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3. The Moral Authority of Scripture: The
Politics and Ethics of Remembering
1. A Proposal for Understanding the Moral Authority of Scripture
The canon does not contain its own self-justification but rather directs
our attention to the tradition which it mediates. For to say the least
which has to be said, without the tradition there is no shared memory
and therefore no community. Our study of the canon has led to the
conclusion that no one interpretation of the tradition can be accorded
final and definitive status. The presence of prophecy as an essential part
of the canon means that it will always be possible and necessary to
remold the tradition as a source of life-giving power.1
Joseph Blenkinsopp’s claim about the canon and its relation to prophecy
and a community sufficient to sustain prophecy is crucial for understanding
how scripture does and/or should function ethically. We currently have diffi
culty in appreciating the moral role of scripture because we have forgotten that
the authority of scripture is a political claim characteristic of a very particular
kind of polity. By “political” I do not mean, as many who identify with liber
ation theology, that scripture should be used as an ideology for justifying the
demands of the oppressed. The authority of scripture derives its intelligibility
from the existence of a community that knows its life depends on faithful
remembering of God’s care of his creation through the calling of Israel and the
life of Jesus.
To construe the authority of scripture in this way, moreover, is most
nearly faithful to the nature of biblical literature as well as the best insights we
have learned from the historical study of the Bible. The formation of texts as
well as the canon required the courage of a community to constantly re
member and reinterpret its past. Such remembering and reinterpretation is a
political task, for without a tradition there can be no community. That we no
longer consider remembering as an ethical or political task manifests our
questionable assumption that ethics primarily concerns decisions whereas poli
tics brokers power.
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