Honest Questions - #10

Before I put my copy of Inspiration and Incarnation to one side, I wanted to give this series a little personal touch. So far I’ve attempted to present Enns’s material in as impartial a light as possible, not trying to sway the reader one way or the other. Besides, Enns’s provocative proposals speak for themselves really, so they don’t need me and my couple of cents getting in the way. But get in the way I shall.

I’m sure it’s obvious already, but I found Inspiration extremely helpful. And not helpful in the sense of strengthening my own assumptions about the Bible, but helpful because it tore down some of those assumptions and built up some sturdier ones. My conviction that the Bible is God’s word has not deteriorated; quite the opposite in fact. But what I mean when I give Scripture this most esteemed title has surely changed, and changed in a positive, healthy way - in a way that “fits” with how Scripture itself behaves.

Like many people, I’ve often thought of the Bible as a collection of “timeless truths” dropped down from heaven which are to be understood (and agreed with) upon careful interpretation and spiritual guidance. As for the stories in Genesis, I’ve read them as if they were originally written for the modern reader, all the while making the outlandish (though unsaid) assumption that someone like Abraham thought like a 21st century man.

Enns’s book has opened my eyes to just how, well, silly that kind assumption is. Why should I expect God to talk to Abraham not as a Babylonian steeped in the culture of his day, but as a modern scientist? It’s absurd, and yet debates about creation rage on, predicated on this feeble assumption made by both sides, liberal and conservative alike.

Also, in thinking about the creation accounts from a purely “modern” perspective, I’ve actually missed the force of what was going on back when Genesis 1 and 2 were articulated - YHWH was implicitly claiming that these other rival creation stories did not tell the real story -- the true metanarrative for the world, if you like -- and more importantly, the gods contained within were not worthy to be worshipped. The god of Abraham was basically saying “I am the creator, and it was simply my good desire that brought about all that you see. This is the starting point.” He drove His point home by taking the stories Abraham grew up with and transforming them into reasons why YHWH alone should be loved and worshipped. This is the power of story, as potent today as it was back then.

None of this proves that Scripture is God’s word of course, but it does show us that God’s word to us comes in ways that we can understand. He condescends to our forms of communication, and speaks words that mean something here and now to particular people. His adoption of our limitations is not beneath Him, but rather an example of His great love for us.

Undergirding all of what Enns writes is the Incarnational Model. As Jesus is both divine and human, so is the Bible. Strangely enough, the church in general has had little problem articulating the deity of Jesus; it’s his humanity that gives us the most headaches. Jesus was hungry? Jesus was thirsty? Jesus didn’t know the answer to certain questions? Jesus was a carpenter? Jesus died? We don’t quite now if/how we should embrace these things, because they appear to us so un-Godlike.

The human marks of the Bible can be similarly problematic. Would God really speak through a category of literature we know as “myth”? Would He really adopt the cultural limitations of the day? The answer affirmed by the Incarnation is “Yes and amen”. The human way of life is not beneath the creator, for it is He who created it and said that it was “very good”. Not only should this transform our understanding of Scripture, it should also deeply humble us and stir up thankfulness in our hearts.

Inspiration and Incarnation is a challenging read, both for those with a high view of Scripture and for those with a low view. It doesn’t try and find a place for us to rest somewhere in the middle, but instead tries to find fresh ways of thinking about what it means for the Bible to be God’s word. When it comes to Scripture, we can’t affirm anything much greater than that it is the word of God, therefore all of this is extremely relevant to the average person who engages in Bible reading. The way we read this most popular of books is partly based on our understanding of the term “word of God”. Enns paints a picture of this term that is linked with the eternal Word, Jesus, which is helpful in answering our honest questions, and which ultimately leads to a clearer portrait of the God of the word; the God who descends.

Honest Questions - #9

Last time out saw Enns ask the provocative question,

Why is it that God can’t use the category we call “myth” to speak to ancient Israelites?

A witch! A witch! Burn 'im!

Or, we could hear him out and see if what he says makes sense.

For Enns, Abraham -- whose story begins in Genesis 11 -- holds the key to understanding Genesis's earlier chapters. Here is a man who was called by God from "Ur of the Chaldeans". He was not an Israelite, but a Babylonian, and therefore steeped in its culture. Enns highlights the fact that

The Mesopotamian world from which Abraham came was one whose own stories of origins had been expressed in mythic categories for a considerable length of time. Moreover, the land Abraham was going to enter, the land of the Canaanites, was likewise rich in its own mythics.

