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Peter Enns on inerrancy, “Inerrancy, However Defined, Does Not Describe What the Bible Does.” (From Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy):
Enns begins his essay with the proposition, “The Bbile is the book of God for the people of God. It reveals and conceals, is clear yet complex, open to all but impossible to master. Its messages clearly reflects the cultural settings of the authors, yet it still comforts and convicts across cultures and across time.”
Enns modestly claims only to read the text in the way it has been written,
What should be brought explicitly to the forefront here is the manner in which God speaks truth, namely, through the idioms, attitudes, assumptions, and general worldviews of the ancient authors.
I don’t think that anyone claims that a text written in a particular language does not reflect the structure and use of the language. However, Enns goes further and effectively argues that the writers of the Bible not only work with the idioms and attitudes of their time but are completely circumscribed in their writing by their context.
He then proceeds to attack the historicity of Jericho, claims a direct contradiction by Luke in describing Paul’s conversion in Acts, and claims the conquest narratives reflect a savage tribal deity. Enns claims are not terribly surprising (there is nothing new here in the least). In fact, as noted by the responsive essays, Enns treatment of the Old Testament and his pitting the Old Testament against Jesus is as old as Marcion.
What is interesting is (1) his vitriol toward those who hold inerrancy & (2) how the God of Scripture can in any way be a comfort to him.
The needless (because it does not nothing to strengthen his argument) vitriol may be from Enns’ loss of position at Westminster (for failing to adhere to the standards which he agreed to when hired).
What I can’t figure out is how Enns still seeks to retain Jesus despite thinking the Bible a tissue of nonsense and moral confusion. His aspiration and praise of Scripture (“It presents us with portraits of God and of his people that at times comfort and confirm our faith while at other times challenges and stretch our faith to its breaking point. This is the Bible we have, the Bible God gave us.”), are in direct contradiction to what he says about Scripture.
Enns gives us no way to maintain both a faith in the God of Scripture and the most extreme and antagonistic attitude toward Scripture. He gives me no reason to trust a God who is neither moral nor even weakly accurate.
This painful contradiction was noted by Michael J. Kruger in his review of Enns’ book Because the Bible Tells Me So
In the end, The Bible Tells Me So is a book about contradictions. Enns intended it to be a book about contradictions in the Bible. But it becomes quickly apparent that the contradictions are really in Enns’s own worldview. He claims the Canaanite conquest is immoral, yet argues the Bible provides no clear guide for morality. He claims the Bible presents a diabolical genocidal God, yet insists we still “meet God in its pages” (3). He argues Scripture is filled with reworked stories, many of which are made up entirely, yet seems to know which ones really happened and which did not. He claims the Bible provides no clear moral instruction, yet says people are “disobedient” to God and in need of the cross. He claims he’s the one reading the Bible in an ancient manner when, in fact, people in the ancient world didn’t read it the way he does.
All of these inconsistencies stem from one simple reality: Enns has fully adopted the methods and conclusions of the most aggressive versions of critical scholarship, and yet at the same time wants to insist that the Bible is still God’s Word, and that Jesus died and rose again. While it’s clear to most folks that these two systems are incompatible at most levels, Enns is tenaciously trying to insist both can be true simultaneously. While his desire to retain the basic message of the cross is commendable, it stands as a glaring anomaly within his larger system. Somehow (and for some reason), Enns has put a box around the message of Jesus (or at least parts of it)—he protects the integrity of that story while not protecting much else.
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/en/article/the-bible-tells-me-so