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Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament
In this accessible study, Peter Enns offers an evangelical affirmation of biblical authority that considers questions raised by the nature of the Old Testament text.
Enns looks at three questions raised by biblical scholars that seem to threaten traditional views of Scripture. First, he considers ancient Near Eastern literature that is similar to the Bible. Second, he looks at the theological diversity of the Old Testament. Finally, he considers how New Testament writers used the Old Testament.
Based on his reflections on these contemporary issues, Enns proposes an incarnational model of biblical authority that takes seriously both the divine and human aspects of Scripture. The book includes a useful glossary, which defines technical terms and an annotated bibliography for further reading.
Enns looks at three questions raised by biblical scholars that seem to threaten traditional views of Scripture. First, he considers ancient Near Eastern literature that is similar to the Bible. Second, he looks at the theological diversity of the Old Testament. Finally, he considers how New Testament writers used the Old Testament.
Based on his reflections on these contemporary issues, Enns proposes an incarnational model of biblical authority that takes seriously both the divine and human aspects of Scripture. The book includes a useful glossary, which defines technical terms and an annotated bibliography for further reading.
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First published July 1, 2005
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About the author
Peter Enns
76 books736 followersPeter Enns is Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He has taught courses at several other institutions including Harvard University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary. Enns is a frequent contributor to journals and encyclopedias and is the author of several books, including Inspiration and Incarnation, The Evolution of Adam, and The Bible Tells Me So.
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October 24, 2022
Just a fantastic resource on the inspiration of Scripture and a look at how the NT authors relate to the Hebrew Scriptures. I have the slightest issue with the nuanced presentation of chapter four, but I still loved the content throughout.
Enns will pack a ton of content into a mere five chapters with a very thorough presentation. He will show the theological diversity of the Hebrew Scriptures, the nature of how their relationship with “history” informs how they use perspective and bias in the record, and how traditions and context shape their writing.
One of the values of this book that I really enjoyed was Enns’s use of the “Incarnational Analogy.” In the same way that Christians profess Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, Enns posits the idea in terms of the Bible’s origins and source. I found that to be a very helpful analogy to guide the journey as we examined so much of what appears to be disunity in the Scriptures.
Enns is one of my favorite scholars and I appreciate this resource immensely.
Enns will pack a ton of content into a mere five chapters with a very thorough presentation. He will show the theological diversity of the Hebrew Scriptures, the nature of how their relationship with “history” informs how they use perspective and bias in the record, and how traditions and context shape their writing.
One of the values of this book that I really enjoyed was Enns’s use of the “Incarnational Analogy.” In the same way that Christians profess Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, Enns posits the idea in terms of the Bible’s origins and source. I found that to be a very helpful analogy to guide the journey as we examined so much of what appears to be disunity in the Scriptures.
Enns is one of my favorite scholars and I appreciate this resource immensely.
December 17, 2013
To my great surprise, I found myself liking this book very much. Peter Enns was the erstwhile Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary East before he was suspended for the views espoused in this book. He later left the seminary, though in good standing, and the controversy stirred up by the book seems to have settled down, though not resolved itself.
I appreciated Enns' forthrightness, his courage to examine new ideas, his humility in insisting this book is not the last word on the subject, and his primary interest being to hold true to the uniqueness and inspiration of the Scriptures.
I agree with him wholeheartedly that, bottom line, however the Bible came to be put together, it must be seen as inspired from God. That is, while debates rage over the composition and origins of the biblical texts we now have, whatever that process, whatever we might think about it or academics insist about it, that this final form was what God wanted us to have.
From this starting point, he raises a vital question for readers of the Bible to wrestle with. He accuses conservative scholars of essentially treating the Bible like it floated down from a cloud somewhere, with no contemporary context within the wider cultural situation in which it was written. As though it appeared in a literary vacuum. To express this, he uses what he calls the "incarnational model" of Biblical inspiration. That is, just like the incarnation is wholly God and wholly man at the same time, we must see the Scriptures as wholly written by God and wholly written by man at the same time. He believes the idea that the Bible walks in a contextless and culture-less vacuum to be analogous to the heresies concerning Christ. Some heretics said Christ only appeared human but was really just God floating around, and some said he was just man and not really God. In the same way he accuses conservatives of denying the human element of Scripture and liberals of denying the God element.
He then raises three questions about the Bible, and particularly the OT.
1. Why does Genesis bear such similarity to other ANE texts?
2. Why does there seem to be tensions of some kind within the OT?
3. Why do the NT writers treat the OT the way they do?
He then proceeds to outline his views on these three subjects. This material is often challenging, causing me to wrestle with Enns and the text. If you know me, you know that I love books which do this.
His views, however, are difficult to evaluate. The bulk of what he says is entirely unobjectionable. In fact, I frequently found myself asking why he thought this stuff was so shocking. There are similarities between Genesis and other ANE literature? So? The OT isn't perfectly harmonized and often later parts of the OT will interpret and comment on earlier parts in ways that create tension? So?
At other times, I felt like his views provided more confusion than clarity. I grant the fact, for example, that the OT writers often seem to not say exactly the same thing which creates tension. But tension is different from contradictions. He never explicitly got to the point of saying there were contradictions, but he got as close as he possibly could without doing so. His section on tensions also assumed a certain interpretive grid that creates tensions where there are none. Following Bruggueemann, he sees the OT as having been written during the Babylonian exile by four different rabbinic schools that disagree with one another. This is a controversial view which is hardly proven, and in my opinion creates more tension than is actually there. Other times he would present a reading that makes tension without realizing that he was reading the text wrongly. He did not address how a hermeneutical lens shapes the way we see a text, and that common (though wrong) readings will create tensions where there doesn't need to be any. He also did not discuss the possibility that the tensions exist because the story God is telling is actually expanding on itself as it goes on, rather than just abstract disagreements or differences, which I thought was a missed opportunity.
So while I valued the intellectual wrestling which he provided me, and gave me a lot to think about, and at least 90% of the book is of great value, there was enough to confuse the unlearned and the layman that I would have reservations just handing it to people in the pew without prolonged disucssions accompanying it. The content of the book was fine, the point that Scripture comes to us within a context that is not ours is fine, but the interpretive grid causes problems that I think have led Enns and others in less than helpful directions.
I appreciated Enns' forthrightness, his courage to examine new ideas, his humility in insisting this book is not the last word on the subject, and his primary interest being to hold true to the uniqueness and inspiration of the Scriptures.
I agree with him wholeheartedly that, bottom line, however the Bible came to be put together, it must be seen as inspired from God. That is, while debates rage over the composition and origins of the biblical texts we now have, whatever that process, whatever we might think about it or academics insist about it, that this final form was what God wanted us to have.
From this starting point, he raises a vital question for readers of the Bible to wrestle with. He accuses conservative scholars of essentially treating the Bible like it floated down from a cloud somewhere, with no contemporary context within the wider cultural situation in which it was written. As though it appeared in a literary vacuum. To express this, he uses what he calls the "incarnational model" of Biblical inspiration. That is, just like the incarnation is wholly God and wholly man at the same time, we must see the Scriptures as wholly written by God and wholly written by man at the same time. He believes the idea that the Bible walks in a contextless and culture-less vacuum to be analogous to the heresies concerning Christ. Some heretics said Christ only appeared human but was really just God floating around, and some said he was just man and not really God. In the same way he accuses conservatives of denying the human element of Scripture and liberals of denying the God element.
He then raises three questions about the Bible, and particularly the OT.
1. Why does Genesis bear such similarity to other ANE texts?
2. Why does there seem to be tensions of some kind within the OT?
3. Why do the NT writers treat the OT the way they do?
He then proceeds to outline his views on these three subjects. This material is often challenging, causing me to wrestle with Enns and the text. If you know me, you know that I love books which do this.
His views, however, are difficult to evaluate. The bulk of what he says is entirely unobjectionable. In fact, I frequently found myself asking why he thought this stuff was so shocking. There are similarities between Genesis and other ANE literature? So? The OT isn't perfectly harmonized and often later parts of the OT will interpret and comment on earlier parts in ways that create tension? So?
At other times, I felt like his views provided more confusion than clarity. I grant the fact, for example, that the OT writers often seem to not say exactly the same thing which creates tension. But tension is different from contradictions. He never explicitly got to the point of saying there were contradictions, but he got as close as he possibly could without doing so. His section on tensions also assumed a certain interpretive grid that creates tensions where there are none. Following Bruggueemann, he sees the OT as having been written during the Babylonian exile by four different rabbinic schools that disagree with one another. This is a controversial view which is hardly proven, and in my opinion creates more tension than is actually there. Other times he would present a reading that makes tension without realizing that he was reading the text wrongly. He did not address how a hermeneutical lens shapes the way we see a text, and that common (though wrong) readings will create tensions where there doesn't need to be any. He also did not discuss the possibility that the tensions exist because the story God is telling is actually expanding on itself as it goes on, rather than just abstract disagreements or differences, which I thought was a missed opportunity.
So while I valued the intellectual wrestling which he provided me, and gave me a lot to think about, and at least 90% of the book is of great value, there was enough to confuse the unlearned and the layman that I would have reservations just handing it to people in the pew without prolonged disucssions accompanying it. The content of the book was fine, the point that Scripture comes to us within a context that is not ours is fine, but the interpretive grid causes problems that I think have led Enns and others in less than helpful directions.
January 16, 2009
Raised some good questions, and did a lousy job answering them.
November 15, 2008
This book intrigued me because I have long felt that conservative Christians (like me) have overemphasized the divine origin of Scripture over the human element. The true nature of inspiration will probably always be somewhat of a mystery to me, which is why the word “incarnation” resonates with me. Although I am not a trained theologian, I have often used that term to describe the word of God.
Old Testament scholar Peter Enns aims to synthesize some of the issues of Biblical scholarship with an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. His starting point is “as Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible.” He addresses three issues in depth: the Bible’s uniqueness (“Why does the Old Testament look a lot like the literature of Israel’s ancient neighbors?”), the Bible’s integrity (“Why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same thing?”), and the Bible’s interpretation (“Why do the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament in such odd ways?”).
Throughout the book, Enns returns to a central theme that “the problems that many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions.” Another way of putting it is that both liberals and conservatives assume that “nothing worthy of being called God’s word would look so common, so human, so recognizable.” But if the purpose of scripture is to communicate to humans, how else would you expect God to speak?
I appreciated the intellectual honesty and candor in this book, but I found the intent and supporting arguments somewhat veiled at times. I wasn’t always sure exactly what I was being persuaded to believe. As the author admits, it isn’t a comprehensive book on inspiration and authority of scripture. It begins a conversation that is often swept under the carpet and ignored by conservatives. While the conversation isn’t over, it was stifled somewhat by the controversy that led to Dr. Enns resignation from Westminster Seminary. I hope he will continue the conversation either in other books or a revision of this book.
Old Testament scholar Peter Enns aims to synthesize some of the issues of Biblical scholarship with an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. His starting point is “as Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible.” He addresses three issues in depth: the Bible’s uniqueness (“Why does the Old Testament look a lot like the literature of Israel’s ancient neighbors?”), the Bible’s integrity (“Why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same thing?”), and the Bible’s interpretation (“Why do the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament in such odd ways?”).
