Inerrancy Review (Final)

I have been reviewing Zondervan's new Five Views of Inerrancy. I wasn't sure what I would think of the book but it has been very helpful. I have not been able to give as thorough a review (or read) as I would prefer but I'm sure Zondervan would like you to buy the book. :-)

The two previous posts were:

• Mohler's CSBI Inerrancy
• Vanhoozer's Speech-Act/Bird's Global Inerrancy

I only have time today to give a taste of the last two contributors: John Franke and Peter Enns.

John Franke
Franke is deep and nuanced, like Vanhoozer. His perspective, if I understand him, is quite fascinating, maybe even profound. Because we are finite and God is infinite, "God 'adjusts' and 'descends' to the limited capacities of human beings and 'lisps' to us, as adults do to infants, in order to be made known" (267).

God "pragmatically points us in the right direction without the necessity of being photographically precise or drawn exactly to scale" (268). "Inerrancy affirms that narratives, propositions, and assertions--in fact, all the genres of Scripture--are true but still relative to their context. Inerrancy should not be used to suggest, then, that the words of Scripture transcend their situatedness as a form of decontextualized, absolutist theological language" (270).

Let me see if I have understood him. The Bible reflects God on his mission to save humanity through Christ. The goal is Christ leading to the goal of humanity and the creation's restoration. Along the way, the infinite God has lisped to humanity in its varied contexts. These moments point the way forward. They point to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

They do not point precisely because of their situatedness. As a result, "Scripture itself authorizes multiple perspectives... circumscribed by the... canon" (276). "Scripture is inerrant in its witness to the plurality of perspectives that are indispensable to the practice of missional Christian community" (276).

Let me see if I can apply what I think he's saying (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). He's saying it's okay for some of us to believe in women in ministry and for some of us not to, because different situations in the canon at different times have called forth both directions. But I think he would also say that the missional trajectory of Christ and the kingdom make the egalitarian position superior to the other. I could have misunderstood him.

Pete Enns
Enns believes "that the term inerrancy has run its course and that evangelicals need to adopt other language with which to talk about the Bible" (115). If Mohler sees CSBI inerrancy as a matter of presupposition, no matter what the evidence seems to say, Enns largely favors an evidentiary approach.

One strength of Enns' chapter, I think, is his sense that the Bible reflects incarnated revelation. God speaks truth "through the idioms, attitudes, assumptions, and general worldviews of the ancient authors" (87). This seems obvious to me, because God wants to be understood. When you want to be understood, you speak the language of those with whom you want to communicate. "Scripture is a collection of a variety of writings that necessarily and unashamedly reflects the worlds in which those writings were produced" (115).

Interestingly, Enns does have a suggestion for how he could continue to affirm inerrancy. He suggests a "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive" approach. "A descriptive model of inerrancy would try to take its cues from biblical behavior and so draw inferences about what qualities to expect of Scripture" (114).  Rather than tell Scripture what it could say, you would listen for God in what seemed to be said.  Then, "no matter what is encountered, the reader is in the presence of the wisdom and mystery of our God."

Happy reading, if you get the book when it comes out on December 10!

Science Friday: Evolution of Adam

Normally I want to post more pure science or culture on Friday, but since I haven't come to anything really interesting to me in the biography I'm reading about James Clerk Maxwell, I thought I would post about the introduction to the new book by Peter Enns I'm also reading, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins.

This is going to be a hard book to read, not because Enns himself is caustic or confrontational.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I have been impressed with how sensitive and "exploratory" a tone he has adopted in this book.  His evangelical background as an OT scholar comes through clearly, not as someone who has been burned (Westminster Theological Seminary effectively pushed him out, even if he did the resigning), not as someone bitter because they feel stupid from the past (very, very common).  The tone is thoroughly respectful and truth seeking. It doesn't have the condescending tone Giberson and even Collins sometimes seem to have.

His audience is Christian, especially evangelicals, and especially American evangelicals.  Yet he is also addressing those who believe evolution must be taken seriously.  Respect of Scripture is a primary value, although he clarifies that "the most faithful, Christian reading of sacred Scripture is one that recognizes Scripture as a product of the times in which it was written and/or the events took place--not merely so, but unalterably so" (xi).

I will not debate this claim, although I think there may be more to Christian hermeneutics than the original meaning.  Nevertheless, I agree it does no honor to the Bible to pretend that it meant something different than it did (even if I think there is room for self-consciously different readings).

In any case, the reason the book will be a hard read is because of his conclusion: "If evolution is correct, one can no longer accept, in any true sense of the word "historical," the instantaneous and special creation of humanity described in Genesis, specifically 1:26-31 and 2:7,22" (xiv).  In particular, he does not believe we should speculate about Adam in ways foreign to the original meaning of Genesis.  For example, he will not let us say that Adam and Eve were the first two homo sapiens in which God put a soul because that is certainly not anything Genesis itself was thinking.

Enns does not believe, rightly I think, that Genesis is, in the end, the real point of conflict between evolution and the Bible.  Paul is.  He sees four options:

1. Accept evolution and reject Christianity (he will say no to this).
2. Accept Paul's view of Adam as binding and reject evolution (he will say no to this as well).
3. Reconcile evolution and Christianity by positing a first human pair (or group) at some point in the evolutionary process (he thinks this doesn't respect Genesis enough in terms of its original meaning).
4. Rethink Genesis and Paul (clearly the option he believes has the most integrity).

So the book begins.

Reformed Evangelicalism

Mike Bird is a conservative evangelical--but he is Australian. That means that he shares the same conservative view of Scripture as the American Evangelical Theological Society, but he does not have the same cultural influences. I have generally found evangelical scholars like him as a good self-check on factors in American evangelicalism that are more cultural than enduring.

