Francesca Aran Murphy has been writing a biweekly blog for First Things on religion. In "Everything Is Outside the Text," she makes this provocative assertion:
If, as Brague says, “the relationship of secondarity toward a preceding religion is found between Christianity and Judaism and between these two alone,” what links Christianity and Judaism is that neither of them is actually a “religion of the Book”—neither of them has sacred scripture at its very heart and core. Both Judaism and Christianity are “commentarial,” midrashic traditions because both regard scripture as a secondary witness to something infinitely greater, namely, the presence of God with his people.
In other words, we believe not in the Bible, per se, but in the redemption revealed in and by the Bible.
With that, we neatly dodge the facetious charge of "bibliolatry" flung by the cultured despisers of orthodox Christianity: we worship not the witness, but the one whose acts are witnessed.
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