Is The Bible Authoritative?
Live class and Q&A on monday, june 22nd from 8:00-9:30pm ET
Is The Bible Authoritative?
Most Christians would affirm that the Bible is “authoritative” in some way—not just important, but also revelatory, instructive, reliable, or even definitive in its communication of certain truths. The word “authority” has its roots in the idea of an author: a singular origin or source imparts meaning through the words of a text, and the reader’s job is to receive whatever the author intended to communicate. But how can a text be “authoritative” if its readers cannot agree on what it means? Which readers get to decide which interpretation is the “right” one?
In this class, Cameron Howard will explore what it might mean to shift our understanding of biblical authority away from discerning the authors’ intent and toward embracing the messy, generative encounters between the text and its readers. That is, what if the Bible’s authority rests not in narrowing down meaning to the “right” interpretation, but rather in the conversations, conflicts, possibilities, and uncertainties that critical study of the Bible unleashes? We will look together at several biblical texts, ranging from the mundane to the controversial, to explore how meaning is unstable in them, and we will consider how we might find authority in the Bible because of this instability, not in spite of it.
This class includes:
One-night live class
Live Q+A session
Link to class recording
Downloadable class slides
Cost: PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Topics we’ll cover:
How the Bible is different from other books—and how it isn’t
Why historical context matters for interpretation—and why it doesn’t
Whether the Bible’s authority rests in what it is, what it says, what it does, or something else entirely
How to be a “Bible-believing Christian” without believing the Bible is inerrant or infallible
YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Cameron B. R. Howard
Dr. Cameron B. R. Howard is associate professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is also the author of The Old Testament for a Complex World: How the Bible's Dynamic Testimony Points to New Life for the Church (Baker Academic, 2021). Committed to making academic biblical scholarship accessible and relevant to clergy and laypeople, Howard is a frequent contributor to WorkingPreacher.org and EntertheBible.org. Her forthcoming book about stewardship and the ethics of work, time, and money in the Old Testament will be published by Baker Academic in 2027.