When we keep this historical context in mind, the creation and flood accounts in Genesis can be seen in a better light. Abraham would not understand a God who spoke to him in scientific terms, and so it is unreasonable for us to expect the creation account to be a piece of scientific literature. Therefore the reason Genesis looks like other ANE documents is that this way of thinking was normative at the time. Abraham thought like a Babylonian, so it should come as little surprise that God spoke to him as a Babylonian.

So how and why is Genesis different to the Babylonian myths Abraham would have grown up with? Enns suggests that

The reason the biblical account is different from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts is not that it is history in the modern sense of the word and therefore divorced from any similarity to ancient Near Eastern myth. What makes Genesis different from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts is that it begins to make the point to Abraham and his seed that the God they are bound to, the God who called them into existence, is different from the gods around them.

God didn't transfer Abraham out of the mythic world and into a completely foreign scientific world. He simply "transformed the ancient myths so that Israel's story would come to focus on its God, the real one". Creation was no longer the result of divine feuds (as in Enuma Elish) but the product of the One True God's desire, who spoke things into being.

Enns proceeds to drop another bombshell on our assumptions:

...the question is not the degree to which Genesis conforms to what we would think is a proper description of origins. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship...It is wholly incomprehensible to think that thousands of years ago God would have felt constrained to speak in a way that would be meaningful only to Westerners several thousand years later. To do so borders on modern, Western arrogance. Rather, Genesis makes its case in a way that ancient men and women would have readily understood - indeed, the only way.

It is worth reading that paragraph again, because it represents the heart of Enns's argument, and challenges the Western man's mind to its very core.

Enns relates his argument back to his Incarnational Analogy, which suggests that we think of Scripture as we think of Christ - both divine and human. The Bible as the word of God is God's words in human words. It "does not imply disconnectedness to its environment. In fact, if we can learn a lesson from the Incarnation of God in Christ, it demands the exact opposite". The accounts in Genesis should not embarrass us because of their similarities to the "myths" surrounding them, but we should instead be thankful that God is a God who stoops down low to our imperfect ways of understanding, and speaks words that make sense to the hearers. In light of the Incarnation,

We must resist the notion that for God to enculturate Himself is somehow beneath Him. This is precisely how He shows His love to the world He made.

And so it ends (no pun intended). Has Peter Enns convinced you? Have your assumptions been rattled? Have any of your honest questions been answered? Is the notion of the Bible as God's word either clearer or muddier?

Honest Questions - #8

We looked previously at how the evidence -- that is, ancient Near Eastern documents which seemingly bring a "high view" of Scripture into question -- has been handled by scholars in the past. Some saw it as a dagger in the heart of evangelical doctrine. Others -- a.k.a Evangelicals -- tried to view most of it as irrelevant.

Now we come to the part we’ve all been anticipating for the past month or so; the part where Dr Peter Enns guides us along a new path for thinking through these issues. Honest Questions has been the title of this series; we now turn to some of Enns’s honest answers.

An important word has cropped up from time to time during our snapshot of Inspiration and Incarnation. That word is not ‘evidence’, but ‘assumptions’. For Enns, the key to grappling with the evidence is to tackle some of the assumptions made on both sides of the liberal/conservative divide.

But before doing that, he makes two assumptions of his own. He assumes that

the extrabiblical archaeological and textual evidences should play an important role in our understanding of Scripture.

and

All attempts to articulate the nature of Scripture are open to examination, including my own.

He assumes the former because Christianity is a(n) historical faith, and so it makes little sense to ignore history when it comes to understanding the faith better. The latter assumption is necessary for the sake of humility; not just Enns’s, but all those who grapple with the nature of Scripture. As Enns wisely observes, “the Spirit leads the church into truth - He does not simply drop us down in the middle of it”.

With those assumptions clarified, we head back to the issue of Genesis’ relation to other ANE (ancient Near Eastern) creation and flood accounts. Is Genesis, like these other documents, to be classified as “myth”? If so, it would seem to drag Scripture down to the level of any other ancient text. Enns questions this assumption, however (see, I told you he'd do that), claiming that the distinction between Genesis as either myth or history is a “modern invention”. He goes on to say (with pin removed from grenade) that

It presupposes -- without stating explicitly -- that what is historical, in a modern sense of the word, is more real, of more value, more like something God would do, than myth. So, the argument goes, if Genesis is myth, then it is not “of God”. Conversely, if Genesis is history, only then is it something worthy of the name “Bible”.

Enns proceeds to ask a simple, honest question (with grenade launched into the air):

Why is it that God can’t use the category we call “myth” to speak to ancient Israelites?

Medic! Medic! Assumption down!

(Keep in mind Enns’s generous definition of “myth”: an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories.)

So how are we to account for the similarities between Genesis and ANE myths? Why are they there, and what do they do to our understanding of Scripture as the word of God?

