General

Intro

• Mark Thompson. The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction (2022).

• Grudem, Collins, Schreiner (eds.). Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning (2012).

• Kevin DeYoung. Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (2016).
  
  

Intermediate

• William Whitaker. Disputations on Holy Scripture (1588).

• Timothy Ward. Words of Life (2009).

• D.A. Carson. Collected Writings on Scripture (2010); Scripture and Truth (1983); Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (1986).

• Guy Prentiss Waters. For the Mouth of the Lord Has Spoken: The Doctrine of Scripture (2020).

• Dockery & Yarnell III, eds. Special Revelation and Scripture (2024).
  
  

Advanced

• Richard Muller. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: vol. 2 Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (2003).

• John Frame. The Doctrine of the Word of God (2010).

• Carl Henry. God, Revelation, and Authority (1999).

• Herman Bavinck. Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (vol. 1): Part IV: Revelation (2003).

• Graeme Goldsworthy. In These Last Days: The Dynamics of Biblical Revelation (2024).

• Herman Ridderbos. Studies in Scripture and Its Authority (1978)

• John Feinberg. Light in a Dark Place: The Doctrine of Scripture (2018).

• Philip E. Satterthwaite & David F. Wright. A Pathway into the Holy Scripture (1994).

• Timothy Ward. Word and Supplement: Speech Acts, Biblical Texts, and the Sufficiency of Scripture. (2002).

Authority & Inspiration of Scripture

Intro

• J. I. Packer. 'Fundamentalism’ and the Word of God (1958); God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible (1965, rev. 2005); Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (1996).
  
  

Intermediate

• B.B. Warfield. The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (1948).

• Noel Weeks. The Sufficiency of Scripture (1998). [it says "sufficiency" but this is a book about "authority"]

• John Wenham. Christ and the Bible (2002).

• Paul Helm & Carl Trueman, eds., The Trustworthiness of God: Perspectives on the Nature of Scripture  (2002).
  
  

Advanced

• D. A. Carson (ed.). The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (2016).

• Meredith G. Kline. The Structure of Biblical Authority (1997).

• John Woodbridge. Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (1982).

• Nicholas Wolterstorff. The Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (1995).

• John Dick. An Essay on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (1800).
  
  

Sola Scriptura

Intro

• Don Kistler (ed.). Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible (2009).
  
  

Intermediate

• Matthew Barrett. God's Word Alone--The Authority of Scripture: What the Reformers Taught and Why It Still Matters (2016).

• Keith Mathison. The Shape of Sola Scriptura (2001).

• James White. Scripture Alone: Exploring the Bible’s Accuracy, Authority and Authenticity (2004).
  
  

Advanced

• Anthony N. S. Lane. "Sola Scriptura? Making Sense of a Post-Reformation Slogan," in A Pathway into the Holy Scritpure, ed. Satterwhaite & Wright (1994).

• Oliver D. Crisp. God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology, pp. 9-17 (2009).

• Gavin Ortlund. What It Means to Be Protestant, pp. 71-102 (2024).

• Lillback & Gaffin. Thy Word Is Still Truth: Essential Writings on the Doctrine of Scripture from the Reformation to Today (2013).

• Francis Turretin. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (orig. 1685; 1997).

• Richard Muller. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: vol. 2 Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (2003).

• David T. King and William Webster. Holy Scripture, 3 vols. (2001).

Refutation of Sola Scriptura

Intermediate

• Robert Sungenis. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura (1998).

• Casey Chalk. The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity (2023).

Tradition Related to Sola Scriptura

Advanced

• Jaroslav Pelikan. The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (1983).

• Heiko Oberman. Forerunners of the Reformation: The Shape of Late Medieval Thought, pp. 55 (1967); Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (2000).

• Michael Horton. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, pp. 186-187 (2011).

• Georges Florovsky. Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (2022).

• Martin Chemnitz. Examination of the Council of Trent: Part I, pp. 219-307 (1986).

• Alister McGracth. Intellectual Origins of European Reformation, pp. 141-148 (1987).

• Keith Mathison. The Shape of Sola Scriptura, pp. 19-81 (2001).
  
  

Inerrancy of Scripture

Intro

• Norman Geisler. Explaining Biblical Inerrancy (2021).
  
  

Intermediate

• G.K. Beale. The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (2008).

• Norman Geisler. Defending Inerrancy (2012); ​​Vital Issues in the Inerrancy Debate (2016). 

• Vern Poythress. Inerrancy and Worldview: Answering Modern Challenges to the Bible (2012); Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the Challenges of Harmonization (2012).

• E.J. Young. Thy Word Is Truth (1957).

• John MacArthur, ed. The Scripture Cannot Be Broken: Twentieth Century Writings on the Doctrine of Inerrancy (2015).
  
  

Advanced

• Merrick & Gundry, ed. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (2013).

