Biblical authority

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The issue of biblical authority concerns justification for putting trust in the Bible with respect to its claims and attitudes about matters such as faith and conduct, as well as various sorts of historical and scientific facts. The issue of biblical authority is similar to, but distinct from, issues like biblical inerrancy, biblical infallibility, and biblical interpretation and criticism.

One recent exchange on the issue is between Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, on the one hand, and John D. Woodbridge, on the other. Rogers and McKim, in their 1979 book, The authority and interpretation of the Bible: an historical approach, advance the view that the Bible has authority over social endeavors, such as imperatives for conduct, for church organization, and for the articles of faith, but lacks a certain degree of authority over historical events and scientific facts. Woodbridge contests this in his 1982 book Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal, arguing that for each of those categories, God's Word has authority.