Expect a few more grenades next time as this series draws to a close.

Honest Questions - #7

So where have we come from to get to this, the seventh installment on Inspiration and Incarnation? We began with setting the scene. Enns's book comes on the back of the 20th century "Battle for the Bible". Certain pieces of ancient evidence were discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal in the latter half of the 19th century and were subsequently used by some scholars to dismantle the evangelical doctrine of Scripture. The fundamentalists fought back (which seems to be an important aspect of what constitutes "fundamentalism"), but not in any meaningful way that engaged with the evidence. More of a "la la la I can't hear you la la la" kind of way. Enns, by challenging the assumptions made on both sides of the war, has put himself in No Mans Land as a voice of reason. There is one mediator between conservatives and liberals, the man Peter Enns.

His proposal is a model for thinking about the nature of Scripture that takes it's divine and human aspects seriously, thus the Incarnational Analogy is born. As we must hold the divine and human nature's of Jesus in tension and not diminish either, so it should be with Scripture. Like any analogy, it is not irrefutable or complete, or in mathematical language, it does not represent a 1:1 correspondence. But it is helpful, given the obvious human dimension of Scripture (the dimension Enns is chiefly concerned with in his book).

We glanced over a couple of the pieces of evidence put forward by Enns, and noted the resulting issues that place large question marks over an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. Which brings us to where we are now - looking at how these issues have been handled in the past, and how Enns suggests they should be handled in the present and future. In case you missed the previous six parts, I'll link them here for your convenience:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

"How have these issues been handled in the past?" is the penultimate step before getting to grips with the issues in the present and future. Enns asserts that the aforementioned evidence "caught the church off guard". Pre-evidence, the predominant issues in the exciting world of biblical scholarship were textual - uncovering the original form of these much-copied biblical texts. Post-evidence, there was a shift from text to context, with the dominant question being, "What did these documents mean in their original context?" (As the saying goes, a text without a context is a pretext.)

Scholarly response to the issues raised by this evidence was divided. In one camp were those who insisted that the Bible was basically a purely human book. As Enns notes,

What modern biblical scholarship demonstrated was that the Bible shared many of the standards, concepts and worldviews of its ancient Near Eastern neighbours. When they got down to it, there really wasn't anything about the Bible itself that made it all that special, and this seemed very inconsistent with conventional notions of inspiration and God speaking to us in the Bible today.

In the other camp was the "conservatives", who held fast to their highly-valued doctrines and thus were only prepared to engage with any evidence that supported them, while retreating from any evidence which was seen as threatening. As noted in an earlier post, ironically enough both camps made the same questionable assumption:

The Bible, being the word of God, ought to be historically accurate in all its details (since God would not lie or make errors) and unique in all its own setting (since God's word is revealed, which implies a specific type of uniqueness).

Enns goes on to paint something of a caricature by saying that,

if historical context was everything for liberal scholars, regardless of its implications for Christian doctrine, for conservative scholars doctrine was everything, regardless of the historical evidence that challenged doctrine.

Which leads us back to Enns's original intention for writing this book: to engage with ancient evidence in such a way that it is allowed to shape what we mean by saying the Bible is the word of God. Christians may affirm that the Bible is God's word, but what does that mean? Whether you identify yourself as a Christian or not, what do you think it means to call a text God's word? What should something with this title look like, keeping in mind especially the creation and flood narratives?

Honest Questions - #6

The previous couple of posts in this series dealt with some Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) documents related to Scripture's creation and flood narratives. We finished with three questions: How does this evidence influence our understanding of the historical nature of the biblical story? Are the creation and flood accounts in Genesis historical fact, or they simply hokey stories ripped from surrounding cultures to be dismissed by serious-minded people? What does all of this to do the belief that the Bible is the Word of God?

Peter Enns begins to tackle these problems by closely examining the perceived issues people have when confronted with this ANE evidence.

He first of all calls a general assumption into question, that assumption being that the more Genesis looks like the Akkadian texts the less inspired it must be. Is that something you assume? Is Enns right to question it?

The problem these ANE texts raise can be boiled down to the historicity of the Genesis accounts. How can we say that they are true when they look so much like these other ancient texts? The ANE stories have widely been branded as myth, and given that a text such as Enuma Elish has to do with divine family feuds, we're quite comfortable giving them this tag. However, as Enns points out,

Christians recoil form any suggestion that Genesis is in any way embedded in the mythologies of the ancient world.

We do, don't we? Christianity is intertwined with historical truth, and so we can't have it in bed with something so untrue and made-up as myth. But what if we simply misunderstand what "myth" actually is? Enns gives the following (generous) definition of myth:

An ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories.