In any case, you can see his assessment of the American Reformed evangelical OT situation after the firing of an evangelical pillar, Bruce Waltke, from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. I don't know Bruce but I don't think anyone thinks of him as a trouble maker. He certainly won't have any problem getting another job. From the standpoint of his evangelical scholarship, his firing is puzzling. From the standpoint of truth politics, it is not surprising.

There is definitely a hard core Reformed backlash in play, 7 point Calvinism, villification of N. T. Wright. Good grief, John Piper even got in trouble for inviting Rick Warren to a conference.

Peter Enns Question 6: Our Review of I & I, Part 3

Here is the sixth installment of our interview with Pete Enns, the final response to our online review of his book, Inspiration and Incarnation

You can read the earlier Q & As at the links below:

#1 Who are you?
#2 A Good Calvinist?
#3 How about them Nazarenes?
#4 What'd you think of our review of your book, part 1
#5 What'd you think of our review of your book, part 2

Now #6
Here are some reactions to your third post on I&I, pertaining to chapter 4 and the NT’s use of the OT (January 26).

1.Here we go again with the therapy thing. Sheesh. I DON’T NEED THERAPY, and if you don’t believe me, you can call my therapist any time you want.

2.You suggest I may have used too many examples of the NT’s use of the OT and Second Temple interpretation. Possibly, but the opposite criticism has been tossed my way, namely by Greg Beale, who said I have far too few, not enough to support my paradigm. I am sure, Ken, that you and others somewhat sympathetic to the (rather obvious) hermeneutical point I am making in this chapter need less convincing than some, but there are others out there with a vested interest to marginalize the hermeneutical challenges of the NT’s use of the OT. I am thinking I should have drawn on even more examples.

3.I agree with your sketch of the problem, that evangelicalism has given pride of place to the “original” meaning of Scripture as the locus of authority, and this creates significant tension with the behavior of Scripture itself. As I have often put it with my students, it is a grammatical-historical study of the NT that shows that the NT authors are not doing grammatical-historical exegesis of the OT. This does not sit well with some evangelical paradigms.

I agree, too, that the Beale/Carson Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old is an attempt to answer this problem, but it doesn’t. Some essays there are pretty good, but the hermeneutical issues are rarely addressed, and when they are, there seems to be some sympathy to a more flexible understanding of NT hermeneutical practices than the authors (esp. Beale) are willing elsewhere to allow. See, for example, the comments on Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1 and the “moveable well” tradition in 1 Cor 10:4. All of this reminds me of the Carson edited Justification and Variegated Nomism volume (to which I contributed) where the editor’s assessment of the essays did not square very well with what the essays themselves were saying.

At any rate, I know there are a couple of hard-hitting reviews in the works out there, so I will leave it at that.

4.You do a good job summarizing my points in this chapter. Thanks!

5.You ask at the end where all this will lead, and you do so, I think, with an air of anticipation (rather than dread on the part of some of my critics). Well, that is the point, isn’t it? But, as I see it, where “it” is heading only has meaning if we can be clear on what the “it” is we are talking about. With respect to the NT’s use of the OT, that “it” is not a hermeneutical phenomenon rooted in an evangelical understanding of the primacy of grammatical-historical exegesis. I do not find that in the least tenable intellectually and that should be stated plainly.

Peter Enns Question 4: My Review of Your Book

Here is the fourth installment of our interview with Pete Enns. Immense thanks for the time he is taking to respond to my questions!

You can read the earlier ones at the links below:

#1 Who are you?
#2 A Good Calvinist?
#3 How about them Nazarenes?

Question 4: Some of us at Indiana Wesleyan read through your book, Inspiration and Incarnation, and I blogged through it. Are there any points of our review that you would like to clarify or correct?

Part 1
I enjoyed reading the interaction on your blog, Ken. You had three posts, and I’d like to go one at a time and make some comments. Hope it spurs further discussion.

On the January 12 post:

1. I would like to make one correction concerning my departure from WTS. I was not “forced” to resign from WTS. I was never asked to resign. Rather, I resigned of my own accord and on my own initiative because I could not support the theological direction the school was taking, which in my view represented a decisive shift away from how I was taught at WTS in the late 1980s and the theological climate of most of my years on the faculty. I also saw where the momentum was heading concerning my place on the faculty, and felt that some form of separation was inevitable. Now, that might be what you mean by “forced,” but there you have it.

2. I very much appreciate the discussion on your blog about the tone of the book. Striking the right tone is hard with a book like this. Thus far, now almost 4 years after I&I came out (summer 2005), I can say the comments I have received are almost exclusively positive on the tone, even if some disagree with content. That was important to me. Still, I am always appreciative when friends tell me where I could have done better.

I would not say, though, that I was “rubbing it into the noses of Westminster.” It is important to keep a couple of things in mind. First, I had been teaching with complete transparency more or less the general content of I&I for a decade before it became a problem. Toward the end of that period, the composition of the faculty and administration changed, and these changes were concurrent with how my views were perceived.

Second, as has been well publicized, there was a strong majority of the faculty supportive of me throughout this period of conflict. They clearly did not at all feel like their noses were being rubbed in anything. My thoughts expressed in I&I may not represent precisely what everyone thought, but that is hardly worth pointing out, as thinking people engaged in the world of ideas will naturally differ on matters.

3. I agree with you that I&I looks to reframe issues that have been mishandled over the past 150 years or so in the fundamentalist and evangelical worlds. Evangelical theology is (still) at an impasse because it did not handle well some true developments and advances in biblical scholarship early on. In some quarters of evangelicalism, these same patterns are being perpetuated.

What was needed in the 19th century when new data came to light was a discussion on the doctrine of Scripture that could account for these data in a theologically constructive way. In my view, an almost entirely defensive posture was adopted (despite some real positive kinds of articulations from Old Princeton).

It is clear that some critical scholars at the time were using these data to discredit the Bible, and this prompted a reaction to protect the faith. I certainly understand that dynamic, but the conservative reaction took a wrong turn when it sought to protect the Bible FROM the data rather than engaging in synthetic thinking. In my view, much of the struggle today is over whether evangelicalism should have a synthetic model of biblical scholarship or a “separatist” model.

