Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture

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

Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture. McClaren -- author of Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words "Kent Sparks addresses the crucial and often painful question that I hear people asking around the world -- from seminary students to their professors, from spiritual seekers to seasoned pastors, from ex-believers to new believers: What do we do about the Bible's dark passages, the places that justify genocide or conflict with one another or can't be squared with scientific data? Sparks doesn't follow the typical all-or-nothing responses to either left or right, but offers an honest, humble, creative, faithful, and robust approach to Scripture that presents it as part of God's good-but-broken creation that is being redeemed in Christ.

Sparks illuminates a number of troubling and complex issues, and his readers will find their thoughts moving in new and promising directions. Scot McKnight -- North Park University "The moral problems of the Old Testament, including what justice means, how peace can be gained, and how love is to be known, can be examined from a number of angles. The only acceptable approaches are those that struggle with the text as Scripture, as God's Word, and seek to find in that text what God might be saying to us today. Sacred Word, Broken Word is among the angels in pursuing this type of approach.

Not all will agree, but I pray that this book will ignite a conversation about how to read the Bible better.

Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture

Abraham -- Perkins Theological Seminary, Southern Methodist University "Sparks sets a new benchmark for work on the theological and philosophical reception of Scripture. Written with elegance, this is a book of seasoned scholarship that is accessible, spiritually sensitive, constructive, and provocative.

Above all it is written from a heart attuned to the depths of human suffering and misery. Howard Marshall — University of Aberdeen "Increasingly readers of the Bible are wondering aloud how they are to deal with such moral problems as the apparent divine approval of slavery and genocide. In this volume Kent Sparks invites Christians of whatever theological persuasion to engage with Scripture as God's authoritative Word.

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He voices his own problems with the 'hard texts,' warns against trivializing them, and looks for a possible positive way forward. This is a book to be taken seriously and read sympathetically, for the problems discussed are very real, and a candid conversation about them must be allowed to take place if Christians are to speak credibly in the contemporary world. While I am sympathetic to the Christian focus on Jesus!!!! Emphasizing Jesus is fine, of course, but at what point does this lead to a latent, or even functional, Marcionism?

Whether this is a reality Sparks attains or something he rather gives lip service to remains unclear to me. What other voices warrant a hearing? Second, the cosmos, a sort of natural theology. Third, tradition, which is not itself infallible says Sparks, has regained a central foothold among Protestants, as well as maintaining its importance with Catholic and Orthodox circles.

Tradition too is not beyond challenge, though I remain unclear why Sparks thinks reading tradition creeds, catechism, etc. The voice with which the Holocaust speaks here is deafening.

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Toward this end, Sparks draws a distinction between warrant an interpretation that is reasonable though may be wrong and validity a right interpretation. Sparks says both text and community offer controls on what can and cannot be a valid interpretation. Sparks basically rehashes his main points: Sparks has written a careful, nuanced, and thoughtful work with which I resonate a great deal.

His insistence that the Bible is not without its complexities and difficulties, coupled with the reality that it must be read for what it is and not what we wish it was, are central and necessary insights that many need to hear and be reminded of often. It is much more a Pauline lens focused on the Genesis text, perhaps, than it is a reading of Genesis in its own context.

Even granting Sparks his point, the fact remains that someone or some group saw fit to portray God in some quite unsettling ways; what lies behind these portrayals? What is the impetus in portraying God this way?

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2. Sacred Word, Broken Word - Kenton L. Sparks : Eerdmans;
3. Schutz vor Taschendieben (Haus und Wohnen 2) (German Edition);
4. Japanese Swords.
5. God, Do You Love Me?.
6. Teaching grammar: approaches and methods;

My point is, simply, what are the limits to which humans can get God wrong? But no one should be able to fault him for at least not raising the questions that need to be asked. Thank you for the review.

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4. Dorm Room Adventures - Episodes 1-3.
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I have read the book myself and had some of the same concerns you have. How do we know what God is trying to say through the texts? It seems to me that if Dr Sparks were to write a commentary on Joshua that it either would have little application to today and thus be really short, or be terribly inconsistent and pick and choose which bits of Joshua is where Gods voice is. I happen to agree that Jesus was harshlike similar to what one might read in the OT, however I am not quite prepared to say that he was wrong about that. Of course this leads to the problem with Dr Sparks that we are to follow Jesus except those times he got carried away.

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