The Bible Tells Me So

Faith & Science Conversation
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Okay, having finished the book “The Bible Tells Me So”, I’ll add just a few more comments.

First of all, Enns does push the envelope for what most Christians today (who keep at least one eye toward orthodoxy) would be willing to accept. As such a person, I numerous times felt like I was following him down some rabbit hole where I am thinking “wait a minute … about that back there…!” But it was never a confusing rabbit hole. Enns illuminates and elaborates quite skillfully so that you know exactly where he’s at and why even if you think you may not be dwelling there yourself.

But as I set any bothersome things aside and kept reading on towards his approach in the New Testament (which seems pretty consistent with his approach to the Old Testament), he would then summarize his position as found in Christ with clear and compelling Biblical exhortation itself. Some (including myself) may wonder … “Wait a minute, Peter, you claim that New Testament authors also enlisted the past (their Torah and prophets and even the more recent events of Jesus life itself) in service to the present in order to build their case at hand. So if not all the words attributed to Jesus, for example, were actually said by Jesus, then where do you get off appealing to those same teachings as if he did say them?”

And I can imagine Enns replying to me that I’m still operating out of an old (or I guess I should say relatively new, actually!) hangup of needing to make everything pass through a 21st century historicity filter before I will admit it into my valued collection of sacred writ. If “God lets his children tell the story” (Enns’ own words) then who am I to claim He isn’t working through that story as is, complete with its human wrinkles.

Enns makes a powerful case that we need to choose between our dedicated pursuit to “get the Bible right” or instead chase after “getting Jesus right”. He claims these are not equivalent pursuits and that for any Christian the latter is the higher calling. He sites many examples where Jesus, like any other Rabbi of his day treated the Torah as a very fluid thing to be interacted with and used (even ‘toyed with’ --is what it would seem like to the doctrinaire of today) for the purposes at hand. And never did his audience (even the Sadducees or Pharisees) take him to task for it because that was standard practice for them all in that time. What Jesus was taken to task for was for how he revealed himself and his own authority in relation to God.

Today, we have been coached to think of the Bible as an absolute and static rule book for all time, and Enns reminds us compellingly that we have no Biblical precedent for doing so – not in Paul, and certainly not in Jesus.

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@Mervin_Bitikofer

As a rule I have little interest (and less time) to read opinions of the Bible written by people who imo seek to be trendy - so I have not taken an interest in Enns. However I will comment on two points you have made. On the matter of what, and how, Christ taught, the basis by which we regard that is that He is the Son of God - if we reflect on this, we will understand why the religious leaders of that day objected so strongly to His teachings. So I suggest both you and Enns have it wrong - what is in Christ is synonymous with what is recorded in the Gospel. The OT was also taught by people who had authority, especially the teachings according to Moses - so here we have two authorities, that of the Son of God, and that of religious leaders. If there is disagreement, who would we believe (and these matters were in the OT at that day)? The same comment can be made regarding apostolic authority from Paul. This is just about the antithesis of what you say of Enns (and of perhaps other provocateurs).

The other point puzzles me - I cannot recall anyone coaching me on the Bible as an absolute and static rule book, but I recall many times in various places describing the Bible as a book for and of life. This view of the Bible, I suggest, is about as much a straw man argument as is that of genocide ordered by God - it is just silly to think that way.

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Might I ask how you were able to conclude that Enns is motivated by a desire to be trendy, if you haven’t taken an interest in him or read what he has to say about the Bible?

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Yes you may ask … I had read a number of blogs from him when he was with BioLogos and from these I came to a conclusion that I did not find what he said interesting (I surmise he may follow a liberal trend).

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On reflection, I can see the term ‘trendy’ and phrases may be taken by some as derogatory remarks - this was not my intention, and least of all associating any motives with the term (I am surprised). In this part of the world, words such as trendy, modern, are taken more as compliments by some, and neutral descriptive terms by others. My usage was descriptive. Trendy does not automatically mean contradicting evidence or being unreasonable.

Eddie I second Christy’s comments on your tendency to correct others - I am sure that if my remarks were inappropriate, Brad and/or Christy would bring that to my attention.

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Exactly. Whatever Enns’s motivations are, his writing cost him his tenured position at WTS, so it’s reasonable to assume that they are not trivial ones.

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@GJDS

The other point puzzles me - I cannot recall anyone coaching me on the Bible as an absolute and static rule book, but I recall many times in various places describing the Bible as a book for and of life.