What is particularly disappointing to me in all this is that the Reformed tradition has very deliberate, well thought out, theological categories in place to support a synthetic model, but these categories were not deliberately employed to specific issues in the 19th century as much as they were needed. This set up a conflict between different articulations, even within a very conservative Reformed faith, where one side emphasizes the separatist model and others the synthetic model, both claiming (with a certain degree of truth) a conservative Reformed pedigree.

In my opinion, a theological paradigm was in place—be it incarnational (Bavinck), concursis (Warfield), or accomodationist (Calvin). But this paradigm remained on the level of theory rather than being applied to the many pressing issues of the day (e.g., Genesis and ANE myth, etc., etc.). That is a shame, for the theological potential of Old Princeton in this regard was never realized, and now, among conservative confessional types, a wholly defensive posture is quite common. I and the faculty majority have written on these matters, explaining the dynamic and progressive element present in the Old Princeton and Westminster tradition. I have not yet seen critics of our position defend their views against these writings.

4. You mention your disagreement with my use of the term “evangelical” to refer to my “detractors at Westminster and elsewhere.” You make a good point, if anything because of the fluidity of the term “evangelical.” I do think, though, that the views I am contending against in I&I are represented by more than “Calvinist fundamentalists.” There are many in the evangelical world who are very supportive of the type of theological project represented in I&I (e.g., Wesleyan evangelicals), but there are many others who would claim the general designation “evangelical” who are neither self-consciously Wesleyan nor “Calvinist fundamentalists.” I am wondering just what to call all these people who have some connection to an evangelical faith at a time when identity markers are clearly shifting. My use of the terms was an attempt to be as inclusive as possible.

Having said all this, I understand how frustrating and/or annoying it must be to you to be lumped into the same category “evangelical” as some of my critics. I agree with your view that many of my critics espouse positions that are more fundamentalist than evangelical, and it is good to call it for what it is. I am open to different terminology to describe unabashed “evangelical-ish” theology that rejects outright fundamentalism, but I don’t know what that would be. Perhaps it would be better to describe the more progressive articulations of evangelicalism as “evangelical” (which I would prefer) and invent a new term for the mixture of evangelicalism and fundamentalism with which I am contending, e.g., “fundagelicals.”

I kid because I love, of course, but the matter of terminology is very important. Because the theological expectations of someone calling him/herself “evangelical” is not at all fully outlined, people will continue to use the term assuming the validity of their own self-definition. This is one way where the exchanges between me and Greg Beale have some value: Beale is defending his understanding of the proper parameters of evangelicalism, where things like ANE myth and “non-contextual” exegesis of the OT by NT authors are out of place.

I think Beale is quite wrong, but expressing himself as he does brings matters of definition to the surface. Contrary to Beale, I am saying that evangelical theology must adapt to what is, rather than resist what it is in an effort to maintain familiar identity markers. Beale has in my opinion either left the evangelical spirit to espouse a fundamentalist posture, or is reflecting the inherent and inextricable fundamentalism in evangelicalism that could not stay hidden for long. This could be an interesting discussion, indeed.

All of this illustrates the problems with using the term “evangelical” for anything, and in retrospect I might have tried to use a different designation in the subtitle of I&I. I could have used the term “fundamentlist,” but the problem with that is that many evangelicals who pride themselves on not being fundamentalists in name nevertheless espouse a fundamentalist theology in approaching such things as ANE background, theological diversity, and the NT/OT problem. I wanted to address a problem that moves beyond fundamentalism proper and so the term evangelical had to do.

5. You mention that I “underplay the possible uniqueness of revelation” in keeping with the goals of I&I. I just want to underscore that you are correct in goal driving presentation, and I am still not entirely clear why some of my critics seem reluctant to see this. I have addressed this matter elsewhere.

My perception is that trouble for evangelicals arises not from a failure to appreciate the revelatory character of Scripture, but in how a commitment to revelatory uniqueness can co-exist theologically with the Bible’s very “human” face. The tendency to minimize the theological importance of the latter sets evangelicals up for unnecessary challenges to their faith, where, in perhaps more hostile settings, the “humanity” of Scripture is paraded front and center as evidence of its non-revelatory character.

My goal in I&I is to emphasize how at home the Bible is in its historical contexts (such a truism should not even need to be mentioned), and how that very factor is a theological positive rather than a problem that needs explaining. Scripture’s revelatory content is not something we see when keeping the cultural setting at a safe distance. Rather, like the incarnation of Christ, we see Scripture’s glory by embracing the lowly, encultured manner in which God chose to speak.

6. You mention that “myth” is not a word that can be redeemed. Perhaps. I use it, though, to co-opt it from those (liberal or fundamentalist) who assume that ANE mythic categories are unbecoming of Scripture. People lose their faith over this sort of thing, so my decision to use the word was very deliberate, to say “EVEN HERE you can see God’s wisdom in how he speaks.” It is not God’s word because it somehow manages to extricate itself from its historical setting or ancient conventions of communication, by the skin of its teeth. We are in no position to declare what genres of literature the Spirit can or can’t use, and our theological comfort level is not a determining factor in how God elects to speak.

More to come!

Peter Enns Question 3: On Nazarenes

Question #3, for the Arminians out there. Continued thanks to Pete for doing this!

For previous questions:
#1 Who are you?
#2 A Good Calvinist?

3. We hear you’ve been attending a Nazarene church for the last 7 years. What would you say are some of the differences in flavor between them and those contexts where people have taken strong exception to your ideas?

My how news travels. Yes, about seven years ago my family and I began attending Immanuel Church of the Nazarene in our hometown. As you might guess, the decision was a complicated matter, especially since I was employed at a Reformed seminary at the time. The most pressing issues were opportunities for our children to be involved in youth activities and an approach to worship and preaching that were more conducive to my family’s growth. We made the move after about a year of contemplation and with the blessing of the board and administration at WTS at the time.

