Honest Questions - #3

We’re at the third stage of our whistle-stop tour through Inspiration and Incarnation, the provocative book penned by Peter Enns which consequently saw him thrown out of Westminster Theological Seminary and branded a heretic leave Westminster Theological Seminary by mutual consent.

Last week I drew attention to Enns’ statement that our problems with the Bible are more to do with our preconceptions of how the Bible should behave as opposed to how the Bible itself behaves. Enns sees his task as precisely this: to listen to how the Bible behaves and allow its own voice to shape our doctrines.

He hones in on three issues that he thinks have not been handled well in the theology of that umbrella term “evangelicism”. These three issues are:

1. The Old Testament and other literature from the ancient world
2. Theological diversity in the Old Testament
3. The way in which the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament

Here are some of his honest questions (and perhaps some of yours and mine too) which arise from an examination of these issues:

“Why does the Bible in places look a lot like the literature of Israel’s ancient neighbours?” “Is the Old Testament really that unique?” “Why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same thing?” “Why do the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament in such odd ways?”

Can you relate to this inquisitiveness? Have you uncovered any answers to these questions?

Enns observes that each of the three issues listed above present challenges to traditional doctrines of Scripture. The first issue challenges the Bible’s uniqueness, the second challenges its integrity, and the third its interpretation. We expect something called God’s Word to be unique, we expect it to be unified in its opinion on things, and we expect it to be handled responsibly, especially by those who wrote our New Testament. And so the evidence in and outside of the Bible appears to pose great problems to those of us who regard Scripture as God’s Word. However, as Enns wisely notes,

What is needed is a way of thinking about Scripture where these kinds of issues are addressed from a very different perspective--where these kinds of problems cease from being problems and become windows that open up new ways of understanding.

Enns’ book proposes such a way -- an Incarnational Analogy. “As Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible”. That is, the Bible is both a divine and human book, with both elements being equally important to its nature. It is not an “otherworldly” book, fallen from heaven into Israel’s lap, full of eternal musings which much be deciphered. It is a book that wholly belonged to the world in which it was produced; “it was connected to and therefore spoke to those ancient cultures”.

Enns thinks that too often we minimise or down play the human fingerprints found in the Bible, just as the Docetic heresy proposed that Jesus only appeared to be human, with his humanity merely something to be explained away. “Scriptural docetism” is what Enns calls this phenomenon, and he is surely right to reject it. After all, Scripture is full of human marks, such as the following:

• The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek (with a smidge of Aramaic)
• Temples, priests and sacrifices were common throughout the Mesopotamian world
• Prophets were widespread, and not restricted to Israel
• Israel, like the other nations, was ruled by a king
• Israel’s legal system bears similarities with those of surrounding nations

To some, this humanness represents a major headache, but not to Peter Enns, whose incarnational analogy embraces -- even demands -- these obvious human marks. In fact, as he makes a point of noting, “the human dimension of Scripture is essential to its being Scripture”. Why?

When God reveals Himself, He always does so to people, which means that He must speak and act in ways that they will understand.

This is our starting point as we hover over the evidence (both external and internal) and allow it to bear positive fruit.

7 Days

One of these weeks, perhaps starting this very Monday, I'm going to read the entire Irish Times broadsheet every day for 7 days. What I'll do then I'm not sure, but expect some blog posts along those lines. Just a heads up.

Honest Questions - #2

I always like to pay special attention to what the author of a book denotes as his purpose for writing. Writing finds its source in purpose. Nobody writes for no reason. In Peter Enns' case, he states his purpose in the first sentence of the first chapter:

The purpose of this book is to bring an evangelical doctrine of Scripture into conversation with the implications generated by some important themes in modern biblical scholarship - particularly Old Testament scholarship - over the past 150 years.

The most uninteresting purpose behind a book ever? Taken at face value, perhaps, but trust me on this - things do get interesting for those of us who want to know more about the nature of Scripture.

