Enns – Inspiration and Incarnation

I recently read completely Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns. (I had previously read parts of it.) This book was the catalyst in Enns’ departure from Westminster Seminary at the behest of the board, although he apparently had the support of the faculty. (You can probably Google it and find the information if you are interested.)

Many others, including D. A. Carson and John Frame, have reviewed it, so I have no desire to do that here. (BTW, if anyone knows where Carson’s review is, please let me know. The links I have found are broken.)

However, let me offer a few brief thoughts on this book that has caused some angst among evangelicals.

Enns does a good job of bringing out some points. He argues that the OT accommodated itself to its readers in certain ways (which no one I know of denies) and gives numerous illustrations. He writes in an easy to read style that makes things fairly simple (which is the great danger … It is intelligible.) He is loaded up with information and documentation. At first glance, without strong theological underpinnings, Enns makes sense. And he makes a good case for humility in our conclusions.

But here’s the rub for me: I think Enns is writing from a very simplistic and limited view of the theological doctrine of inspiration as revelation from God. IMO, Enns essentially denies any meaningful doctrine of inerrancy in bibliology. (I realize I am making some pretty direct statements about a recognized scholar in OT, but I find it hard to draw any other conclusion. How does a robust historical doctrine of bibliology allow for the conclusions that Enns draws?)

He seems to assume that since ANE texts reveal a similarity to the OT, that somehow has implications for the inspiration of the OT that move away from the historic doctrine of inspiration. I disagree. There’s no reason why similarity has a negative impact on the inerrancy or accuracy of the OT. As many have pointed out, the historicity of the worldwide flood should cause us to expect flood accounts in other ancient peoples stories. Why that means that the biblical account is somehow mythical or inaccurate is not clear, nor is it well-founded. In fact, only if the flood was a true world-wide destruction should we expect other accounts. If the flood was merely local, there is less of a reason for parallel accounts since those unaffected by the flood would have little reason to tell the story. Other examples could be cited.

Enns leans heavily on second temple hermeneutics (which is essentially the way that people interpreted the Bible between the restoration of Israel from Babylon in the fifth century B. C. and the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70) to argue that the NT writers used the OT in some ways that seem pretty weird to us but were perfectly normal for the first century readers. IMO, he hasn’t made a convincing argument that his conclusions are necessary or even accurate. This section he loads up with illustrations, but doesn’t seem to coherently draw his conclusions from those illustrations. I think this stems from a view of inspiration that is too limited given the biblical data on the subject.

So overall, while I found Enns interesting, I didn’t find him compelling nor particularly credible in some of these matters.

Why did I read Enns? Because as a student with some interest in the OT (and particularly in the early second temple era … Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi), this is an idea that is getting some traction outside of its normal liberal habitat. It is working its way into evangelicalism (as evidenced by coming from someone who taught at Westminster for years).

Should you read Enns? No, I think there are better things to do with your time … like read the phone book or count the hairs on your head.