Chapter 2 – How We Got Into This Mess
In the second chapter of The Sin of Certainty, Peter Enns sketches what he thinks are the historical roots of the evangelical pro-occupation with right thinking.
He begins by observing that we do not become Christians by working things out rationally, and then coming to a decision, but by other means. This being the case, then the emphasis which many Christians place on ‘knowing what you believe’ is misplaced. …
Peter Enns stands in a rather long line of scholars, teachers and leaders (including James Barr, Dave Tomlinson, Brian Maclaren, Robert M. Price, Bart Ehrman, and Steve Chalke) who have, to a lesser or greater extent, turned their backs on the evangelical faith which once nurtured them. In some cases (Ehrman) it has finished up in agnosticism. In others (Price) in doubting whether the Jesus of the Bible even existed. In still others (Tomlinson, Maclaren, and Chalke) there remains a clear profession of Christian faith, while important theological and moral tenets have undergone drastic revision. …
William Jennings Bryan is reported to have said: “I believe the whale swallowed Jonah because the Bible said it, and if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale I would have believed it simply because the Bible said so.”
Much more recently Peter LaRuffa, who is on the staff of Grace Fellowship Church, Northern Kentucky, said:-
‘Let no one ever again affirm that conservative evangelicals have no regard for scholarship.’
It was with that statement that Bishop Stephen Neill began his review of a 1976 book entitled ‘History, Criticism and Faith’. This book was a collection of four essays by F.F. Bruce, R.T. France, Colin Brown, and G. Wenham. In it, they discuss ‘Myth and History’ (Bruce), ‘the Authenticity of the Sayings of Jesus’ (France), ‘History and the Believer’ (Brown), and ‘History and the Old Testament’ (Wenham).…
Enns, Peter (2014). The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
I offer a summary of some of the book’s main points, and then an assessment.
The Bible, says Enns, presents us with at least three kinds of problem:-
On publication in 2005, Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament caused quite a stir. It led, eventually, to his departure from his post as professor at Westminster Theological Seminary.
What was the fuss all about?
The main thesis of the book is that evangelicals need to take more seriously the human aspects of Old Testament. Enns identifies three areas for exploration.
We need, says Enns, to recognise that the literature of the Old Testament has much in common with other literature from the Ancient Near East. …
Hammurabi was a Babylonian king who reigned in the 18th century BC. His code of law was discovered by French archaeologists in 1901-2.
Among the 300-odd laws are many that are similar to those of the Mosaic law. For example, some of the laws deal with the concept of ‘an eye for an eye’, and these are quite closely parallel to those contained in the so-called ‘book of the covenant’ (Exodus 21-23).
The following examples are cited by Peter Enns (Inspiration and Incarnation):-
[ezcol_1half]If a son has struck his father, they shall cut off his hand.…
A number of stone tablets have been discovered at the site of Nuzi (in present-day northern Iraq). These date from the 14th and 15th centuries BC. Although scholars think that the parallels between the customs and practices recorded on these tablets and those recorded in Genesis may have been over-stated, they do nevertheless provide some historical background to the world of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob’s twelve sons.
According to Peter Enns (Inspiration and Incarnation) the commonly-agreed parallels would include the following:-
Recent publication of a book exploring Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy has got me thinking again about this topic.
Readers of Walking With Giants will know that I do not subscribe to a formal doctrine of inerrancy. I have outlined my reasons for this, and these include:-
Inerrancy is an inappropriate term. It is not appropriate for the very different kinds of literature we find in the Bible. It is easy to see what it would mean for a telephone directory to be regarded as ‘inerrant’, but not a psalm.…
