Do you struggle with the Bible? Do you wrestle with what it says, what it means, and how to apply it to your life?
Confession time…
I do.
Here’s another confession….
When it comes to helping me understand what to do with Scripture, Bible college and seminary didn’t help me much. In fact, some days, I wonder if Bible College and Seminary hindered more than they helped.
We have probably all had run-ins with Christians who like to condemn others (or condemn you) by saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”
Okay, here’s another confession…
I used to be one of those Christians. I used to preach that very thing.
Anyway, the only thing that Bible College and Seminary really did for me was giving a more “scholarly” way of saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”
We were trained to talk about the Greek and Hebrew, and to reference the cultural, historical, and grammatical contexts of whatever passage were were studying, thereby giving us more and better ammunition against those with whom we disagreed.
In the end though, it all boiled down to the same thing…
Though the uneducated masses say, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!” I could now say, “The Hebrew says this, the cultural background study backs it up, therefore, I believe it, and you better not disagree with me, you ignorant and uneducated worm!”
Anyway, I have begun to try to back away from that sort of approach to Scripture, mostly because it looks nothing like Jesus, and have begun to try to figure out what the Bible is, how it should be used, and how it should be read, taught, and applied to our lives.
The Bible Tells Me So
So it was with great interest that I recently picked up The Bible Tells Me So, by Peter Enns. I had previously read his book, Inspiration and Incarnation, and found it extremely helpful, and so decided to read this newest book of his as well.
As with everything Dr. Enns writes, this book was full of deep insights and helpful ideas about the nature and authority of Scripture. What surprised me most about this most recent book, however, was the keen sense of humor that was displayed on every page. There were numerous places where I laughed out loud at what I was reading. Dr. Enns has a very good sense of humor!
Humor is important for a book like this, where so much of what is foundational to many forms of modern Christianity is being challenged.
In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns attempts to present an approach to Scripture which allows for us to accept that it has historical and scientific errors and that it contradicts itself at various places, and yet still retain the Bible as an important witness to the theological and spiritual struggles which were faced by our forefathers in the faith, and more importantly, as a historical document about the life of Jesus and how the death and resurrection of Jesus resulted in the transformation of the first century mediterranean world.
Reading over that paragraph again, I am pretty sure that Peter Enns would not agree with how I phrased everything in there…
…Maybe it is best to say this: Peter Enns wants us to stop agreeing with the Bible in everything it says, and instead, begin arguing with God about what is in the Bible. That, he says, is the purpose of Scripture. He says that if the Bible teaches us anything about God, it is that we learn about God and develop a relationship with Him, not by simply accepting everything the Bible says, but by actually engaging with God in a spirited (both senses of the word are intended there) discussion about the Bible.
In other words … don’t be this guy…
Frankly, I really, really like this approach, because (as you may know if you have been reading my blog for the past six years or so), this is all I have been able to do with Scripture for the past decade or so. Despite all my training and education, I still cannot make heads or tails of the Bible. If Peter Enns is right, this is exactly how God wants it!
Though not directly stated anywhere, Peter Enns appears to be a proponent of the idea that the Bible is a library of books written by various authors from various theological perspectives, who are in dialogue with each other over the nature of God and what the human response to Him should be. Others who hold this view say that rather than the Bible being “uni-vocal,” it is “multi-vocal.” That is, rather than speaking with one voice on various topics and subjects, there are numerous voices, and sometimes they disagree with and even contradict one another.
In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns begins by showing that most of the traditional approaches to the Bible don’t match up with what the Bible actually appears to be. Following this, he goes through several sections of the Bible, forcing us to read it and see it in a way that you probably won’t hear in most seminaries, churches, or home Bible studies. Then, the book concludes with some explanation of how Jesus, Paul, and the apostles used Scripture, and what we should do with the Bible as it is.
