Pete Enns has just released his latest book, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending the Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It (HarperOne, 2014). It’s quite a bold piece of work, with a lot of serious claims about the role and purpose of the Bible. Endorsers of the book include Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans, and Brian Mclaren. Tony Campolo also offers a blurb, but qualifies it with the statement, “[I] have some problems with what he has written.” Given that Campolo is no fundamentalist, this is a telling statement.
Another telling statement is the inside flap of the book cover which states, “In The Bible Tells Me So, Enns wants to do for the Bible what Rob Bell did for hell in Love Wins.” That about says it all.
My full-length review of Enns is now available over at The Gospel Coalition. You can check it out here. In the meantime, here is my conclusion:
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 to the reader that the contradictions are really in Enns’ own worldview. He claims the Canaanite Conquest is immoral, yet argues that the Bible provides no clear guide for morality. He claims that the Bible presents a diabolical genocidal God, yet he insists that we still “meet God in its [the Bible’s] pages” (3). He argues that the Bible is filled with re-worked stories, many of which are made up entirely, and yet he seems to know which stories really happened and which did not. He claims that the Bible provides no clear moral instruction, yet says that people are “disobedient” to God and in need of the cross. He claims that he is the one reading the Bible in an ancient manner, when, in fact, people in the ancient world did not read the Bible the way that 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 modern 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 is clear to most folks that these two systems are incompatible at most levels, Enns is tenaciously and relentlessly trying to insist that both can be true at the same time. While Enns’ desire to retain the basic message of the cross is certainly 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 at the same time not protecting much else.
For all these reasons, Enns comes across as a man divided. By the end of the book, the reader senses that he is a man trying to live in two worlds at once. Such a scenario is ironic in a book where Enns is purportedly trying to help people who are “holding on tooth and nail to something that’s not working, denying that nagging undercurrent of tension” (7). One wonders if Enns is describing others or whether he is really describing himself.
Carlton Wynne says
Thank you, Dr. Kruger, for this clear and compelling review. Time will tell whether the acids of his modern hermeneutical method will pierce the arbitrary box surrounding Dr. Enns’ profession of a historically crucified and risen Jesus.
Jon Stallings says
Sadly too many people find it easy to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to keep.
Joseph Kelly says
“It becomes quickly apparent to the reader that the contradictions are really in Enns’ own worldview. He claims the Canaanite Conquest is immoral, yet argues that the Bible provides no clear guide for morality.”
Textbook definition of begging the question. Feel free to disagree, but don’t apply your assumptions to Enns’s worldview and then claim to catch him in a conflict of your own making.
Samuel Choi says
Well put, Joseph Kelly. The expression “I suppose” I encountered often in the review mentioned above neither communicates clarity nor charity but continues the assumptions that are conveniently polarizing rather than honestly attempting to listen and ask questions that really matter.
C. M. Granger says
I thought the review was very clear, could you point out a few examples where it was not?
And where was it uncharitable? Please provide some clarity.
Thanks
Samuel Choi says
The review is clear for those of us on the inerrancy camp. The overall tone and approach to Enn’s work is condescending and dismissive.
C. M. Granger says
That’s nothing more than your opinion, I didn’t read it that way. How about dealing with the substance of the review?
Thanks
steve hays says
What are the “questions that really matter?”
Samuel Choi says
Questions about the Bible’s inerrancy and its related topics: historicity, clarity, sufficiency, perspicuity, etc… and the different perspectives Enns is introducing as in his book “Inspiration and Incarnation.”
C. M. Granger says
The “questions” Enns is asking have been asked throughout the history of theology. Are you not familiar with historical theology and church history? He’s asking nothing new, and his answers are retreads.
steve hays says
Sean, according to your profile, you’re a PCA elder. Yet you seem to be defending Enn’s view of Scripture.
steve hays says
I meant Sam Choi.
Samuel Choi says
Steve, I have not read enough of Enn’s books to even to claim the position of defending his view of Scripture. I only read “Inspiration and Incarnation” after his fall out with WTS a few years ago. What I am learning to do is to listen and learn to ask questions what causes them to ask questions about the Bible’s inerrancy and what causes inerrantists to defend our positions.
