The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority

by Gregory K. Beale

Examines recent postmodern efforts to redefine the traditional evangelical view of scriptural authority and counters with sound logic that supports inerrancy.

Due to recent popular challenges to evangelical doctrine, biblical inerrancy is a topic receiving an increasing amount of attention among theologians and other scholars. Here G. K. Beale attempts vigorously and even-handedly to examine the writings of one leading postmodernist, Peter Enns, whose writings challenge biblical authority. In support of inerrancy, Beale presents his own set of challenges to the postmodern suppositions of Enns and others.

How can the Bible be historically inaccurate while still serving as the authoritative word on morality and salvation? Beale concludes that it cannot, and his work will aid all who support biblical inerrancy in defending their position against postmodern attacks. This is an issue that affects the entire body of Christ.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Biblical Studies, Nonfiction, Scripture

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 4, 2008

About the author

G. K. Beale (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the coeditor of the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament and the author of numerous books, including A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good defense of the doctrine of inerrancy against some of the major contemporary rejections of that doctrine. Beale engages Peter Enns' Incarnation & Inspiration for the first few chapters. This covers, in part, the nature of myth and whether the biblical authors could think they were relaying the truth while they were relaying myth yet still have an intelligible concept of inerrancy, the ANE concept of history, science, and truth, and how the New Testament uses the old. Beale then discusses Isaianic authorship and how inerrantists deal with these questions. Beale then spends two chapters on biblical cosmology and addresses the questions about whether OT authors imbibed ANE cosmological mythology in its understanding of the world and universe. He invokes his insight that the world and heavens represent a temple, and ANE temples were microcosms of the universe and world. Thus cosmological speak was not intended to be something like a "scientific" understanding of how the world "really" was. Rather, both Israel and other ANE civilizations were making a theological point, or sometimes speaking phenomenologically. Beyond the use of this insight in discussions related to inerrancy, Beale's entire discussion of the Temple (cf. The Temple and the Church's Mission) is brilliant. Beale closes with a few appendices, two dealing with hermeneutics and postmodernism, one with relevant statements from the Chicago statement of inerrancy (followed by some exposition), and then some statements from Karl Barth on inerrancy, showing that Barth was wide of the mark when it came to this issue.

[Bob Hayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In recent years, Evangelicalism has seen a number of challenges to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. Chief among these have been new insights into the cultural and historical background of the Old Testament provided by newly found ancient Near Eastern sources (ANE for short). A recent turmoil was raised by a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary named Peter Enns who published a controversial book Inspiration and Incarnation. Eventually he was deemed to have violated the Westminster Confession of Faith in his views and was removed from his teaching post at Westminster.

In scholarly journals, G.K. Beale responded to Enns' book and open questioning of the popular understanding of biblical inerrancy. Enns and Beale responded back and forth to each other in a series of journal articles, which in a slightly emended form make up the first four chapters of this book. I'm glad that G.K. Beale chose to put the discussion in a book for a wider Evangelical audience, as he has done us all a great favor. His book, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority addresses this issue head on and offers a confessionally faithful model of approaching ANE parallels to Scripture.

I must admit that when I began this book, I was skeptical of Beale's position and open to what Enns had to say. By the end of the book, I realized that Enns had indeed erred, and that Beale represented a careful scholarly approach worthy of consideration. Still, the objection could be raised that Beale is making a mountain out of a molehill and is just interested in muddying Enns' image, even as he threatens the scholarly Evangelical community with the same if they dare tip the sacred inerrancy cow. Such is not the case however. Let me allow Beale to explain his rationale for the book:

... most of the problems that [Enns:] poses are not that hard to solve, though he gives the impression that they are difficult to square with a traditional view of inerrancy. Indeed, this is partly why I felt a burden to write the review (of Enns' book) that I did. Instead of helping people in the church gain confidence in their Bibles, Enns's book will likely shake that confidence--I think unnecessarily so. (pg. 66-67)

