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| Book cover for "Inspiration and Incarnation" |
I started reading Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns, and it's so good, I decided to write a blog series on it. This post will cover the preface and chapter 1.
Enns is a biblical scholar. I've read and reviewed 2 of his books before: The Bible Tells Me So (published 2014) and Genesis for Normal People (published 2019). I really enjoyed those and I want to read all of his books. This one, "Inspiration and Incarnation," was originally published in 2005, but I have the 10th-anniversary edition, published in 2015. The writing style of "Inspiration and Incarnation" is more formal and academic than "The Bible Tells Me So" and "Genesis for Normal People"- those two had a lot of [in my opinion] unnecessary pop culture references- I know some readers like that, so, that's fine, but I definitely like the style of "Inspiration and Incarnation" better.
Here's the overall idea of this book: In the past 150 or so years, there has been new evidence uncovered about the civilizations and cultures of the ancient Near East. Archaeologists have found writings from people groups who lived near the ancient Israelites- and these writings have many similarities to what we see in the bible. This is something of a problem for evangelical Christian ideology, because evangelicals believe the bible is inerrant and inspired by God, and so they don't want to believe that it's similar to other ancient writings, that it was influenced by them and it borrowed ideas from them, that it has mistakes and anachronisms, that it follows the genre conventions of ancient Near East writing rather than being absolute truth as we would view it from a modern scientific perspective.
The conservative bible scholars respond to this problem by downplaying the similarities between the bible and other ancient writing. The liberal bible scholars respond to this problem by saying the bible is the same as other ancient writing, and therefore it isn't special or inspired by God. Enns claims that both sides are making an incorrect assumption: that if the bible is similar to other ancient writing, that means it's not really from God. He says that, on the contrary, God gave us a bible which is fully human and also fully divine- just like Jesus was fully human and fully God. God speaks to humans within their own cultures.
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Enns is more evangelical than I am. I want to share this quote from the "Preface to the Second Edition", page ix-x:
I wrote Inspiration and Incarnation firmly and self-consciously in support of a "progressive inerrantist" or "genre inerrantist" point of view. Those who subscribe to this view affirm inerrancy in different ways, but they all agree that inerrancy is not to be equated with literalistic readings of Scripture. Rather it must be sensitive to ancient genres and ancient conventions of speech. In my own articulation of this progressive inerrantist view, I would stress that inerrancy is misconceived if it is used to delimit interpretive conclusions as a matter of a priori philosophical necessity, that is, coming to Scripture with thick interpretive boundaries already drawn. Instead, I would explain inerrancy as an expression of faith and trust in God, that whatever the Bible does, no matter how it might or might not fit into preconceived categories, reflects the "free pleasure of God." Thus, things like historical inaccuracies, myth, and theological diversity in Scripture are not errors needing to be explained away or minimized, but, paradoxically, embraced as divine wisdom. Inerrancy, in other words, entails accepting by faith the Bible that God has in fact seen fit to provide for us, allowing the biblical phenomena to define the Bible's own framework and for us to adjust our thinking accordingly.
I continue to believe that the Bible we have is the Bible God means for us to have, but I no longer use the term "inerrancy" to describe this phenomenon because the term has accumulated cultural baggage that it seems unable to throw off.
And there is a footnote which says Enns contributed a chapter to a 2013 book called Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, and his chapter was titled, "Inerrancy, However Defined, Does Not Describe What the Bible Does." So I guess in 2005 he would describe himself as believing in inerrancy, but not anymore in 2015- but mainly that's because he's given up on convincing other Christians that "inerrancy" can include mistakes and ancient genres which had a very different purpose than just writing down what's true- not because his views have actually changed.
So anyway, I read this little section about "progressive inerrancy" and my initial reaction is, it seems meaningless. So, defined this way, "inerrancy" doesn't mean the bible is true, in any sense really. It doesn't mean you can read a bible verse, and have a thought in your mind for what it sounds like it means, and you can be confident that thought is true. (That's one variety of inerrancy, I would say- the most simple and naive variety.) It doesn't mean you can read a bible verse, and then work really hard doing research about ancient cultures and languages, to discover what the writer intended it to mean, and you can be confident that is true. (This is the kind of inerrancy that I believed in when I was evangelical- evangelicals who have studied the bible and thought about this a lot believe in this kind.) It apparently doesn't even mean there's any sense in which we can rely on the bible being true. It means, well, we have no idea what is or isn't true about the bible, but we definitely believe that "the Bible we have is the Bible God means for us to have".
Feels meaningless to me, because you could say that about anything. Dr. Seuss's "Oh The Places You'll Go" is inerrant because it's the one God meant for us to have. This reddit thread about Jorts the orange cat is inerrant because it's the one God meant for us to have. The user manual for my baby's bottle warmer is inerrant because it's the one God meant for us to have.
