A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance
Editor’s Note: Today we begin a series of “bonus” summaries covering all thirty-six chapters of the monumental volume, The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (D.A. Carson, ed.). Due to its length, our summaries of each chapter must be brief, but we trust they will give you a helpful taste of what awaits you in this important work.
Special thanks to Dr. Mark Coppenger of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who summarized most of these chapters himself and who enlisted others (whom we will note also as we go along) for the completion of the task. Their work is very much appreciated.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
The Many Facets of the Current Discussion
D.A. Carson
Chapter 2
“The Truth Above All Demonstration”: Scripture in the Patristic Period to Augustine
Charles E. Hill
Chapter 3
The Bible in the Reformation and Protestant Orthodoxy
Robert Kolb
Chapter 4
Natural Philosophy and Biblical Authority
Rodney L. Stiling
Chapter 5
German Pietism and Scriptural Authority
John D. Woodbridge
Chapter 6
Wesleyan Theology and the Authority of Scripture: Historic Affirmations and Some Contemporary Issues
Thomas H. McCall
Chapter 7
The “Old Princetonians” on Biblical Authority
Bradley L. Seeman
Chapter 8
Accommodation Historically Considered
Glenn S. Sunshine
Chapter 9
The Answering Speech of Men: Karl Barth on Holy Scripture
David Gibson
Chapter 10
Roman Catholic Views of Biblical Authority from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present
Anthony N.S. Lane
Chapter 11
The Old Testament Canon, Josephus, and Cognitive Environment
Stephen G. Dempster
Chapter 12
“Competing Histories, Competing Theologies?” Reflections on the Unity and Diversity of the Old Testament(‘s Readers)
V. Philips Long
Chapter 13
Ehrman’s Equivocation and the Inerrancy of the Original Text
Peter J. Williams
Chapter 14
E Pluribus Unum? Apostolic Unity and Early Christian Literature
Simon Gathercole
Chapter 15
Why a Book? Why This Book? Why the Particular Order within This Book? Some Theological Reflections on the Canon
Graham A. Cole
Chapter 16
God and the Bible
Peter F. Jensen
Chapter 17
God and the Scripture Writers: The Question of Double Authorship
Henri A.G. Blocher
Chapter 18
Myth, History, and the Bible
Bruce K. Waltke
Chapter 19
Biblical Authority and Diverse Literary Genres
Barry G. Webb
Chapter 20
The Generous Gift of a Gracious Father: Toward a Theological Account of the Clarity of Scripture
Mark D. Thompson
Chapter 21
Postconservative Theologians Scriptural Authority
Oswaldo Padilla
Chapter 22
Reflections on Jesus’ View of the Old Testament
Craig L. Blomberg
Chapter 23
The Problem of the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament
Douglas J. Moo and Andrew David Naselli
Chapter 24
May We Go Beyond What is Written After All? The Patterns of Theological Authority and the Problem of Doctrinal Development
Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Chapter 25
Contemporary Religious Epistemology: Some Key Aspects
James Beilby
Chapter 26
Non-Foundational Epistemologies and the Truth of Scripture
R. Scott Smith
Chapter 27
Authority and Truth
Michael C. Rea
Chapter 28
The Idea of Inerrancy
Paul Helm
Chapter 29
To Whom Does the Text Belong? Communities of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Communities
Richard Lints
Chapter 30
Science and Scripture
Kirsten Birkett
Chapter 31
Knowing the Bible is the Word of God Despite Competing Claims
Te-Li Lau
Chapter 32
Qur’anic Challenges for the Bible Reader
Ida Glaser
Chapter 33
Can Hindu Scriptures Serve as a “Tutor” to Christ?
Timothy C. Tennent
Chapter 34
Buddhist Sutras and Christian Revelation
Harold Netland and Alex G. Smith
Chapter 35
Take, Read
Daniel M. Doriani
Chapter 36
Summarizing FAQs
D.A. Carson
Chapter 1: The Many Facets of the Current Discussion
D.A. Carson
(Summarized by Mark Coppenger)
As editor, Carson sets the table for the essays to follow, surveying challenges and challengers to biblical authority, engaging some of them critically, and pointing to the pieces he’s selected to answer them. He begins by drawing on Robert Yarbrough’s review article, “Bye-bye Bible?” which tracks the march of higher criticism through the academy and church.
Though critics have gained strong standing in the culture (encouraging some of the orthodox to “sue for peace”), and though a host of apologists have mounted detailed rebuttals in the past, he thinks it’s time for a fresh defense of the Bible – first, to enlist and embolden a new generation of apologists, and second, to take on latter-day arguments from outright enemies and less-than-stalwart friends. And so, in turn, Carson warns against the likes of Thom Stark (positing an “evil” Bible); Stephen Young (disparaging “inerrantist religiosity”); A.E. Harvey (insisting that the Bible must pass muster with current ethical sensitivities); Bart Ehrman (accusing New Testament writers of self-conscious deceit); David Crump (calling for leaps of faith in the absence of biblical support); Roy Harrisville (acquiescing to the chaos that comes from opening the Pandora’s Box of higher criticism); Craig Allert (seeking to distinguish “Scripture” from “canon”); Joel Green (giving too much weight to communal interpretation); N.T. Wright (consigning “rules” and “doctrines” to secondary status); George Marsden (saying inerrancy rises or falls with Thomas Reid’s philosophy); Vatican II (allowing for error in matters of history); Peter Enns (characterizing inerrancy as more Muslim than Christian); and Timothy Luke Johnson (favoring literary imagination over propositional truth).
As Carson calls the roll of troublemakers, he honors those who have risen to confront them or who have provided helpful material for those who’ll take up the cause, including. . .
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