After laying out the issues, Beale jumps right in to the back and forth between Peter Enns and himself. He splits the discussion into two topics: recent OT studies' developments and the study of the Old Testament in the New. For each he gives his rejoinders to Enns and Enns' responses. While at times the back and forth leaves the typical reader dazed and confused (at times one feels like he's looking over the various scholars' shoulders or that the discussion is moving on too quickly to follow), key issues and main points are driven home through these first four chapters. Differing approaches to ANE myths and their implications for Genesis, and second Temple Judaistic hermeneutical principles and their bearing on our understanding of the New Testament are fleshed out.

After the various approaches are displayed through the back and forth of chapters 1-4, the book moves on to the unity of Isaiah as a case study. Will we trust the Bible's witness to itself when it comes to Isaiah's unity, or move with the scholarly winds and deny that which Jesus and the apostles appeared to assume? While Beale is a NT scholar, he handles the Isaiah question capably, referring to recent scholarly evangelical assessments on this point.

Beale then provides a fascinating discussion of Gen. 1 and a biblical cosmology model in the form of the universe as God's temple. In this section, Beale really shines as he develops a compelling case for the tabernacle, Temple and indeed Eden and the universe as a whole as all being models of God's true cosmic temple. This applies to the book in general because to understand Gen. 1-2 as a temple cosmology allows one to assimilate insights from ANE studies without defaulting to teaching that the early chapters of Genesis are intended to be taken as a myth.

Two appendices are also provided. One is a rather detailed discussion of postmodernism, epistemology and the like. The second is an exposition of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

This book is not for the average reader. Beale develops a case and brings you into the world of Biblical scholarship today. He explains how one can maintain a high view of Scripture and assimilate insights from scholarship successfully. He also warns of the dangers of forsaking inerrancy. I learned a ton in reading this book, but the part I enjoyed the most was when Beale left polemics aside and focused on a positive development of his cosmic temple idea concerning Gen. 1-2. Beale has written an entire book on that subject (The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God), and I'm interested in picking it up soon.

I recommend this book, but have to admit it was put together in a piecemeal fashion. Still it has great value and needs to be read by anyone interested in OT scholarship.

My thanks go out to Angie Cheatham and Michelle Bennett at Crossway for furnishing me with a review copy of this book.

[Ethan Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm caught between 3.5 and 4 stars. This is a pretty dense book and is pretty choppy since it is mostly a collection of articles that have been published elsewhere. Because of this, the book didn't feel like it flowed very well and I felt that certain topics needed more discussion. For example, Two chapters are spent exploring whether the OT writers' cosmology threatens inerrancy and while I agree that it ultimately doesn't, I didn't feel that Beale really got to the heart of the issue. He basically says that the cosmological descriptions are either phenomenological or theological in nature, not scientific. Yet, I wonder if this is even a distinction that would have existed in an ancient writer's mind. It seems to me that the issue is not whether they were theological descriptions or not (surely they were), but whether the OT writers believed them to actually correspond to the way the world physically is. Since this is a question of an author's thoughts that aren't being expressed clearly in scripture, I don't think we can answer that question definitively. Yet, Beale acknowledges in a footnote something I think is key, which is that an author's thoughts and beliefs are not inspired, but merely their Scriptural writings. The question then becomes how do we separate an author's worldview from what they write? I don't know the answer to all these questions, but I do think something not enough acknowledged in the inerrancy debate specifically about cosmology is that ALL cosmological descriptions are "inaccurate" by scientific standards (A helpful book on this which has nothing to do with the Bible is C. S. Lewis's "The Discarded Image," where he describes the Medieval Cosmology and also challenges the assumption that their cosmology is 100% wrong and the modern on 100% right). When we make diagrams of an atom or the solar system none of them are scientifically accurate. They are analogical. Thus, in many ways, we have our own mythological cosmology just as the ancients did. All this to say, I think this issue needs more discussion in this book. In Beale's defense, he says at the beginning that a full-length treatment of inerrancy is needed and this book is only an introduction to the issues.