Throughout the book, Enns returns to a central theme that “the problems that many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions.” Another way of putting it is that both liberals and conservatives assume that “nothing worthy of being called God’s word would look so common, so human, so recognizable.” But if the purpose of scripture is to communicate to humans, how else would you expect God to speak?
I appreciated the intellectual honesty and candor in this book, but I found the intent and supporting arguments somewhat veiled at times. I wasn’t always sure exactly what I was being persuaded to believe. As the author admits, it isn’t a comprehensive book on inspiration and authority of scripture. It begins a conversation that is often swept under the carpet and ignored by conservatives. While the conversation isn’t over, it was stifled somewhat by the controversy that led to Dr. Enns resignation from Westminster Seminary. I hope he will continue the conversation either in other books or a revision of this book.
December 10, 2017
I appreciated this book, its tone and approach. It seemed the main point made was the one made by C.S Lewis in the chapter Scripture from his Reflection on the Psalms. The point being that if we are going to assume the bible is the word of God, and place our faith that somehow the O.T points to and lays the groundwork for Christ, then we should honor and accept it as it is. Instead evangelicals decide what God should have given us, and with this presupposition force the bible to be and do what it never was intended to do.
But yeah, as this quick little sketch I draw above conveys, it is initially disconcerting to have the vale lifted, the illusions dispelled and discover what one is married to. The reality of what the bible is, is just sooo far from what we'd expected and hope for, that it almost seems like special pleading to think it really is the word of God.
July 21, 2019
While researching biblical inerrancy for a term paper that I'm working on for my systematic theology class, I kept coming across the name of this book by Peter Enns. Most of the mentions were quite negative, as all these authors had felt that they must respond to Enns book by telling him how wrong he was. . . .When other people try to warn me away, that's always something that makes me immediately go out and read the book.
I read it, and was completely surprised, in the best way, of how non-controversial I thought it was.
Enns does not see an inerrant Bible, at least not in the sense of the classical inerrancy that many would assume when the word "inerrancy" is used. However, I must admit that in my research, I have discovered that the term inerrancy has become so nuanced that the term itself does not seem to indicate the user's actual position of the Bible. This is why my term paper is actually going to be based on whether or not a coherent, unified definition of inerrancy can truly exist. (And I've been researching for four weeks and still do not know the answer.)
Instead, Enns proposes an "incarnational" model of reading scripture where we appreciate the human element of the Bible. We read the Bible in its context, attempt to determine its original meaning in the context, and we learn to listen to what the Bible is teaching us, not just as individuals, but as a community. In other words, instead of trusting in each and every word of scripture to be 100 percent literal and without error, we will true in the one who gave us this scripture. We will trust that the scripture is what he meant to give to us.
This book is not without its down points. For example, I would say that I think that he's too negative about the evangelical establishment. Then again, it is because of that establishment, that he was forced out of his tenured position at Westminster. Perhaps he bears some wounds that I can have no knowledge of at this point in my career.
I also think, at times, he's engendering tensions in his specific examples that do not really exist, such as the tension in Job between the "bad" advice of this friends, and the Law and other wisdom literature promoting ideas that sound remarkably like that bad advice. I have not seen many scholars that do not agree with Enns views that this is a case where the advice would be good in a different situation. This makes the friends merely insensitive to the surrounding situation, as opposed to completely off-base in their advice. Then, I remembered that this is a book written for laymen.
I almost took a a star rating off the book solely on the fact that this book is written for laymen, but it would have to be a very educated layman to be able to follow Enns and to have the questions that Enns is answering. However, I then remembered being a young woman who was at the point of abandoning my faith because I did not feel that my faith and the science and history ideas I was learning could ever be compatible. . . .For that reader, I feel compelled to encourage to read this book and others like it. Instead of abandoning your faith, wrestle with God (just like Jacob in Genesis 32). I believe that God will show himself to you and bless you because of your struggle. There may be times when you feel like the walking wounded, but the world will turn, and your faith will be different, and yet still wonderful.
I really felt that the biggest sense I got from Enns was of how big God is. I felt so overwhelmed by the gulf he had to cross to take on flesh and to inspire the Scriptures. It was a transformational moment for me in my view of God's greatness, and for that I will give this book five stars.
I hope to continue to read some more of Enns writing (because so far I've only read How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That's Great News and his contribution to Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy).
I would also like to do some more research on Second Temple Judaism's biblical interpretation. In my hermeneutics class last semester, one of the more uncomfortable connections I made was to realize that the dominant mode of interpretation during the time of Jesus was a highly allegorical method that originated with philosophers such as Philo, as they worked to contextualize Judaism to fit with their newfound Greek culture. I feel like there's a rich area of research for me to dive into there, so this book helped to fill in another piece of that puzzle for me.
I read it, and was completely surprised, in the best way, of how non-controversial I thought it was.
Enns does not see an inerrant Bible, at least not in the sense of the classical inerrancy that many would assume when the word "inerrancy" is used. However, I must admit that in my research, I have discovered that the term inerrancy has become so nuanced that the term itself does not seem to indicate the user's actual position of the Bible. This is why my term paper is actually going to be based on whether or not a coherent, unified definition of inerrancy can truly exist. (And I've been researching for four weeks and still do not know the answer.)
Instead, Enns proposes an "incarnational" model of reading scripture where we appreciate the human element of the Bible. We read the Bible in its context, attempt to determine its original meaning in the context, and we learn to listen to what the Bible is teaching us, not just as individuals, but as a community. In other words, instead of trusting in each and every word of scripture to be 100 percent literal and without error, we will true in the one who gave us this scripture. We will trust that the scripture is what he meant to give to us.
This book is not without its down points. For example, I would say that I think that he's too negative about the evangelical establishment. Then again, it is because of that establishment, that he was forced out of his tenured position at Westminster. Perhaps he bears some wounds that I can have no knowledge of at this point in my career.
I also think, at times, he's engendering tensions in his specific examples that do not really exist, such as the tension in Job between the "bad" advice of this friends, and the Law and other wisdom literature promoting ideas that sound remarkably like that bad advice. I have not seen many scholars that do not agree with Enns views that this is a case where the advice would be good in a different situation. This makes the friends merely insensitive to the surrounding situation, as opposed to completely off-base in their advice. Then, I remembered that this is a book written for laymen.
I almost took a a star rating off the book solely on the fact that this book is written for laymen, but it would have to be a very educated layman to be able to follow Enns and to have the questions that Enns is answering. However, I then remembered being a young woman who was at the point of abandoning my faith because I did not feel that my faith and the science and history ideas I was learning could ever be compatible. . . .For that reader, I feel compelled to encourage to read this book and others like it. Instead of abandoning your faith, wrestle with God (just like Jacob in Genesis 32). I believe that God will show himself to you and bless you because of your struggle. There may be times when you feel like the walking wounded, but the world will turn, and your faith will be different, and yet still wonderful.
I really felt that the biggest sense I got from Enns was of how big God is. I felt so overwhelmed by the gulf he had to cross to take on flesh and to inspire the Scriptures. It was a transformational moment for me in my view of God's greatness, and for that I will give this book five stars.
I hope to continue to read some more of Enns writing (because so far I've only read How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That's Great News and his contribution to Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy).
I would also like to do some more research on Second Temple Judaism's biblical interpretation. In my hermeneutics class last semester, one of the more uncomfortable connections I made was to realize that the dominant mode of interpretation during the time of Jesus was a highly allegorical method that originated with philosophers such as Philo, as they worked to contextualize Judaism to fit with their newfound Greek culture. I feel like there's a rich area of research for me to dive into there, so this book helped to fill in another piece of that puzzle for me.
February 15, 2024
(Updated after rereading)
The uniqueness and inspiration of the Bible is one of the key tenets of the Christian faith. However, modern scholarship has turned up quite a bit of evidence that seems to undermine that claim. How can the Bible (specifically, the Old Testament) be God’s Word when 1) it resembles, maybe even imitates, ANE literature; 2) it demonstrates significant diversity when it comes to how it views and portrays God; and 3) the NT writers often take the OT out of context and seemingly misapply verses?
Enns suggests the incarnational analogy as a way to understand these aspects of the OT. Essentially, these “challenges” are not bugs, but features! God condescends to communicate with us through human authors, creating a book that has fully divine and fully human authorship. As such, these are not “mistakes” in Scripture, but instead evidence that God works with humans in their contexts to reveal Himself.
There’s a lot to chew on here. Some have pointed out various potential dangers of the incarnational analogy, and Enns addresses those concerns in the postscript to this edition. Some of the concerns are valid and should prompt great care in our theological language, but overall, I think Enns achieves his goal very well: to foster a discussion about how we conceive of inspiration. My reactions to all of the different subtopics vary quite a bit, but the incarnational analogy still proves immensely helpful as I try to wrap my head around each of them.
I would strongly recommend this book not as the last word on the subject, but as an excellent starting point.
UPDATE (2/15/24): I just finished rereading this for a class and, this time around, found myself much less satisfied with a lot of what Enns has to say. I think the main issue I take is that Enns does not define the incarnational analogy particularly well, which leads to a host of other issues with how we understand and apply Scripture. One need only look at Enns’s own theological trajectory over the last decade for evidence that these issues are not mere hypotheticals. Still, I think Enns does a fantastic job of synthesizing scholarly data with a Christian understanding of inspiration; I just wish he spent more time defining his thesis. Worth reading, but even as a starting point, it has some flaws.
The uniqueness and inspiration of the Bible is one of the key tenets of the Christian faith. However, modern scholarship has turned up quite a bit of evidence that seems to undermine that claim. How can the Bible (specifically, the Old Testament) be God’s Word when 1) it resembles, maybe even imitates, ANE literature; 2) it demonstrates significant diversity when it comes to how it views and portrays God; and 3) the NT writers often take the OT out of context and seemingly misapply verses?
Enns suggests the incarnational analogy as a way to understand these aspects of the OT. Essentially, these “challenges” are not bugs, but features! God condescends to communicate with us through human authors, creating a book that has fully divine and fully human authorship. As such, these are not “mistakes” in Scripture, but instead evidence that God works with humans in their contexts to reveal Himself.
There’s a lot to chew on here. Some have pointed out various potential dangers of the incarnational analogy, and Enns addresses those concerns in the postscript to this edition. Some of the concerns are valid and should prompt great care in our theological language, but overall, I think Enns achieves his goal very well: to foster a discussion about how we conceive of inspiration. My reactions to all of the different subtopics vary quite a bit, but the incarnational analogy still proves immensely helpful as I try to wrap my head around each of them.
I would strongly recommend this book not as the last word on the subject, but as an excellent starting point.
UPDATE (2/15/24): I just finished rereading this for a class and, this time around, found myself much less satisfied with a lot of what Enns has to say. I think the main issue I take is that Enns does not define the incarnational analogy particularly well, which leads to a host of other issues with how we understand and apply Scripture. One need only look at Enns’s own theological trajectory over the last decade for evidence that these issues are not mere hypotheticals. Still, I think Enns does a fantastic job of synthesizing scholarly data with a Christian understanding of inspiration; I just wish he spent more time defining his thesis. Worth reading, but even as a starting point, it has some flaws.