The people of the second millennium BC were not at liberty to talk about the universe in our modern, scientific terms. No doubt some of them looked up at the night sky as we do and wondered how it all came to be, but any answer they could contemplate would not be in the form of string theory. Their answers came -- as only they could -- in the form of stories. We do not know when tales about the gods arose, but as Enns muses,

I like to think that the imprint of God is so strong on His creation that, even apart from any knowledge of the true God, ancient peoples just knew that how and why they were here can be explained only by looking outside themselves.

However, all of this talk of myth and stories creates quite a big problem for Christians today. An honest question arises: If these ANE documents are categorised as myth (as defined above), and if we can safely say that the biblical stories are at least somewhat similar to these documents, does this mean that myth is the appropriate category for understanding Genesis?

The simple point Enns intends to make is that the Genesis accounts are also examples of ANE texts whether we like it or not, and so we should be careful about what standards we hold them to. After all,

Is it not likely that God would have allowed His word to come to ancient Israelites according to standards they understood, or are modern standards of truth and error so universal that we should expect premodern cultures to have understood them?

Enns argues for the former perspective, an argument we will get to in the next post or two.

Honest Questions - #5

We looked previously at the ancient near eastern creation story called Enuma Elish, the “Babylonian Genesis”. Now we turn our attention to the next set of documents on Enns’s exciting reading list: Atrahasis and Gilgamesh.

These texts speak of a global flood, both of which have Noah-esque figures in them. The similarities don’t stop there. For example, Atrahasis mentions that the door of the boat was sealed with pitch, with Gilhamesh containing many striking parallels: it speaks of various dimensions, animals on board, and the quest for dry land post-flood through the strategic use of doves and ravens.

Enns once again highlights the fact that one must not simply conclude that Genesis is directly dependent on either Atrahasis or Gilgamesh or both. But he also notes that “the obvious similarities between them indicates a connection on some level”. And so some honest questions remain:

How does this evidence influence our understanding of the historical nature of the biblical story?

Are the creation and flood accounts in Genesis historical fact, or they simply hokey stories ripped from surrounding cultures to be dismissed by serious-minded people?

What does all of this to do the belief that the Bible is the Word of God?

Enns's handling of these important questions is where we'll pick things up.

Honest Questions - #4

Evidence. This word has been mentioned numerous times in this multi-post recap of Inspiration and Incarnation, but thus far an elaboration has not been forthcoming. Herein lieth the beginnings of said elaboration. This is edge-of-the-seat stuff right here, folks.

I’m not going to touch on all the evidence dealt with in Enns’ book. To do so would be, well, boring. But there are some important points to be made regarding the discovery of ancient literature from times surrounding the world of the Old Testament. Those important points will probably be overlooked, but on the off chance that they are not, bear with me.

Enns’ plan at the beginning of this rather long chapter is fourfold: present the ancient texts, summarize the issues raised by these texts, sew how these issues have been handled in the past, and see how the incarnational analogy (described here) can offer a better grip of things that appear to shake the foundations of evangelical doctrine.

First, to the texts!

Enuma Elish
This is a creation document written on seven tablets dating to the seventh century BC, with the story itself probably originating in the eighteenth century BC at the earliest. It has been called the “Babylonian Genesis” because of the similarities between it and the beginning of the Bible. Those similarities are as follows:

• The order in which things are created is similar
• There is darkness before anything is created
• There is a division of waters above and below the firmament
• There is light before there is a sun, moon and stars

Enns is careful to note that one cannot simply draw a direct line of dependence from Genesis to Enuma Elish, as if the author of Genesis had a copy of this Babylonian text and adjusted it slightly so as to not be sent to detention for cheating. Nonetheless, the similarities are there, as well as the differences. For example, Enuma Elish presents creation as the result of divine domestic violence, where the slain body of the goddess Tiamat is turned into creation by her great-great grandson Marduk. No such cosmic battle is described in Scripture, with creation being the product of one Supreme Being’s desire. Enns suggests that Genesis may have been written for the purposes of such a stark contrast. Sounds reasonable to me.

Whatever the case, it is clear, as Enns highlights, that the author’s of both these ancient texts were operating within a similar conceptual world. To better understand books like Genesis, it is extremely helpful to get a glimpse at that surrounding thought-world. As noted at the beginning of this series, God generally speaks to people in ways they understand in their context. Fifty years ago, had an omniscient magazine editor asked an employee to write about ways of communication using some of the editors keen insights, we wouldn’t expect the employee to describe the process of emailing and text messaging. It would be gibberish to the employee, and meaningless to the readers also.

But alas, I’m getting ahead of myself. There are a couple more pieces of evidence I will mention next time around before getting to the more interesting implications. As I said, edge of the seat stuff.

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.

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.