We have found a wonderful believing community there, and it has taken me a while to put my finger on why. As I would say is common among churches of a similar tradition, the center on gravity at ICN is not a detailed, comprehensive theological precision—which is never far under the surface in any conservative Reformed congregation I have ever been a part of—but worship and maturity in Christian character.

This is not to say, as some might be quick to say, that “theology doesn’t matter” or “sounds like they believe in works over grace.” They are thoughtful, grace-centered people. Neither is it to say that Reformed churches are universally rigid in worship or not focused on the building of Christian character beyond theological orthodoxy. I am only saying this has been my experience.

Because guarding theological articulations is not the heart of ICN’s community identity, they are open to curiosity, innovation, and progress in many areas. I bring points of view to this church body that they value, even if they are not something they are used to hearing. This is reflected more broadly, as well. One need only familiarize oneself with the Nazarene Christian College network to see that there is an openness to certain things that one would not readily find in other contexts. For example, Karl Giberson is a biologist at Eastern Nazarene College, and a well-known outspoken and articulate proponent of evolutionary theory (author of Saving Darwin, for example). I do not think his public persona could be as tolerated in other evangelical settings.

I know of numerous people in the Nazarene world who have read Inspiration and Incarnation (I&I) and to a person (of those who have spoken to me) they cannot identify with the criticism I have received from the conservative confessional Reformed world. Of course, this would make them suspect immediately in the eyes of some, but there you have it (and I do not feel I need to defend these brothers and sisters). As a result, I have been welcomed there, am valued for who I am, and am happy to be an active member in the life of this body. It is a blessing from God for us to be there, and everyone in my family has been blessed in ways I certainly did not anticipate seven years ago.

In the broader Wesleyan tradition I have found numerous conversation partners that had been kept secret from me for many years (by myopic gaze, to be sure). Your website, Ken, is a good example. I appreciate the tone and depth of the academic interaction I&I has received here. No, you may not agree on all points with me (your loss :-), and we’ll get to all that in a subsequent post). But we do agree that the conversation about Scripture that I&I seeks to be engaged in is of vital importance. The conversation itself does not need to be defended against those who declare it out of bounds. It is only the arguments, the articulation of the conversation, that has to be defended, and this is as it should be.

What I am finding in the Wesleyan world is a culture where both rigorous thought and openness to change is expected. This is no utopia, but it is without question a most welcome change from the “culture” of very conservative Reformed confessionalism where rigorous thought and maintenance of tradition are prized. Individuals in that tradition differ as much as in any other, and it is not fair to lump them all into the same category. Even churches and schools differ or change over time. But as a “system,” it is my unwavering experience that there is strong suspicion of moving beyond certain well-scripted boundaries, and it is to this system that all within its boarders, regardless of individual variance, will eventually have to give an account.

In my view, this situation stems from its own history, particularly in the US, that has its roots in the modernist/fundamentalist debates. Old Princeton was very active, to say the least, in these debates. It is commonly understood that many in the conservative Reformed orbit today see themselves in strong continuity with those generations of Presbyterian and Reformed folk, and are zealous to honor the battles that were fought and the blood that was shed.

There is a concern—I would even say fear—not to retreat now, after all this time, to concede any ground to the liberals. To say the least, it is very hard to do constructive, innovative biblical scholarship in a tradition that invests such energy in making sure that “Princeton” does not happen again. (I could go on and on here of figures within the WTS orbit who were exceptions to this mindset, e.g., Ned Stonehouse, Ray Dillard, and others, but these figures were exceptions that prove the rule.)

My point here is not to rehearse this history, but simply to point out how this history has created a culture of combat, and generations of “Machen’s warrior children” (as John Frame has so eloquently put it) have arisen, for whom being Reformed (and therefore Christian) means to fight for particular definitions of orthodoxy, wherever it is found. Curiously, those battles are most intense among their own, steeped in a suspicion of enemies from within, which is the narrative of the demise of Princeton Theological Seminary and the need for Westminster Theological Seminary to arise out of the ashes.

Well, as anyone even remotely familiar with this whole issue knows, books have been written on the subject and I cannot get into all that. I have been asked to give my opinion on the differences in “flavor” between these two Christian traditions. My focus here is that, regardless of how and why, there is a world of difference between the two cultures, even if there is sufficient plurality of tone and content among individuals within those cultures. I do not rejoice in this difference, and I wish it were not the case, but it is my experience as well as that of many others still laboring within those well-marked boundaries or of those who have left to go elsewhere.

Q & A with Peter Enns 2

Question 2: How would you respond to those who don’t think you’re a very good Calvinist?

It would all depend on the person’s intention. If the question came from a defensive or argumentative posture, I’ve seen enough to know that this will bear little fruit. Arguments about who is the better Calvinist tend to generate laser-like heat but precious little light.

If, however, the question is asked with a genuine interest in engaging me on how I see these things—with the understanding that both parties should be open to growth—then I am very interested in the conversation.

Just what it means to be Reformed has been a debated issue and the struggle continues to see who will win the right to define it. There are those who think of the Reformed faith—better, a particular articulation of the Reformed faith (19th century Princeton, for example)—as the only true expression not only of the Reformed faith but also of Christianity. Indeed, as some I know have put it, the Reformed faith (narrowly defined) is understood as “Christianity come into its own,” and that the Reformed “hold the truth in trust” for other traditions.

This is tragic, and if this is what it means to be Reformed, then I am not Reformed. If, however, one understands the Reformed faith as a particularly insightful and deep tradition that hits upon numerous biblical and theological issues with clarity and gospel-fidelity—even to the extent that other traditions will be richer for the interaction—BUT that is also, by virtue of its location in particular historical/cultural circumstances, as prone to sin and error as anything else under the sun, and is therefore in need of regular critical evaluation, then, yes, I am Reformed. The Reformed faith is for me, in other words, a means to Christian truth rather than the sum total of Christian truth.