Frankly, this book is going to require a second read for me, and I plan on reading it out loud to my wife. She is a better theologian than I am, and I trust that she will have discernment to see the right (and wrong) with what Peter Enns has written. I figure that if he invites us to argue with God about the Bible, he will not mind too much if my wife and I argue with him…
For now, though, here is my one main reservation about what Peter Enns has written (I have many reservations about the book …. please don’t read my review as a glowing endorsement)…
The problem with the approach of Peter Enns in The Bible Tells Me So is not so much in what he says, but in the logical ramifications of what he says.
For example, he says that the Bible teaches us about Jesus (p. 237). But does it? If large chunks of Scripture are stories that have been fabricated to answer the pressing social and theological questions of the author’s day (pp. 75, 94, 105, 107-130, etc.), why could this not also have been true about the stories of Jesus? This is especially true if the Gospel authors were not actually eyewitnesses to Jesus (as Enns believes – p. 78).
Ultimately, if Enns is right, the Bible is little more than the best-selling piece of historical literature of all time. Is it inspiring? Yes! Interesting? Sure! Can it guide us in our own life and with our own questions? You bet! Is it life changing? It can be. But is it really from God? Not so much.
Look, this approach to Scripture is way better than the fundamentalist approach where we carry out all manner of atrocities in Jesus’ name. But I just struggle with having a Bible like this. If Enns is right, what sets the Bible apart from other religious books? How can it be authoritative at all? How can it be reliable or trustworthy in what it says about anything?
In the end, I highly recommend you buy and read The Bible Tells Me So. I recommend it, not because I agree with everything that is written (though in time, maybe I will!), but because the book made me think. This is the best kind of book! I like books that make me think, even when I disagree.
Hmmm…. maybe that is what the Bible is after all….
Until then, what sort of issues do you have with Scripture? Do you think that the approach of Peter Enns (according to my woefully inadequate summary above) could provide a way of escape from your problems with the Bible? Or do you think his approach simply creates more (and greater) difficulties? Let me know in the comment section!
Hi Jeremy,
You said: “Look, this approach to Scripture is way better than the fundamentalist approach where we carry out all manner of atrocities in Jesus’ name.”
Can I just ask what those “atrocities” are supposed to be?
My first thought after reading your review is that his view of the Bible as dialog would seem to deny the Holy Spirit as being the author of Scripture, and would attack the idea that the Word – a.k.a. Jesus – became flesh and pitched his tent among us.
If you just see the Bible as literature, then I can see how you would miss that. (generic “you” of course)
My struggles with the Bible have more to do with the twisting that goes on in the name of religion than it does with the Bible itself. Having read it through many times, I have yet to see all of the contradictions and errors. Maybe I am the blind one tho.
I was thinking of the crusades, for example, or killing abortion doctors “for Jesus.” Even slavery of the 19th century. There is even the hatred against homosexuals “in Jesus name” today.
There is a lot of Scripture twisting going on today…. it is so easy to do.
Surely, you can’t be serious…
Why can’t I be? These sorts of things do occur, do they not? Such actions are evil, right? And what makes them even more evil is when they are done in the name of Jesus.
The church is never more satanic than when it carries out evil in Jesus’ name.
Well, for one thing, didn’t fundamentalism start at the beginning of the last century? And wasn’t the crusades perpetrated by Romans Catholics, rather than evangelical Christians? Much earlier in time?
And doesn’t using words like atrocities betray a bias?
Maybe I missed it, but I would like to know when fundamentalist Christians killed anyone. (Not talking about people who made the claim, but people who did that on the scale of the crusades)
Don’t words mean anything anymore?
Doug,
I see where the problem lies. By “fundamentalism” you mean the modern political-religious movement that some say began with the publication of RA Torrey’s “The Fundamentals” in 1909. That is not what I mean at all.
Instead, I am referring to the type of Christian which has always been present in the church, some of whom might be Catholic, and some Protestant, who seem to think that their way of reading Scripture is the only right way, and that everybody else is simply ignorant or a heretic.
There have always been people in “Christianity” who do what they do because “the Bible says it and that settles it” and do not seem to grasp that maybe they have misunderstood what the Bible actually says. This way of reading Scripture often leads to atrocities. Yes, I am sticking by that word, for that is what it is when the church carries out evil in the name of Jesus.
