Getting Biblical With The "Author Function"

In Michel Foucault's essay “What Is An Author?”, he discusses the socially constructed notion of an author, and more specifically its role in society (what Foucault refers to as the “author function”). The idea of authorship not just as name association, but even up to the control of discourse, is seen too often throughout history. This is no more plainly observed than that of the most popular book in human history: The Holy Bible.

What makes the Bible unique is that, while it was written by human beings, is seen in the Christian faith as the word of God. It was not authored by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etcetera. They were just channeled by God and put words to the page to spread his message. Foucault says that “an author's name is not simply an element in a discourse... it performs a certain role with regard to narrative discourse, assuring a classificatory function” (p. 107). Also, it “permits one to group together a certain number of texts... it establishes a relationship among the texts” (p. 107). The combining of the books of the Bible into one word of God establishes a single standard of discourse that originated from an intelligent designer who made the human race in its own image. Foucault suggests that an author's name elevates sources of discourse to the point where “it is not ordinary everyday speech... it is a speech that must be received in a certain mode and... must receive a certain status” (p. 107). So powerful can an author's name be, Foucault says, that the name not only personifies the source of discourse that is contributed, but also can indicate the status of such discourse amongst a society and a culture.

Foucault describes the author function as “characteristic of the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within a society” (p.108) and that discourses are “objects of appropriation” (p. 108). As has been seen throughout history, the Bible (although through widely varied interpretations) has, at times, been the epicenter of society, and in even some cases, turned countries into theocracies. The establishment of the Bible as the primary (and often times only) source of discourse and the devout followers of its teachings as the ones who controlled such discourse. Foucault even describes whom he calls the “Church Fathers” (p. 113) as “transdiscursive” (p. 113), which is to author something “in which other books and authors will in their turn find a place”. The effects of the Bible and Chstian teachings are historically evident in everything from paintings to architecture to music. The authorship of such material not only represented the strong impact of the Bible on the culture of various societies throughout Western Europe, but also its attempted control of public discourse. Another use of the author function, Foucault explains, is the attachment of proper names to writings in order to identify the individual source of attempted contributions to discourse (a personifying of the material, if you will) “to the extent that authors became subject to punishment” (p. 108), and often in such times during which Christian ideology reigned, to punish blasphemers and heretics. The author function served much more than attaching a name as a matter of legal ownership of material(s) contirubting to the public discourse. It was this transition from public discourse being “an act placed in the field of... the religious and blasphemous” (p. 108) to an “object of appropriation” (p. 108).

Foucault's explanation of of the notion of authorship and of the “author function” is seen no more clearly than that of the Holy Bible (the word, or work, of God). Its Christian teachings (or even just those who call themselves Christians), even today, still have a strong place in the public discourse. So much so that “Evangelical” is considered a major player in today's American political arena. The Bible place in society as the work of God, creator of the Universe, stands as a prime example of Foucault's idea that the author is “the principle of thrift in the proliferation of meaning”.