I guess it means, there's something special about the bible, but we can't actually define in any way what "special" means. So uh, kinda seems pointless.
(At the same time, though, people could say *my* beliefs about the bible are "pointless." Like, do I believe the bible is special or not? I don't know, but I kind of lean toward "no"... this is something I want to think about more. Like what even is religion, and how does it connect to truth?)
But anyway, I don't believe in inerrancy. And I feel like, I don't *like* this idea that God specifically intended for the bible to be the way it is- because throughout all of Christian history, there have been Christians using their interpretations of the bible as a way to gain power for themselves, as a way to justify slavery, genocide, misogyny, you name it. It has, historically, lent itself well to those kind of atrocities.
But also I love the bible. I think it's fascinating how it has been interpreted in so many different ways- good and bad- by different people, and I think Christians need to learn from that history, so that we don't commit the same atrocities that our ancestors did. And I'm excited about interpreting the bible in progressive/feminist ways.
I guess my perspective is, the bible is living and active, and when people reclaim it and find inspiration for their fight for liberation and justice, that's beautiful and that's from God. I say it's "from God" because people are made in God's image- so when we do good, that's where it's from. The potential to do good, to love, to be creative, is from God, but the choices are our own. We make choices based on our own understanding of what's going on- we don't have the whole picture, we aren't objective, and we are limited by own time, place, and culture.
If you want to get into the question of God making choices, Their intentions, Their plans, etc, I think that's a lot more tricky, because God *is* objective and not limited by time/space/culture. All this, everything that's happening in the world, is that how God wanted it to be? The ways people have read the bible and used the bible, the ways that some people have been inspired to do good and some have been inspired to do evil- is that how God intended it?
I want to think about it more because I don't have a coherent view on all this. But my point is, Enns is more evangelical than me, because he views the bible as more "special" than I do, and intentionally meant by God to be exactly the way it is.
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This book examines 3 issues related to the bible and its place in the ancient Near East. Here they are; this is a quote from pages 3-4:
- The Old Testament and other literature from the ancient world: Why does the Bible in places look a lot like the literature of Israel's ancient neighbors? Is the Old Testament really that unique? Does it not just reflect the ancient world in which it was produced? If the Bible is the word of God, why does it fit so nicely in the ancient world?
- Theological diversity in the Old Testament: Why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same thing? It really seems as if there are contradictions, or at least large differences of opinion, in the Old Testament.
- The way in which the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament: Why do the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament in such odd ways? It looks like they just take the Old Testament passages out of context.
And this section, explaining the significance of these 3 issues:
The first issue deals with the Bible's uniqueness. It is a common expectation, often implicit, that for the Bible to be God's word, it should be unique, that is, it should not bear striking similarities to the literature of other ancient peoples.
The second concerns the Bible's integrity, its trustworthiness. It is a common expectation that the Bible be unified in its outlook, be free of diverse views, if we are being asked to trust it as God's word (does not God have just one opinion on things?).
The third deals with the Bible's interpretation. To modern readers, the New Testament authors sometimes seem to interpret the Old Testament in fanciful ways, seemingly unconcerned about the meaning of the Old Testament in its original context. This seems to make the whole issue of Old Testament interpretation highly subjective. Should this have an effect on how Christians today handle the Old Testament?
All very good questions! Looking forward to seeing what the book says about each of these.
I can tell you his overall point is that, these aren't really problems with the bible itself; they're problems with our expectations about what we think the bible is.
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Enns calls his overall framework for addressing these questions "the incarnational analogy." From pages 5-6:
The starting point for our discussion is the following: as Christ is both God and human, so is the Bible. In other words, we are to think of the Bible analogously to how Christians think about Jesus. Christians confess that Jesus is both God and human at the same time. He is not half God and half human. He is not sometimes one and other times the other. He is not essentially one and only apparently the other. Rather, one of the central doctrines of the Christian faith, worked out as far back as the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, is that Jesus is 100 percent God and 100 percent human-- at the same time.
This way of thinking of Christ is analogous to thinking about the Bible. In the same way that Jesus is-- must be-- both God and human, the Bible is also a divine and human book. ...
So too the Bible. It belonged in the ancient worlds that produced it. It was not an abstract, otherworldly book dropped out of heaven. It was connected to and therefore spoke to those ancient cultures. The encultured qualities of the Bible, therefore, are not extra elements that we can discard to get to the real point, the timeless truths. Rather, precisely because Christianity is a historical religion, God's word reflects the various historical moments in which Scripture was written. God acted and spoke in history. As we learn more and more about this history, we must gladly address the implications of that history for how we view the Bible, that is, what we should expect from it.
