The book is about authority.... ?

So --Hauerwas ends up in a pickle by saying that the text of scripture cannot be read or understood separate from the experience of the people of God... the Christian community... but that the people of God shouldn't get to interpret scripture by voting on it... nor should it be interpreted by individuals... that the text outside of the context of the worshipping community means nothing.... scripture is nothing without the people living it.

... but that unity and authority are not conformity....

Yes, Hauerwas is an idealist.... So, from whence does authority spring in a Christian life? What does Christian authority look like? Is scripture the source of authority --upon whose authority is it translated, interpreted, lived....?

So, let me just get this off my chest right up front --I think authority is a very dangerous thing, indeed. AND, that the experience of authority in the church in particular can look as bad as the Inquisition, the burning at the stake, hanging and worse --and yet, authority in the church can also look as good as the life of St. Francis of Assisi... which really was based in community.

As Kenneth remarked below --is Hauerwas lumping together in the idea of text---
the actual text,
the translation,
the interpretation...

It is through modern biblical criticism (one of the very things Hauerwas denounces) that the relationship between text, translation and interpretation becomes pronounced. Out of the field of biblical criticism emerged a more expert understanding of the texts, their origins, what came first and how and when the texts were modified and changed. Read more about texts and origins here.

With the expansion of Christianity throughout northern Europe, and, after the demise of the so-called Holy Roman Empire and Latin as a so-called common language, the urge to translate scripture in to the language of the people was revived (yes, it had been an urge of the early church --stifled along the way, with issues of authority.... oh, but I transgress). What became a source of wonder, scholarship and politics was whether Greek, Latin or English was the basis of further translation....

And so it remains today. But the most important thing to remember is that each original text, each translation--no matter how scholarly or even what source, and each interpretation comes --lock, stock and barrel, with an agenda. Have. No. Doubt.

In the Hebrew scriptures, some texts are written with what is called a Priestly point of view --others with a Deuteronomic --others still with that is called the Old Epic tradition. (Understanding the Old Testament, B.S. Anderson)

In the Christian scriptures, each Gospel has a particular vision of Jesus --either as a man infused with God (as in Mark) --or the Word of God spoken in creation which holds all things in being (as in John), and a particular vision of what following Jesus means.

So, yes, the texts have agenda. What is a marvelous necessity is to hold all these agendas, all these visions of our relationship to God in tension, in conversation each with all.

The translations all have agenda. To prove it --sit down with three or four different translations of next week's lessons, and read each. Better yet, come to the Wednesday morning bible study, and listen to the class work their way through the text (they read the next week's lessons). They are working from the Greek --and they mash through the different ways each concept has been translated in each version.... because Greek is full of idiomatic speech, and is not to be read literally.....

And --interpretation!!?? The best and most honest interpreters will have to confess, right from the beginning --where they stand, how they approach the text. It was with an understanding that the differences of gender, economic status and race among other things, that scholars and amateurs alike began to realize that there was the text, there was translation --but one's own world view mattered in interpretation --as a matter of fact, one could not escape what one brought to the text... So, one has a responsibility to cultivate almost a working relationship to the text itself --are you a friend, are you most always left out of the picture, are you usually occupying the seat of cultural privilege...?

Given all this --in knowing, understanding and relating to the scripture itself, where in the world is the final say-so?

Where is authority?

I think that is one of the critical foci of this book --and Hauerwas is dismissing the claims to authority made by fundamentalists, scholars and the democratic process and sensibility, and places it as the lived experience of a community of faith.

Does that fly?

If not --where is authority in/of scripture? Do we embrace the beginning of presuppositions that we need authority? If so, what does authority look like? If not, what do we do?

So, questions that might be further asked:

1. Does the 'authority' of scripture dwell in the text itself, as the divine revelation of God? (This might be close to the 'inerrant' understanding of fundamentalism.)

2. Do the scholars own the persuasion of the authority of scripture?

3. Do the people of God get to do a majority rule type of authority? --and what happens if fundamentalists are the majority? (--as scholars seem to be the majority now...)

4. Ultimately, what kind of authority can the bible really have? ( --remembering the very diverse witness and character of scripture!)

So, what say ye?

comment by Kenneth

This comment by Kenneth was too great not to make it a post --and, besides, it was too long for the comments!

I think Kenneth hits several nails on the head.... what think ye?

I’m having trouble with the way Hauerwas throws around the term “text.” It
seems that for him the term is a synonym for “meaning,” or nearly so. But this
seems to me too limited. I’m considering a structure that looks something like
the following:

Text: the actual words originally written.
Translation: the words conveyed to us by copyists and translators.
Interpretation: “meaning” derived by interaction between words read and the
reader.