Chip says
Samuel, since I had not read the article beforehand, I looked for the “I suppose” cases. Kruger only uses them once he has cited Enns’ beliefs, responded to them, and now tries to anticipate Enns’ response back. I see such “I suppose” references as simultaneously charitable, recognizing that Enns would have a response to Kruger’s own assertions, and a way to respond to further arguments.
Samuel Choi says
Chip, I reread the article and spotted two instances in the review where he used, “I suppose.” It’s funny how people read the phrase and interpret it differently. Your take is charitable and my take is cynical or even condescending. It could be that the way I carry on conversation involves more questions than assertions I read the review the way I read. I ask myself, “What is really at stake with the doctrine of inerrancy?” Did Jesus mean the same when he spoke of the fulfillment of the Law in Matt. 5:17-20?
steve hays says
What’s really at stake is whether or not Christianity is a revealed religion. Did God speak to and through the prophets (apostles, Bible writers). Does that kind of God even exist?
Is the Bible God’s self-revelation to man? Or is the Bible a record of human opinions about God?
That’s a fundamental question.
C. M. Granger says
What assumptions are being applied by Dr. Kruger? Do you mean the assumption that we use logic in the process of reasoning?
Could you clarify your assertion and explain how Enns is not being inconsistent with his own position?
Joseph Kelly says
The Canaanite Conquest is immoral.
The Bible provides no clear guide for morality.
One would expect the person who believes the latter statement to believe something like the earlier statement. If one doesn’t find the Bible to be particularly clear on the subject of ethics, one is likely to support this belief by pointing to the Canaanite Conquest. These two statements only become a contradiction in worldview if one assumes moral judgments like the former statement must be formed on clear guidance from the Bible (a negation of the latter). That would be a self-defeating claim. But Enns does not share Kruger’s assumptions about the Bible’s role in forning moral judgments. Enns, therefore, has made no contradiction, and Kruger is begging the question (the conclusion that he is attempting to prove is included in the initial premises of his argument in an indirect way).
Textbook logical fallacy.
steve hays says
You’re misrepresenting Kruger’s critique. He frames the issue as a dilemma:
“He either claims to get his moral norms from some other source (what is this mysterious source?), or he must claim to get them from Scripture. But if he gets them from Scripture, one might wonder why all his statements about how Scripture is unclear about ethical norms don’t apply to him too.”
If, on the one hand, Enns is attacking Scripture based on some moral norm outside of Scripture, then he needs to justify his appeal.
If, on the other hand, he claims to get his moral norms from Scripture, then his selective appeals are ad hoc.
LIkewise:
“Enns’s position is that the Bible gives a picture of God that is the exact opposite of how he actually is.”
So how does Enns know what God is really like? If not Biblical revelation, then what’s his source of information?
“He claims the Bible provides no clear moral instruction, yet says people are ‘disobedient’ to God…”
Once again, what’s his standard of comparison?
Joseph Kelly says
Are Kantians allowed to be critical of Immanuel Kant? Are utilitarians allowed to be critical of the writings of John Stuart Mill? The idea that one derives one’s ethics from an infallible standard is atypical in moral philosophy. That isn’t to say that one, say Kruger, cannot hold such a position. But if that is his ethical relationship to the Bible, he cannot assume that is the only ethical relationship one might have with it. Enns ethical relationship to Scripture is criticl, not contradictory.
steve hays says
You’re comparing secular ethics with revealed religion. Since Kant and Mill are just uninspired men, one can be in that general tradition (e.g. utilitarian, Kantian deontologist), but be critical of some proponents or their formulations.
To derive one’s ethics from an infallible standard is only atypical in secular ethics. You’re sidestepping the whole question of whether Christianity is a revealed religion. If Christianity is, indeed, a revealed religion, then it’s self-contradictory for a Christian to assume a critical posture in relation to the source of revealed truths, including revealed norms.
You can reject the premise, but given the premise, that commits you to the source.
If, moreover, you repudiate Bible ethics on ethical grounds, then you need to justify the moral standard by which you presume to critique Bible ethics.
Enn’s “ethical relationship” to Scripture is makeshift.
C. M. Granger says
I don’t need to add anything to Steve’s response, Joseph. Rejoinder?
