In All Senses of the Word: The Authority of Scripture in Contemporary Theology

As Christians have gathered throughout the centuries, the writings of the Hebrew and Christian Scripture have been constitutive of the life and identity of the community of faith. What is less clear is precisely how these avowedly sacred writings attained and maintain such status within the believing community. The purpose of this dissertation is precisely to bring some clarity to the intersection of Scripture and theology and its import for contemporary faith. The goal is to map adequately the various ways in which Scripture crosses the roads of faith and theology, and to suggest the most important points at which this crossing has become most dangerous. More specifically, it is the thesis of this dissertation that a careful recovery and reappropriation of Martin Luther\u27s multifaceted understanding of Gospel and the Word of God provides a helpful model for the critique of contemporary uses of Scripture and for a constructive, systematic approach to the biblical writings