Schriftbindung evangelischer Theologie

The network, consisting of nine early-career scholars from exegetical disciplines and systematic theology, addressed the question of the significance of the "sola scriptura" principle of Protestant theology for contemporary theological judgment. The ongoing debate about the so-called "crisis of the scriptural principle" poses central challenges to Protestant theology in light of the identity-shaping demand of the Reformation’s "sola scriptura" formula. The network approached these challenges with an interdisciplinary method, based on a jointly developed theory of scriptural binding. Scriptural binding refers to a process-oriented and in several respects relational connection between theology and scripture. It takes into account the relationships between scripture and its recipients, as well as the relationships to its interpretations. In doing so, it acknowledges the plurality of scripture and its interpretations. Scriptural binding is understood as a reformulation of the Reformation’s concern, expressed through "sola scriptura," in conversation with other articulations of a scriptural principle.
The goal of the network was to collectively formulate an interdisciplinary theory of scriptural binding in the form of theses.
The network has been in existence since December 2015 and has met once per semester under the leadership of PD Dr. Friedrich-Emanuel Focken (Heidelberg) and PD Dr. Frederike van Oorschot (then Hannover, now Heidelberg).

We developed a model that describes scripture in its relations to hearers, readers and their communities with different traditions.