Fresh eyes on the Bible
Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today
N.T. Wright
HarperOne, paperback,
March 2013
On our JSH (Journal, Sentinel, Herald) library shelves is a well-worn, 48-page, beautifully illustrated book titled The English Bible, which was donated by a Christian Science church member. The book was published by Williams Collins of London in 1943, and was written by Sir Herbert Grierson, a leading authority at the time on English 17th-century literature.
Sir Herbert presents a clear and absorbing account of the history of the Bible in English from Wycliffe to Moffatt, and explains its place in English literature as “the entire and unchallenged Word of God.” And in confirming the Bible’s appeal to even the humblest folk, he quotes poet William Cowper’s lines about a domestic worker who loves “her Bible true,”
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
I’d dare to suggest that Grierson’s place as a Bible commentator has been taken by N. T. “Tom” Wright, formerly Bishop of Durham in England, who is now lecturing on the New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Wright’s latest book is Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today. This is a revised and expanded version of a book previously published as The Last Word.
Wright opens by suggesting that writing a book about the Bible is like building a sand castle in front of the Matterhorn. “The best you can hope to do is catch the eye of those who are looking down instead of up,” he says, “or those who are so familiar with the skyline that they have stopped noticing its peculiar beauty.”
After many discussions with parishioners over the years about what the Bible is and what place it should occupy in Christian mission and thinking, Wright has concluded that there are many people outside and inside the church who need to be nudged to “look up once more with fresh eyes, not just at the foothills, but at the crags and crevasses, at the cliffs and snowfields, and ultimately at the summit itself.”
And that is what Wright does in Scripture and the Authority of God across ten engaging chapters as wide-ranging as the role of Scripture in the historical Christian church (and how today’s understanding of that role is impacted by contemporary culture); misreadings of Scripture (and how to get back on track); sexual ethics and monogamy; and the Sabbath.
He asks: In what sense is the Bible authoritative in the first place? How can the Bible be appropriately understood and interpreted? And, what does it mean to be a loyal Christian in the 21st century, taking full account of the new pressures and challenges we now face?
When we’ve been provoked through such questions into self-examination and further individual study of the Bible, Wright closes with a prayer that has inspired churchgoers for centuries, and seems likely to challenge us all for centuries to come:
“Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in thy Son.”
To which I would add a booklover’s “Amen.”