Also, he says the bible is the word of God, while Jesus is the Word of God- see how the capitalization is- and I totally love that. I am so here for that.
I haven't heard this perspective before- that the bible is incarnated as a human work, similar to how Jesus was incarnated as a human. I'm interested to see what exactly he means by this.
I have questions about this sentence: "The encultured qualities of the Bible, therefore, are not extra elements that we can discard to get to the real point, the timeless truths." In my experience doing bible study in evangelical settings, that *is* what we were trying to do. We believed that every bible passage had a message to teach us- a "timeless truth"- and our task was to carefully analyze what it's saying and the cultural background and what it meant to its original audience- to sort of understand what calibration would be required to map its timeless truth into our culture.
So if Enns thinks we're not supposed to find the message of the bible by understanding what it meant in its own culture, extracting a timeless truth from that, and then applying it to our modern lives- well, how is it supposed to work then? Does he think that not every bible passage has a timeless truth, and we should just let it be what it is, an ancient document that meant something to its original audience but maybe doesn't need to mean something to us now? Does he think we're supposed to learn something from the culturally-bound aspects of the bible, rather than moving past them and only looking for timeless truths?
(Good news is, Enns also has a book called "How the Bible Actually Works" so if "Inspiration and Incarnation" doesn't address this, I will definitely look for answers in that one.)
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And also, I have a question about the overall point of studying the bible's similarities to other ancient documents, and understanding how it fits into that world. Which of these options is it?
- The passages in the bible span many ancient genres that modern readers are unfamiliar with (creation myths, covenants between a king and his subjects, accounts of history that are more like propaganda to make the king look good, etc). The meaning and purpose of each of these is very different from what a modern reader would think, not knowing about these ancient genres. But, when you learn about the ancient genres, you see the bible fits right in with them. It's the same. It's not special.
- Yes, the passages in the bible are examples of these ancient genres. Genesis 1 *is* an ancient Near East creation myth, through and through. But, within that context, it's saying something radically different than what all the other ancient Near East creation myths are saying.
Is it "yeah, it's really the same as those other ancient writings, and not special" or is it "it *is* an instance of this ancient genre of writing, but it's different from all the other instances of that genre, and it's RADICALLY SUBVERSIVE"?
I have an analogy from Disney princess movies.
[and, content note, spoilers for "Frozen" here]
Okay, so Disney princess movies are a genre, with their own tropes, common elements you usually see in them, etc. "Frozen" is a Disney princes movie. But, "Frozen" does something radically different from most Disney princess movies in the way it treats romantic love.
Most Disney princess movies have a "happily ever after" where the princess marries a man. It's often the case that she hasn't really spent much time getting to know him- sort of a "love at first sight" thing, or like obviously he's a desirable husband because he's a prince, but we don't know anything about him beyond that.
At the beginning of "Frozen", Princess Anna meets Prince Hans, and he asks her to marry him. At this point, viewers who are familiar with Disney princess movies would expect that Hans will be a good person, and he and Anna will still be together at the end of the movie.
Instead, the first shock comes when Anna introduces Hans to Queen Elsa (Anna's sister), and Elsa says, "You can't marry a man you just met." !!! This is a Disney princess movie, since when are people not allowed to marry someone they just met???
And then later it turns out, Hans is a bad guy. He tries to kill Anna and Elsa. So, Anna does *not* end up with him at the end of the movie.
Also, Anna gets hit by Elsa's ice magic powers, and Anna is told that only "an act of true love" can save her life. Everyone in the movie interprets this to a mean a "true love's kiss" from a male romantic partner, because that's a standard Disney princess movie trope. The other characters help Anna rush to find Hans, to kiss her. (This is before he showed his true colors.) He refuses to kiss her. Next, Olaf the snowman realizes that there's another male character who loves Anna: Kristoff. He helps Anna rush off to find Kristoff, hoping that Kristoff can kiss her and save her life.
Kristoff is running toward Anna, but then Anna sees that Hans is about to hit Elsa with a sword. Anna turns away from Kristoff and puts herself between Hans and Elsa. She gets hit by the sword, at the same time her body turns to ice due to the ice magic from earlier.
And this is the "act of true love" which saves Anna's life. It's the love between 2 sisters- not romantic love. Anna is saved by her own choice to put herself in danger to save her sister- rather than being saved by being a passive recipient of a man's actions.
It's a very radical and subversive statement, within the Disney princess genre. To show that it's not true that women need a man, that women should wait around to be saved by a man, that romantic love is the best and most powerful kind of love.
(But I will say, even though these are tropes that everyone associates with Disney princess movies, actually it was just Snow White and Sleeping Beauty who had to wait around for a prince to kiss them and save them, and most of the Disney princesses actually did take initiative and do heroic things. So it's more nuanced than what I'm describing here. But still, "Frozen" is subversive.)