Enns begins by outlining his own convictions vis-a-vis Scripture: It is ultimately from God and it is His gift to the church. (I would add that it is not only a gift to those in the church, but those outside of the church. For instance, how many people have been spiritually awakened by picking up a Bible and reading a passage? Quite a few, I imagine.) In other words, Enns holds what we might regard as a pretty high doctrine of Scripture. However, what this book gets at is the fleshing out of such a doctrine. And more to the point, the fleshing out of such a doctrine in light of new evidence, or old evidence seen in new light. As such, Enns argues that "we must be willing to engage that evidence and adjust our doctrine accordingly". The Catholic Church re-thinking that whole geocentric view of the universe is one precedent for such doctrinal adjustment based on new evidence, so Enns doesn't think he's petitioning for anything new, and he's right. Those presently imprisoned by the Church for holding a less-then-orthodox view of Scripture will be demanding a re-trial, one feels.

The evidence (which as yet is unspecified) is seen as inherently problematic to evangelical doctrine. So what do most evangelicals do? Defend defend defend! Understandable really, given that the natural human response to an attack is some form of defense. This dialectical tension among scholars during the 20th century could be called the "battle for the Bible". In fact, a scholar by the name of Dr Harold Lindsell wrote a book entitled The Battle for the Bible, in which he adamantly defended the inerrancy of Scripture. So much so that if you believed that Peter only denied Jesus 3 times instead of 6, you might be accused of being "soft of Scripture". I know.

Given what Enns affirms at the beginning of the book -- the Bible is a gift from God -- you may think he's fighting on the side of the theological right in the battle for the Bible. In a way he is, but he is not fighting with the usual weapons. In fact he's not really fighting at all. He's listening to the voice of the evidence which has been thrown at evangelicals over the years, and instead of shouting over it, he's allowing it to shape his conviction that the Bible is God's Word. It's a sort of jujitsu maneuver that the apostle Paul would be proud of, where evidence that is seen to be harmful to one's perspective is turned on its head and becomes a tool for solidifying one's perspective. Enns doesn't claim to solve all the problems of course, but rather he intends to fashion a "theological paradigm" where the evidence finds a comfortable home without the need to uproot the foundations of age-old doctrines. Enns attempts to do this by simply "listening to how the Bible itself behaves", and trying, as much as it is possible, to suspend some of the preconceptions that dominate our ideas about Scripture. In fact, one of the central themes of Inspiration and Incarnation is the following:

The problems many of us fell regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible and more to do with our own preconceptions.

When we admit this, we are in a good place to continue delving into Enns' honest questions.

Honest Questions - #1

I've finished reading the controversial book Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns. Over the coming weeks I'll make an attempt at copying and pasting Enns' work onto this blog relaying the core message of this thought-provoking book. Some may have little interest in what Enns has to say, others may be profoundly interested. Whatever the case, I can safely say that you hold to a certain doctrine of Scripture. You may think it inerrant, infallible, unique, revelatory, God-breathed, Spirit-inspired, or just a big collection of books written by a bunch of Jews about their made-up god, perhaps with some historical value, but with little other modern-day usefulness.

I also don't think it's too outlandish to say that our doctrine of Scripture affects what we do with Scripture. First of all, it will determine whether we read it or not. Secondly, should we think of Scripture as something worth reading, our doctrine will affect how we read the various texts, and consequently, how we respond. In other words, this is pretty fundamental stuff that Enns is dealing with. But let the reader be warned: it will almost certainly challenge some of the ideas about Scripture that you have in your head. It will challenge both those who hold to a high opinion of Scripture, and those who hold to a low. That's not to say that Enns is promoting a "happy medium" opinion of Scripture. His purpose, rather, is to spark a conversation where the evangelical doctrine of Scripture is the topic and ancient near-eastern (ANE for short) literature is the aforementioned spark. What happens when the two meet? Does all talk of uniqueness, revelation, and inspiration come crashing down? Are Christians mad to think of the Bible as God's Word? Or have we simply misunderstood what God's Word to us might look like?

Enns notes in his preface that "God honours our honest questions". This recap of Enns's book will deal with some of those honest questions.

An Early Christian Hymn

According to Raymond E. Brown, the first 18 verses of John's Gospel represent an early Christian hymn. Here is that hymn:

First Strophe
In the beginning was the Word;
the Word was in God's presence,
and the Word was God.
He was present with God in the beginning.

