Kent Sparks's book God's Word in Human Words (GWHW) was the subject of a session organized by Peter Enns at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting last November. Dr. Enns has made some of this session available to a broader audience on his blog, starting with his review of GWHW, and continuing with his response and Bill Arnold's response. We also discussed these posts here in parts one and two of this series.
(GWHW) was the subject of a session organized by Peter Enns at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting last November. Dr. Enns has made some of this session available to a broader audience on his blog, starting with Late last week Stephen Chapman's response to GWHW was posted on Enns's blog. This is excellent timing. Chapman provides an insightful review that brings up several questions that confront me in reading GWHW. And relevant to our last post on GWHW, Chapman's review touches on the issue of accommodation in the interpretation of scripture. You can read Chapman's review for yourself. Here I will highlight just a few of his points and open it up for discussion.
Chapman brings up three important points I think particularly worthy of discussion.
First: Sparks proposes that God accommodates to human error - human fallenness. This is a more radical proposal than standard views of accommodation where God accommodates to human capacity for understanding.
The accommodation of ancient near east cosmology in Gen 1 is an accommodation to human capacity and finite human understanding. This is a relatively straightforward example and it seems obvious that God did accommodate himself to human perspective in Gen 1 and many other places. There is no sin involved - any error is simply related to human finitude.
On the other hand Sparks suggests that in the conquest accounts God
has accommodated to Israel's errant understanding of ethnic identity
and genocide. In the context of New Testament teaching violent protection of ethnic identity is sin. We would now hold the same for slavery.
Is accommodation theory really able to handle moral error in scripture and is Sparks asking it to?
Second: According to Chapman...
Sparks never gives sustained attention to the issue of inspiration, which is traditionally how evangelical theology has attempted to do justice to the double agency at the heart of Scripture's composition. One might therefore think that Sparks simply gives no credence to any view of inspiration at all, that the human authors of Scripture had done the best they could in their fallen state to imagine the ways of God, and that God had had to make the best of it afterwards.
Does Sparks's view of accommodation really do justice to the inspiration of scripture? How should we view inspiration?
Third: Sparks seems to have overcompensated for evangelical disdain of historical and biblical criticism by placing too much confidence in the results of biblical criticism. This was also my (untrained) impression as I read GWHW. Chapman goes on:
As someone who was trained largely within the historical-critical paradigm but has increasingly registered the limitations, blind spots and delusions integral to the methodology, I find myself hoping that it will not now be necessary for evangelicals to make all the same mistakes that historical-critical biblical scholars have made already!
...
I venture to suggest that evangelical biblical scholarship will need ... to respond more openly to the full challenge of historical-critical biblical scholarship (just as Sparks urges) but also (more than Sparks advocates) to remain watchful for the limitations of historicism, engaging in historical study that can be brought into productive relationship with the life of the church. I do not actually think that Sparks would disagree with this point, I just think he has not emphasized it as much as it needs to be emphasized. Here again the rhetoric of his argument pushes him too far to one side of what is always, to be sure, a tricky balancing-act.
How do we take the balanced approach - accepting the clear evidence of biblical scholarship yet retaining a robust view of scripture as the Word of God?
Don't get me wrong - I think that Sparks's view of accommodation is important and one we would do well to consider seriously. It is undoubtedly a significant part of the answer to the problems we see in scripture. The tendency by some Evangelical scholars to disavow accommodation is, I think, indefensible. But I don't think that accommodation can carry the whole load.
What do you think?
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.
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Interesting conversation ...
A few comments:
(1) About fallenness in the Bible: The view reflected in my book is that Christ has come to redeem God’s fallen but still beautiful creation, and that the Bible—as a book produced within that fallen created order, and written by fallen men—is itself in need of redemption insofar as it participates in that fallen situation. I think that this is what Jesus is getting at in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, “You have heard that it was said [by Moses!], “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth … but I say unto you … If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other …”
That is, though Jesus plainly says that his sermon does not abolish but fulfill the law, that fulfillment amounts to the reversal and redemption of the law. This cannot be a complete surprise, given that the Bible itself says that God gave Israel some “laws that were not good” (Ezek 20:25).