What I meant by the phrase “absolute static rule book” (which might actually have been Enns’ phrase or something close --I’m just going off memory at the moment) is the attitude that sacred Scriptures as we have them are the Word of God for all time, and that you don’t approach them with questioning motives, or set yourself up in judgment over them, and you certainly don’t think of them as anything to be corrected! Instead you approach them humbly, with the conviction that if there are any problems, they are your problems and not a problem in Scriptures. I.e. Scriptures are there only to be rightly understood in terms of original authorial intent, and not to have new meanings creatively imposed on them that would have been unknown to the original authors. Enns insists that Jesus and New Testament writers did exactly these things, co-opting the Scriptures of their day in service of the new message for their present time. Conservatives today (at least in this part of the world) would insist that Jesus and Paul were merely revealing the real meanings that were there all along (not co-opting anything). If we go back and examine Scriptures on their own terms, it is far from clear to me that such conservatives have the Biblical high ground here. If we had to choose between Jesus and a modern conservative notion (at least here in the U.S.) of what “Bible” must be, this should be no real choice for the Christian.

I can’t speak for other parts of the world where you may be, GJDS, perhaps most other cultures are closer in their relationships to sacred writ to where the contemporaries of Jesus would have been, and see U.S. attitudes as provincial and strange. But here in the U.S. I personally fellowship with a lot of folks who revere the Bible effectively as an absolute authority in just the sense I described.

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@Mervin_Bitikofer

Mervin, you make a number of valid points and I was focusing on two aspects of scriptural understanding in my response to you. The first has to do with why we would believe something written in the Bible, and the short answer is that we think Christ taught that directly to the disciples, or the apostles later taught what Christ wanted them to teach. The second point is equally important, in that Orthodox Christians (and I believe all Christians) are interested in a way of life, a means to become people of the type they comprehend are exemplified in the Bible. Within this context, my comment would be the Bible as such does not need correction (however translations may need scholarly scrutiny, and often we may err in our understanding due to our life experiences). This does not mean the Bible is something we recite mechanically - which is what I understand by ‘static’.

So co-opting (to use your phrase) is inappropriate - the NT writers say clearly, they wrote down what they heard from disciples and apostles who were eye witnesses. This is not a question of high or low ground - it is a question of accepting what is written down. If we have difficulties in living according to our understanding of the faith, it is part of the experience that eventually strengthens our faith. If otoh we become embroiled in debates about some phrase or sentence here and there, we are making the mistake of the Jewish (and Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) leaders, who were more interested in who felt more important, and not on how people’s lives were impacted by Christ. I am convinced this is true in any part of the world (just as there are those who may not be fully convinced The Gospel writers make this point on so many occasions - Christ said, if you do not believe me, then believe what you see; the blind see, the sick are healed - life is restored. This is the living Word of God. Thus revering the Bible is correct because we can see the good works that result - otherwise we just read a book that is put together by people who would drive present day editors and reviewers (like me) to distraction with the way they express themselves at times (they would never become successful modern writer in this day and age, what :laughing:)

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@Mervin_Bitikofer

I agree that Enns has many intriguing insights! One of my favorite chapters was “Playing Favorites With Little Brother”. In regards to Caananite-situation, just prior to reading this book, I read a book called “Did God Really Command Genocide?”. The book was very dense (but well thought out), and argued very extensively that it wasn’t a genocide, but it was hyperbolic language that was common at that time — other examples of hyperbolic language can be seen in Egyptian and Akkadian war texts.

This is also evident because after the “total destruction” of these places, just a few chapters (and many times a few verses) later, it says that they still live to this day. The book argued that the focus was on driving them out, not exterminating them — hence the metaphor “of sending the hornets before them”. The Caanites were squatters in the land that wasn’t theirs, and who practiced many rituals that would be illegal in most places today — child sacrifice, ritualistic prostitution, homosexuality etc.

So Enns approach was very different in saying that it was describing a genocide. Though to give him credit, he too, had some very keen observations. The “Noah cursing” episode in Genesis 9, where he curses Ham’s son Canaan for something that his father did (and arbitrarily selecting Canaan rather than his other three sons, Mizraim, Phut, and Cush) is very hard to explain the justice of it. It does add credibility to the thought that the children of Israel has some sort of vendetta against the Canaanites.

As far as archaeology is concerned it is interesting the lack of evidence for the extermination of so many cities, as described by Joshua. I’ve noticed that some people really enjoy archaeology when those that participate in it discovers something that proves the biblical record as accurate (and this does happen many times as well). But if the evidence is going the other direction, to where it contradicts the Biblical record, then those same people can discount the archaeology, or say “they just haven’t found it yet”, is disappointingly selective. One can’t simultaneously trust and not trust archaeology, when it’s convenient.