Panopeia says
Another book where Enns projects his own lack of faith onto the body of Christ. It also needs to be pointed out that academic specialists like Enns are simply shallow. Somewhere C. S. Lewis said about such people, paraphrased: when you say the Bible has myth give me some sense you know what myth is.
Jonathan Harton says
Dr. Kruger. You say “While it is clear to most folks that these two systems are incompatible at most levels,” If the two systems (critical scholarship and faith in Christ) are incompatible then either both are true OR both are false. There is no alternative. This would be sufficient evidence for most biblical scholars that are convinced of a few major points of the conclusions of the scholarship to categorically discard their faith. Most conservative evangelicals have the same problem with the conclusion of modern biology concerning evolution. Perhaps you believe this is true of inerrancy (Chicago Statement variety to be clear) as well. Any chink in the armor must result in apostasy. A lot of people (maybe most) don’t have this problem, but most conservative evangelicals do.
“Enns is tenaciously and relentlessly trying to insist that both can be true at the same time.” This is because he knows that Christ and the cross are real. His “larger system” is one that came from his conservative evangelical background (he was after all a tenured professor at Westeminster–and the faculty there recommended against his dismissal). He now sees that what biblical scholarship, biblical archaeology, and modern science are showing is inconsistent with the literal, inerrantist, traditional view that has permeated the last 100 years from its roots in the Reformation. His approach is what Augustine advised–if you find something certain from what you learn that contradicts the Bible, you probably don’t understand the Bible properly. He is trying to understand in a way that is different from the conservative evangelical lockstep. Curiously, the early medieval church knew about some of the “contradictions” pointed out by modern scholars, but this didn’t impair their theology of salvation through Christ, not in the least. Because of a largely symbolic/figurative exegetical principle (not a primarily literal one) they found support and strength for the same saving work of Christ that we have.
“Enns comes across as a man divided”. He’s not, Dr. Enns is just different from you now, he doesn’t have to hold to the wholly literal, inerrantist view to be sure of Christ. “Enns is purportedly trying to help people who are “holding on tooth and nail to something that’s not working, denying that nagging undercurrent of tension” (7). Perhaps he simply hopes that his perspective can prevent some from losing their faith because they believe the two systems are incompatible.
steve hays says
i) You arbitrarily claim scholarship, science, and archeology for your side, willfully ignoring scholarship, science, and archeology that supports the historicity/inerrancy of Scripture.
ii) You fail to explain how Enns’s selective appeal to Scripture isn’t hopelessly ad hoc.
anaquaduck says
Matt 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab…without the destruction of Jericho there would be no Jesus.
Nice work Dr Kruger, I read the full version, it is really helpful.
Panopeia says
Jonathan writes: “If the two systems (critical scholarship and faith in Christ) are incompatible then either both are true OR both are false. There is no alternative.”
The presuppositions of critical scholarship can be false. The worldview(s) of critical scholarship can be limited.. The unbelief of critical scholarship can be blinding. Shall I go on?
Luke says
Seeing as TGC doesn’t seem to want to post my response to this rather unfortunate review, I thought I’d leave my second attempt here.
This review pretty much defines the defensiveness that Enns’ book addresses. In a rush to defend the bible, we become unable to read it. This review fails to deal with the evidence from the bible Enns marshals to demonstrate how the biblical authors deal with their own texts. Resorting to guilt-by-association and slippery slope arguments only underline the weakness and fragility of this common, highly defensive position that Enns critiques. Failing to address the central thesis of Enns’ book in such a harsh review is particularly egregious.
Perhaps most tellingly, the attempt to drive a wedge between Enns’ otherwise routine observations from modern biblical scholarship, and his belief in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection belies the reviewers deep insecurities about biblical scholarship. The irony is Enns uses these observations from the bible itself to demonstrate that the OT & NT writers’ creative engagement with their own sacred texts and history happened when things didn’t turn out as expected, *especially* with Jesus. That is, the Jesus-following Jews were acting utterly predictably in re-engaging with their own history & texts in light of Jesus’ impact, and were now thinking in universal terms. Enns’ approach to the bible is a strong argument for the reality of Jesus life, death and resurrection; not an argument against it. Insisting the baby must be thrown out with the bathwater is both wrong & uncharitable.