Ha! I see what you did there at the end. Nice piece of writing. Unfortunately I don’t have anything constructive to add.
Unfortunately we have emphasized the bible over the Spirit. Think about it for the last 2000 yrs we are still trying to figure it out, we are not One theologically or doctrinaly. Our beliefs have evolved to wherever it is today. Many of our belief’s have come from… You guessed it the bible, what we missed is the realization of the Spirit guiding us not so much “the Bible.” We should concern ourselves with being One in Spirit not one in Print as in the Bible.
Yes, but many who are “spirit-led” have fallen into serious errors as well. Somehow, we need a good balance between the Spirit and the word.
It seems to me that writers like Peter Enns are saying that I should not forsake the Bible but that I should accept evolution or it’s inferred that I should allow for its plausibility..
Evolution is implausible, totally impossible.
This morning I saw this page on the Creation.com website;
http://creation.com/augustine-myths-debunked
And, once again, as a simple Believer, I was encouraged.
Evolutionism is just unbelievable.
Yours in the faith of Jesus,
Ron
Ps. I do wonder why professing Bible detractors don’t just walk – like Demas, 2 Timothy 4’10.
I do not recall Enns saying anything in his book about evolution. Maybe I just missed it. So I wouldn’t let this be a sticking point for someone who wants to read his book…. or more importantly, argue with God about how the world came to be.
I have read the book, but am not even close to digesting it. I did find it was like a long cool drink of water for me, parched as I have been for several decades by fundagelical training, including seminary. I guess the biggest and best take away for me at this point is Pete’s point that we must face and read and appreciate and question the Bible we have, not the Bible we would like to have. All the other questions seem to stem from that.
Yep, there is a lot in there worth thinking more about.
You are right about the main point. We need to accept the Bible as it is, not make it into something we want.
The book of Job is an excellent example of a dialogue which questions much of absolute orthodoxy. This book seems to say ‘Well we tried all that orthodox wisdom stuff from Proverbs and it didn’t work’. True wisdom has a degree of ambiguity in it. We need the wisdom from above to understand things and not just men’s ideas that come from their own exclusive club and act as gate to that club. I was thinking today ‘What does it mean to walk in light so that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness’. Well I couldn’t say exactly so I asked God for wisdom to understand this. Over the next years of my life I expect to find out. Wisdom often comes slowly but most people want the answer now!
Yes the Holy Spirit does lead us into truth(1 John 2.27) but God has also established teachers in the church Eph 4.11. Wisdom is ambiguous. It is unwise just rely on our understanding however sincerely we believe it is given by God. We do need to consider carefully the insights of centuries of scholarship. The spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets 1.Cor 14.32. But we shouldnt follow this scholarship slavishly ‘Call no-one on earth your father’ Matt 23.9.
Yes! The book of Job is a great example. I am discovering recently that the book of Romans is as well. And of course, then there is Habakkuk who does a fair share of arguing with God.
Thanks for clarifying, I think…
really? the spirit of god doesn’t lie,does it?
Jeremy,
You noted, “The problem with the approach of Peter Enns in The Bible Tells Me So is not so much in what he says, but in the logical ramifications of what he says.
For example, he says that the Bible teaches us about Jesus (p. 237). But does it? If large chunks of Scripture are stories that have been fabricated to answer the pressing social and theological questions of the author’s day (pp. 75, 94, 105, 107-130, etc.), why could this not also have been true about the stories of Jesus? This is especially true if the Gospel authors were not actually eyewitnesses to Jesus (as Enns believes – p. 78).
Ultimately, if Enns is right, the Bible is little more than the best-selling piece of historical literature of all time. Is it inspiring? Yes! Interesting? Sure! Can it guide us in our own life and with our own questions? You bet! Is it life changing? It can be. But is it really from God? Not so much.”