The content of the book is very good. The sections on the Old in the New, the authorship of Isaiah, and OT cosmology are all interesting and helpful.

[Neil Kruger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregory Beale responds to a variety of recent challenges to inerrancy.
1) The writers of scripture believed they were writing historical narrative when they were actually presenting myths that God intended to convey theological truths
2) The authors of the New Testament wrongly attribute some of the sections of the Book of Isaiah to Isaiah
3) The New Testament quotes the Old Testament without concern for the original meaning of Old Testament passages quoted or alluded to
4) Old Testament cosmology is rooted in Ancient Near Eastern myth and cannot be reconciled to modern scientific findings
5) Postmodernism has shown that the meaning of a text is bound to the reader's response

Beale does a good job of defending the traditional view of inerrancy and at times demonstrates why this matters - if Jesus got the authorship of Isaiah wrong by accommodating himself to error, where does this rabbit trail end?

Beale is at his best in chapters relating to the 'language of appearance' employed by biblical authors and when he explores the cosmic temple imagery. These parts are very stimulating.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last two chapters on Old Testament cosmology were fascinating and gave me much to think about and study.

[Rebecca Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a very difficult one to comment on because the work is wide-ranging and the quality of Beale's responses to these "challenges to biblical authority" vary throughout.

The first four chapters of this book are reprints (with minor revisions) of critical review articles that Beale wrote in response to Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. There's also some back-and-forth where Enns is invited to respond to Beale's writings. Enns' responses are not reprinted, only summarized, so it is like reading one-side of a dialogue. You would do best not to read this section of the book unless you have read Inspiration and Incarnation because it is difficult to get the gist of Enns arguments through just the reviews. It also helps to read through Enns full responses if you can get ahold of them.

As far as the reviews themselves go, Beale does not have great success responding to Enns' arguments on the state of Old Testament studies with Enns incarnational model, and he seems to be acting as a theological gatekeeper, and quite frankly, an alarmist at the uses of some of Enns' terminology. He seems to largely ignore or misunderstand the thrust of Enns' main arguments here. Some of this tension could be that Enns is an Old Testament scholar (as am I), and Enns is on much stronger footing than Beale (who is a New Testament scholar) in his understandings of both modern scholarship and what it means for the Bible. I also found myself rolling my eyes as Beale, on one hand repudiates Enns' mythic use of the creation account, but on the other hand uses it as a symbolic story for the temple, a highly allegorical and perhaps mythical interpretation on its own.

On the other hand, Beale is quite successful in his repudiation of Enns' use of the Old Testament by New Testament authors. I found myself quite in agreement with Beale that Enns' "odd uses" are not as odd as Enns' makes them seem. Enns also fails to provide more than a handful of examples of these uses, and given the multiplicity of examples that he could choose from. While I like Enns use of extra-biblical literature to establish a hermeneutical paradigm, he often appeals to sources either centuries before or centuries after the actual writing of the New Testament, and I think Enns should deal with more scholarship of the actual time period of the writing of the New Testament. Beale points many of these weaknesses of Enns' argument along with others out in his review, and he is very convincing.

In chapter five, Beale defends the book of Isaiah against claims that Isaiah has multiple authors. He shares a bunch of quotations from the Bible, the patristic fathers and other Jewish literature and proceeds with the argument that these quotations are proof that Isaiah could only have been written by the prophet Isaiah. His arguments, such as they are, are unconvincing. Isaiah might have only one author, but that is no more likely than the multiple authors or the Isaianic editorial theories that are popular. Either way, his argument that Isaiah must have only one author to convey authority and inerrancy by further biblical mentions is one of gatekeeping and not one of scholarship.

