On the Nature of Scripture

I read an article by Robert Hull Jr. on the nature of Scripture here are some of my observations.

The Bible is the product of human understanding of the divine's interaction with the world. For Scripture to be inspired does not necessitate that Scripture must come from God via plenary inspiration. God does not have to dictate the Scriptures to peoples. Because the Scriptures seem to be the recordings of God's interaction with humanity, these are bound to have a degree of fallibility. All of this is to say that the Bible is not void of tradition. God did not dictate that these 66 (or however many if your normal and not protestant) books should be in and the rest out. The formation of the cannon of Scripture is the product of fallible people forming a useful collection of works.

From the article it is mentioned that the three areas in which the council's found criteria for the NT cannon.

1.) Apostolicity--agreeing with the tradition of the apostles. The rule of faith and the rule of truth, ideas coming from Iraneaus and Tertullian.
2.) Orthodoxy--that the book/work conformed to the rule of faith (teachings of the apostles), I guess this would be more in the area agreements in principle. Maybe taking an idea of the apostles and expanding it in a different area than the apostles had intended.
3.) Antiquity--closer to the time of the 1st century the better.

That being said, what of the OT? It is asserted in this article that a form of the OT/Hebrew Bible cannon was already in existence. This is strengthened by Josephus in Against Apion 1:8, where Josephus speaks of the three way division of the Hebrew Scriptures.

So where does this leave the Bible? It would seem that Scripture is formed neither completely apart from nor controlled by tradition. Instead tradition is a form of glue that holds the Scriptures together. A balsa wood model is not the model until the wood is glued together. Similarly, Scripture is not Scripture unless glued together by the tradition of the church.

In addition to tradition and the text, we also will at some point need to discuss how a person's experience affects the text. So that will be that for now.