Third in a series inspired by Kenton L. Sparks’ Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority & the Dark Side of Scripture.
First post here.
*****
One of the recipients of my last
post commented on Sparks' use of the word brokenness with respect to
Scripture. To talk of problems? Okay. Difficulties? We can talk
about that. Sparks uses the word diversity with respect to the way
different human authors of Scripture speak concerning the same subject; their
testimonies are diverse, they diverge, they do not all accord one
with another very well—or very easily, anyway. Okay. We can handle those
kinds of statements, too. But when Sparks begins to speak of brokenness,
he is treading in some very deep waters and his terminology is quite troubling.
On what grounds can a human being question God's word and claim that it is
somehow “broken”?
Is Sparks simply trying to be
provocative? Or wanting to point us to some kind of "failure" on
God's part to preserve His word from minor (or—all right, in some cases—semi-kinda
“major” (depending on how you want to characterize it)) verbal corruption over
the centuries?
Chapter 5 makes it clear: No.
Sparks is not simply trying to be provocative. And he is not speaking about
corruption of the text. He is pursuing something deeper. Far deeper.
Chapter 5 is titled "The
Brokenness of Scripture." And Sparks begins in this way:
When someone in Western culture wishes to emphasize how
bad things have been or are in our world, one turns almost invariably to the
era of the Second World War and the Shoah (or “Holocaust”) as an
example. . . . The Shoah has become the quintessential symbol of our
fallen world and of fallen, sinful humanity.
But is it not a very deep paradox that the Shoah, in
which Nazis systematically exterminated the Jews because of their religion and
ethnicity, is mirrored so vividly by the Deuteronomist ban in Jewish Scripture,
according to which Israel exterminated the Canaanites because of their
religion? . . .
I am reminded, here, of the famous study by the Israeli
scholar Georges Tamarin. Tamarin surveyed two groups of Israeli children about
the morality of genocidal conquest. To one group he told the story of Joshua's
conquest of Jericho, and to the other he told the same story but substituted a
Chinese general in Joshua's place. About 60% of the Israeli children approved
of Joshua's conquest, but only 7% approved of the Chinese assault. One can read
Tamarin’s discussion for the details. His main point is also mine: the
Canaanite conquest would strike us as flagrant evil were it not a story from
the Bible.
What we face, I think, is the ethical difficulty I
mentioned earlier in passing: the problem of Scripture is the problem of
evil. (pp. 45-46)
And now Sparks lays his cards—or, should I say, the “game
plan” of his “argument”—on the table. He states where he plans to go before
presenting his “argument” for it. And, once more, I will confess personal
astonishment—shock, dismay—at reading what he writes. “No! No! You can't say
that!” And yet he does:
Just as God's good and beautiful creation stands in
need of redemption, so Scripture—as God's word written within and in relation
to that creation, by finite and fallen humans—stands in need of redemption. (p.
46)
Are you kidding me!?! Can you believe he said that? Scripture
needs redemption?!?
He goes on:
Scripture does more than witness explicitly to the fallenness
of the created order and humanity. Scripture is implicitly, in itself, a
product of and evidence for the fallen world that it describes. . . .
I would join other scholars in suggesting that a robust
doctrine of Scripture should not presume that "the text is immune from
criticism." Scripture was written by godly but fallen human authors who
sometimes thought and wrote ungodly things. If this is right, then the church
should not defend Scripture's uniqueness as the divine word by appealing to its
perfection. Rather, a proper account of Scripture's goodness and divine
origins will closely follow the traditional Christian response to the problem
of evil . . . :
God's creation, which is good, nevertheless includes
evil. But these flaws in creation should not be blamed on God but rather on
humanity and its sinful, fallen state.
God's written Word, which is good, nevertheless
includes evil. But these flaws in Scripture should not be blamed on God but
rather on humanity and its sinful, fallen state. (pp. 46-47)
Sparks discusses the problem of evil from a relatively
conventional, orthodox perspective. He refers, for example, to Genesis 50:20,
where Joseph tells his brothers that though they intended evil by sending him
off as a slave to Egypt, "God intended it for good to bring about this
current result: to preserve many people alive." Similarly, he references
Philippians 1:15-18, where the apostle Paul speaks of those who preach
Christ—some from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. “But what does it
matter? . . . Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives
or true; and in that I rejoice.”
I'm sure you can think of similar Scriptures. Sparks
summarizes:
Acts of human sin, intended by ill will, are understood
as standing within God's providential, redemptive activity. And in spite of
this . . . we cannot trace the human evil back to God. Humanity is ultimately
responsible for what ails the world.
And then:
I believe that the same conception of human and divine
agency holds for Scripture.
Or, quoting Bonhoeffer:
We must read this book of books with all human methods.
But through the fragile and broken Bible, God meets us in the voice of the
Risen One. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reflections on the Bible: Human Word and
Word of God, tr. M. E. Boring (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 15.) (pp.
48-49)
No! No! No! Sparks! You are destroying the Bible as I have
been taught to know it!
But he rolls on:
[W]e have the paradoxical circumstance in which God's
creation and written word, though truly his, include horrible things that
he neither created nor said. These terrors, whether of life experience or
biblical "texts of terror," cannot be fully resolved by really smart
human beings with well-honed hermeneutical tools. They will only be resolved by
the eschaton—God’s redemptive activity to set his world aright through Christ.
(p. 49)
Yipes!
At this point, in my heart of hearts, I was not ready to
embrace Sparks' proposal(s), but I will admit that, despite all the problems
such a view might create for the theological systems I have been taught, I felt
incapable of dismissing his proposal out of hand. It seemed to me a potentially
viable hypothesis. I needed to permit him to present whatever evidence he might
be able to show me for why such a view might actually be workable.
I
will stop here with this post. As a matter of fact, this was about where
Sparks ended his Chapter 5.
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