Sparks, Kenton L. - Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture

[Hans Deventer]

I'm reading this book right now and haven't finished it yet, but I already want to recommend it. If you are aware that the Bible sometimes points in different directions and we are forced to make a choice which one to follow, this might very well be a book for you.
The obvious question would than be, which direction should we take and what part of Scripture do we believe to more truthfully convey God's message?

Kenton Sparks seeks a way through this maze, without ending up in a "whatever suits me best" approach.

I found a couple of good reviews at Amazon so I won't try to improve on them. Especially the points at the end of Dr. BK Mitchell's review are worth noting.

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Word-Br...rd+broken+word

[Ian Gentles]

I'm reading this book right now and haven't finished it yet, but I already want to recommend it. If you are aware that the Bible sometimes points in different directions and we are forced to make a choice which one to follow, this might very well be a book for you.
The obvious question would than be, which direction should we take and what part of Scripture do we believe to more truthfully convey God's message?

Kenton Sparks seeks a way through this maze, without ending up in a "whatever suits me best" approach.

I found a couple of good reviews at Amazon so I won't try to improve on them. Especially the points at the end of Dr. BK Mitchell's review are worth noting.

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Word-Br...rd+broken+word

I have it ordered, thanks for recomendation. Looking foreward to reading it.

[Hans Deventer]

I just finished this book by Kenton L. Sparks. Read about it on Roger Olson's blog. It was a very interesting read. How do we deal with inconsistencies in the Scriptures? In stead of twisting and turning in order to harmonize what cannot be harmonized, Sparks proceeds from the idea that the Bible does contain human voices as well, and they may have gotten it wrong. Simple point in case the conflict between the Church and Copernicus. The old views that found their way into the Scriptures were mistaken, that much is clear. But then the question arises, how do we deal with this sometimes "broken" Word?

He first starts with our approach to knowledge in general, and argues for Christian Practical Realism:

This is Christian Practical Realism in a nutshell: God has it perfectly right, while human beings are partially right and partially wrong, but in a way that admits some human perspectives are better or more adequate than others.

In the process, we can and should use scholars and context.

The bottom line is that lay readers in our own day would not have Bibles in hand were it not for the help of those who know the ancient languages and contexts of Scripture. We always read Scripture with the help of specialists. This is because, in the end, the Bible simply is an ancient document written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. So we read it better when we take its antiquity into account.

He then describes his approach:

1. First, if we wish to take Scripture's human authors seriously, then theological interpretation necessarily includes a "two-step" process that appreciates the distinction between Scripture's human and divine discourse. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) put it this way: [T]exts must first be restored to their historical locus and interpreted in their historical context. But this must be followed by a second phase of interpretation, however, in which they must also be seen in light of the entire historical movement and in terms of the central event of Christ.
   
   
2. Second, in a related matter, if we are to take all of Scripture seriously and to keep ourselves open to what every "jot and tittle" might be saying to us, then we should by all means avoid a pursuit of theological coherence that "covers up" the real or apparent differences in Scripture.
   
   
3. Third, I would maintain that the brokenness and diversity of Scripture do not negate its essential unity.
   
   
4. The shape and substance of the biblical story explicitly point us to a fourth principle for organizing our theology. Namely, our theology should grant priority to Jesus Christ, to knowing him, his teachings, and the redemptive significance of his resurrection, ascension, and eventual return.
   
   
5. A fifth factor in theological interpretation follows from this last observation. Where Christological interpretations of Scripture reveal the brokenness of Scripture (for example, in the contrast between Christ's love and Deuteronomy's ban), these remind us that the biblical authors were themselves finite and fallible human beings. This means that we must distinguish those points where God uses their discourse to direct us explicitly in appropriate and redemptive directions ("love your neighbor as yourself"; "do not kill") from those points where the text, more warped by human sinfulness, implicitly witnesses to a broken human situation ("kill the Canaanites"; "buy foreign slaves"). So while it is quite true that everything in Scripture coherently speaks for God when rightly appraised, it is equally important to keep in mind that Scripture does not everywhere speak in the same way.
   
   
6. Sixth, as a corollary of the previous point, I wish to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the distinction between the Bible's explicit and implicit theological testimony. I am not saying that interpretation is as simple as putting some texts in the "explicit and healthy" column and others in the "implicit and broken" column. Rather, a proper organization of Scripture's teaching and testimony should appreciate that all biblical texts, even those most "broken" by human influence, witness truly and explicitly to what is theologically true.
   
   
7. Seventh, given that every biblical text is a partial window into God's truth (although some windows are open more widely than others), one way to conceptualize Scripture is as a collection of texts that, when embraced as a canonical whole, tends to direct and push us in appropriate directions. But this canonical effect is really cumulative, so that any one text, if taken alone as the final voice of Scripture, might seriously lead us astray.

Some more quotes:

The task of rightly relating the Bible's diverse texts to each other is fostered by an eighth element in our theological reading of Scripture, which usually goes by names like "progressive revelation," "redemptive history" or, more recently, "trajectory theology." The approach reflects a belief that, in the nature of things, God's continuing conversation with humanity gradually unfolds within the emerging contours of history. God speaks first through creation, then through the Old Testament, then in Christ, then in the New Testament, and then through the ever-present and continuing voice of his Spirit (including its activity in and through the Church). It is fairly easy to see that there must be something right in this progressive understanding of divine discourse....

I would point out that trajectory theology, whatever it may mean, cannot mean that divine discourse always follows a chronologically progressive line. God's most complete act of self-revelation appeared between the testaments, in the person of Christ, rather than at Scripture's end. And because the Bible's human authors were finite and fallen men, each with his own weaknesses and blind spots, we cannot gainsay the possibility that on some matters the redemptive insight is greater in earlier texts.

IN SUM, WE DERIVE OUR THEOLOGY from the broken voices of Scripture, cosmos, tradition, and experience, and with the mysterious help of God's Spirit, who speaks through them. Good theology pursues the truth by listening to and coherently ordering all the important sources through which God speaks. May God help us to do this well.

Modern theology tends to construe mystery in terms of deficiency rather than plenitude, so that anything we do not understand - such as the Holy Trinity - becomes a problem to be solved rather than a perpetual mystery to be embraced and enjoyed.' As a result, modern theologians have often demanded and proffered ready answers for many or all of theology's perplexing questions. Why do people suffer? How does divine sovereignty relate to human freedom? What is the nature of the Trinity? How was the Bible "inspired"? The result is what one scholar has called the "domestication of transcendence," in that our theology begins to rigidly define who God is and what he can (and cannot) do. One theological domino quickly hits another, in a cascade that spawns all sorts of inflexible but misplaced assumptions about Christian theory and practice.

I mean to say as well that, in a very theoretical sense, I have not interpreted Scripture adequately until I have acted on what God has said.

Aquinas expressed it this way in his Summa Theologica: "one should adhere to a particular explanation [of Scripture] only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing."

Enough food for thought!

For discussion, see the Post Traditional Theology Forum