January 21, 2022
For evangelicals, this is probably the best introduction to the ways that the Bible actually works (which is to say, not necessarily the way we want it to). Enns addresses three issues: 1. How much the OT looks like other Ancient Near Eastern texts (and no, it’s not because the other people copied the OT) 2. The theological diversity among OT authors - these were not people who all agreed with each other. Some of them believed God punished offspring for the sins of their parents, some of them believed people paid exclusively for their own sins, some of them believed there was strictly only one God, some of them believed there were many Gods but only one could be worshipped, there are many contradictory laws, etc. 3. He addresses the midrashic use of the OT in the NT. That is to say, he points out that the authors of the NT don’t use anything like a plain reading of the OT when they quote it; they feel free to alter the text and remove quotes far from context.
For all of these issues, Enns actually addresses them and acknowledges that they exist, instead of pretending that any problems are illusory and can be adequately explained by turning your head, closing one eye, squinting your eyes, holding your tongue right, and praying hard enough, which is the normal evangelical stance.
This is an easier book to read than James Kugel’s “How to Read the Bible”, which is overall a better introduction to the study of the OT, but I would recommend that any curious Christian start here. I wish that I had read this book ten years ago. It would have helped me enormously.
For all of these issues, Enns actually addresses them and acknowledges that they exist, instead of pretending that any problems are illusory and can be adequately explained by turning your head, closing one eye, squinting your eyes, holding your tongue right, and praying hard enough, which is the normal evangelical stance.
This is an easier book to read than James Kugel’s “How to Read the Bible”, which is overall a better introduction to the study of the OT, but I would recommend that any curious Christian start here. I wish that I had read this book ten years ago. It would have helped me enormously.
April 3, 2012
A great introduction to a conversation that needs greater pursuit in the Evangelical community. Enns does a very good job of addressing the "human side" of Scripture: It's connections to and similarities with Ancient Near Eastern Literature; It's theological diversity; and the Apostolic hermeneutic that has so often vexed modern Christians. Rather than pretend these "problems" don't exist, Enns suggests that they are things to be embraced as part of the incarnational nature of Scripture, which is both divinely given but also human and rooted in human life. If there were more rating increments available, I think 4.5 stars would be a bit more fair. The book isn't perfect. In presenting examples of innerbiblical and apostolic hermeneutics I think Enns gave some weak examples. Some may find that Enns does not offer enough in terms of "solution" or "conclusion" regarding these matters. That said, this is an introduction to a conversation on the dual divine-human nature of Scripture. It's a conversation that began in earnest in the 19th Century among evangelicals, but was quickly terminated by the Fundamentalist movement and is only now being taken up again. It's a very good introduction and I think Enns' very short final chapter is particularly helpful in reiterating his key points and calling for everyone to listen to the conversation rather than feeling threatened and plugging their ears (or worse, attempting to stop the conversation entirely).
June 17, 2023
This is a helpful book in which Enns attempts to address and ameliorate some of the hermeneutical difficulties that evangelicals and other conservative Christians face (specifically vis-á-vis the Old Testament) when they set out to defend the divine inspiration of Scripture. How can we seriously defend the divine inspiration of scripture when:
1) it appears to borrow from other ancient myths, law codes, wisdom literature, etc.
2) it presents theological tension and diversity
3) the apostles’ use of OT texts seems to model irresponsible hermeneutical methodologies
These are the three primary difficulties Enns addresses in the book. He posits that the solution to these presumed challenges is a hermeneutic that recognizes both the divinity AND the humanity of the Bible—hence his ananlogy of “incarnation.” The Bible remains thoroughly unique despite its embrace of “the marks of the ancient settings in which the Bible was written”; and that’s because “its uniqueness is seen not in holding human cultures at arm’s length, but in the belief that Scripture is the only book in which God speaks incarnately” (168). The writings of the Old Testament are certainly embedded in a distinct ANE cultural context, but this is precisely what makes the text so thoroughly human. Moreover, this cultural embeddedness is what rendered the text more effective for conveying its true theological meaning in its original context.
As for theological diversity (a popular and obvious example being Prov. 26:4 and Prov. 26:5), Enns essentially appeals to the variety in “historical context, purpose, and genre” that is present throughout the OT. For example, the genre of wisdom literature (like Proverbs) requires readers to practice proper discernment. The Proverbs of the Bible are certainly true, but they are not universally applicable. As Enns suggests, “the question is not *whether* [the Proverbs] are correct, but *when* [they are correct]” (76). We should also note that ancient peoples did not hold to the same standards of historiography that we hold to on this side of the Enlightenment. Oftentimes, narratives in Scripture are presented with a specific theological agenda—and in ancient times, this was not only warranted, but expected. The goal was not historical precision but theological precision. In this section of the book, I did not always agree with Enns’ explanations of certain theological tensions, but I agreed with the overall thrust of his argument.
Finally, in discussing apostolic hermeneutics, Enns suggests that the apostles not only adopted methods of interpretation that were common to the Second Temple period, but also introduced a new “Christotelic” hermeneutic—that is, one in which Christ is recognized as the ultimate goal of the Old Testament story. As Enns writes, “not every verse or passage is about him in a superficial sense. Rather, Christ is the deeper sense of the Old Testament—at times more obvious than others—in whom the Old Testament drama as a whole finds its ultimate goal or telos” (170). Conceding his discomfort with some of the Second Temple interpretive methods, Enns contends that at the very least the Christotelic approach of the apostles is integral to Christian biblical interpretation; and this kind of Christotelic interpretation should continue to be practiced today—particularly within the community of the church.
I found myself mostly sympathizing and agreeing with Enns throughout this book; and I really appreciated his call for a nuanced “Christotelic” hermeneutic (as opposed to a “Christocentric” hermeneutic). I nevertheless felt some discomfort with the incarnational analogy that he proffered. In the second edition of the book, he concedes the imperfection of the analogy—and reiterates that is just an analogy, and not an ontological claim. Nevertheless, I feel that the language of “incarnation” might still cause some unnecessary confusion; and virtually all of Enns’ main points in this book can be conveyed without an appeal to incarnational language. I tend to sympathize with John Webster, who suggests the incarnational analogy can be “christologically disastrous, in that it may threaten the uniqueness of the Word’s becoming flesh by making ‘incarnation’ a general principle or characteristic of divine action in, through or under creaturely reality” (see “Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch”). Michael Bird reiterates a similar concern in his online blog: “While God identifies with his written word, he does not become the written word. [This incarnational] theory flirts with the danger of bibliolatry.”
With that caveat, I would still recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the hermeneutical difficulties described above. Enns is very careful in his handling of these challenging issues; and he upholds a very high view of Scripture throughout. I also find his approach and tone throughout this book to be less divisive than in some of his more recent works.
1) it appears to borrow from other ancient myths, law codes, wisdom literature, etc.
2) it presents theological tension and diversity
3) the apostles’ use of OT texts seems to model irresponsible hermeneutical methodologies
These are the three primary difficulties Enns addresses in the book. He posits that the solution to these presumed challenges is a hermeneutic that recognizes both the divinity AND the humanity of the Bible—hence his ananlogy of “incarnation.” The Bible remains thoroughly unique despite its embrace of “the marks of the ancient settings in which the Bible was written”; and that’s because “its uniqueness is seen not in holding human cultures at arm’s length, but in the belief that Scripture is the only book in which God speaks incarnately” (168). The writings of the Old Testament are certainly embedded in a distinct ANE cultural context, but this is precisely what makes the text so thoroughly human. Moreover, this cultural embeddedness is what rendered the text more effective for conveying its true theological meaning in its original context.
As for theological diversity (a popular and obvious example being Prov. 26:4 and Prov. 26:5), Enns essentially appeals to the variety in “historical context, purpose, and genre” that is present throughout the OT. For example, the genre of wisdom literature (like Proverbs) requires readers to practice proper discernment. The Proverbs of the Bible are certainly true, but they are not universally applicable. As Enns suggests, “the question is not *whether* [the Proverbs] are correct, but *when* [they are correct]” (76). We should also note that ancient peoples did not hold to the same standards of historiography that we hold to on this side of the Enlightenment. Oftentimes, narratives in Scripture are presented with a specific theological agenda—and in ancient times, this was not only warranted, but expected. The goal was not historical precision but theological precision. In this section of the book, I did not always agree with Enns’ explanations of certain theological tensions, but I agreed with the overall thrust of his argument.
Finally, in discussing apostolic hermeneutics, Enns suggests that the apostles not only adopted methods of interpretation that were common to the Second Temple period, but also introduced a new “Christotelic” hermeneutic—that is, one in which Christ is recognized as the ultimate goal of the Old Testament story. As Enns writes, “not every verse or passage is about him in a superficial sense. Rather, Christ is the deeper sense of the Old Testament—at times more obvious than others—in whom the Old Testament drama as a whole finds its ultimate goal or telos” (170). Conceding his discomfort with some of the Second Temple interpretive methods, Enns contends that at the very least the Christotelic approach of the apostles is integral to Christian biblical interpretation; and this kind of Christotelic interpretation should continue to be practiced today—particularly within the community of the church.
I found myself mostly sympathizing and agreeing with Enns throughout this book; and I really appreciated his call for a nuanced “Christotelic” hermeneutic (as opposed to a “Christocentric” hermeneutic). I nevertheless felt some discomfort with the incarnational analogy that he proffered. In the second edition of the book, he concedes the imperfection of the analogy—and reiterates that is just an analogy, and not an ontological claim. Nevertheless, I feel that the language of “incarnation” might still cause some unnecessary confusion; and virtually all of Enns’ main points in this book can be conveyed without an appeal to incarnational language. I tend to sympathize with John Webster, who suggests the incarnational analogy can be “christologically disastrous, in that it may threaten the uniqueness of the Word’s becoming flesh by making ‘incarnation’ a general principle or characteristic of divine action in, through or under creaturely reality” (see “Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch”). Michael Bird reiterates a similar concern in his online blog: “While God identifies with his written word, he does not become the written word. [This incarnational] theory flirts with the danger of bibliolatry.”
With that caveat, I would still recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the hermeneutical difficulties described above. Enns is very careful in his handling of these challenging issues; and he upholds a very high view of Scripture throughout. I also find his approach and tone throughout this book to be less divisive than in some of his more recent works.
December 16, 2013
EDIT: I think Enns's work also suffers in one more regard. It was fashionable 70 years ago to play off the supposed parallels between Israelite culture (and its use of Leviathan) with Babylonian culture (and its use of Tiamat). The implication was that the Hebrews stole this from the Babylonians. Recent scholarship has suggested otherwise. The discovery of Ugaritic texts and its own usage of Ba'al/Leviathan suggests that the Hebrews didn't borrow from Babylon after all. Enns completely misses this point.
I realize I am three or four years behind the times in reading this book. That's fine. I'm more able to appreciate it now than I would have been in my apologist days. As readers will remember, this book caused a firestorm in the evangelical world, leading to Enns' dismissal from WTS, and causing all Reformed bloggers to cry out in unison, "The Gospel is at steak!" (since when is the gospel not at steak in Reformed circles?).
