James Barr spoke at a lecture series when I was a student. Barr regards scripture as an entirely human work. His view of inspiration and authority are far different than ours. Nels Ferre , another professor of religion who was popular around 30 years ago, doesn t think what we have is sufficient - God want to write new and better scriptures, both in life and in books. I can t prove it to you.
Scripture makes enormous claims for itself throughout.
But letting a passage of scripture be the thing that proves the authority of scripture is a classic case in circular reasoning. We do have lots of Christians through the ages who have been deeply moved by Scripture. They have changed their lives because of it. They are voices from our tradition. But I challenge you to read it with me for these next months and see what you find.