The problem is that these two models of what it means to be Reformed are, for all practical purposes, incompatible, because parties on both sides hold tenaciously to their model. Still, I hope it is not too self-serving to point out that the latter model can incorporate a humble expression of the former and even benefit from it, but the former in principle does not seem poised to reciprocate. It cannot.

So, how would I respond? I would say I am a good Calvinist of the second sort. If the rejoinder is “Well, then you are no Calvinist” (speaking purely hypothetically of course J), I would likely nod, thank them for their time, and go on with my life.

It is an interesting conundrum. In my opinion, the Reformed faith is one of the richest Christian intellectual traditions (along with Roman Catholicism). I do not mean to take away from other Christian traditions, from which I have learned and continue to learn much, but the Reformed intellectual heritage has a rather impressive pedigree of working out theology with great precision. But, along with that, there is always the temptation to fixate on that past in unhealthy ways.

What is lost is the other side of the Reformed equation, that of rethinking and recasting past articulations according to Scripture. There is a tension—a healthy one, I think—between “always Reformed and reforming.” Of course, the question is always one of going ”too far” in either direction. A “good Calvinist” on my opinion is one who maintains that tension and works with charity and harmony with others in working toward that goal of employing the Reformed faith for the good of the gospel.

What is also very interesting to me, and directly related to this thought, is just how Scripture actually functions as being authoritative over the Reformed tradition. In Reformed theology, Scripture is the confessed standard by which all human articulations are judged, including the Reformed faith. “Exegesis is the lifeblood of theology” as some have put it.

The contemporary question, however, is “what exactly is exegesis?” which is to ask, to what extent does exegesis necessarily include interaction with new paradigms and information coming from the modern study of Scripture, and can in principle that type of exegesis rightly challenge pre-modern confessions (with all due respect to those confessions and in a conversational rather than adversarial tone)?

Simply put, one exegetes and therefore understands Genesis 1, for example, differently depending on whether he/she is seeing it in terms of ancient categories (i.e., historical setting) or in a more traditional manner (as part of an innerbiblical exercise of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture). I actually do not think the two approaches are mutually exclusive, for understanding a text’s background will, hopefully, bring greater depth to the text’s theology, and therefore yield a deeper innerbiblical (I would say, redemptive-historical, “Christotelic”) interaction. The problem, however, is that “Bible in context,” as is well known, can very quickly run up against transitional articulations of doctrine that were formulated before such matters of historical context were either known or appreciated.

I have clarified some of my own thoughts on this on my own webpage, if, for some reason, anyone would be interested. (“Some Reflections on I&I and the Reformed Tradition”) It is a bit of an in-house matter, but some might find it interesting or even applicable to analogous situations.

Q & A with Peter Enns 1

Pete Enns has graciously agreed to answer a few questions these next few days. He is busy finishing up his commentary on Ecclesiastes, so he'll have to slip in such vanity as this in its season. P.S. A living blog is better than a dead line (of commentary).

1. Give us a snapshot of who you are and where you are at in your pilgrimage, just in case someone has stumbled on this blog and has never heard of you.
Academically, I graduated from Messiah College in 1982 (Behavior Science), WTS in 1989 (MDiv), and Harvard University in 1994 (PhD, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations). I think it is safe to say that much of my academic journey has been a process of synthesizing these (and other) influences in my life.

If one were to read some of my writings with that in mind, some of what I do could be seen in proper perspective. I do not think of myself of adding new knowledge onto a past unalterable body of knowledge (so to speak) but of bringing new and old into conversation to achieve some sort of thoughtful, mutually corrective synthesis.

More personally, I was raised in a home of two German immigrants who raised me as best as they were able with a knowledge of God. I was converted in high school and began my spiritual journey in earnest.

It was not until after college, however, that I began exploring my faith on a deeper level, which led me to seminary and then doctoral work. I still find it bewildering that I went from an avowed non-reader in high school and college to someone who could not get enough of it by the time I reached 23 or 24. If you had told my college friends I was headed for a life of scholarship they might have suggested you spend less time in the hot sun without a hat.

My interests have been emerging over the years, but I suppose that Biblical Theology is a big one. By that term I mean reading the Bible as a grand narrative of diverse and historically particularized episodes that achieves an eschatological coherence in Christ. This explains my interest in the way that the NT authors handle the OT, which I see as being very creative and deeply Christological.

I am also very interested in continuing synthetic thinking in the interaction between the many important insights of modern biblical studies and an evangelical faith, the roots of which are pre-modern. One point where the two interests coalesce is in understanding the NT authors’ use of the OT in light of Second Temple hermeneutics. That piece of modern study helps me understand better the biblical theological categories of the NT writers.

Sin, the New Perspective, the Pope, and Peter Enns

No, the post doesn't try to connect all these. These are just some topics that have wandered through my head today as I sit at home with my sick son Tom until my wife returns to relieve me for Latin at 1:15.

First, sin. We translated Galatians 2:15 today in my Greek Galatians class this morning. I argued to them that to put "sinners" in quotes ("we who are Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles") reflects a misunderstanding of the context (sic to the NIV). Of course Paul literally meant that Gentiles were sinners. Indeed, the point he is building to in 2:17 is that Christian Jews are sinners too.

Where the new perspective on Paul comes in is this. First, calling it the new perspective turns out to be a little like thinking of modern translations as more recent texts than the "old" King James. The text is not newer, it's older. The KJV text is based on manuscripts over 700 years "newer" than those on which modern translations are based.

Exactly! The new perspective on Paul is nothing other than the attempt to take Paul's Jewish context seriously, just as the "third quest" is nothing other than the attempt to take Jesus' Jewish context seriously. The reason some groups have fought tooth and nail against the new perspective is not because their perspective is "older" but because some of their traditions are being questioned by the recent trend of reading Paul in his Jewish context.

