Authority

A heavy focus on historical criticism of the Bible is too narrow a search for meaning and a poorly placed source of authority, given how unstable a foundation historical criticism can offer in terms of certainty.  Dale Martin suggests that the church has historically placed authority in Scripture, not interpretation thereof, and highlights how historical criticism is a form of interpretation and problematizes the search for authorial intent.  I have difficulty extracting the idea of authority from myself.  Since I cannot separate myself from my experience of the world and I can only encounter spirit, scripture, church, and religion in this body and mind, I find it hard to place authority concretely anywhere, since I feel it happens in the interplay of my experience with the world.  I feel that all experience is authoritative in some way because it informs our interpretation of God and Life and is therefore very subjective.  I place authority in "scripture" (which I see as an ongoing process in the relationship with humanity, nature, the text, and God), my experience of nature and people, and in certain schools of thought that I trust to produce fruitful work, but I wouldn't suggest that formula would or should work for other people because their vessel might receive and pour in a different way.  Perhaps because "good" authority is given/earned (and not coerced), it must be chosen by each of us individually.  Maybe authority in theological work is useful as a concept that is intensely individual.