steve hays says
i) To begin with, Kruger is pointing out the intellectual instability of Enn’s current compromise position. And he’s not alone in this. Randal Rauser, who’s Enn’s theological soul-mate, has leveled similar criticisms in his own review.
ii) You try to shame faithful Christians by accusing them of fear. One problem with that tactic is that there are radical theologians who could resort to the same tactic in reference to you and Enns. Bultmann, Don Cupitt, D. Z. Phillips, and Uta Ranke-Heinemann could just as well accuse fence-straddlers like you and Enns of fearfully clinging to the Incarnation and Resurrection. Likewise, ever so many atheists would accuse you and Enns of a childish need to cling to the training wheels of religion.
iii) Naturally there’s only such much Kruger can cover in a book review. But he’s also has a running series countering Enn’s aha moments.
iv) Fact is, Enns is been answered. He keeps rehashing the same oft-refuted chestnuts. He’s been specifically answered by OT scholars like John Currid and Bruce Waltke as well as NT scholars like Don Carson and Gregory Beale.
In addition, numerous OT scholars have countered the kinds of stale arguments that Enns adduces, viz. Richard Averbeck, Daniel Block, Michael Grisanti, Richard Hess, James Hoffmeier, Kenneth Kitchen, Eugene Merrill, Alan Millard, John Oswalt, Edwin Yamauchi.
C. M. Granger says
This is a book review, not an extended critique of Enns’ position. What is in dispute is the nature of the “evidence” Enns’ asserts proves his position. It’s not as if no one has responded to him.
Enns’ approach to the Bible makes the reality of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection no more than the myth and metaphor he claims the rest of the Scriptures to be. He has no grounds for asserting the historicity of the gospel events, while denying the historicity of almost everything else. To do so is arbitrary.
C. M. Granger says
by the way, TGC did post your comments. You were the second person in the combox.
Luke says
That was my second attempt — the first one never made it through.
I wasn’t knocking the review for not offering an extended critique; I was simply pointing out that the review doesn’t engage with the central argument of the book, and instead makes Enns’ case for him.
Sweeping statements such as “[Enns] has no grounds for asserting the historicity of the gospel events, while denying the historicity of almost everything else” are obviously false, and frankly quite puzzling. He really must have hit a nerve. To which I can only say: please calm down. Many people attach the veracity of Christianity to secondary ideological tent poles like young earth creationism, inerrancy, and so on. But IMO I think you’ll find Christianity is robust enough that it wont, in fact, crumble into a heap if they are removed.
Otherwise, it appears Enns is right. In our rush to defend the bible, we’ve created a brittle, fragile faith that has cost us the ability to read the very text we’re fighting for.
C. M. Granger says
I’m quite calm, I assure you. Are you attempting to discount the plausibility of the traditional Christian position with an appeal against the emotional state of its adherents? That cuts both ways. Perhaps Dr. Kruger has really hit a nerve, you really need to calm down. In your rush to defend Enns, you have been prevented from really reading the Bible.
I’m hardly worried that Peter Enns or anyone else is going to topple the Christian faith or a high view of Scripture. People who hold to similar positions are a dime a dozen, and have always been around. If you want to establish your case, however, i suggest you present the biblical evidence which you assert is so obvious.
How does Enns position establish the historicity of gospel events while denying the historicity of 2 Kings (for example) without being arbitrary and ad hoc?
steve hays says
Notice that Luke offers absolutely no supporting argument for his bare assertion that Kruger’s statement is “obviously false, and frankly quite puzzling.”
steve hays says
That’s a popular liberal cliche–inerrantists have “created a fragile, brittle faith” that crumbles on contact with the real world.
To the contrary:
i) It would be trivially easy to turn that back on you. Your faith (what’s left of it) is too “fragile and brittle” to survive belief in inerrancy. It’s your own fragile, brittle faith that crumbles on contact with inerrancy, because you don’t have enough faith in Scripture.
ii) You can drop the pretense of “the very text we’re fighting for.” You’re not fighting for Scripture. You’re fighting against Scripture.
