How, in our pluralistic world, can we Christians claim that the Bible is in some special way authoritative? A brilliant answer to this question is found in N.T. Wright's book The Last Word. Key concepts to understand include: 1) the Bible must be understood as a narrative; 2) "narrative" can be authoritative; 3) the Enlightenment paradigm fuels both fundamentalist hermeneutics as well as liberal hermeneutics; 4) reject the Enlightenment paradigm in order to get at the real meaning and intent of the biblical text; 5) the meaning of "literal" is not to be confined within the Enlightenment paradigm; 6) the meaning of "word," as in "Word of God," means much more than written words; and so on. Wright's book is necessary reading for anyone interested in how the Bible can be considered authoritative today.