I didn't really see a problem with the book, though. Yes, I realize where Enns is out of bounds with traditional evangelical hermeneutics, and he should admit as much. Further, the implications of Enns' project will be troubling for many varieties of Evangelical biblical scholarship, but the reality is that these problems *will* arrive in one form or another (ask any young college student who lost their faith in an OT intro class because a professor who was not spiritually sensitive presented these problems. I saw it happen by the dozen--and that's a conservative number--at Louisiana College. Cheap, pat answers will not work and insult the intelligence of young men and women. We need to deal with these issues and Enns is to be commended for dealing with it in a pastorally sensitive and academically sterilized environment, his colleagues' hysterical reaction to it notwithstanding).
Enns, faithful to good Christology, suggests an incarnational parallel between the Person of Christ and the "bible." As Christ has a human dimension (at this point I don't care what connotation you give to that phrase), so also the Bible has a human dimension to it. Most conservatives are fine with this and a few smart ones will say, "yeah, didn't Calvin say that God lisps to us?” And that's true, though it's doubtful Calvin would have approved of Enns' suggestions!
Contrary to popular fear, most of Enns' book is unremarkable. If the reader is familiar with John Frame's works, then Enns' interpretation of Proverbs and Torah in a situational perspective will sound old-hat. Enns also spends much time noting the differences between Kings and Chronicles, of which I assume many Evangelicals are familiar. Enns asks an important question, though: How do we continue to affirm “inspiration” and “revelation” given these differences represent different goals? Personally, I don't have a problem with that question.
The real rub, though, is Enns' treatment of Genesis 1-11. In short, his argument goes: it is indisputable that the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) mythologies were written prior to Genesis.i Secondly, since Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees and would no doubt have bee familiar with these stories, and given that these stories are very similar to Genesis 1-11, one is hard-pressed to avoid the conclusion that Genesis 1-11 is somewhat dependent on the ANE mythologies.
This leads to the next problem: what do we mean by “myth?” Enns defines myth as a pre-scientific form of answering the question of origins in the form of stories (50).ii So one could advance the next conclusion that Abraham did adapt these mythological categories but at the same time radically deconstructed them. This makes Abraham's faith all the more radical: his God is not like the pagan deities, and this is how his God wants you to live.
Enns has other chapters on the anthropomorphic uses of language about God. While it is true Yahweh doesn't act passionately like Zeus, and if one wants to be theologically proper, the essence of God is impassionate, it's equally difficult to read the prophetic literature and Yahweh's interaction with his people and come to a hard doctrine of divine impassibility (yes, I affirm divine impassibility, though not without qualifications). However, much literature has been written on that point and I won't say more.
Enns' last chapter will also cause some problems with conservative readers. While the grammatical-historical method is a respected method and is generally preferred in how to interpret texts, the fact remains that the New Testament authors routinely violated this principle. Not only did they interpret OT texts (seemingly) out of contexts, it appears they even read into the passage elements from 2nd Temple Judaism, and even most strikingly, changed the text of some passages to make a point “fit.” Consider the following examples:
Matthew 2:15/Hosea 11:1
Hosea is not talking about the boy Jesus, nor even about a future Messiah, but is alluding to Israel's past (133).
2 Corinthians 6:2/Isaiah 49:8
Isaiah is speaking of Israel's deliverance from Babylon, which Paul interprets to mean the deliverance in Christ (135; for those schooled in the Redemptive Historical model, this isn't so wild an interpretation; still, it's not what Isaiah's contemporaries, to whom it first meant something—remember what you learned in reading Fee and Kaiser?--which must also be determinative for us.
Romans 11:26-27/Isaiah 59:20
Paul says the deliver will come from Zion, but Isaiah says the deliver will come to Zion. Secondly, Paul applies to Christ what Isaiah applied to God (yes, that is a wonderful truth in which I rejoice, but one must also point out the diversity in the passage). Isaiah talks about those who will be delivered, but Paul talks about the Messiah's point of origin (139).
Hebrews 3:7-11/Psalm 95:9-10
The writer of Hebrews, whom I will call “Paul” simply to irk New Testament intro classes, adds a word, dio (therefore, for the sake of). On first glance it doesn't seem to change much, but Enns makes the argument, “Whereas Psalm 95 equates forty years with the period of God's wrath, Hebrews, by inserting dio, equates the forty years with the duration of God's works...The forty year period is not defined by wrath, but by God's activity. Anger is what follows this forty year period if his readers do not rid themselves of “a sinful, unbelieving heart”” (Enns, 140-141).
Now, if one simply wanted to make the above argument as a pastoral illustration and application of Psalm 95, nobody would bat an eye. But this is Holy Scripture, of which every word is inerrant.iii
Enns' point in all of this is that the New Testament writers inherited a hermeneutical framework from 2 Temple Judaism, with much input from Wisdom of Solomon.iv They did not think they were playing fast and loose with Scripture, and presumably neither did their hearers. The unbelieving Jews might not have agreed with St Matthew's conclusion with Hosea 11, but they (presumably) didn't challenge his method.
Conclusion
I enjoyed the book and the sections on the law, the history, and proverbs were fantastic. While I have no qualms praising the book, I understand why it started a controversy. If Enns' is correct on many of his points, Evangelicals—shucks, conservatives of all traditions—will have to rethink much conventional wisdom, or at least think harder on sensitive issues. Some good answers will have to be given on how the Bible can be revealed and inspired, yet Genesis 1-11 appears dependent on Babylonian and Sumerian myths. In other words, does the dependency thesis negate inerrancy? I don't know.
I realize I am three or four years behind the times in reading this book. That's fine. I'm more able to appreciate it now than I would have been in my apologist days. As readers will remember, this book caused a firestorm in the evangelical world, leading to Enns' dismissal from WTS, and causing all Reformed bloggers to cry out in unison, "The Gospel is at steak!" (since when is the gospel not at steak in Reformed circles?).
I didn't really see a problem with the book, though. Yes, I realize where Enns is out of bounds with traditional evangelical hermeneutics, and he should admit as much. Further, the implications of Enns' project will be troubling for many varieties of Evangelical biblical scholarship, but the reality is that these problems *will* arrive in one form or another (ask any young college student who lost their faith in an OT intro class because a professor who was not spiritually sensitive presented these problems. I saw it happen by the dozen--and that's a conservative number--at Louisiana College. Cheap, pat answers will not work and insult the intelligence of young men and women. We need to deal with these issues and Enns is to be commended for dealing with it in a pastorally sensitive and academically sterilized environment, his colleagues' hysterical reaction to it notwithstanding).
Enns, faithful to good Christology, suggests an incarnational parallel between the Person of Christ and the "bible." As Christ has a human dimension (at this point I don't care what connotation you give to that phrase), so also the Bible has a human dimension to it. Most conservatives are fine with this and a few smart ones will say, "yeah, didn't Calvin say that God lisps to us?” And that's true, though it's doubtful Calvin would have approved of Enns' suggestions!
Contrary to popular fear, most of Enns' book is unremarkable. If the reader is familiar with John Frame's works, then Enns' interpretation of Proverbs and Torah in a situational perspective will sound old-hat. Enns also spends much time noting the differences between Kings and Chronicles, of which I assume many Evangelicals are familiar. Enns asks an important question, though: How do we continue to affirm “inspiration” and “revelation” given these differences represent different goals? Personally, I don't have a problem with that question.
The real rub, though, is Enns' treatment of Genesis 1-11. In short, his argument goes: it is indisputable that the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) mythologies were written prior to Genesis.i Secondly, since Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees and would no doubt have bee familiar with these stories, and given that these stories are very similar to Genesis 1-11, one is hard-pressed to avoid the conclusion that Genesis 1-11 is somewhat dependent on the ANE mythologies.
This leads to the next problem: what do we mean by “myth?” Enns defines myth as a pre-scientific form of answering the question of origins in the form of stories (50).ii So one could advance the next conclusion that Abraham did adapt these mythological categories but at the same time radically deconstructed them. This makes Abraham's faith all the more radical: his God is not like the pagan deities, and this is how his God wants you to live.
Enns has other chapters on the anthropomorphic uses of language about God. While it is true Yahweh doesn't act passionately like Zeus, and if one wants to be theologically proper, the essence of God is impassionate, it's equally difficult to read the prophetic literature and Yahweh's interaction with his people and come to a hard doctrine of divine impassibility (yes, I affirm divine impassibility, though not without qualifications). However, much literature has been written on that point and I won't say more.
Enns' last chapter will also cause some problems with conservative readers. While the grammatical-historical method is a respected method and is generally preferred in how to interpret texts, the fact remains that the New Testament authors routinely violated this principle. Not only did they interpret OT texts (seemingly) out of contexts, it appears they even read into the passage elements from 2nd Temple Judaism, and even most strikingly, changed the text of some passages to make a point “fit.” Consider the following examples:
Matthew 2:15/Hosea 11:1
Hosea is not talking about the boy Jesus, nor even about a future Messiah, but is alluding to Israel's past (133).
2 Corinthians 6:2/Isaiah 49:8
Isaiah is speaking of Israel's deliverance from Babylon, which Paul interprets to mean the deliverance in Christ (135; for those schooled in the Redemptive Historical model, this isn't so wild an interpretation; still, it's not what Isaiah's contemporaries, to whom it first meant something—remember what you learned in reading Fee and Kaiser?--which must also be determinative for us.
Romans 11:26-27/Isaiah 59:20
Paul says the deliver will come from Zion, but Isaiah says the deliver will come to Zion. Secondly, Paul applies to Christ what Isaiah applied to God (yes, that is a wonderful truth in which I rejoice, but one must also point out the diversity in the passage). Isaiah talks about those who will be delivered, but Paul talks about the Messiah's point of origin (139).
Hebrews 3:7-11/Psalm 95:9-10
The writer of Hebrews, whom I will call “Paul” simply to irk New Testament intro classes, adds a word, dio (therefore, for the sake of). On first glance it doesn't seem to change much, but Enns makes the argument, “Whereas Psalm 95 equates forty years with the period of God's wrath, Hebrews, by inserting dio, equates the forty years with the duration of God's works...The forty year period is not defined by wrath, but by God's activity. Anger is what follows this forty year period if his readers do not rid themselves of “a sinful, unbelieving heart”” (Enns, 140-141).
Now, if one simply wanted to make the above argument as a pastoral illustration and application of Psalm 95, nobody would bat an eye. But this is Holy Scripture, of which every word is inerrant.iii
Enns' point in all of this is that the New Testament writers inherited a hermeneutical framework from 2 Temple Judaism, with much input from Wisdom of Solomon.iv They did not think they were playing fast and loose with Scripture, and presumably neither did their hearers. The unbelieving Jews might not have agreed with St Matthew's conclusion with Hosea 11, but they (presumably) didn't challenge his method.
Conclusion
I enjoyed the book and the sections on the law, the history, and proverbs were fantastic. While I have no qualms praising the book, I understand why it started a controversy. If Enns' is correct on many of his points, Evangelicals—shucks, conservatives of all traditions—will have to rethink much conventional wisdom, or at least think harder on sensitive issues. Some good answers will have to be given on how the Bible can be revealed and inspired, yet Genesis 1-11 appears dependent on Babylonian and Sumerian myths. In other words, does the dependency thesis negate inerrancy? I don't know.