Hauerwas purports to believe that only the last of these depends upon political
considerations, but this assertion cannot be accurate. Since, for example, no
word of the Gospels was set down on paper by anyone who actually met, ate
with, listened to, and/or argued with Jesus; and since important accounts differ
among the Gospels, we know that even the originally written words are hearsay.
What a writer (“Mark,” for example) then chose to include or omit depended at
least in part upon his political views, since the life and message of Jesus were
very political – else no one would have bothered to execute him. Additionally,
decisions as to what to include – or not – in the Biblical canon were based in
part on political considerations, assuming you accept that the formation and
governance of a newly established religious organization must have had political
overtones.

If you take literally Hauerwas’s assertions on pages 66-68, you have to see
that he implies, in fact, that those who were actually present at the Sermon on
the Mount would have had an understanding of its meaning inferior to that of
those who read about it later, after Jesus’s death and resurrection, and after
the Church Fathers had had a chance to give its written words an approved
spin. This possibility is reinforced by the understanding that at least 90% of
Christian theology is based not on anything in the Gospels, but on the words
(probably) of Paul, who never “met” Jesus but on the road to Damascus, and
heard him “speak” no more than twenty of so words on that occasion. If he heard
more, he does not say so.

The same problems exist for copying and translating. Recent scholarship seems
to show that early copyists made hundreds of errors, some insignificant, but not
all, as well as quire a few changes that were probably done in accordance with
current Church policy and interpretations. Translation presents similar issues.
An example I’ve used for students is the phrase, “Dinah, blow your horn!” from
the old song, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Two thousand years later,
who in the world is Dinah (I can imagine dissertations on Roman mythology,
etc.), and what kind of horn (I don’t even want to go there) does she have, and

why would she be blowing one early in the morning? (More dissertations, this
time on resurrection myths) So, you’re a translator faced with a term that could
mean, “virgin,” or “young woman,” and you’re a member in good standing of the
Church. Which do you choose? No politics here?

So. I’m not arguing that Hauerwas is wrong in saying that basing too much
of one’s Christianity on reading scripture is dangerous. I’m saying that (1) his
argument is not well put, and incomplete, and thus (2) there are implications that
– as soon as he gets into Sermon Mode – he fails to consider. I’m still thinking
about what they might be. Comments about this post may show that I should
have thought more so start with. But that’s what makes it fun.

Kenneth

The other side of the coin

So, that was, in a nutshell, Biblical criticism. There is more --so much more to it all --but I think you can probably catch the drift. Biblical criticism is textually based examination of holy scripture.

And Hauerwas stated that literalist-fundamentalism and the critical approaches to the Bible are but two sides of the same coin.... (p17)

So, (2) What is literalist-fundamentalism?

Wikipedia defines it thusly: The term "fundamentalism" has its roots in the Niagara Bible Conference (1878–1897) which defined those things that were fundamental to Christian belief. The term was also used to describe "The Fundamentals", a collection of twelve books on five subjects published in 1910 and funded by Milton and Lyman Stewart.

The first formulation of American fundamentalist beliefs can be traced to the Niagara Bible Conference and, in 1910, to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which distilled these into what became known as the "five fundamentals":^[8]

• The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
• The virgin birth of Christ.
• The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.
• The bodily resurrection of Christ.
• The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

First observation, one can tell that 'Fundamentalism' is a totally and thoroughly modern invention. It has not been part of the Christian package except for the past century or so.... And it seems that the inerrancy of the Pope, a dogma begun in 1870 of the Roman Catholic Church, and inerrancy of Scripture (seemingly begun about the same time) spring forth from the same modern rupture: Authority.

The modern pressures of multiple authorities --of science, of scholars, of theologians, of churches, of the individual, of the Nations --how is one supposed to choose which authority is supreme?

I hope I do not have to wax on about Fundamentalism --it has reared its head in every facet of our lives... and it is not limited to one system, one faith.... and has impacted even our daily lives....

But, in 1993, when Hauerwas wrote this book, I do not think many people of mainstream Christian houses of worship, protestant or Roman, feared fundamentalism --it was a fringe activity, left to those who were ignorant and uneducated....

We now know that is not true. Our own house of worship --The Episcopal Church and its sister churches in the wider Anglican Communion, have been wracked with division and schism, much of it fomented in the turbulent arena of biblical interpretation and authority.... Not to mention the fact that much of the public view of what it means to be a Christian at all has been largely shaped by "bible" churches.

So, again, why does Hauerwas suggest that biblical scholarship and fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin?

C'mon --give me your best.... {and then we will get to the (4)--and what does he begin to establish as the "third way" in approaching, reading, interpreting our holy scriptures that we call the "Bible" ??? Like --what does he mean by "necessary mediation by the Church!!!!????}