So on the matter of Paul's understanding of sin--and I don't know anyone who has addressed this from this "new, original Jewish, perspective"--it is the same error of tradition to define sin as anything short of absolute perfection. Just as when Paul says "all have sinned" he is thinking concretely of Jews and Gentiles, both have sinned, what standard would a Jew take as the point of departure for what a sin is? Obviously, the concrete Jewish Law.

A sinner is thus someone who violates the Jewish Law, not someone who falls short or "misses the mark" of absolute moral perfection. And the primary sense of such sin is intentional, not unintentional. I can hardly find any room in Paul's thought for unintentional sin in the context of known rights and wrongs.

Then the Pope. He reinstated an excommunicated priest who had denied the Holocaust. Now he is demanding the priest recant such positions. For all my sense of the importance of the church catholic, it is unfortunate that so much authority came to be placed into a single individual and a single institution that only with great difficulty can reverse its course on an issue.

Finally, I've asked Peter Enns and he's agreed to do a Q & A in the near future here on some topics of interest. Personally, I'm very intrigued that he has been attending a Nazarene Church for about 7 years, although I believe he remains a member of the Presbyterian Church of America and theologically Calvinist. We'll forgive him for that :-)

Nevertheless, I'll be interested to know what differences in flavor he has picked up on. We'll also ask him what he's been up to recently and let him respond to our recent reviews of his book, Inspiration and Incarnation.

Pagan Christianity review 2 tomorrow, Lord willing...

Lennox in IWU Chapel on Atonement

Steve Lennox spoke on atonement in chapel today. Eventually, you will be able to hear it on iTunes, launching from this webpage. He came up with a nice little acrostic on atonement:

L = liberation from the power of Sin (I suspect we might map this to Christus Victor too, victory over evil powers)

O = order (here he covered satisfaction type material--the need for balance in God's creation and justice)

V = vicarious exchange (substitution type material)

E = example (moral influence type material)

There was good application stuff to the tune of about 6 points, but I didn't write it down. So you'll have to listen to the podcast.

By the way, I also found out that Peter Enns is now attending a Nazarene church. Welcome to the Wesleyan tradition! Unlike the PCA, we don't eat our young... at least not as often :-)

Monday Enns: New Testament Interpretation of Old

Enns' writings remind me of some of the unpublished stuff I wrote when I first started teaching college. As I read Enns, I thought of some of the notes Drury wrote after kindly reading some of it.

First, I was doing my "therapy" in those writings for PFSD, Post-Fundamentalist Stress Disorder. PFSD occurs when, after fighting to the death in the fundamentalist infantry, you find out that you're not actually fighting for God but for a peculiar twentieth century cultural phenomenon. Like Paul, you realize you were a "zealot without knowledge." You feel betrayed. You feel stupid. You feel angry. Not that Enns gives off much of this vibe...

But as part of the therapy, you often "shell" your imaginary reader with far more examples than are necessary--and of course the deconstructive examples are pervasive, which of course contributes to the sense of absolute stupidity on your part. I thought of Drury when I read this sentence in Enns, "It may seem that these examples have been drawn out further than they need to be" (131). Drury has written notes like that to me--I got the point three pages ago... :-)

The way that the New Testament interprets the OT provides one of the greatest bits of "naughty data," if not the greatest, in the Copernican Revolution that is currently underfoot in evangelical hermeneutics. Evangelical hermeneutics, as an extension of Protestant hermeneutics, has insisted that the Bible alone is the authority over the Christian. As hermeneutical developments proceeded to understand original meaning more clearly, it became the "original meaning alone" is authoritative over a Christian.

But what if we were to find that, as it turns out, the New Testament itself does not interpret the OT in terms of its original meaning. Does this fact not deconstruct the entire hermeneutic? Does it not imply a controlling factor in interpretation beyond the text itself?

The Ptolemaic scientists of evangelicalism have not missed the potential threat to "normal science," to their paradigm. They have launched a coping strategy, called Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old. The goal is to find as many connections as possible between the New Testament use of the Old Testament and anything that might smack of attention to original context.

But alas, this is supposed to be a review of Enns. Let me try to summarize him.

1. The NT reads the OT in a "Christotelic" and "ecclesiotelic" fashion. That is to say, they read it knowing that Christ is somehow the goal toward which the Old Testament story is heading (154). Enns does not mean that they see Christ in every OT passage. The "ecclesiotelic" way of reading is a way that sees it leading to the people of God as understood in the NT.

2. In other words, and perhaps Enns spends too much of his time showing this--the NT by and large is unconcerned to read the OT in context, indeed sometimes felt free to change the wording in striking ways. Some of his examples include Matthew 2:15's interpretation of Hosea 11:1 (one I've mentioned here often), 2 Corinthians 6:2's use of Isaiah 49:8, Galatians 3:16 and the seed of Abraham, Paul's editing of Isaiah 59:20 in Romans 11:26-27, Hebrews 3:7-11 and Psalm 95:9-10.

3. Enns shows that the NT in such exegetical techniques is doing things similar to the way other texts like the book of Wisdom, Jubilees, or the pesher commentaries at Qumran interpreted the OT. The NT is in the flow of such interpretive traditions, as we see in 2 Timothy's comments on Jannes and Jambres, 2 Peter 2:5's comments on Noah preaching, Jude 9's mention of Michael arguing with Satan over Moses' body, Jude 14-15 quoting 1 Enoch 1.9, Acts 7's mention of Moses' Egyptian education, the idea that angels delivered the Law to Moses, or 1 Cor. 10's idea of a rock following Moses in the desert.

4. Biblical interpretation is a community activity.

Conclusion
So what does he want us to take away from this book? Basically, the message of the Bible is incarnated and thus multidimensional. Secondly, the Bible sets trajectories, not rules, because there is theological diversity present and dialog. Finally, "the primary purpose of Scripture is for the church to eat and drink its contents in order to understand better who God is, what he has done, and what it means to be his people, redeemed in the crucified and risen Son" (170). Scripture is "a means of grace for the church." He appeals to his audience (and perhaps at the time to Westminster Theological Seminary) to listen to the text rather than to shove it in their preconceived categories.

