What is it about?
Bible - Academy - Church Church members often live in ignorance of academic biblical study. The Church's reading and understanding of the Bible should not be carried out in ignorance of what academic study has shown the Bible to be.
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Why is it important?
Where church members remain ignorant of the sort of document the Bible is they are vulnerable to criticisms based in academic study and made by detractors of religion.
Perspectives
Following some general remarks on recent significant trends in biblical studies, I note that these will exacerbate the gulf between church and academy with respect to biblical interpretation. A brief introduction to the official documents of the Church of Scotland shows that they provide little indication of how the Bible should be interpreted as a document of the church. In view of the ideological nature of many of the biblical texts an argument against too ready recourse to theological interpretation is outlined.
Dr George G Nicol
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Bible as a Document of the Church: A Personal View, The Expository Times, March 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0014524616674430.
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