What does Sola Scriptura mean?

Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. Many people use this to describe their faith. Here, we take a look at what that actually means and why its practical implementation is impossible without Divine Assistance.

Let’s take a look at one of the most talked about verses in all of Scripture. In modern circles, we tend to treat the English as authoritative. The verse below, John 1:1, is steeped in mysticism and theology.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Many people tend to trust the English and assume that it’s all that the verse says. The Greek however, says the same and much much more.

1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.

Let’s take a look at these words.

  • Ἐν: In
  • ἀρχῇ: This word can mean “beginning” and also functions as a noun referring to a ruler’s tenure. Currently, the US is under the ἀρχῇ of Donald Trump.
  • ἦν: Most translators interpret this as “was” but ἦν can also refer to an in progress or yet-to-be-completed action. For instance, the NBA playoffs have started but they are still underway.
  • ὁ Λόγος: The Word.
  • πρὸς: Multiple meanings. This can mean “with”, “toward” or “oriented to.”
  • τὸν Θεόν: Of God, with God, from God. Flowing from God.

Given what we know about the wording, I could make a solid argument that the verse below is also an accurate translation. The typical English isn’t necessarily wrong — but there are additional layers of meaning that don’t always come through the translation.

In the beginning rules the Word and the Word was and is with God and God was and is the Word.

In both the traditional rendering and in my translation above, we’re still not actually looking at the text. We’re looking at a text with intentional casing, segmentation and punctuation. If you believe in the text alone, you must strip away the Anglican tradition that renders the verse in English. Then, you need to strip away the Byzantine tradition which adds segmentation, accenting/breath marks and punctuation. What you’re left with looks something like the snippet below. Fair warning, this is my own reconstruction — I do not have access to John’s original text and you probably don’t either.

ΕΝΑΡΧΗΗΝΟΛΟΓΟΣΚΑΙΟΛΟΓΟΣΗΝΠΡΟΣΤΟΝΘΕΟΝΚΑΙΘΕΟΣΗΝΟΛΟΓΟΣ

This is called scriptio continua — no spaces, no punctuation, just a continuous script meant to be read aloud. Scripture alone with zero distortion from interpretation. Sit with that for a minute.

Can you read this line and honestly say, “The text is clear”? I know I couldn’t make such a statement.

The second you trust segmentation, you’re accepting guiding tradition. Once you accept the English, you’re accepting William Tyndale’s interpretation and that of his contemporaries. By simply reading the KJV, you’re accepting the tradition of Byzantium as authoritative before the act of translation. You’re not reading Scripture alone. You are reading a targum produced on good faith with meaningful intentions. You’ve still got a magisterium, it’s just selective — Byzantine when it’s convenient and Anglican when it’s not.

Wait…so is tradition bad?

Of course not! Scripture was never meant to be read without guidance. For clarity, I am a Catholic. However, I’m not telling you to be. I want you to express your beliefs however God has given them to you. Faith is a gift that not everyone is lucky enough to receive.

The English translation of Holy Scriptures is a blessing — not a knock! Personally, I’m very grateful for much of the translation work done by Christians of every kind. Christ Himself says, “I have sheep who are not of this fold.”

What I can’t endorse, however, is inconsistency. When you claim Scripture alone, you spit in the face of the Eastern Christians who made the text readable. You spit in the face of Tyndale. You wind up insulting people who came before us and whose lineages we descend from. Abraham was not the most educated man of his generation. Abraham was the man who didn’t poke holes when God told him to sacrifice his son atop a mountain. I’m paraphrasing here but Jesus ben Sirach says we should never insult a simple man, lest we dishonor our ancestors.

Guess what?

Our ancestors carried the Books of Moses. Our ancestors passed them on orally in Babylon in the form of targums. Our ancestors translated the Scriptures into the Greek Septuagint. Our ancestors wrote countless other nonreligious texts that have helped make the world a better place today.

Translation is an act of tradition, yes. It’s also one of the most powerful forms of evangelism we’ve ever seen.

That’s not actually in the Bible

There are many things written in the Bible and until the industrial age, “the Bible” was a much more flexible term than people like to believe. Before the printing press, the Bible was a hand-copied book: verse by verse starting at Genesis 1:1 and continuing all the way to Revelation 22:21 — by hand and without error. Could you do that using just a pen (or quill) and paper?

Tens of thousands of verses, written by hand with ink. A single typo and the paper needs to be thrown away. I’ve had numerous typos just while writing this post. I have the delete and backspace keys. Early Christians were not afforded this luxury.

A Bible was not a cheap resource you can pickup for free on the internet. You couldn’t buy one at the store for an hour’s worth of pay. Scripture was a resource that took a lifetime to reproduce. On top of that, even though people today recommend against it, the older Bible structure definitely appears to be laid out with the intention of reading front to back, not just for liturgical and ritual purposes.

Before I go any further, let’s take a look at just the structure of a Protestant Bible today.

  • Torah/Pentateuch: Unquestionable, this is the Word of God.
  • Historical books: Most of these document what God’s people have done after receiving His Word.
  • Wisdom literature: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes give us a number of short sayings that we can reflect on. Psalms provide us with a prayer book and most of these prayers date back to the First Temple.
  • Prophets: The prophets continually call out apostasy and try to bring God’s people back to Him.
  • Gospels: The Words of Christ Jesus. The Gospels were revolutionary and in many cases downright scandalous.
  • Epistles: A ton of rambling from Paul about what to do with Mosaic Law now that the Covenant has been fulfilled. Paul is a pharisee of pharisees doing exactly what a good pharisee is supposed to do. James, Peter, John and Jude also contribute here but Paul comprises the vast majority of this section.
  • Revelation: John’s vision of the apocalypse.

The Torah gives us a true and unquestionable authoritative text. Immediately afterward, in the historical books, God’s people begin breaking the commandments revealed to us from the Torah. The same basic line below gets repeated over and over.

[So and so] was king after [such and such]. He was wicked in the sight of the LORD.

The wisdom literature provides us with a models for how to think and live and pray. The prophets then give us example after example of God’s people falling into sin and being called back to Him. After Malachi, we get 400 years of silence and Jesus turns Second Temple Israel upside down for reasons that don’t always make sense — because the Second Temple gets treated as a silent extension or restoration of the First Temple.

Most early Christian communities always included a thing or two in their canon from that 400 year silent period. Whether you believe the Deuterocanon are divinely inspired or not, these texts are examples of what Second Temple Israelites grew up with. At the very minimum, they functioned like Sunday School teachers do today. The Apostles who grew up and followed Jesus. These texts help to understand the world they were formed in.

If one chooses to read the Bible front to back, as a standalone Christian formation, Second Temple literature puts them in a position to receive Christ similarly to how the Second Temple World received Him. I don’t believe this to be a mistake. Paul, pharisee of pharisees, master of law and religion and Scripture, trained under Gamaliel. He didn’t reject the tradition he was formed in. God sanctified it on the road to Damascus.

Why I’m launching this website

Holy Scriptures are a wonderful thing. Across the vast expanse of Christianity, we have diversity in Scripture. These diversities do amount to canonical differences. However, these differences are a feature, not a bug. We need to accept that, honestly, the original manuscripts to pretty much the entirety Scripture is either hidden somewhere inaccessible or lost permanently within the sands of time. What we’re left with is the traditions that pass the Scriptures down from generation to generation.