Friday, February 12, 2010

Sola Scriptura

I'm delivering a paper at the annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society in three weeks, and a good part of my paper involves the doctrine of sola scriptura. I am expanding on the idea developed in the book Canonical Theism that sola scriptura is an unreasonable conception of scripture. The problem that I'm runnign into as I learn about this doctrine is that sola scriptura is a very fluid term, meaning different things withing different communities. It can mean that scripture is the only proper source and norm for the formation of doctrine. Or it can mean that, while the creeds of the church are true, scripture, when read properly, leads us to understand the faith in the manner of these creeds. The creeds are therefore summaries of the proper reading of scripture. Or it can mean that scripture contains everything necessary for salvation. Or it can mean other things. This, gentle reader, is the problem. It's hard to argue about a concept with no stable definition.

Around the same time, I am also speaking at the East Ohio Conference UTS alum gathering on the topic of the Bible and disability. I have been learning about this topic for a while now, but I have not spoken on it before. Given this, you may be asking, "Why are you blogging right now, rather than working on these two projects, the deadlines of which are quickly approaching?" The answer is: I really don't know. Perhaps this is a form of avoidance behavior.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Bible Translations

Ever wonder what the differences are between various translations of the Bible? The Society of Biblical Literature has a web page that offers some info on these, along with articles about the topic of Bible translation. Click here to get to the site.