Second Strophe
Through him all things came into being,
and apart from him not a thing came to be.
That which had come to be in him was life,
and his life was the light of men.
The light shines on in the darkness,
for the darkness did not overcome it.

Third Strophe
He was in the world,
and the world was made by him;
yet the world did not recognise him.
To his own he came;
yet his own people did not accept him.
But all those who did accept him
he empowered to become God's children.

Fourth Strophe
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.
And we have seen his glory,
the glory of an only Son coming from the Father,
filled with enduring love

And of his fullness
we have had a share--
love in place of love.

They don't write them like they used to, eh?

The Future

Conan O'Brien's vision of the future, as disclosed in the 1980's:

"I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small Southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority."

"I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under Communist rule."

"I believe that one day, a high speed network of interconnected computers will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chit chat and pornography."

"And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals."

Honest Questions

I've begun reading a book called Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problems of the Old Testament by Peter Enns. It cropped up on a few bibliobloggers' Top 5 books lists, and so I thought it might be worth checking out. Little did I know that this has proved to be quite the controversial work. For instance, this is what the president of Westminster Theological Seminary has to say about Inspiration and Incarnation. It

has caught the attention of the world so that we have scholars that love this book, and scholars who have criticized it very deeply…. We have students who have read it say it has liberated them. We have other students that say it's crushing their faith and removing them from their hope. We have churches that are considering it, and two Presbyteries have said they will not send students to study under Professor Enns here.

In fact, the writing of this book has led to Peter Enns parting ways with his former employers Westminster Theological Seminary, whose chairman saw the book as being incompatible with the Westminster Confession of Faith. Interesting.

Anyway, here is a quote from the first chapter of the book, which introduces us to Enns' provocative perspective on that other book we call the Word of God:

It is somewhat ironic, it seems to me, that both liberals and conservatives make the same error. They both assume that something worthy of the title word of God would look different from what we actually have. The one accents the human marks and makes them absolute. The other wishes the human marks were not as pronounced as they were. They share a similar opinion that nothing worthy of being called God's word would look so common, so human, so recognisable. But, when God speaks, He speaks in ways we would understand.

An Unexpected Twist

Quick life update:

I'm moving to Dublin in a few weeks. I have a place to live, I don't have a place to go and earn money. This was an unexpected twist in my otherwise banal life. The "plan" was to gain more education in the field of biblical studies, but instead I have decided to postpone any such adventures until a) I have some money under my belt and b) some experience of living away from home and being all independent and what not.

I'll be coming back to Galway every few weeks due to worship team commitments/my mother's Sunday dinners, but for all intents and purposes my life will be packing itself up and moving a couple of hundred kilometers east.

One of my first tasks - find a good church. If anyone has any recommendations I'd be happy to hear them.

Changing the Name

As God changed the name of Abram and Jacob, so I shall be changing the name of this blog. Its provisional title shall be Charismata, pronounced ka-RIZ-ma-ta (I think). This is the word the apostle Paul uses when he talks about what we call "spiritual gifts". Why call it such? Here are a few reasons:

• Biblical blogs with Greek titles sound learned and informed, even if they're not. Since this one is not, I want to create the illusion that it is.
• I think charismata is a cool sounding word.
• I think "Christian blogging", for want of a better way of putting it, needs to see itself as what the apostle Paul would call charismata. Inherent in the blogging ethos is an attitude that goes something along the lines of "This is my blog and I have the right to put whatever I want in it". Perhaps Christians need continually to refresh their perspective on blogging, seeing it not as human right but as divine gift. To some the gift of prophecy, to some the gift of teaching, to some the gift of blogging. A Christian-themed blog should be the "stuff of grace", which is what charismata means. Putting this cool sounding Greek word as the title of this blog will be a constant reminder to me that what I have at my fingertips is not a right, but a gift. That's not to suggest that I have a gift for blogging of course, but I think an average of four hits a day speaks for itself.

Anyway, hope you like the new title. If so, or if not, fell free to say as much.