Chapters six and seven are a lengthy examination of Old Testament cosmology, as a symbol of the temple and as compared to other ancient near eastern (ANE) cultures. He appears to be making another attempt at a counterargument against Enns' mythological idea of Israel's creation story as being similar to other ANE cultures. Instead, he is distinguishing Israel from the ANE by attempting to show that the writer of Genesis could not have absorbed ANE mythological ideas in his writing, but instead intentionally builds a creation story where creation and the Garden of Eden are the real-world models for the symbols embedded throughout Israel's temple/tabernacle structures.

I found the information in chapters six and seven to be interesting, but I questioned its place in the book. It was lengthy, and mostly explanatory. It did not seem to do much to advance the argument.

This book was okay, but not very convincing. Beale comes off very anti-postmodern and gatekeepers in his stance. It was a more frustrating read than enlightening.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beale, G.K. 2008. The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority. Wheaton, Il: Crossway. 289 pp. 13.95
There is much debate in the Evangelical world on the topic of inerrancy and biblical authority. Much of the debate centers on desire for many to reconcile God’s Word with today’s science, some going so far to argue that inerrancy is a modern invention by fundamentalist. G.K. Beale in his work The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority, seeks to tackle the debate in three ways. First, he challenges Paul Enns argument that the Bible uses myth by way of accommodation. Second, he proposes that Isaiah was written by Isaiah based on Jesus and the New Testament writers attributing it to Isaiah. Third Beale proposes a cosmological way to understand the phenomenological language and cosmic imagery in the Old Testament.
Chapters one through deal with the back and forth discussion Beale and Enns have had regarding Enns belief that the Bible uses myth’s of the surrounding ANE cultures to accommodate God’s revelation to man. Beale rightly rejects Enns’s view, and thoroughly walks through a helpful critique of Enns. This section was not very interesting, which is unusual for Beale, and would be of little help to the average lay person in the pew. This section’s strength lies in its help to pastors, college students, seminarians, and theologians working through Enn’s arguments.
In chapter 5 Beale deals with the issue of the authorship of Isaiah. The point of contention for the critics is that they deny Isaiah authored chapters 40 to 66. Once again this is not the most exciting work by Beale, but it is helpful to both the technical and non-technical church members. He does an excellent job of using Jesus, NT writers, and many extra-biblical writers to demonstrate the long-held (25 centuries) view of Isaianic authorship.
The final two chapters (six and seven) are where Beale shines as a writer. He uses these two chapters to discuss the use of cosmological language and demonstrates to the critic that it in no way leads to the Bible sharing falsehoods. Beale work with temple imagery is excellent, though this author thinks he can take the applications too far (for example he equates the firmament in Genesis 1 to that in Ezekiel 1). Especially helpful is the idea he has presented about the outer court representing the earth and sea, the inner court the heavens, and the Holy of Holies as God’s current dwelling place. This section will be of help to all trying to understand the beauty of the temple and why it is described in such detail. Beale has given the critic such as Enn’s some things to think about.

[Devon · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5. If I were simply rating the book on Beale's position I would rate it higher but this book was just not that great. The first four chapters were Beale's interactions with Peter Enns. I thought that Beale did have some good objections to what Enns argued in Inspiration and Incarnation. However, I think that not much was actually accomplished by their back and forth. If you knew the positions of both going in, you do not learn anything new. I do think that a few of Beale's objections were making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill or reading in the least charitable way possible. To Beale's credit Enns has certainly become more theologically liberal over the past few year. But whether that is directly or only because of the thoughts expressed in the book in question is another point altogether.

Another problem that I had was the construction of the book. I feel that because of the nature of the responses there was more repetition than necessary. It just made the reading less enjoyable.

The chapter on Isaiah was quite interesting and one I probably need to re-read. Beale's strongest part of the book was his discussion on biblical cosmology. But it honestly did not contribute to the overall argument of the first part of the book so it seemed out of place. If you want to read that just read his excellent volume, The Temple and the Church's Mission. I would just recommend going directly there instead of reading this book.

