Wang Yong Origen

Jul 5, 2019

Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Baker Academic, 2015.

The Old Testament scholar Peter Enns has written this controversial book in 15 years

ago, which is about how to engage in the study of the Scripture in modern time. The opinion of

this book is full of encouraging information, but it also caused great discussion in the academic

conversation. In the preface of this book, the author advocate to explore a new method of

interpretation to the Scripture, the main reason is that in the past 150 years the study of the

ancient Near East had shown a lot of new evidence. So that, Enns’ purpose is “to bring an

evangelical doctrine of Scripture into conversation with the implications generated by some

important themes in modern biblical scholarship” (1). This attitude is necessary for Christian I

think, because the God still working today, he wants us to respect the authority of Church but

also to know Him in a personal relationship.

The first chapter is the introduction of this book. Enns suggests the modern Christian

should reinterpret the meaning of “the Bible is Inerrancy”. The modern researches is not a bad

thing for the Bible, in contrast, which “becomes windows that open up new ways of

understanding” (5) For the challenge, he asks to use the incarnational Analogy to understand the

Bible that the Bible is a divine and human book. I think that is a good perspective because when

we exalted the Bible we are easy made God become abstract. The author reminds his reader that

God is not far away from his people, “that the bible is written in human language, and in the

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common tongue at that, is already an example of God “incarnating” himself (7)”. Through the

whole context of the Bible and the process is formed, we can find the “when God speaks, he

speaks in ways we would understand” (9).

In chapter 2, Enns examines many ancient Near Eastern myths and accounts for he thinks

that is important discovery and parallel with the OT. Through that evidence, it easy made his

readers have one impression that “the biblical story of creation is every bit as fanciful and

unhistorical as the ancient Near Eastern Stories”. (29) He also declares that the OT contains what

he defines as “myth”, however, he confirms that definite of myth should not have a destructive

bearing on the OT’s divine inspiration. I think this attitude of Enns here is very ambiguous, and

not desirable for Christian. This is the main reason why many conservations against him.

Because we believe that all nations in the world preserve the memory of God's creation and early

human activities in different forms. However, the Bible is a special revelation of God. We cannot

deny the particularity of the Bible because of similarity.

In chapter 3, Enns discusses the diversity issues in the OT. He tries to prove that “the

diversity is inherent to the text and not imposed onto the Bible from outside attacks on its unity”.

(63) He still insists that to acknowledge the diversity of the Bible is a good way to understand the

Word of God. The diversity of the Bible itself is not a fresh topic, and every believer understands

that diversity is part of God’s inspired word. Instead, the author has given a particularly vague

definition of the word diversity, which has caused much oppose from readers. I think the

author’s initial motivation was correct, because he tries to demonstrate that “the messiness of the

OT tells us that God Is very real to his people and very near”. (98)

In chapter 4, the author discusses the topic of the NT writers how to interpreted OT. He

indicates that the Judaism in Second Temple period was not concerned to interpret the OT

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according to the original intention of authors, that means they are not interpreted the Scripture in

contextually and according to the standards of “grammatical-historical exegesis” (107). I am

very appreciated that his method to explain “Paul’s Moveable well”, that detail is I never

noticed. Through that he proves that the writing of Paul “has already been subject to a rich

history of interpretation, it is not just the words on the page but the interpretive tradition as well

that made up Paul’s Old Testament”. (141)

Chapter 5 is the conclusion of this book. Enns reminds the Christians ought to construct a

high view of the Bible on what God intended it to be. The sensible attitude of the Scripture is to

accept that “God expresses himself in the Bible through particular human circumstance”, and we

must avoid the extremes of (1) jettisoning our text and (2) becoming slaves to our text (159). We

place our trust in God in God, so we can understand the uniqueness, integrity, and interpretation

of the Bible, not in our own conception formed in tradition, we should avoid cultural relativism

and idolize the Bible.

At the end of my reviews, I want to mention that since there are many critiques for Enns,

we should notice that the author as an evangelical believer, he still holds the conservative beliefs,

such as the Bible is the word of God. However, he urged the evangelical to change so many

preconceived concepts of what the Bible ought to be. Therefore, I recommend this book to all

those who are eager to know more about God's Word and his way of revelation. This book does

not pose a threat to the sacredness of the Bible, as many people criticized, but he will give us

another perspective to understand.