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?