture really mean, and what are its implications? As the saying goes, those who do not know or learn from the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes. (2) The general chaos in Western culture has just further alienated younger generations from the church and angered the older generations who still attend church, and very little of the discourse about our historical moment reckons seriously with the Bible’s authority claims about what we should believe and how we should behave. The discussion is more fear driven than faith driven. (3) The increasing biblical illiteracy in the church, including in its pulpits, coupled with the increase in churches not requiring good graduate-level biblical education of their ministers, has led to churches taking their signals and sense of direction from the culture, including the political culture, not from the biblical witness itself. All of this reflects the crisis of authority in and for churches of all sorts. Such crises, particularly in Protestant churches, will not be overcome without a serious coming to grips with the Bible, its history, and its authority for faith and practice, for belief and behavior. I hope that this study can help us all do a better job of accepting and applying the biblical witness to ourselves and to an increasingly less Christian Western world.

Easter 2023

1

The People of the Book

Early Christian Appropriations and Additions

Saturninius the proconsul said: What are those things in your case?

Speratus replied: Books and letters of Paul, a just man.¹

Something besides monotheism set early Jews apart from their polytheistic religious environment, namely their being the people of the Book, as they and Christians came to be called by Muslims later in religious history. Unlike ancient Near Eastern (ANE) and Greco-Roman religions, they had sacred texts they believed had come from God and by God’s inspiration and were meant to be preserved as an ongoing source of inspiration, truth, and authority for the whole people of God.

It is interesting that the Hebrew phrase the holy writings first shows up in postbiblical writings, namely in the Mishnah (m. Shab. 16.1; Eruv. 10.3; Sanh. 10.6). However, the Greek equivalent to such a phrase is found earlier, already in Philo of Alexandria, who says, rather matter of factly, that the last chapter of Deuteronomy is the end of the holy writings (Mos. 2.290; or more generally see Spec. 2.159; Praem. 79; cf. Opif. 77).² Josephus’ writings also bear witness to this concept of Holy Writ, and Josephus is even prepared to speak about a certain number of books that count as Holy Writ (cf. C. Ap. 2.45; Ant. 3.38). Despite some recent views to the contrary, it appears reasonably clear that the Old Testament canon was viewed as a specific and basically closed collection of books not long after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Indeed, it cannot be an accident that the only books the writers of the New Testament cite as Holy Writ are books from what we today call the thirty-nine books of the OT.³

Not surprisingly, the repository of crucial documents was in temples throughout the ancient world. We do not need to doubt this was also the case already during the First Temple period in regard to the law of Moses. Note how the reforms of Josiah came about—2 Kgs 22 tells us that Hilkiah found the book of the law of Moses in the temple and read it to King Josiah. The same sort of practice surely existed during the Second Temple period, and as in the case of Josiah’s reforms, the Scriptures were seen as having final authority as to what one should believe and what should be done. Josephus refers to this same event in Ant. 10.12–14 and to the holy books of Moses deposited in the temple and found during Josiah’s reign. He also mentions the actions of the prophet Samuel, who wrote the law of Saul’s kingship and placed it in the sanctuary (1 Sam 10.25—Ant. 6.66).

Josephus speaks about what Samuel wrote as inspired texts that predicted the future of Saul’s reign. Here we have the concept not merely of a sacred text but of an inspired text written by an inspired prophet. In Ant. 4.303 he says the same thing about the Song of Moses in Deut 32. C. T. R. Hayward concludes,

This evidence of Josephus suggests that not only the books of Moses, but also prophetic and poetic parts of scripture were preserved in the temple in his day. . . . Elsewhere . . . (Contra Apionem 1.29) he states that the Jews entrusted the keeping of their records to the high priests and prophets; and he enumerates the twenty-two books whose prophetic pedigree guarantees their authenticity, noting how carefully they have been preserved (Contra Apionem 1.37–43). Prophets are those who record tradition; and the temple appears to be the centre where records were kept, and where reference could be made to them.⁴

What is perhaps most important about Hayward’s helpful discussion is that it reveals that it was not just any sort of tradition that came to be considered Holy Writ in early Judaism but inspired tradition, or as it was later put in 2 Tim 3.16, God-breathed tradition. This is a crucial point for the ongoing discussion, for as we will see in early Christianity there were both Scripture and other valuable traditions, and already in the NT era Christian writings such as Paul’s letters were seen not merely as traditions but as Scripture like the OT Scriptures.

However long the process of compiling the Law, the Prophets (former and latter), and the Writings, abbreviated as TANAK (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim—cf. Jesus’ reference to the threefold division in Luke 24.44 and before that the reference to all the Scriptures in Luke 24.27), by the NT era there was wide agreement about a large corpus of sacred writings that were to be seen as some sort of final authority for the life of the people of the Book. Clearly, it was not seen as the only authority because particularly among the Pharisees there was also halakah and haggadah, traditions of interpretation of the Law and the biblical narrative that had some authority for believers, and in the community of Jesus’ disciples there were also the new teachings of Jesus, as well as his interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures. But there was eventually a difference in these two communities: namely the Pharisaic traditions never became a literal part of Holy Writ, whereas in due course the teachings of Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, Jude, and others did become part of a collection of sacred writings that were eventually called the New Testament.

Tertullian (155–220 A.D.) was not only the first person to use the term trinitas; he was apparently also the first person to apply the phrase New Testament to a collection of books