I suspect if we are left at the end of the day wondering what this looks like, it will not surprise us of a Reformed thinker (I'm assuming Enns is Reformed). Part of the Reformed ethos, whether it be Barth or Jamie Smith or William Placher, is to leave it up to God to make the right understanding happen. How do we as a community come to a right understanding of the meaning of Scripture? God will take care of it. Am I wrong?

I would extend this thought in a direction Enns doesn't take it. Where does this trajectory lead? Does it not lead to the consensus of Christendom?

Monday Enns: Old Testament Diversity

Today our reading group discusses chapter 3 of Peter Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. We read chapters 1 and 2 last Monday. Today we discuss chapter 3, "The Old Testament and Theological Diversity."

I had a few overarching thoughts as I read this chapter. Here are a few:

1. He is conservative! At least he talks conservative. What I mean is he treats Exodus as written by Moses at the time of the Exodus and Deuteronomy as written by Moses some 40 years later before Israel entered Canaan.

I'm not sure how you count Old Testament scholars, but I bet the vast majority of card carrying PhD's in OT don't think Moses wrote either Exodus or Deuteronomy, at least not in their current forms. Good grief, there are a lot of "biblical minimalists" out there who would doubt whether Moses even existed! There is no doubt in this chapter that Enns is conservative and evangelical.

2. Why did this guy get fired? Surely not over the content of this chapter. Either he rubbed it in someone's face or the people he was dealing with are psycho. The kind of person who would have a problem to the fairly well agreed things he talks about in the chapter are not worthy of the name evangelical--they would be fundamentalists.

I did notice one hint where he may do therapy. He mentions a story where he came into conflict with someone over the "Train up a child" verse because he showed his son Saving Private Ryan when he was 12. He comes out the hero, of course. I'm not saying he was wrong, but it's what I call doing your therapy as a scholar.

I'm sure I've done my share, and I apologize to anyone who's had to listen.

3. Why did he write this book? I found myself wondering why a person would write a book like this one other than to try to fix the people around you or to do therapy over your past. I really don't know whether that is truly the case. Like I said, I could understand his frustration if the people around him actually have a problem with some of the things he mentions.

But, as a scholar talking to laypeople, the most effective tactic is not a frontal assault (not that I think this book is anything like an assault--I find it relatively mild in tone). It is important to realize that when it comes to areas like religion and politics, despite the rhetoric of truth, we are not dealing with a situation where reason and evidence predominate. Great care has to be taken to convince others that you are truly speaking from a standpoint of faith, not simply as someone who thinks they know the truth. Positions that seem ridiculous from the standpoint of a scholar have to be taken seriously because others take them seriously and have a good deal of their identity invested in those ideas.

I will say that I didn't pick up on any "in your face" tone except a very small one in the example I mentioned above about showing his son a movie. Even there he says "in my opinion" (75). I only thought that I might tread just a little more softly to bring everyone along with me. Lead my audience to my conclusion by asking questions I hope they will answer my way, rather than state baldly as a claim, "to respect the diversity of the Old Testament is to respect it the way God has given it to us" (80), where the way God has given it to us is the way Enns is arguing. Similarly, "Qoheleth clearly has no notion of the afterlife such as Christians take for granted" (79) might come off as a little distasteful to some readers.

Again, to scholars, comments like these may not seem to have any attitude or edge attached. This may be business as usual stuff. But these comments may sound arrogant to a layperson who has never thought of these issues and thus for whom Enns may seem to be a little too sure of himself about something I've always heard the opposite for the last 50 years.

Come to think of it, I had a family member say something like this to me some twenty years ago. I don't remember the issue, but it was something that wasn't really that controversial in evangelical circles. But the response was, "If that's true, why haven't I ever heard of it growing up in the church for 60 years." This is, I think, Enns' audience in part, and this audience requires great care in how and whether you approach certain issues.

The Content
Let me just list the kinds of diversity he mentions (put in my own words):

1. Proverbs are not exceptionless absolutes. There is not, for example, a single view of wealth but several different angles. You have to decide when to apply which one because they all don't apply every time.

2. Ecclesiastes doesn't seem to think wisdom and knowledge are always beneficial. Proverbs is much more consistently favorable toward wisdom.

3. Job's comforters tell him things we might easily read in Deuteronomy or Psalms, but they were wrong to apply those ideas in the case of Job, again showing that the statements of these books are to be applied with thought for the situation involved.

4. Chronicles may represent a later author already working at reconciling tensions within earlier material. For example, is the Passover to be eaten with the family (Exod. 12:2-4) or only in Jerusalem (Deut. 16:5-6). Page 84 gives a number of tendencies in the way Chronicles edits previous material in Samuel and Kings.

5. Even the 10 commandments have a slightly different material between Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

6. He mentions tensions between the Levitical material of the OT and the prophetic material on the importance of sacrifice. "There is no flat teaching of sacrifice in the Old Testament" (94).

7. He mentions tensions on the inclusion of foreigners within Israel. In some places, for example, Moabites are forbidden (Deut. 23:3) and then there is Ruth, the Moabitess.

8. He mentions tension on the existence of other gods. Some parts of the OT speak of God as the only God (Isaiah 45) while other passages treat the other gods as real but illegitimate.

9. He discusses the fact that the Old Testament at least portrays God as being affected by us and of learning new information. I can see that this would be a sore spot for some. He does not take an open theism position. Actually I thought this section was very carefully worded as to his position, although I can see it angering those for whom open theism is the Devil.

Open theism is a conservative "heresy," a "heresy light," I would say. Open theists believe that God does not access His omniscience in His interaction with humanity because, if He did, we could not have free will. I don't buy it, but I respect those who hold this view, and they are often Old Testament scholars or evangelical philosophers.

