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The 39 Articles of Religion. Part seven : scriptural authority. Article VI . Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation Article VII . Of the Old Testament Article VIII. Of the Creeds. Christus Panktrator , Cafalu Cathederal , Sicily. Attacks on scriptural authority.
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The 39 Articles of Religion Part seven: scriptural authority
Article VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for SalvationArticle VII. Of the Old TestamentArticle VIII. Of the Creeds ChristusPanktrator, CafaluCathederal, Sicily
Attacks on scriptural authority • Critics of scriptural authority claim that church fathers established a restricted canon to silence the heterodox voices of a vibrantearly period in which Christian ideas continually evolved Constantine the Great at Nicaea, 325
Scripture and its own authority • Long before formal ‘closure’ of the Jewish canon Old Testament texts were retained, preserved, and treated as containing the authority they claimed for themselves • “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Joshua 1:8 Ezra reading the Law to returned exiles
Apostolic authority and the church • The Churches always drew their authority in doctrine and every area from the Apostle’s teaching. • Where Apostles could not be present in person they wrote their instructions, which the churches treated as equal to oral teaching Council of Jerusalem, Acts 15
‘Apocryphal’ texts • The Apocryphal texts were part of the Greek Septuagint but not commonly Hebrew collections of OT texts • Jerome included them in his 4th C ‘Vulgate’ translation of the bible • The ultra-reactionary Council of Trent affirmed their canonicity only to assert the primacy of the Latin bible Jerome translating the Latin Vulgate
Dispensations and the covenant • Some view the OT as outmoded and no longer truly authoritative/revelatory • Others see the OT as purely allegorical • Article VII binds Anglicans to view the OT as part of a single covenant with different dispensations but efficacious in all times through Christ’s sacrifice Andrea Del Sarto, The Sacrifice of Abraham, c. 1528
The sufficiency of scripture • All church doctrine emanates from scripture, which is interpreted in light of church tradition and human reason but is primary to both in authority • The Holy Spirit animates the scriptures in the life of every believer and the church. • Scriptural authority counters those who depart from orthodoxy; the Church’s living relationship with scripture answers those who reduce scripture to an inflexible dogmatic catalogue Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Matthew, 1632