Overall I am glad that I read this in conjunction with the Enns volume. It helped to get a firm grasp on the argument. If I was rating Beale's position I would give this book 4 stars but all my other gripes bring down the rating for me.

[Benjamin Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of disappointing. The author focused on giving rebuttals to shallow strawman arguments in each chapter. The redeeming factor was that he at least had the intellectual honesty to include an appendix with a treasure trove of quotes by Karl Barth that he was either too timid, or lacked the ability to critique or provide any commentary on whatsoever. The quotes by Barth at the end of the book are the only real substance of the book however unfortunately the author doesn’t deal with these statements at all. I’m not sure why the author chose to focus on trivial issues when he could have been focusing on Barth’s content. At least he didn’t leave these quotes out but maybe he was too lazy or too timid or ran out of time to address them. I would be much more interested in finding a book that did address Karl Barth’s perspective.

[Josh Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Misleading title. This was a direct response to Peter Enn's claims about inspiration and inerrancy. Beale was professional and yet precise in his critiques. Enns came across looking evasive, defensive and sloppy in his work.

[Neh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a scholarly butchering of Peter Enns' nonsense. The middle chapter on Isaiah was quite satisfying, though the latter chapters on the Cosmic Temple not as much.

[G. Mark James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first four chapters of the book are related to a debate Beale had with Enns through some journal articles. The first problem with this is that only Beale's articles were reproduced en toto. Enns' response to Beale were simply summarized by one of Beale's research assistants. The second problem is that the 1st 4 chapters become highly repetitive because each author accuses the other of not answering questions, mis-understanding, etc. etc. It gets tiresome to read that over and over and then read each author re-assert something they've already previously said. This is why I did not give the book 5 stars. I also did not give it 5 stars because some of the later chapters are condensed versions of what Beale has written elsewhere.

That said, I think Beale has done a marvelous job of showing the problems inherent in Enns' approach to hermeneutics. Even if you disagree with Beale's reading of Enns, at the very least, Beale has shown that Enns was either sloppy and/or irresponsible in his research and/or presentation. I thought the best chapter was 6 ("Can OT cosmology be reconciled with modern scientific cosmology, pt. 1"). It was also helpful to have a chapter (chapter 5) devoted to the unity of Isaianic authorship. I find much in the way of theological content of the book to be immensely helpful. I think the inclusion of previously published journal articles, summarizing of the opponent's responses, and condensed versions of chapters that can be found more fully explained elsewhere to detract from the book.

[Adam Shields · Rating 1 out of 5]

Overall, this was a very weak response to Enns. Beale's use of prior journal articles, his summary of Enns responses instead of actually re-printing them and fairly random supplemental chapters make this book feel very thrown together and a very weak piece of scholarship. If Enns is important enough to write a full book about, he should be important enough to actually write a decent book about. Instead, this book seems to be exactly the type of book that Christian Smith wrote Bible Made Impossible to address. Beale's concern does not actually seem to be the authority of scripture, the value of the text or following the evidence of the text, but preserving his per-conscieved understanding of what the is necessary to maintain inerrancy. I also think much of the problems of the book are because this book is primarily outside Beale's traditional area of scholarship. It likely would have been much better with a co-author or if he had been an editor of a wider response.

My full review (about 1600 words) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-erosion-of-inerr...

[Daniel Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Beale beats out Enns in the debate, but I don't give it 4 stars since it is basically a collection of his articles responding to Enns. So, it does not have a good flow. BUT...it has great content!

[Matthew Diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only reason for 4 stars is that it is a collection of correspondence between author and another scholar? His rebuttals are great and arguments backed up with scholarly work. I just wasn’t expecting it to include so much previous information that I was reading to get to his main points.

[Jesse]

A leader of Evangelicalism's conservative wing of on this topic.

[Guilherme Nunes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente uma defesa monstra da autoridade da Bíblia