(2) As for the review of my book by Stephen (Chapman), he’s a good guy and a scholar with excellent theological instincts. If I could write the book again, I suppose that I’d take his advice and offer a fuller account of my view of inspiration. But that said, at two points I’d quibble with his review. First, he claims that I swallow too much of the historical criticism … to this I’d simply respond, “For example?” That is, what critical view, specifically, have I accepted that Stephen himself would not accept as either likely or at least acceptable as a sound scholarly theory? And secondly, I feel that, when he critiques my view of the Deuteronomic genocide as a “one-sided,” “either-or” interpretation (the genocide is either very good or very bad), this misapprehends my approach in the book. At numerous points I aver that human judgments and viewpoints run on a continuum between better and worse rather than the simply Boolean values of right or wrong. We certainly do have something valuable to learn from the conquest theology of Deuteronomy, some of it explicit (i.e, we should join the all-out effort to eradicate evil from our world) and some of it implicit (i.e, we should understand that this law has its cruel side and hence stands in need of full redemption).
A few bloggers have quoted Romans, with its wise word that we are the pots and he is the clay … that God can do what he wishes … including command a total slaughter of the Canaanites. To this I’d offer two points: (1) As I’ve just suggested, Jesus himself tells us that the violent side of biblical law is unacceptable as a template for ethical Christian behavior; and (2) The bottom line is that I don’t simply use the Bible to get theology; rather, I accept the Bible because its account of the world around me resonates well with my experience in that world. But if, in fact, the God of the Bible literally commanded Israel to kill Canaanite men, women and children … and if this really was because they had the wrong religion and because Israel needed their land … and if all of this was done when Israel itself was no better … then I’d simply look for another God.
But as it stands, I don’t believe that this is the case. The God that meets us in Christ, and the Bible that points to Christ and explains his work, with theology that leads up to and reflects back on the incarnation, has been my true salvation … I am at peace in my life and with God because I grew up reading a Bible that led me to Jesus Christ.
PS: Regarding the NT response to the Canaanite genocide, I'd invite readers to have a look at my article on Matthew's "Great Commission" in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, "Gospel as Conquest: Mosaic Typology in Matt 28:16-20."
Thanks Kent. With respect to this statement:
First, he claims that I swallow too much of the historical criticism …
This was my admittedly untrained opinion as well.
to this I’d simply respond, "For example?" That is, what critical view, specifically, have I accepted that Stephen himself would not accept as either likely or at least acceptable as a sound scholarly theory?
I would love to be able to listen in on the resulting discussion of the historical criticism (especially if we could add a couple more views to the mix as well). I have a much better handle on NT studies than OT. I can evaluate NT claims somewhat reasonably - but the OT is a puzzle yet --- and so important to many of the discussions I find myself in.
Well, Stephen is a trained scholar, and he too thinks that I swallow to much of the criticism. But the bottom line is that, if even one piece of the criticism is right, then the whole edifice of fundamentalism falls with it ...
I'll look forward to the discussion, RJS.
Kent
Kent,
I have no doubt that many of the pieces are right - and that fundamentalism falls. I think that we need to accept the clear evidence of biblical scholarship --- but I have a hard time judging what is "clear evidence" and what falls more into the shifting sand of interpretation. Experience in my discipline - which should be rigorous (and is to a great extent) - tells me that it is often hard to separate "hard data" from the interpretation of that data and that scholars often muddy the waters. Papers must be read with a critical eye.
My own mentors passed on a strong ethic to separate data from interpretation ... but such isn't always the case. (And I do not buy the postmodern critique that "all is interpretation" - I can take practical realism ... not antirealism.)
Kent,
Let me add a bit - here is a quote from your book, p. 77, just before starting on The Problem of the Pentateuch:
One more point before we get started. None of the perspectives below are embraced by every critical scholar; in some cases even I have questions about these critical conclusions. So biblical scholarship is not something that offers us a long list of assured results. ...
I appreciate this - and that you are laying out a case, the general form of which is secure, and Chapman seems to agree in his review. But because I'm not an expert, and don't have much basis for evaluation, I would like to be able to get some idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the various points. Unfortunately resources are hard to come by ... perhaps because, as Scot mentioned in a comment on an earlier post on your book ( Comment 1) OT criticism is "off limits" for many evangelical Christians - but we need more OT scholars to be more vocal about historical realities.
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