June 20, 2019
One of the most impactful and helpful books I’ve read. What Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’ was to Christian life and belief, Enns’ ‘Inspiration and Incarnation’ is to biblical study. Both are Articles of Faith in their own right and limitlessly valuable to those who will approach them. I can not recommend it highly enough.
Read
September 19, 2023I had read that this book was controversial, so I was a bit surprised (and a little disappointed) at how unambitious its claims were. It's a good overview to some important difficulties in Biblical interpretation and it offers a helpful (albeit very general) theological approach to thinking them through, but I guess I had hoped that I could have gotten a bit more out of it.
May 17, 2021
This was much less potent than I anticipated it being. I came into it thinking it'd be a kind of take down of inerrancy and a take no prisoner approach, but instead it was just some rewarmed microwaved arguments that are settled by a converted mind applied + a good hermeneutics class. He offered no constructive alternative, often presented things as major issues that in reality need little more than a hermeneutic of trust + converted heart + focused thinking. There really wasn't a "therefore" that I discerned. Lastly, his overall thesis of the Bible is ontologically an admixture of human and divine simply fails based on his, you guessed it, a fundamental understanding of the Bible own self described/proclaimed ontology. IOW, he doesn't take the words of the Scripture and what they purport seriously.
March 5, 2017
I should have paid attention to the subtitle. Had I done so, I would probably not have been so disappointed by this book. In seeing just Inspiration and Incarnation, I assumed the book would defend those concepts. Needless to say, I was disappointed when the author announced in the introduction that he had no intention of defending either, but was simply assuming them. The idea that a book on this topic would not be apologetical in nature surprised me. So I was left to listen in on a discussion aimed at people with a world view dramatically different from my own.
Rather than being about inspiration (a word the author never actually defines), the book is actually about hermeneutics. The author argues that conservative methods of Biblical interpretation fail because they refuse to acknowledge the very real contradictions (or to use his preferred term, diversities) in the Biblical record. Conservatives also fail to acknowledge the dependence of the Biblical authors on their cultures and literary traditions. On the other hand, he says, liberal approaches fail because they acknowledge all these difficulties in the Bible and declare that they prove the Bible to be just the work of men and not God. This is wrong, in his view, because the Bible is so obviously written by God that he doesn't even have to defend the proposition.
Having now cleared the field of both conservative and liberal hermeneutics, he rushes into the breach with an analogy. The Bible, he says, is like Jesus, being both fully human and fully divine. He glories in its anachronisms and contradictions, as these show its human authorship. Also, it's totally divine, because, well, he doesn't actually say why. Why he thinks comparing inspiration to the incarnation is helpful is unclear, as even he admits it's not a good idea to use an analogy in which the comparison point is as complicated or more so than the thing being explained.
Next, he does some comparison between the Bible and ANE texts, points out the cultural influences on the way Biblical writers interpreted other Biblical passages, and generally drives home the point that a traditional view of inerrancy is difficult to square with the actual words of the Bible. This, in my opinion, is the strength of the book. It is encouraging to see an evangelical engage with reality rather than hide from it.
Once I got past his refusal to defend traditional Christian doctrine like inspiration and a closed canon, I thought the book still might be useful as an expression of a new hermeneutic that frees evangelicals from the strictures of "harmonization" and the other mental gymnastics required to defend the idea of inerrancy. Unfortunately, he never fleshes his hermeneutic out in any robust sense, so it's impossible to truly understand how he deals with the traditional Christian ideas of unalterable moral laws, opposition to relativism, etc. He does mention in a postscript that he tries to give a fuller example in The Evolution of Adam. So I suppose I'll have to read that to get an idea.
If you're an evangelical who is fully committed to the idea of inspiration, but struggle with how to reconcile your faith with the obvious difficulties found in Scripture, this book may very well be helpful to you. Just don't go in expecting to have your questions answered. Go in expecting to come away with even more questions.
Rather than being about inspiration (a word the author never actually defines), the book is actually about hermeneutics. The author argues that conservative methods of Biblical interpretation fail because they refuse to acknowledge the very real contradictions (or to use his preferred term, diversities) in the Biblical record. Conservatives also fail to acknowledge the dependence of the Biblical authors on their cultures and literary traditions. On the other hand, he says, liberal approaches fail because they acknowledge all these difficulties in the Bible and declare that they prove the Bible to be just the work of men and not God. This is wrong, in his view, because the Bible is so obviously written by God that he doesn't even have to defend the proposition.
Having now cleared the field of both conservative and liberal hermeneutics, he rushes into the breach with an analogy. The Bible, he says, is like Jesus, being both fully human and fully divine. He glories in its anachronisms and contradictions, as these show its human authorship. Also, it's totally divine, because, well, he doesn't actually say why. Why he thinks comparing inspiration to the incarnation is helpful is unclear, as even he admits it's not a good idea to use an analogy in which the comparison point is as complicated or more so than the thing being explained.
Next, he does some comparison between the Bible and ANE texts, points out the cultural influences on the way Biblical writers interpreted other Biblical passages, and generally drives home the point that a traditional view of inerrancy is difficult to square with the actual words of the Bible. This, in my opinion, is the strength of the book. It is encouraging to see an evangelical engage with reality rather than hide from it.
Once I got past his refusal to defend traditional Christian doctrine like inspiration and a closed canon, I thought the book still might be useful as an expression of a new hermeneutic that frees evangelicals from the strictures of "harmonization" and the other mental gymnastics required to defend the idea of inerrancy. Unfortunately, he never fleshes his hermeneutic out in any robust sense, so it's impossible to truly understand how he deals with the traditional Christian ideas of unalterable moral laws, opposition to relativism, etc. He does mention in a postscript that he tries to give a fuller example in The Evolution of Adam. So I suppose I'll have to read that to get an idea.
If you're an evangelical who is fully committed to the idea of inspiration, but struggle with how to reconcile your faith with the obvious difficulties found in Scripture, this book may very well be helpful to you. Just don't go in expecting to have your questions answered. Go in expecting to come away with even more questions.
April 7, 2013
Peter Enns has stirred up something of a tempest in some evangelical circles with this book on scripture as well as a more recent book on Adam and evolution. At the same time, scholars like Mark Noll commend his work (in Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind). So, I decided to pick up this work and his one on Adam to see what the kerfuffle is all about.
I can see why some would struggle with this book. Enns asks us to set aside our conceptions of how scripture should work if it is inerrant to work inductively from the text itself asking the question of how it actually works. And what we find is that some passages we consider inspired may draw upon ancient near east traditions, passages in different books reflect diverse perspectives, sometimes upon the same matters, and the New Testament writers often interpret the Old Testament in ways that look suspiciously like eisegesis (reading into the text) rather than sound exegesis (reading out of the text). Often the responses to such difficulties have been superficial reconciliations that seem unsatisfactory to the careful reader.
Enns proposes that an incarnational approach to scripture can help us. Such an approach recognizes both the divine and human element in the writing of scripture. The human element means that writers reflect their cultural context and should be judged by its rather than our own standards. That means that they would relate to traditions of surrounding cultures, that writers writing at different times and circumstances will reflect diverse perspectives, and that New Testament writers will use the interpretive conventions of their days and not our own. I found this last most helpful and his proposal that the apostles used a christotelic hermeneutic, one that sees Christ as the end or fulfillment of the Old Testament and reads the Old Testament through the work of Christ. He also observes that Jesus himself does this and that the other "second temple" readers of scripture of his day understood and often approved this approach.
Enns doesn't really answer the question of how we should read the Old Testament, indeed all of scripture given the apostolic hermeneutic. It seems he proposes that we accept their hermeneutic on its own terms, perhaps recognizing the christotelic character of the OT ourselves but not abandon good exegesis. One inherent self-contradiction in this approach seems to be that he has asked us to set aside our doctrinal conceptions about scripture to encounter scripture on its own terms Yet he seems to permit the reading in of our doctrine of the person and work of Christ into both how scripture works and how it is to be interpreted.
All in all, I did not, however, find Enns' proposal contrary to good interpretive practice. But it will be interesting to see where he goes with this in his treatment of Adam.
I can see why some would struggle with this book. Enns asks us to set aside our conceptions of how scripture should work if it is inerrant to work inductively from the text itself asking the question of how it actually works. And what we find is that some passages we consider inspired may draw upon ancient near east traditions, passages in different books reflect diverse perspectives, sometimes upon the same matters, and the New Testament writers often interpret the Old Testament in ways that look suspiciously like eisegesis (reading into the text) rather than sound exegesis (reading out of the text). Often the responses to such difficulties have been superficial reconciliations that seem unsatisfactory to the careful reader.
Enns proposes that an incarnational approach to scripture can help us. Such an approach recognizes both the divine and human element in the writing of scripture. The human element means that writers reflect their cultural context and should be judged by its rather than our own standards. That means that they would relate to traditions of surrounding cultures, that writers writing at different times and circumstances will reflect diverse perspectives, and that New Testament writers will use the interpretive conventions of their days and not our own. I found this last most helpful and his proposal that the apostles used a christotelic hermeneutic, one that sees Christ as the end or fulfillment of the Old Testament and reads the Old Testament through the work of Christ. He also observes that Jesus himself does this and that the other "second temple" readers of scripture of his day understood and often approved this approach.
Enns doesn't really answer the question of how we should read the Old Testament, indeed all of scripture given the apostolic hermeneutic. It seems he proposes that we accept their hermeneutic on its own terms, perhaps recognizing the christotelic character of the OT ourselves but not abandon good exegesis. One inherent self-contradiction in this approach seems to be that he has asked us to set aside our doctrinal conceptions about scripture to encounter scripture on its own terms Yet he seems to permit the reading in of our doctrine of the person and work of Christ into both how scripture works and how it is to be interpreted.
All in all, I did not, however, find Enns' proposal contrary to good interpretive practice. But it will be interesting to see where he goes with this in his treatment of Adam.
November 1, 2018
This book is an excellent challenge to the evangelical approach of engaging with the Old Testament. Though Enns does take care to deliver the material in a kind-spirited and generous manner, this doesn’t detract from the serious nature of the issues that he highlights. Key among these is the dishonest practice of defending evangelical positions for their own sake (which increasingly requires ignoring a considerable amount of evidence).
As an alternative, Enns establishes his “Incarnational analogy” model, suggesting that the bible is best understood as being, in nature, both completely human, and completely divine (with this he also cautions that as all analogies are flawed in one way or another, that this model can only go so far). The end result is that by the close of the first few chapters the reader is given the language and the means for appreciating the richly human aspects of the biblical text without sacrificing faith, or belief in the supernatural.
One example of this being his treatment of the mythic nature of Genesis:
“To put it differently, theologically speaking, God adopted Abraham as the forefather of a new people, and in doing so he also adopted the mythic categories within which Abraham—and everyone else— thought. But God did not simply leave Abraham in his mythic world. Rather, God transformed the
ancient myths so that Israel’s story would come to focus on its God, the real one. ” (p42)
The final sections of the book are also quite helpful (and practical) as Enns takes time to reflect on his journey through critical study of the text - all the while finding his faith enriched and strengthened:
“I mused how fragile a Bible evangelicalism delivers to its people—one that can be undermined, or at least called into question, in the course of a semester of reading some books and listening to some
lectures.” (169)
...
