I thank Roy Barton and the rest of the Hispanic Instructors for the many insights I have received during these years, and most especially for the challenge and the opportunity to write this book. In particular, I wish to thank those colleagues who took the time to read the first draft of the manuscript, and to offer detailed suggestions and corrections: Edgar Avitia, María Luisa Santillán-Baert, Irving Cotto, Roberto Gómez, Pablo Jiménez, Loida Martell-Otero, and José David Rodríguez. Thanks to their efforts, this book has been significantly improved. I trust that through it the reader will gain some new insights, not only into what the Latino Christian community has to say, but also into what the Bible itself has to say!
INTRODUCTION
Authority and Perspective
Do you believe that the Bible is inerrant?” the young man with the tape recorder asked.
There was a hush in the audience, for much more than a theological issue was at stake. The setting was the lecture hall at a seminary in Latin America. This particular seminary has done much for the cause of theological education, not only in its own denomination and geographical setting, but throughout Latin America and for several denominations. Much of its funding came from the United States, from a denomination that had recently been taken over by a rabidly fundamentalist faction. The faculty and administration had taken a risk in inviting me to lecture, for they knew that they were under serious scrutiny by some who wanted their funding to be discontinued. In consequence, I had been very careful to stick to church history, and to avoid any subject that might put the existence of the seminary in jeopardy. I had been particularly careful not to say a word about the Bible or its historical accuracy. But the young man with the tape recorder had been sent by representatives of the fundamentalist faction in the denomination, to check on what was being taught at the seminary. When the floor was opened for questions from the audience he saw his opportunity. I even imagined that I saw a glint of triumph in his eyes as he stood up with his tape recorder and asked: “Do you believe that the Bible is inerrant?”
Finally, after a moment of hushed expectation, I responded, “Yes! The Bible is inerrant. But the same cannot be said for any interpretation of the Bible. The error is not in the Bible, but in its interpreters, who often confuse their own words with the Word of God.”
“What do you mean? Can you give me an example?”
“Surely. As a matter of fact, I’ll give you two. In John 15:1, Jesus says that he is ‘the true vine.’ If I were to tell you that this means that Jesus has roots, and a trunk, and leaves, and needs dirt and fertilizer in order to live, you probably would say that I was mistaken. Jesus is not really and literally a vine. The text must be interpreted in some other fashion. You probably would say that the text is an allegory, that its language is metaphoric. Yet the text itself does not say that it is an allegory or a metaphor. There is no error in the text. The error would be in the interpreter who takes it literally when it is not intended to be literal. Isn’t that so?” I asked, as he nodded in agreement. Then I continued: “Now, then, in Genesis 1 we are told that God made the world in six days. Just as in the case of John 15, the text does not tell us whether we are to interpret it literally or not. If you insist that the text must be taken literally, that is your privilege, and there certainly is nothing in the text to contradict you. But there is also nothing in the text that says that it must be taken literally. Therefore your position, as well as the position of someone who says that text is to be taken as a metaphor, is based, not on the text itself, but on your interpretation of the text. If either you or that other person err, the error is not in the text itself, but in its interpretation. That is why I say that the Bible is inerrant, but the same cannot be said for any interpretation of the Bible. As a matter of fact, for me to claim that my interpretation is inerrant is to usurp the authority of the Bible. And the same is true of any interpretation, no matter whether literal or metaphorical.”
At that point, the young man sat down and turned off his tape recorder. I looked at the president of the seminary, who winked at me and sighed in relief.
Obviously, there was some sleight of hand in that argument. Inerrancy, as I defined it in that discussion, can be claimed with equal grounds for any text, for in the final analysis it is not texts that err, but their interpreters. If the young man had been quicker of wit, and had asked me, “Does that mean that the plays of Shakespeare or of Lope de Vega are inerrant?” I would have been forced to answer “Yes,” and my entire argument would have come tumbling down.
Yet the point remains—for the Bible as well as for Lope de Vega—that no reading of a text is completely and absolutely corroborated by the text itself. Reading is always a dialogue between the text and the reader. It is not only the text that speaks and the reader who listens, but also the reader who asks questions of the text, and the text responds.
There is a poetically mysterious dimension to any dialogue.1 How is it that I, a center of being and consciousness that no one can fully understand—not even myself—can express my thoughts and sentiments in words that are themselves subject to interpretation, and hope to communicate with another center of being that is fully as mysterious as myself? When I say “God is love,” my understanding of “God,” of “love,” and even of “is,” is shaded and nuanced by myriad experiences, many of which I do not understand nor even suspect. The same is true of the person who hears my words. And yet, I believe—and I know—that dialogue is possible. Somehow, it is worthwhile to say to another “God is love,” even though our understanding of those words will never be exactly the same. Dialogue, mysterious and seemingly impossible though it might be, is the basis of our entire social life. It is the hope that communication might be possible that sustains me as I make a phone call, preach a sermon, or write a book. You, my reader, will certainly not read this book exactly as I intended it. Yet I persist in writing it presuming on the poetically mysterious miracle of dialogue, whereby, in spite of its impossibility, communication does take place.
When the miracle of dialogue really happens, the otherness of each party is respected; what one party says is not to be understood merely on the basis of the whims of the other. I must not allow myself to hear you saying whatever I please, whatever fits my presuppositions. Your words have a normative dimension that I must not violate. On the other hand, I can only hear them within my context and from my own perspective. And yet, dialogue takes place, and somehow we manage to communicate. Communication is that mysterious bridge where intimacy and otherness meet.
To read the Bible is to enter into dialogue with it. In that dialogue, there is a sense in which the text is normative, just as the interlocutor of any other dialogue is normative. Impossible though the task may be, I must strive to understand the ancient text in its own context. I know that I cannot jump back to the time of the Exile in Babylon, nor even to the time of the Roman Empire—living late in the twentieth century is difficult enough! No matter how much I study the original languages, I shall never understand the nuances of every turn of phrase the way a native speaker would have understood them. And yet I must take the text and its context in all seriousness. That is why the study of the biblical languages and of all the disciplines, which in various ways contribute to the historico-critical method, is so important. I must listen to the text as I would to another, respecting and trying to understand its otherness.
At the same time, the other pole of the dialogue is just as important. It is I, from my context and my perspective, who read the text. In order for there to be true dialogue, the text must engage me, not as I would be had I lived at the time of the Babylonian exile, but as I am here and now. It is not only the text that speaks to me, but I who speak to the text, demanding its responses in genuine dialogue.