Anabaptists and the Authority of Scripture

[mike]

I found the following quote from Estep's The Anabaptist Story to be intriguing.



Would you agree that within the Reformation, no group took Sola Scriptura more seriously than the Anabaptists?
If so, has that remained true in the past 500 years of Anabaptist history?
Is this statement true:

The Bible became and remained for them the supreme judicature by which all human opinions were to be tried.

[Ernie]

Would you agree that within the Reformation, no group took Sola Scriptura more seriously than the Anabaptists?

yes

If so, has that remained true in the past 500 years of Anabaptist history?

Yes, for a minority. No for the majority.

Is this statement true:

The Bible became and remained for them the supreme judicature by which all human opinions were to be tried.

For some early Anabaptists, yes. This resulted in lengthy and sometimes pathetic debates with the Catholics and Protestants as well as with other Anabaptists.

Other Anabaptists placed God/Jesus as the foundation below the Bible upon which everything else was built upon. This posture made them Christ followers rather than Bible fundamentalists.

[Ken]

Modern technological advancements (printing press) really made Anabaptism possible.

For the first 1500 years of Christianity that sort of central focus wasn't really possible, at least at the Congregational and individual level. Because so few Christians had access to Bibles much less Bibles in their own native language. And most weren't literate anyway.

It wasn't really possible to have a reformation or Anabaptist movement in the middle ages before the printing press and widespread literacy.

[JohnH]

Other Anabaptists placed God/Jesus as the foundation below the Bible upon which everything else was built upon. This posture made them Christ followers rather than Bible fundamentalists.

Can we not believe in the Bible and also build a foundation about Jesus, the chief cornerstone...

[ohio jones]

I’ve been thinking about this subject as it relates to a lesson I’ll be teaching from the CLP/FB SS curriculum on Anabaptist history. For context we really have to go back to the proto-Reformers such as Wycliffe and Hus.

On the 600th anniversary of Hus’s execution, I attended a lecture in Prague by a Hussite minister and Wheaton College professor. He stated that Hus’s greatest contribution to the Reformation, and the proximate cause of his martyrdom, was his view of Scripture as the final authority.

The question of authority was a live issue at the time, and one of the reasons for the Council of Constance, where Hus was condemned and executed. Was the Pope the final authority? If so, the next question was, which Pope: Gregory XII (Rome), Benedict XIII (Avignon), or John XXIII (Pisa)? Or were the Councils the final authority, a view known as Conciliarism? Maybe so, because the Council of Constance deposed all three of the Popes and installed a new one, Martin V. But the Council itself was convened by the Popes (at least the Roman and Pisan ones) and its decisions were ratified by the Pope. And in 1460, Pius II issued a bull stating that councils could not be used to appeal a decision of the Pope. Scriptural authority was strikingly absent from the discussion.

So Hus, and the magisterial reformers after him, did get the question of the authority of scripture right, at least in theory. Estep’s first sentence is correct. But in practice, they deferred to the state’s authority when it suited them, such as Zwingli’s postponement of abolishing the Mass for a year and a half until the Council was ready to support it. The Anabaptists had no such competing authority, only the Scriptures were authoritative. Estep’s middle three sentences are correct.

In honor of our esteemed founder Hans, I insert his forum signature from Bender’s Anabaptist Vision:

...Anabaptism is the culmination of the Reformation, the fulfillment of the original vision of Luther and Zwingli, and thus makes it a consistent evangelical Protestantism seeking to recreate without compromise the original New Testament church, the vision of Christ and the apostles.

I’m not so sure about Estep’s last sentence, especially the “and remained” part. The curmudgeon in me would aver that some conservative Anabaptists have developed a congregational form of conciliarism, where the authority of The Brotherhood rivals if not supplants that of Scripture. And some liberal Anabaptists seem to place human opinions (or at least the ones they agree with at the moment) at the pinnacle, reinterpreting or ignoring Scripture if it conflicts.

[Ken]

In honor of our esteemed founder Hans, I insert his forum signature from Bender’s Anabaptist Vision:

...Anabaptism is the culmination of the Reformation, the fulfillment of the original vision of Luther and Zwingli, and thus makes it a consistent evangelical Protestantism seeking to recreate without compromise the original New Testament church, the vision of Christ and the apostles.