What is so ironic to me is that, as Enns indicates, God is indeed portrayed in the OT as changing His mind and truly being impacted by human interaction. I take this language metaphorically as far as God is concerned, God doing a dance with us although He knows where it is all headed.

Enns does not espouse open theism, but he thinks it is important to recognize that this is in fact how God presents Himself in the OT: "for the Old Testament to speak of God changing his mind means that this is his choice for how he wants us to know him" (106). Do our words really affect God, Enns asks, "That is for God to know, not us" (107).

This would seem a reasonable consideration, although I understand how it might really irk some fundamentalist Calvinists for whom free will is anathema and absolute predestination and irresistable grace are the name of the game. Enns has chosen to listen to the Old Testament and leave open the question of the Westiminster Confession as unknowable. His detractors are sure of the Westminister Confession and willing to reinterpret the OT accordingly while saying that they are only following the Bible alone. :-)

He concludes that "there is no superficial unity to the Bible" (108) and "for God to reveal himself means that he accommodates himself" (109). And on page 110 is a statement that must really have irked some at Westminster, "As Christians we must remember that we believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word." Those words, so obvious to most Christians today who have no therapy to do on this subject, were fighting words in the middle twentieth century, when they would have immediately won you the label of "neo-orthodox" or "Barthian."

I wonder still if he jumps a gap here to his conclusion. It is not that his conclusion is bad. It's just that I'm not sure he has made it clear exactly what "unity" means to him, given what he has been arguing.

Monday Enns: OT and Near Eastern Literature

For the next three weeks, a few of us are reading through Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. One day we were talking about how old the Hebrew language was and one thing led to another and so we chose this book for a few weeks.

We were divided over the tone of the book. As many of you will know, Enns was forced to resign from Westminster Theological Seminary to a significant degree over this book. As we read, some of us felt like Enns was rubbing it in the noses of Westminster and weren't surprised he lost his job. Others of us might not have put things quite as baldly as he does at times, but didn't think the tone was quite as confrontational as others did. All of us felt like if there was a problem with the book, it was the way he said what he said more than what he said.

So I want to mention some of the ideas both helpful and controversial in the first two chapters:

1. The Bible gives us incarnated truth. That is to say, when God speaks, He speaks to be heard. Thus the original audiences of the Bible could not have understood God if He had not spoken their language.

This would seem to be the main point of the book. It's too bad that we can't go back to 1848 and reframe the issues that so damaged Christianity these last 150 years. Enns is trying to steer clear of the fundamentalist-modernist polarization that took place. We shouldn't fear the fact that the Enuma Elish has a creation story with similarities to Genesis 1. We shouldn't fear the fact that the Gilgamesh Epic bears a lot of similarity to the Flood story. Why would we ever have thought that God would reveal truth in a bubble that was only vaguely related to all times rather than very related to the people to whom it was first being revealed?

Of course we should not be surprised that the legislation of Deuteronomy and the wisdom of Proverbs looks a lot like other ancient legislation and wisdom. Wasn't God revealing himself to them in their times before He used these words to reveal himself to us? The liberals said, "This teaching is obviously just like any other ancient teaching--it's not inspired." The fundamentalists said, "This teaching isn't like the other ancient teaching--it's inspired."

The right answer from the beginning should have been, "This teaching starts where the ancients were and leads them to God--it's inspired."

By the way, like I protest Mark Noll, I strongly protest Enns' use of the word evangelical in relation to his detractors at Westminster and elsewhere. Let's call them fundamentalists and strongly affirm that Westminster was founded from the very beginning as a fundamentalist institution. I resent Noll restricting the term "fundamentalist" to "ignoramuses" like we revivalists and Pentecostals, strangely exepting his own tradition from the label of "ignorant" in the way he goes about his historiography (Foucault is on line 1).

Those who deserve the label "fundamentalist" are those who fought the modernists intellectually and militantly (and their heirs) far more than those of our traditions that retreated from the battle into our own little conclaves. Enns is not battling against Wesleyan evangelicals. He is battling Calvinist fundamentalists. And that is the foundation of Westminster.

2. Revelation is thus not always unique in the sense that it has to be completely distinct from the world to which it is revealed. God meets people where they are. Given Enns' goals, he probably underplays the possible uniqueness of revelation as well. For example, to me the egalitarian aspects of Paul's teaching stand out to me precisely because those are the points where the New Testament is more unique in its cultural world. Enns points to the worship of Yahweh as the more unique aspects of the Old Testament more than its laws or customs per se.

3. I thought Enns discussion of the difference between historical event and historiography was helpful. All history writing is done from a certain perspective. Again, some of us thought he could have presented this content in a softer manner.

In another section he discusses the word myth in relation to the early chapters of Genesis. Despite Enns' pains to say that it doesn't mean "untrue," it remains for the time being a word almost impossible for some people in the church to use in relation to the Bible, no matter how carefully you define it. I'm not sure that he "redeems" the category in his treatment here, despite his attempt to use a more proper definition than the one in common use.

As I read these chapters, I also printed out the official Affirmations and Denials Regarding Recent Issues that was adopted by the Board of Trustees at Westminster Theological Seminary. Some of the statements sure sound like the Westminster Confession is the 67th book of Scripture, more authoritative than Nicea, the magisterium of the Calvinist tradition, the ex cathedra pronouncement of a Calvinist Pope. Take these lines, for example, "We affirm that the truths affirmed in the [Westminster Confession] are true for all times, all places, all languages, and all cultures." "We deny that the truths affirmed in the [Westminster Confession] are true only for their seventeenth century situation or only for some cultures or circumstances."

WOW! I'm glad I'm a Wesleyan. We have Articles of Religion that we wholeheartedly affirm. But I don't think any of our leaders are so arrogant as to think we are the tradition that finally has everything right, the wisest among the people of God.

More important, "if your heart is as my heart, put your hand in mine."