I understand this “slippery slope” argument completely. I have gone through much of the writings of “progressive evangelicals” and I find myself disagreeing with my own “fundagelical” training and agreeing with their take on bibliology. Frankly, I think that we can make great arguments as to why we should generally trust the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus, but ultimately at the end of the day, we are simply going to have to take a step of faith. Holy Spirit empowered faith is what brought us to Jesus and it’s ultimately the only thing that will keep us in Jesus. Thus, I’m a reasoned fidiest. I think that at the end of the day, after all of the bibliological evidence (and other evidence) is laid out, we are going to end up being reasoned fidiests.
Maybe. I think when faith is understood as something opposed to reason, it can seem the way. I believe that theism and much of what is revealed in Scripture is reasonable and logical. But then, maybe I have a blind leap of faith in there somewhere.
Jeremy,
You noted, //I think when faith is understood as something opposed to reason, it can seem the way.//
I don’t hold this view. My view is that we need faith *in order to reason*. I believe this is the case with every worldview. All worldviews assume things that can’t be proven philosophically, mathematically, or otherwise, but must be taken axiomatically.
//I believe that theism and much of what is revealed in Scripture is reasonable and logical.//
I agree brother, but because of the effects of sin on the mind, unbelievers (and some believers) will pervert the nature and ramifications of that evidence and come to illogical conclusions and thus reject Jesus.
I’ve witnessed literally to thousands of college students in one-on-one discussions and when it comes down to it, most of them could care less about the excellent historical, scientific, and textual evidence we have for our faith. They just don’t care.
All very true. You are right that there are some presuppositional and foundational truths which are closer to faith statements than reasonable facts.
I think many of these are common to most people, however, and so we can grow in faith by reasoning together from the beliefs we have in common.
You are also absolutely right that most college students (most people in general) today simply don’t care about the logical, scientific, historical evidence for Christianity. I think this is partly why it is so important to live like Jesus by loving others. People care about love, and a life of love often persuades others when reasonable facts may not.
There’s no reply button under your next comment but one answer to your question about Christian fudamentalists who have committed atrocities is Efrain Rios Montt, dictator of Guatemala responsible for a massive and systematic campaign of slaughter against the native Guatemalans. A devout evangelical. Feel free to say he wasn’t really a Christian, as long as you allow Muslims to say Bin Laden wasn’t a Muslim. Truth is, whether or not he was saved, he was certainly an evangelical/fundamentalist Protestant who claimed to be “born again”. I doubt you could fault him on any point of theology. Just a shame about the genocide, which he justified on the grounds the indigenous/peasants were demon possessed.
That was to Doug.
When Jeremy said this author says there are contradictions in scripture the red flag goes up “liberalism” we use to call them non-believers 30 years ago but now they are believers but I don’t see how when you put your faith in the Bauble to be true for your salvation and you life then you say not all of it is true that would be self-relevant contradiction in itself. that is playing God by allowing man made resources t tell you that the Bible contradict what they have found outside the Bible. I know there are human mistakes in translating the Bible but that doesn’t mean that the message is any less complete, infallible or inebriant. God does preserve His words (Matthew 24:35). Liberalism is dangerous to dabble in Gal. 1:8; 2:8 1 Cor. 15:58; and don’t forget that is say that all scripture s inspired by God if you don’t believe that it is then you are calling God a liar even in His ability to preserve it
Rather than put our faith in a book (or collection of books) for our salvation, we must put our faith in Jesus. He is The Word, not a book. Many people understand and interpret that book and its parts in many, many ways.
We and the world in which we live would, in my opinion, be the better for it if we followed and did as Jesus taught, which so few do, rather than spend our hours and days in endless discussions and arguments defending what we suppose to be a group of perfect, from the mouth of God, writings. Those discussions and arguments convince almost no one of anything except that we love to argue and love to be right. A Christlike life, loving God and neighbor, at the very least convinces at least some that we believe what Jesus said, so much so that we actually live that way.
Thanks for your comments Sam my brother in Christ. If the book or collections of books are not reliable neither is Jesus because He is in it from start to finish. We must accept it as a whole or none at all because if the book or collection of books which I would rather say the Bible is wrong in geology then what good is its theology?
I disagree that you think all I want to do is disagree
I only argue if I know I can win an argument
I never said I was always right I’m just never wrong
I firmly believe that you have the right to be wrong
Just joking