I’m not so sure about Estep’s last sentence, especially the “and remained” part. The curmudgeon in me would aver that some conservative Anabaptists have developed a congregational form of conciliarism, where the authority of The Brotherhood rivals if not supplants that of Scripture. And some liberal Anabaptists seem to place human opinions (or at least the ones they agree with at the moment) at the pinnacle, reinterpreting or ignoring Scripture if it conflicts.

So what in your mind is the purest form of Anabaptism then?

[mike]

Modern technological advancements (printing press) really made Anabaptism possible.

For the first 1500 years of Christianity that sort of central focus wasn't really possible, at least at the Congregational and individual level. Because so few Christians had access to Bibles much less Bibles in their own native language. And most weren't literate anyway.

It wasn't really possible to have a reformation or Anabaptist movement in the middle ages before the printing press and widespread literacy.

Questions for Ken or anyone.

What do you think the primary authority was for the Christian church in the middle ages? Is there a way the Scriptures could have had more authority in that period even with the lack of accessibility? Why didn't that happen?

Was the sudden new accessibility of the Bible for the common person a 100% good, or did it bring some problems?

[Ken]

Modern technological advancements (printing press) really made Anabaptism possible.

For the first 1500 years of Christianity that sort of central focus wasn't really possible, at least at the Congregational and individual level. Because so few Christians had access to Bibles much less Bibles in their own native language. And most weren't literate anyway.

It wasn't really possible to have a reformation or Anabaptist movement in the middle ages before the printing press and widespread literacy.

Questions for Ken or anyone.

What do you think the primary authority was for the Christian church in the middle ages? Is there a way the Scriptures could have had more authority in that period even with the lack of accessibility? Why didn't that happen?

Was the sudden new accessibility of the Bible for the common person a 100% good, or did it bring some problems?

I'm not any great expert. But my understanding is that it was the church itself. Educated priests and monks, who would study scripture in Latin and relay teachings to their congregations. This was also done through things like art, stained glass windows, and such where messages were embedded. Ordinary folks didn't study the Bible but simply accepted what they were taught by their priests.

Was it a 100% good? Well, arguably the Reformation launched or at least played a role in one of the longest and deadliest wars in European history. I don't think that was particularly good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

[Pelerin]

Modern technological advancements (printing press) really made Anabaptism possible.

For the first 1500 years of Christianity that sort of central focus wasn't really possible, at least at the Congregational and individual level. Because so few Christians had access to Bibles much less Bibles in their own native language. And most weren't literate anyway.

It wasn't really possible to have a reformation or Anabaptist movement in the middle ages before the printing press and widespread literacy.

Questions for Ken or anyone.

What do you think the primary authority was for the Christian church in the middle ages? Is there a way the Scriptures could have had more authority in that period even with the lack of accessibility? Why didn't that happen?

Was the sudden new accessibility of the Bible for the common person a 100% good, or did it bring some problems?

1. The primary authority was either the pope or the general church hierarchy depending on the century or decade. But already 150 years before Luther, Wycliffe was pushing back against this in England and said a lot of the same things as Luther ended up saying. He also translated the Bible into vernacular English. Jan Hus died forty years before Gutenberg printed his Bible and used an already-existing Bohemian vernacular Bible to great effect. So a Reformation along sola scriptura lines seems like it was inevitable even without a printed Bible. Luther used the printing press very effectively but the reason he’s the one who actually launched the Reformation probably has a great deal to do with the fact that he was able to take advantage of a unique political situation. There were already vernacular German Bibles available before Luther’s—his was special because it was the first to be translated from the Greek instead of from the Vulgate. (I’m thinking he used Erasmus’s Greek and probably wouldn’t have had access to that without the printing press.)

2. To answer the question directly just read the New Testament. The gospels reference the “scribes” and “teachers of the law,” and Jesus teachings assume an audience and a whole society that is familiar with the scriptures even if they weren’t literate—note for example “You have heard it said…” You can also read Paul—who was quite possibly only semi-literate himself—who makes extensive references and builds arguments from scripture assuming his audience is very familiar with them and will be able to follow his arguments.

[Ken]

” You can also read Paul—who was quite possibly only semi-literate himself—who makes extensive references and builds arguments from scripture assuming his audience is very familiar with them and will be able to follow his arguments.

If Paul was only semi-literate, then who wrote all the Epistles?