This is a guest post by Ryan Hermansen, a BYU graduate who lives in Southern California with his wife and three kids. He enjoys writing about religion, philosophy, science, and ethics. Ryan blogs at www.fromwhenceitmay.com.
By Ryan Hermansen
N.T. Wright was the Bishop of Durham in the Anglican Church, and has written extensively as a New Testament scholar for many years. In a speech he gave entitled ‘How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?’ he made a remark that, to Latter-day Saints, rings with interest – though to many others it probably passes unnoticed.
This excellent speech deserves to be read in its entirety; for the moment, however, I want to focus in on one particular section that is of special interest to Latter-day Saints. Wright begins by asserting that the Bible needs to be viewed not as a rulebook, nor as a lexicon of ready-made answers to Gospel questions, but instead simply viewed for what it is: “an ancient narrative book.” Growing from this straightforward observation is the question, how can a narrative book such as this – predominantly a book of stories – be considered authoritative?
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