Panopeia says
Using a political insight into this subject matter, people who casually sweep away the beliefs and experience of Christians down through the ages, and the history of Christians and Christianity, and ground that gesture in a book they’ve written not only have a problem discerning scale, but partake in what we’ve seen in many Marxist movements that is a sort of ‘year zero’ lunacy. Everything in the past has been declared meaningless and non-existent. Now somebody’s newly penned little red book contains all the wisdom of the ages.
Samuel Choi says
Peter Enns is crazy, really?
C. M. Granger says
Who asserted he’s crazy? I believe Panopeia is making a point about discounting the value and validity of a body of Christian truth that has been hammered out on the anvil of theological controversy over at least the last 2,000 years by the universal church (thus declared orthodoxy), and embracing/defending the perspective of one theologian (I recognize there are others who hold to views similar to Enns) which opposes the traditional Christian view. May not be crazy, but doesn’t sound wise to me.
Samuel Choi says
That was rhetorical comment. I am in agreement with you, C.M. I think to a certain degree, people become controversial to get attention (which might not be a wise move, but sometimes the situation develops into one).
I am not defending Enns, but hope to see more engagements that help both sides of the camps to go beyond blog discussions.
Matt says
Come on, Samuel. Love you bro. We had Kline, Futato, and Duguid. Is it really that hard to see how radically different Enns’ reading of the Bible is from these men? Kruger is engaging Enns at the level of epistemology, which is the very thing that Enns keeps balking at over and over. Enns thinks he’s just reading the Bible, but this only works if you bifurcate reading the Bible’s epistemology from reading the Bible’s phenomena. Enns thinks he can do the later without the former. Old Princeton knew you had to do both or else it’s lose-lose. Enns is simply using the classic canard that has littered hybrid views between Warfield’s robust doctrine of Scripture and Higher Criticism’s unrelenting disregard to the Bible’s metaphysics. Briggs’ tried it….how’d that turn out?
Samuel Choi says
Bohling?
Matt, yes. You are right. The level of engagement is what I am concerned about, namely, epistemology.
It’s easy for the Reformed and Presbyterian camp to dismiss or demonize those who are not because of the nature of epistemological orientation.
Yes, sin happened as a result of listening to demonic curiosity. But it’s passive aggressive righteousness that often gets in the way of those who are theologically or epistemologically consistent to have docetic tendencies towards those who are not as enlightened or “reformed.” What I mean by “docetic” refers to our assumption of the primacy of intellect in epistemological elitism.
Matt, just as I am given the grace and kindness from you because we have sociological perspective in our conversation, all I am saying is that biblical epistemology is communal, relational, and tacit in its dimension – a dimension that might not fit comfortably with what is individual, rational, and explicit.
As far as whether one’s curiosity or asking questions about the Bible is concerned, the test of sincere or sinister motives will be determined in that person’s character formation, relational integrity, and resulting discipleship.
Those are the questions I want to pose to Enns: questions about his godliness, marriage, family and discipling relationships with those whom he interacts and how what he writes affects how he lives.
Chris says
Thanks for this review, Dr. Kruger.
Concerning ethics and genocide, I’m continually baffled by those who 1) believe that evolution provides the basis for our social, political, and ethical existence and also 2) try to decry genocide as despicable. Not only do we lose our ability to call genocide “evil” if our ethics are shaped by evolution alone, but in fact, genocide is vindicated and plausible if evolution is the source of our ethics. What is closer to “might makes right” and “survival of the fittest” than slaughtering those who are weaker than us?
So the appeal to an inner, moral compass by Dawkins and Enns that assures us that genocide is wrong should be completely abandoned by those who hold a position that is consistent with evolutionary biology.
unkleE says
I’m sorry but I was disappointed in this review. You apparently don’t understand that Enns, like most scholars, assesses the documents in the Bible on their merits, which means the Gospels and Acts are seen as more historical than Genesis (for example). So you make statements about inconsistency in his views when they are actually quite consistent. Obviously you don’t agree with him, but it would have been good to understand him.
Jeff D. says
Here is a recent discussion Enns had with David Instone-Brewer
http://cdnbakmi.kaltura.com/p/618072/sp/61807200/serveFlavor/entryId/1_m8k7cisq/v/11/flavorId/1_b4ci25j1/name/a.mp3