I liked how Enns elaborated that it wasn’t necessarily Jesus’ “unorthodox” methods of reading and interpreting the Old Testament, that caused major distrust with the Pharisaical leaders of the day … but rather his claims of being God, and being “the son of man” as was spoken of up in Daniel.

I disagreed with Enns on the part where he seemed confident that the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) weren’t written by eye-witness accounts, but came later. This is very fundamental to Christian faith, and the fact that the authors claim they were eye-witnesses. If the authors wrote their gospel sometime past 70 AD (when the Temple was destroyed) I wonder why none of the gospels mentions it’s destruction? It only mentions the prophecy spoken by Jesus.

This to me puts the Gospels (at least some of them) between the date of 30 AD and 70 AD.

-Tim

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@TimothyHicks

Hi Timothy, I think your post was meant for Mervin, so I will only make this comment - much of the material that seems to be written by Mr Enns (and others) has been discussed and written about from the Patristic times and subsequent centuries. I do not mind stuff being redone (although I object to the heterodoxy and sometimes outright heresy put forward), but I think we should understand that there is “little under the sun that is new” regarding the Bible, and especially the Gospels. A very interesting treatment is given by HOMILIES OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW written a few centuries AD.

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According to who? Who says the land wasn’t theirs? They practiced child sacrifice like the Aztecs?
Ritualistic prostitution like ancient Rome, today’s Amsterdam and Reno? Homosexuality - Is that a crime?

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Note that John is not one of the synoptic gospels. None of the synoptic gospels claim to be written by eyewitnesses, and the introduction to Luke makes clear that that one wasn’t.

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@GJDS

My mistake … accidentally replied to you instead.

Thank you for the book recommendation. I’ve read a little bit of it online, and not too far into it I came across a quote-worthy remark… Homily 1, section 5 - 6…

“And why can it have been, that when there were so many disciples, two write only from
among the apostles, and two from among their followers? (For one that was a disciple of Paul, and
another of Peter, together with Matthew and John, wrote the Gospels.) It was because they did
nothing for vainglory, but all things for use.
“What then? Was not one evangelist sufficient to tell all?” One indeed was sufficient; but if
there be four that write, not at the same times, nor in the same places, neither after having met
together, and conversed one with another, and then they speak all things as it were out of one mouth,
this becomes a very great demonstration of the truth.
“But the contrary,” it may be said, “hath come to pass, for in many places they are convicted
of discordance.” Nay, this very thing is a very great evidence of their truth. For if they had agreed
in all things exactly even to time, and place, and to the very words, none of our enemies would
have believed but that they had met together, and had written what they wrote by some human
compact; because such entire agreement as this cometh not of simplicity. But now even that
discordance which seems to exist in little matters delivers them from all suspicion, and speaks
clearly in behalf of the character of the writers.”

@glipsnort

The Gospel of John is definitely very different, in style, from the other three gospels. And you’re right that the beginning of Luke, doesn’t claim, necessarily that it was an eye-witness account.

But what about the Gospel of Matthew? Wasn’t Matthew one of Jesus’ disciples? Maybe I’m becoming confused with Paul’s epistles, where it says time and time again, “Of which we were eye witnesses bearing record to you…” etc. etc.

In any case I still wonder why the destruction of the temple (which was destroyed in 70 AD) is never mentioned in any of the Gospels… but simply Jesus’ prophecy of it. If the writers wanted to make a point of prophecy becoming fulfilled it would seem like a great opportunity to do so…

-Tim

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The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t say anything about being written by Matthew – or anything else about its authorship, for that matter.

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@TimothyHicks
This book from one of my favorite NT studies authors was Christianity Today’s book of the year last year. The Gospel of Our Lord by Micheal Bird. If you want to hear how we got the Gospels from someone who interacts with scholars outside the Evangelical tribe and understands how orality works, it is the best. (I haven’t read the whole book, just the parts I was interested in, but it covers a ton of ground)

If you are not up for trying to track it down on inter-library loan or forking over the money to buy it, you can learn a lot just by googling reviews of this book.

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@Mazrocon,

This sounds like a really interesting book, thanks for describing it.

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I enjoyed this book a lot. It helped me recently, when a son of mine, a deep thinker, asked how it was right for Noah to curse Ham and all his descendants (and, by extension, God’s cursing descendants of those who sinned).

In the book, Enns points out how ancient Near East perceptions colored folks’ image of God. It tied in to some of his questions on their perception of a vindictive god who ordered the Canaanite invasion and killing of entire clans and tribes.

In one way, Enns does redirect us back to the God of justice, by pointing out that we misunderstand Him very easily. Thanks.

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