So "Frozen" is a Disney princess movie. It is unquestionably an item in that genre. But within that genre, it is saying something radical.
Okay, so is that the point that "Inspiration and Incarnation" is going to make about the bible? That it does fall squarely into these genres, but within those genres, the bible is different and special and radical.
If you've never seen a Disney princess movie before, and then you watch one, and you're like "why does this princess have an animal companion who follows her around everywhere? Is she an unusually skilled animal trainer?" and you fixate on that, you're missing the point. Disney princesses often have animal friends who behave in human-like ways, and that's just part of the genre. It doesn't have any, like, deep meaning. If the animal companion strikes you as such an odd thing, and your interpretation of the movie relies heavily on how odd you feel that is, you've missed the point because you're not familiar with the genre. (Similarly, if you spend a lot of time wondering why people in the movie frequently burst into song, and trying to explain that.)
So yes, interpreting the bible is the same way. If you're not familiar with the genres it uses, the things that jump out at you as being very strange, which you think must be very meaningful because they're so strange, might actually be intended to be unremarkable instances of common tropes in those genres. And you won't catch the ways it subverts the usual tropes to make a point.
I've heard before- from sources like "Genesis for Normal People" and Rachel Held Evans's book "Inspired," that the creation story in Genesis 1 is an ancient Near East creation myth, but is radically different from other ancient Near East creation myths. Other creation myths said the world was created as an accidental result of some conflict between gods. But Genesis 1 says that the world was created on purpose, by a God who was very organized, who just spoke and things came into being.
In other words, Christians who want to believe the bible is more special than any other text, and is from God, and is telling us important truths... who feel anxious about the the contradiction between our faith and the scientific reality of evolution... can grab onto this interpretation, that yes, the bible IS different and special and true! Genesis 1 is a creation myth, but it's DIFFERENT than other creation myths, and the message it is intended to communicate about the nature of God is TRUE!
I'm not familiar with the genre of ancient Near East creation myths; I only know what Christians have told me when they're trying to make the case that the bible is DIFFERENT and SPECIAL. But, is it really as radical as they're saying?
Here's another Disney princess example. Every Disney princess is the protagonist of her movie- except for Jasmine. Jasmine is from the movie "Aladdin"; Aladdin is the main character, and she is his love interest.
So what if someone came along and said "The movie 'Aladdin' is doing something RADICAL and SUBVERSIVE because the princess character is not the main character. It's DIFFERENT from all the other Disney princess movies. This is a really big deal!" Well... what? It's not, really. It's not a big deal. So what, that one of the Disney princesses is from a movie where a non-princess is the main character? Why should that matter? There's not, like, some deep meaning we're supposed to get from this. Yes, it is true that it's a difference between Jasmine and the other princesses, but there's not really any reason we should make a big deal out of that.
Actually, it can tell us something about the history of the Disney princess brand. Yes, now Disney princesses are a brand, that Disney hypes up, but it wasn't always that way. There was a time when there were Disney animated movies with princesses in them, but Disney was not selling merchandise branded with the group of all the princesses.
When the Disney princess brand became a thing, they looked back through their popular animated movies and picked out the well-liked princesses characters. Many of these characters were the main characters of their movies, because Disney got a lot of their stories from fairy tales, which often have princess characters. But, it just so happened that Jasmine was an important princess character in an animated Disney movie, but she wasn't the protagonist.
And then from that time forward, the princess characters who got added to the official roster were from movies which were specifically made to be Disney princess movies.
So I guess we can learn some things about the history of the Disney princess brand, by noticing that Jasmine is the only one who's not the protagonist of her movie. But it doesn't mean there's some really important meaningful message we're supposed to take from it.
So I wonder if the bible is like that. "Inspired" and "Genesis for Normal People" want to argue that, yes, the bible stories are examples of these ancient genres which weren't about communicating true facts as modern readers would expect, but within those genres, the bible stories are really unique and radical. (Though I will say I really liked how "Genesis for Normal People" did NOT say anything about the message that modern readers should take from the bible- it was only about what the ancient writers intended for it to mean to their audience.) And I don't think I can really trust this, because of course Christians would be casting about for some reason to believe the bible is special. Then they find some aspect which is different from other writings in that genre, and they claim it's a REALLY BIG DEAL! But is it really?
I guess I would have to go study ancient Near East creation myths myself, to find out. And then I can come back and report to you all. And then you all can be like "well I can't trust this because of course Christians are casting about for a reason to believe the bible is special." So I guess everyone has to do their own research about ancient Near East creation myths, shrug.
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Anyway! I'm really excited about this book! There will be more blog posts on it.
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