Sufficiency of Scripture

Intro

• Heath Lambert. Sufficiency: Historical Essays on the Sufficiency of Scripture (2016) [for counseling]

Clarity (Perspecuity) of Scripture

Intermediate

• Mark D. Thompson. A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture (2021).

Biblicism or "no creed but the Bible"

Intro

• Carl Trueman. Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity (2024). [superb critique and death blow to the "no creed but the Bible" slogan. This is an updated version of his book The Creedal Imperative]

Definition of Terms

Inspiration: Inspiration describes the how of revelation. When referring to the inspiration of Scripture, we mean that the Holy Spirit so superintended the writers of the Bible that the words they produced are the words of each particular author and at the same time the exact words of God Himself, with all the authority His speech carries. This is why Jesus can say “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35) and why Paul can exhort Timothy to continue in the Word of God that he has heard and to use it to correct and edify other believers (2 Tim. 4:1–2). This is why Scripture is the final authority for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, and it is why Scripture is necessary to make us competent for every good work (3:16–17). Some have said that Scripture contains the Word of God, becomes the Word of God, or is a witness to the Word of God, but as orthodox scholars like B.B. Warfield have shown throughout history, none of these conceptions do justice to the concept of inspiration taught in 2 Timothy 3:16. 

Infallibility: This means that the Scriptures cannot err. Infallibility has to do with possibilities, and it means that the Word of God is incapable of erring. Taken by itself, this is a term that presents the perfection of Scripture. This means that the prophets and apostles not only did not err—they could not err when writing Scripture.

Inerrancy: Inerrancy is a natural outflow of infallibility. Inerrancy means that the Scriptures do not err, that is to say the Scriptures do not affirm any errors or endorse anything untrue. Furthermore, inerrancy is a quality of the original text of the Bible. Translations may err, but the original manuscripts penned by the prophets and apostles do not. While we do not today possess these manuscripts, through the process of textual criticism, and under God's sovereign and providential care for the church, we can recover the original wording of the manuscripts with an extremely high degree of certainty. See the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy: https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/chicago-statement

Sufficiency: This means that Scripture is all that is required for something, with no additions needed (or desired). In more explicit terms, the sufficiency of Scripture means that we have a single final authoritative rule for all matters pertaining to saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The Second London Confession of Faith 1.1 states: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation." The WCF adds: “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” In other words, everything God wants us to know about Him and all He requires of us to know about salvation and the life of faith is found in the Bible. However, there are many misunderstandings of this doctrine. For example:

1. Sufficiency doesn’t mean that Scripture contains everything done or said by Christ. John 20:30 says as much.
2. Sufficiency doesn’t mean that everything is taught word for word in Scripture. Many things are to be deduced by inference. 
3. Sufficiency doesn’t mean that it contains everything exhaustively related to the Christian faith—only that it contains matters necessary to salvation (e.g. the articles of faith).

So, sufficiency doesn’t mean that Scripture contains all possible knowledge—either word for word or implicitly. Unlike Roman Catholicism, Protestants do not have an incomplete revelation that needs alternative means to supplement its lack. It means that Scripture is the norming norm for all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. It is the final arbiter of truth for all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. It is the final rule for all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. As a sufficient rule, it means that nothing can supersede Scripture. If something disagrees with Scripture, it is wrong. As to sufficiency in content, it means that Scripture is the sufficient rule in a limited scope. It relates to all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. It does not speak to all areas. There is non-saving knowledge that can be found outside of Scripture.

Authority: This means that Scripture speaks truly on a topic, and no additions can "overrule" it. There is no higher authority, including the church. The authority of Scripture is grounded in the authority of its Author.

Sola Scriptura: This means that Scripture is the only infallible authority for the church. For example, the Reformers affirmed that church tradition and the bishops could be corrected by Scripture when Scripture conflicted with other authorities. First, Scripture's unique ontological (pertaining to being or essence) character as theopneustos—God breathed—means that every other authority is on a lower level by nature. By definition, God is the highest authority possible (Heb. 6:13), so what He says is the final arbiter of truth. And if the only place we have His words is Scripture, then Scripture is the highest court of authority to which we can appeal. Nothing else is on the same level, for only Scripture is theopneustos (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Moreover, when we look at the example of Christ Himself, we find that He viewed Scripture as having the highest authority. In today's passage, for example, Jesus says that "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Other traditions and authorities can be set aside (Matt. 15:1–9), but "the doctrine of Scripture is inviolable" (John Calvin). To say that Scripture is the only infallible authority and the final authority for the church does not mean there are no other authorities to which we should pay heed as believers. God does invest His church, for example, with authority as "a pillar and buttress of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). But other authorities are secondary, and their authority is derivative; they have the right to command us only insofar as what they teach conforms to the written Word of God.