“But fear cannot drive theology. It cannot be used as an excuse to ignore what can rightly be called evidence. We do not honor the Lord nor do we uphold the gospel by playing make-believe...
Our God is much bigger than we sometimes give him credit for. It is we who sometimes wish to keep him small by controlling what can or cannot come into the conversation.”
(162)
In summary, this book does not shy away from the human and history-bound nature of the bible, and yet it achieves this without reducing the text to being only an antiquated cultural collection.
Enns is helpful in shaping honest and informed ways to think about the bible as being both human, and the word of (and from) God, proving that academia does not need to be seen as the great faith-killer.
As an alternative, Enns establishes his “Incarnational analogy” model, suggesting that the bible is best understood as being, in nature, both completely human, and completely divine (with this he also cautions that as all analogies are flawed in one way or another, that this model can only go so far). The end result is that by the close of the first few chapters the reader is given the language and the means for appreciating the richly human aspects of the biblical text without sacrificing faith, or belief in the supernatural.
One example of this being his treatment of the mythic nature of Genesis:
“To put it differently, theologically speaking, God adopted Abraham as the forefather of a new people, and in doing so he also adopted the mythic categories within which Abraham—and everyone else— thought. But God did not simply leave Abraham in his mythic world. Rather, God transformed the
ancient myths so that Israel’s story would come to focus on its God, the real one. ” (p42)
The final sections of the book are also quite helpful (and practical) as Enns takes time to reflect on his journey through critical study of the text - all the while finding his faith enriched and strengthened:
“I mused how fragile a Bible evangelicalism delivers to its people—one that can be undermined, or at least called into question, in the course of a semester of reading some books and listening to some
lectures.” (169)
...
“But fear cannot drive theology. It cannot be used as an excuse to ignore what can rightly be called evidence. We do not honor the Lord nor do we uphold the gospel by playing make-believe...
Our God is much bigger than we sometimes give him credit for. It is we who sometimes wish to keep him small by controlling what can or cannot come into the conversation.”
(162)
In summary, this book does not shy away from the human and history-bound nature of the bible, and yet it achieves this without reducing the text to being only an antiquated cultural collection.
Enns is helpful in shaping honest and informed ways to think about the bible as being both human, and the word of (and from) God, proving that academia does not need to be seen as the great faith-killer.
April 25, 2012
This is the book that eventually caused Enns to resign from Westminster Theological Seminary. It's a frustrating book because of the positions that he takes and doesn't take. He comes across smug sometimes and treats many of his fellow evangelicals like outdated old fogies in the theological world. There's some good stuff and some helpful looks at ANE documents and NT use of the OT, but there are plenty of books that do those things better and with more faithfulness to Scripture.
Want to read
July 25, 2015I probably will never read this book, but I wanted to leave this review (by William Evans) here.
January 27, 2019
For an even more thorough summary, check out this series: https://religionandstory.com/2018/08/...
Peter Enns’s 2005 book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament is an ambitious effort to bring the insights of critical studies to bear on the evangelical understanding of biblical inspiration. Enns, a professor of Old Testament in the Reformed tradition, aims his work at younger students of religion, though it is undoubtedly relevant for a wider spectrum of popular and ministerial readers. Through exegetical arguments from the text and commentary on theological understandings of the Bible, Inspiration and Incarnation posits that Christians must begin to understand the inspired Bible as from God without neglecting its status as a human, enculturated text.
Enns begins his book by stating its central theme: “The problems many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions” (15). In order to realign our preconceptions of the text, Enns offers an incarnational model of inspiration where the process by which Scripture is inspired is analogous to the joining of divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ. He views this model as more helpful than previous understandings of inspiration that neglected the humanity of the Bible, and he appeals back to it throughout the book.
The middle chapters of the book comprise the bulk of Enns’s argument and are mostly exegetical in nature. The first of these chapters deals with the uniqueness of the Bible by comparing the Old Testament with other literature from the ancient Near East (ANE). Enns divides his comparison into three categories: myth stories (e.g. Enuma Elish, The Epic of Gilgamesh), laws and customs (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi, Instruction of Amenemope), and the kings and history of Israel (e.g. the Tel Dan inscription, the Mesha stele). After making note of the vast similarities between the writings of the ancient world and the Hebrew Bible, Enns concludes that though the Bible is not totally unique and otherworldly, it is made special by being the word of God. Next, Enns addresses the integrity of the Bible by looking at theological diversity in the Old Testament. He divides his comparisons into the categories of diversity in Wisdom Literature, History, Law, and in regards to God. Enns believes that though there is a unity to Scripture, it is not a superficial unity; moreover, we are being too defensive when we try to harmonize the text, causing us to lose sight of its intentional diversity. Lastly, Enns deals in these exegesis chapters with the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old Testament. He draws out two features of inter-biblical interpretation: the authors often ignore the context of cited passages in order to make their point, and the authors operate under an assumed understanding of the Old Testament relative to their Second Temple culture. While this can pose a problem for modern readers who hold the biblical writers to a certain standard, Enns stresses that we must accept that inspiration allows for enculturated authors as well as learn to appreciate their “Christotelic” approach.
Enns’s final chapter delivers a short summary of the preceding arguments before returning to how we should interpret Scripture. He again appeals to an incarnational model, a way of seeing inspiration as in some ways similar to the accommodation of God in the Incarnation event—though God is fully present, Christ (and likewise the Bible) is fully human. We cannot neglect one trait in favor of the other. Enns concludes by commenting on how he hopes this material will be received—not with suspicion and fear but with humility, love, and patience.
Many elements of Enns’s work are worth commending, particularly his use of biblical and extra-biblical evidence to support the argument of the book. Drawing on Old Testament texts as well as New (especially commendable since it is not his area of expertise) and describing important ANE parallels, he brings his argument from the abstract to meet the concrete world of the text. By listing parallels between Proverbs and the Instruction of Amenemope, Enns demonstrates that the Bible is not the only literature of its kind; by highlighting the incongruities between Exodus’s version of the Ten Commandments and Deuteronomy’s version, Enns makes clear the diverse theological witness of Scripture; by drawing attention to Jesus’s cryptic argument from Luke 20, Enns shows that the Bible does not operate by our expected standards. Enns is not content to deal merely with the theory of inspiration but grapples with its implications in how we encounter the text.
Another strength of Enns’s book is the model of inspiration he puts forth: an incarnational model in which we should understand the divine-human reality of Scripture to be similar to the God-man joining of the Incarnation. This model has the theological merit of juxtaposing Scripture, the mechanics of which the Church has historically defined very little, with the Incarnation of Christ, something the Church has refined ad nauseam. Making such a comparison pushes readers to avoid certain heresies that either downplay the humanity of Scripture or overemphasize its divine nature. Beyond this, the theory bears resemblance to those of other thinkers concerned with the topic, including Kenton Sparks and Kevin Vanhoozer. This helps place Enns’s suggestion within the broader conversation concerning revelation and hermeneutics.
Lastly, Enns should be commended for his constructive thesis. When Christians step back and reexamine the Bible in light of its historical context and its various parts in relation to each other, they begin to see that some of their older assumptions about the nature of Scripture no longer stand. If Christians depend on the uniqueness of Scripture for its authority, then they will find themselves playing a God-of-the-gaps shell game. If they smooth over its corners and ancient conversations, then they lose the complexity and trajectory of the original text’s multivalent voice. If they force the inspired writers to match their modern standards of authorship and interpretation, then they dismiss the humanity of God’s (second) greatest communication to his creation. If, however, Christians learn to no longer read the text defensively, they will be brought into new, transformative understandings.
Still, Inspiration and Incarnation has its weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses are relatively unimportant, such as Enns’s occasionally scattered focus. However, some are more important to his overall message. For instance, in discussing biblical contradictions concerning preparing the Passover meal, Enns says, “What Exodus [12:8-9] says emphatically not to do—to boil the meat—is precisely what [the same law in] Deuteronomy [16:5-7] says to do” (92). This comes across as a dramatic difficulty until an intrigued reader simply turns to the passage in question in their NIV Bible and finds there is no such contradiction. While Enns’s lexical argument may ultimately be true, it does not defend itself against even the most casual reader. Certainly Enns’s book is trying to cover a lot of ground and is directed at a more general audience, but even so, he spends far too little time wrestling with accepted, conservative answers to these problematic texts. More often than not, it seems that he presents a single interpretation, plausible as it may be, as the only interpretation. If Enns is trying to persuade an evangelical audience of his way of seeing things, then he must grapple with an intelligent, evangelical reading of the text.
A second criticism of Enns is specific to the fourth chapter and his advocation of a Christotelic hermeneutic. In attempting to remain orthodox, Enns not only accepts the apostolic hermeneutic he has just critiqued as legitimate but recommends it as valuable for modern readers, saying, “A Christian understanding of the Old Testament should begin with what God revealed to the apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for Old Testament interpretation” (157). This handling of the apostolic authors’ appropriation of Old Testament prophecy is too forgiving. There is more to be said on the topic—there is more tension between how the early Christians handled Scripture and how modern readers handle it than Enns conveys—and these tensions cannot be so easily dismissed in favor of a “Christotelic” interpretation.
A final criticism should be noted concerning Enn’s model of inspiration. Though his incarnational model is one of the book’s strengths, it is also hurt by the author not going far enough in his recommendation. Enns is not a philosopher of religion or a theologian—so it may be beyond what he recognizes as his expertise—but he never truly explains the foundation or the merits of paralleling God’s Word incarnate and God’s word inspired. Enns seems to assume that the connection is obvious, and while the reader can probably piece together how the comparison is drawn, evidence for why it is not only a helpful comparison but a preferred model of inspiration is absent from Enns’s argument. Moreover, Enns doesn’t spend nearly the time deserved for elaborating on the implications of an incarnational model and how it would shape a Christian reading of Scripture. The model Enns suggests is a beautiful analogy that has the potential to more fully inform evangelical Christianity’s understanding of the Bible if only he had gone further with what it could mean.
Despite these and other criticism, Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation does a good job of addressing a difficult issue—an issue deeply connected with people’s emotions and faith. Enns proceeds with pastoral care for the students he likely envisions reading his words, and in so doing, he delivers a much-needed case for a much-needed change.
Peter Enns’s 2005 book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament is an ambitious effort to bring the insights of critical studies to bear on the evangelical understanding of biblical inspiration. Enns, a professor of Old Testament in the Reformed tradition, aims his work at younger students of religion, though it is undoubtedly relevant for a wider spectrum of popular and ministerial readers. Through exegetical arguments from the text and commentary on theological understandings of the Bible, Inspiration and Incarnation posits that Christians must begin to understand the inspired Bible as from God without neglecting its status as a human, enculturated text.
Enns begins his book by stating its central theme: “The problems many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions” (15). In order to realign our preconceptions of the text, Enns offers an incarnational model of inspiration where the process by which Scripture is inspired is analogous to the joining of divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ. He views this model as more helpful than previous understandings of inspiration that neglected the humanity of the Bible, and he appeals back to it throughout the book.
