1. The 39 Articles of Religion
Part seven: scriptural authority

2. Christus Panktrator, Cafalu Cathederal, Sicily
Article VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation Article VII. Of the Old Testament Article VIII. Of the Creeds
Christus Panktrator, Cafalu Cathederal, Sicily

3. Attacks on scriptural authority
Critics of scriptural authority claim that church fathers established a restricted canon to silence the heterodox voices of a vibrant early period in which Christian ideas continually evolved
Constantine the Great at Nicaea, 325

4. Scripture and its own authority
Long before formal ‘closure’ of the Jewish canon Old Testament texts were retained, preserved, and treated as containing the authority they claimed for themselves
“Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Joshua 1:8
Ezra reading the Law to returned exiles

5. Apostolic authority and the church
The Churches always drew their authority in doctrine and every area from the Apostle’s teaching.
Where Apostles could not be present in person they wrote their instructions, which the churches treated as equal to oral teaching
Council of Jerusalem, Acts 15

6. Jerome translating the Latin Vulgate
‘Apocryphal’ texts
The Apocryphal texts were part of the Greek Septuagint but not commonly Hebrew collections of OT texts
Jerome included them in his 4th C ‘Vulgate’ translation of the bible
The ultra-reactionary Council of Trent affirmed their canonicity only to assert the primacy of the Latin bible
Jerome translating the Latin Vulgate

7. Dispensations and the covenant
Some view the OT as outmoded and no longer truly authoritative/revelatory
Others see the OT as purely allegorical
Article VII binds Anglicans to view the OT as part of a single covenant with different dispensations but efficacious in all times through Christ’s sacrifice
Andrea Del Sarto, The Sacrifice of Abraham, c. 1528

8. The sufficiency of scripture
All church doctrine emanates from scripture, which is interpreted in light of church tradition and human reason but is primary to both in authority
The Holy Spirit animates the scriptures in the life of every believer and the church.
Scriptural authority counters those who depart from orthodoxy; the Church’s living relationship with scripture answers those who reduce scripture to an inflexible dogmatic catalogue
Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Matthew, 1632