The middle chapters of the book comprise the bulk of Enns’s argument and are mostly exegetical in nature. The first of these chapters deals with the uniqueness of the Bible by comparing the Old Testament with other literature from the ancient Near East (ANE). Enns divides his comparison into three categories: myth stories (e.g. Enuma Elish, The Epic of Gilgamesh), laws and customs (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi, Instruction of Amenemope), and the kings and history of Israel (e.g. the Tel Dan inscription, the Mesha stele). After making note of the vast similarities between the writings of the ancient world and the Hebrew Bible, Enns concludes that though the Bible is not totally unique and otherworldly, it is made special by being the word of God. Next, Enns addresses the integrity of the Bible by looking at theological diversity in the Old Testament. He divides his comparisons into the categories of diversity in Wisdom Literature, History, Law, and in regards to God. Enns believes that though there is a unity to Scripture, it is not a superficial unity; moreover, we are being too defensive when we try to harmonize the text, causing us to lose sight of its intentional diversity. Lastly, Enns deals in these exegesis chapters with the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old Testament. He draws out two features of inter-biblical interpretation: the authors often ignore the context of cited passages in order to make their point, and the authors operate under an assumed understanding of the Old Testament relative to their Second Temple culture. While this can pose a problem for modern readers who hold the biblical writers to a certain standard, Enns stresses that we must accept that inspiration allows for enculturated authors as well as learn to appreciate their “Christotelic” approach.
Enns’s final chapter delivers a short summary of the preceding arguments before returning to how we should interpret Scripture. He again appeals to an incarnational model, a way of seeing inspiration as in some ways similar to the accommodation of God in the Incarnation event—though God is fully present, Christ (and likewise the Bible) is fully human. We cannot neglect one trait in favor of the other. Enns concludes by commenting on how he hopes this material will be received—not with suspicion and fear but with humility, love, and patience.
Many elements of Enns’s work are worth commending, particularly his use of biblical and extra-biblical evidence to support the argument of the book. Drawing on Old Testament texts as well as New (especially commendable since it is not his area of expertise) and describing important ANE parallels, he brings his argument from the abstract to meet the concrete world of the text. By listing parallels between Proverbs and the Instruction of Amenemope, Enns demonstrates that the Bible is not the only literature of its kind; by highlighting the incongruities between Exodus’s version of the Ten Commandments and Deuteronomy’s version, Enns makes clear the diverse theological witness of Scripture; by drawing attention to Jesus’s cryptic argument from Luke 20, Enns shows that the Bible does not operate by our expected standards. Enns is not content to deal merely with the theory of inspiration but grapples with its implications in how we encounter the text.
Another strength of Enns’s book is the model of inspiration he puts forth: an incarnational model in which we should understand the divine-human reality of Scripture to be similar to the God-man joining of the Incarnation. This model has the theological merit of juxtaposing Scripture, the mechanics of which the Church has historically defined very little, with the Incarnation of Christ, something the Church has refined ad nauseam. Making such a comparison pushes readers to avoid certain heresies that either downplay the humanity of Scripture or overemphasize its divine nature. Beyond this, the theory bears resemblance to those of other thinkers concerned with the topic, including Kenton Sparks and Kevin Vanhoozer. This helps place Enns’s suggestion within the broader conversation concerning revelation and hermeneutics.
Lastly, Enns should be commended for his constructive thesis. When Christians step back and reexamine the Bible in light of its historical context and its various parts in relation to each other, they begin to see that some of their older assumptions about the nature of Scripture no longer stand. If Christians depend on the uniqueness of Scripture for its authority, then they will find themselves playing a God-of-the-gaps shell game. If they smooth over its corners and ancient conversations, then they lose the complexity and trajectory of the original text’s multivalent voice. If they force the inspired writers to match their modern standards of authorship and interpretation, then they dismiss the humanity of God’s (second) greatest communication to his creation. If, however, Christians learn to no longer read the text defensively, they will be brought into new, transformative understandings.
Still, Inspiration and Incarnation has its weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses are relatively unimportant, such as Enns’s occasionally scattered focus. However, some are more important to his overall message. For instance, in discussing biblical contradictions concerning preparing the Passover meal, Enns says, “What Exodus [12:8-9] says emphatically not to do—to boil the meat—is precisely what [the same law in] Deuteronomy [16:5-7] says to do” (92). This comes across as a dramatic difficulty until an intrigued reader simply turns to the passage in question in their NIV Bible and finds there is no such contradiction. While Enns’s lexical argument may ultimately be true, it does not defend itself against even the most casual reader. Certainly Enns’s book is trying to cover a lot of ground and is directed at a more general audience, but even so, he spends far too little time wrestling with accepted, conservative answers to these problematic texts. More often than not, it seems that he presents a single interpretation, plausible as it may be, as the only interpretation. If Enns is trying to persuade an evangelical audience of his way of seeing things, then he must grapple with an intelligent, evangelical reading of the text.
A second criticism of Enns is specific to the fourth chapter and his advocation of a Christotelic hermeneutic. In attempting to remain orthodox, Enns not only accepts the apostolic hermeneutic he has just critiqued as legitimate but recommends it as valuable for modern readers, saying, “A Christian understanding of the Old Testament should begin with what God revealed to the apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for Old Testament interpretation” (157). This handling of the apostolic authors’ appropriation of Old Testament prophecy is too forgiving. There is more to be said on the topic—there is more tension between how the early Christians handled Scripture and how modern readers handle it than Enns conveys—and these tensions cannot be so easily dismissed in favor of a “Christotelic” interpretation.
A final criticism should be noted concerning Enn’s model of inspiration. Though his incarnational model is one of the book’s strengths, it is also hurt by the author not going far enough in his recommendation. Enns is not a philosopher of religion or a theologian—so it may be beyond what he recognizes as his expertise—but he never truly explains the foundation or the merits of paralleling God’s Word incarnate and God’s word inspired. Enns seems to assume that the connection is obvious, and while the reader can probably piece together how the comparison is drawn, evidence for why it is not only a helpful comparison but a preferred model of inspiration is absent from Enns’s argument. Moreover, Enns doesn’t spend nearly the time deserved for elaborating on the implications of an incarnational model and how it would shape a Christian reading of Scripture. The model Enns suggests is a beautiful analogy that has the potential to more fully inform evangelical Christianity’s understanding of the Bible if only he had gone further with what it could mean.
Despite these and other criticism, Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation does a good job of addressing a difficult issue—an issue deeply connected with people’s emotions and faith. Enns proceeds with pastoral care for the students he likely envisions reading his words, and in so doing, he delivers a much-needed case for a much-needed change.
March 10, 2018
Author Peter Enns has had an interesting relationship with the Evangelical church. One of the hosts of the podcast, "The Bible for Normal People", he no longer attends an Evangelical church but still remains engaged in issues impacting this specific niche of Christianity. "Inspiration and Incarnation" was first published in 2005 when Enns was (I believe) still involved personally with Evangelical Christianity and in this work, he highlights a very important problem. How do Evangelicals approach the Old Testament? One may find Evangelicals in denial that such a problem exists at all but once we drill down into the issues that Enns brings up.
The framework to approach the OT (according to Enns) is viewing the canon of books as inspired by God but also having an incarnational element. Sort of like Jesus being fully God and fully human. Of course, Enns admits this is not a perfect analogy but his goal in offering this framing is to investigate the Divine origin of Scripture but also it's human element. That people were carried along by the Spirit of God in their own languages, cultures, history, scientific understanding (certainly limited compared to today) and spiritual understanding.
Enns' divides the book into three major contemplations: 1) The Bible as compared with ancient near eastern literature. 2) The Old Testament and theological diversity 3) The New Testament and it's interpretation of the Old Testament.
Enns seems to be suggesting that 1 and 2 are problems but I would contend that they aren't or at least not as much as he may say. Much of the ancient near eastern literature (the epic of Gilgamesh or Enuma Elish) pre-dates the Old Testament writing. The Code of Hammurabi also pre-dates the law. This isn't a problem for Old Testament understanding. Evangelicals believe God inspired people to write His Word according to their own cultural understandings. One of the scholarly interpretations of Genesis 1 is that it was written specifically to combat other creation narratives and to show that Elohim was the One True God who created everything ex nihilio.
The theological diversity is not especially problematic either. Enns points out Proverbs that seem to disagree with one another (Proverbs 26:4-5). Differences in the accounts of the ten commandments between Exodus and Deuteronomy. The philosophical ideas in Ecclesiastes versus other teachings in the Torah about God and life. All of this again is acknowledged by most Evangelical scholars. Different people (men and women) wrote down Scripture over an extended period of time. Might it be possible that these men and women had some different beliefs in the cultures they lived in? Absolutely and the idea of God inspiring Scripture still applies in those scenarios. The diversity of the Old Testament gives a full picture of the hard reality of life and how a nation (community) of people sought after God.
The third point that Enns brings up is how the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament and thereby how they interpret the Jewish canon of Scripture. Here, Enns has a very uncomfortable point. Try reading the Gospel of Matthew for instance and each time you come across a prophecy citation from the Old Testament that was fulfilled in Christ, go back to the specific Old Testament passage and read the whole context. It will not take us long to discover that the New Testament writers did not adhere to a more conservative hermeneutic standard of "grammatical-historical" interpretation.
Enns "solution" is to acknowledge that second temple setting of apostolic hermeneutics and the difference that those authors had in approaching Scripture versus what we have today. He states that Scripture interpretation should be viewed as more a path to walk then a fortress to be defended. He also argues that interpretation of the Bible should have more of a community-oriented sense then individual (which may fly in the face of our western sensibilities).
"Inspiration and Incarnation" is a compelling, thoughtful and challenging read. Enns has a gift in bringing scholarly type ideas down to words that anyone could understand. This book is a good tool in helping people further engage the Old Testament text honestly.
Quotes:
“Ours is a historical faith, and to uproot the Bible from its historical contexts is self-contradictory.”
“It is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judged on the basis of standards of modern historical inquiry and scientific precision, things that ancient peoples were not at all aware of? Is it not likely that God would have allowed his word to come to the ancient Israelites according to standards they understood, or are modern standards of truth and error so universal that we should expect pre-modern cultures to have made use of them?”
“The findings of the past 150 years have made extrabiblical evidence an unavoidable conversation partner. The result is that, as perhaps never before in the history of the church, we can see how truly provisional and incomplete certain dimensions of our understanding of Scripture can be. On the other hand, we are encouraged to encounter the depth and riches of God’s revelation and to rely more and more on God’s Spirit, who speaks to the church in Scripture.”
“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.”
The framework to approach the OT (according to Enns) is viewing the canon of books as inspired by God but also having an incarnational element. Sort of like Jesus being fully God and fully human. Of course, Enns admits this is not a perfect analogy but his goal in offering this framing is to investigate the Divine origin of Scripture but also it's human element. That people were carried along by the Spirit of God in their own languages, cultures, history, scientific understanding (certainly limited compared to today) and spiritual understanding.
Enns' divides the book into three major contemplations: 1) The Bible as compared with ancient near eastern literature. 2) The Old Testament and theological diversity 3) The New Testament and it's interpretation of the Old Testament.
Enns seems to be suggesting that 1 and 2 are problems but I would contend that they aren't or at least not as much as he may say. Much of the ancient near eastern literature (the epic of Gilgamesh or Enuma Elish) pre-dates the Old Testament writing. The Code of Hammurabi also pre-dates the law. This isn't a problem for Old Testament understanding. Evangelicals believe God inspired people to write His Word according to their own cultural understandings. One of the scholarly interpretations of Genesis 1 is that it was written specifically to combat other creation narratives and to show that Elohim was the One True God who created everything ex nihilio.
The theological diversity is not especially problematic either. Enns points out Proverbs that seem to disagree with one another (Proverbs 26:4-5). Differences in the accounts of the ten commandments between Exodus and Deuteronomy. The philosophical ideas in Ecclesiastes versus other teachings in the Torah about God and life. All of this again is acknowledged by most Evangelical scholars. Different people (men and women) wrote down Scripture over an extended period of time. Might it be possible that these men and women had some different beliefs in the cultures they lived in? Absolutely and the idea of God inspiring Scripture still applies in those scenarios. The diversity of the Old Testament gives a full picture of the hard reality of life and how a nation (community) of people sought after God.
The third point that Enns brings up is how the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament and thereby how they interpret the Jewish canon of Scripture. Here, Enns has a very uncomfortable point. Try reading the Gospel of Matthew for instance and each time you come across a prophecy citation from the Old Testament that was fulfilled in Christ, go back to the specific Old Testament passage and read the whole context. It will not take us long to discover that the New Testament writers did not adhere to a more conservative hermeneutic standard of "grammatical-historical" interpretation.
Enns "solution" is to acknowledge that second temple setting of apostolic hermeneutics and the difference that those authors had in approaching Scripture versus what we have today. He states that Scripture interpretation should be viewed as more a path to walk then a fortress to be defended. He also argues that interpretation of the Bible should have more of a community-oriented sense then individual (which may fly in the face of our western sensibilities).
"Inspiration and Incarnation" is a compelling, thoughtful and challenging read. Enns has a gift in bringing scholarly type ideas down to words that anyone could understand. This book is a good tool in helping people further engage the Old Testament text honestly.
Quotes:
“Ours is a historical faith, and to uproot the Bible from its historical contexts is self-contradictory.”
“It is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judged on the basis of standards of modern historical inquiry and scientific precision, things that ancient peoples were not at all aware of? Is it not likely that God would have allowed his word to come to the ancient Israelites according to standards they understood, or are modern standards of truth and error so universal that we should expect pre-modern cultures to have made use of them?”
“The findings of the past 150 years have made extrabiblical evidence an unavoidable conversation partner. The result is that, as perhaps never before in the history of the church, we can see how truly provisional and incomplete certain dimensions of our understanding of Scripture can be. On the other hand, we are encouraged to encounter the depth and riches of God’s revelation and to rely more and more on God’s Spirit, who speaks to the church in Scripture.”
“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.”
October 21, 2021
Inspiration and Incarnation is one of Peter Enns’ older titles and I’ve discovered I prefer his older books to his more recently published ones. He seems to have more faith in the accuracy of the biblical stories in 2005 when the book was first published.
In this book, Enns focusses on three issues:
1. The Old Testament and other literature from the ancient world – why does much of the Old Testament look like other ancient literature.
2. Theological diversity in the Old Testament – why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same issue?
3. The way in which the New Testament authors handled the Old Testament - often it looks like they are taking verses out of context.
These issues are summarised as: The Bible’s uniqueness, integrity and interpretation.
One of Enns’ main points is that when God interacts with our world he does so in ways that made sense to people in their culture in their time. God accommodates and condescends to meet us where we are. Therefore, the world view of the biblical authors must be taken into consideration in matters of biblical integrity and interpretation.
Many of the customs in the ancient world weren’t God’s design (eg Abraham sleeping with Hagar), they were simply part of the culture. Most ancient cultures had multiple gods, laws, priests, sacrifices and a temple. The point of God’s laws was to give Israel an identity as a nation with a relationship with the One, true God. God took what was common and used it for a special purpose.
The book is easy to read and understand. I particularly found his historical understanding of ancient cultures helpful and insightful as it applied to the biblical context.
Overall, a helpful read.
In this book, Enns focusses on three issues:
1. The Old Testament and other literature from the ancient world – why does much of the Old Testament look like other ancient literature.
2. Theological diversity in the Old Testament – why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same issue?
3. The way in which the New Testament authors handled the Old Testament - often it looks like they are taking verses out of context.
These issues are summarised as: The Bible’s uniqueness, integrity and interpretation.
One of Enns’ main points is that when God interacts with our world he does so in ways that made sense to people in their culture in their time. God accommodates and condescends to meet us where we are. Therefore, the world view of the biblical authors must be taken into consideration in matters of biblical integrity and interpretation.
Many of the customs in the ancient world weren’t God’s design (eg Abraham sleeping with Hagar), they were simply part of the culture. Most ancient cultures had multiple gods, laws, priests, sacrifices and a temple. The point of God’s laws was to give Israel an identity as a nation with a relationship with the One, true God. God took what was common and used it for a special purpose.
The book is easy to read and understand. I particularly found his historical understanding of ancient cultures helpful and insightful as it applied to the biblical context.
Overall, a helpful read.
May 28, 2020
What's so wonderful about Enns is that he shows how so many of us Christians, perhaps the majority, begin our Bible reading with doctrine, letting it, and thus in essence the men and tradition it has come from, tell us how we are to understand the Bible, rather than the other way around. Therefore, for many Christians the primary source is their denominational convictions and the Bible becomes, in practice, a secondary source text. Though I don't know the particulars of Enns' release from Westminster I would not be surprised if it had something to do with his findings as he studied the Bible. How ironic would it be if he could no longer assent to tenets of Reformed theology because he respected what the biblical text was actually saying - for one example, that God changed his mind in discussions with Moses - more than those supposedly biblical Reformed tenets.
Though I have been out of divinity school for some time and was only an okay student while there, I find his Incarnational model for reading/understanding Scripture to be a very powerful one. Yes, there are some implications of this model that even give me as a post-evangelical pause, but Enns boldly follows the implications of his findings and does not bat an eye at stating them. Three cheers for that courage and integrity.
Though I have been out of divinity school for some time and was only an okay student while there, I find his Incarnational model for reading/understanding Scripture to be a very powerful one. Yes, there are some implications of this model that even give me as a post-evangelical pause, but Enns boldly follows the implications of his findings and does not bat an eye at stating them. Three cheers for that courage and integrity.
October 18, 2021
This book has some really interesting ideas about how we view the Bible. It offers an novel take on what it means when we say the Bible is "inspired". I also thought it made a good point that the nature of the Bible's inspiration is an ongoing discussion, not something for which we can arrive at a final conclusion.
Some of the "issues" that Enns describes though didn't strike me as issues at all. Some things even seem to be blown a little out of proportion, particularly where he compares creation myths and wisdom literature.
I was also disappointed that when he came to certain apparent difficulties in the biblical texts, Enns sometimes just said something to the effect of "we believe it because we have faith in God". While this may be true, the argument for why we have faith on this particular issue, or even possible solutions to the issue, were sometimes left unexplored.
I did think that Enns exploration of how the New Testament authors interpreted Old Testament texts was well done and gave me a lot to mull over.
Recommended as a quick skim for people looking for a fresh take on biblical inspiration.
Some of the "issues" that Enns describes though didn't strike me as issues at all. Some things even seem to be blown a little out of proportion, particularly where he compares creation myths and wisdom literature.
I was also disappointed that when he came to certain apparent difficulties in the biblical texts, Enns sometimes just said something to the effect of "we believe it because we have faith in God". While this may be true, the argument for why we have faith on this particular issue, or even possible solutions to the issue, were sometimes left unexplored.
I did think that Enns exploration of how the New Testament authors interpreted Old Testament texts was well done and gave me a lot to mull over.
Recommended as a quick skim for people looking for a fresh take on biblical inspiration.
June 29, 2022
Inspiration and Incarnation is less accessible than Enns’s more recent books, which are geared for a general audience, but it’s still an informative and enlightening read. “Ours is a historical faith,” Enns writes, “and to uproot the Bible from its historical contexts is self-contradictory.” His plea is for readers of the Bible (specifically those in — or formerly in — the Evangelical camp) to embrace its central paradox: that it can be both humanly written and divinely inspired. Ultimately, this is a call to read the scriptures with humility, not “modern, Western arrogance.”
March 21, 2019
A great book that was formed earlier in Pete Enn's journey. Much of the information contained in the book has been discussed and represented (better in my opinion) in Pete's later books, though there were many ideas and concepts that were unique. If you had to pick a couple of Pete Enn's books to read, stick with How the Bible Actually Works and The Bible Tells Me So.
September 30, 2024
Thought Enns did a good job explaining ANE contexts and modern day evangelical assumptions and the problem between the two. Went through a lot of questions I remember having as a kid growing up in contexts where you felt like asking questions about the Bible was wrong
January 5, 2025
Such an important book for anyone who cares about the Bible. A must read.
March 13, 2024
What a great read. Super insightful and provide .ich fodder for further studies in the scripture.
February 3, 2016
The author proposes to attack what he calls "scriptural docetism", which fails to properly recognize the human side of Scripture in light of recent external evidence. For him, both mainstream evangelicalism and skeptical biblical criticism have been failing to reconcile the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture with recent biblical scholarship. Their modern preconceptions blind them to the Scripture's own dynamic. His solution is what he calls "incarnational analogy", a way of saying that the Bible is both divine and human in the same way Jesus is.
Along the book, he tries to demonstrate how ANE literature, OT theological diversity and the interpretive methods of the NT with regards to the OT challenge both conservative and liberal notions of uniqueness, integrity and interpretation, respectively. The "incarnational analogy" perspective would provide a way of understanding these notions that is both faithful to Scripture and scholarship. Unfortunately, maybe for a lack of space, he fails to develop his argument. Many interesting and relevant points and questions are raised; however, many times he prefers to simply state his conclusions, with only a minimal level of argumentation. One also gets the impression that he is caricaturizing a bit his opponents, due to a rant-like style of writing that shows up now and then in the book.
In the end, the book comes out as useful for a reason other than his intent. The scholarship data he presents, along with the many methodological insights and puzzles he raises, may serve as a proper introduction to a beginner student of Scripture. As for his incarnational analogy, it entices but does not convince. Maybe we should wait for a longer book.
Maybe we should also wait for a longer review.
Along the book, he tries to demonstrate how ANE literature, OT theological diversity and the interpretive methods of the NT with regards to the OT challenge both conservative and liberal notions of uniqueness, integrity and interpretation, respectively. The "incarnational analogy" perspective would provide a way of understanding these notions that is both faithful to Scripture and scholarship. Unfortunately, maybe for a lack of space, he fails to develop his argument. Many interesting and relevant points and questions are raised; however, many times he prefers to simply state his conclusions, with only a minimal level of argumentation. One also gets the impression that he is caricaturizing a bit his opponents, due to a rant-like style of writing that shows up now and then in the book.
In the end, the book comes out as useful for a reason other than his intent. The scholarship data he presents, along with the many methodological insights and puzzles he raises, may serve as a proper introduction to a beginner student of Scripture. As for his incarnational analogy, it entices but does not convince. Maybe we should wait for a longer book.
Maybe we should also wait for a longer review.
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