The Erosion of Inerrancy
G. K. Beale’s book The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority is a response to what he believes is a challenge to biblical authority that has arisen recently in evangelicalism. The book contains a response to Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation, a defense for the single authorship of Isaiah, and a discussion of Old Testament cosmology as opposed to its modern scientific understanding.
It was somewhat frustrating to read the first part of the book because I had already read Beale’s articles (and rejoinders) along with Enns’ responses. What you get in the first few chapters is basically this exchange (Enns’ responses are summarized) with some modifications. I do not understand why Beale chose this format having the benefit of Enns’ responses. His critique is extensive and Enns’ original responses are short (as responses should be) so, at the end, you do not get a balanced exchange (plus most people will probably not bother to read Enns’ articles although Beale encourages us to do so). I do not mean to imply that Beale isn’t asking good questions or doesn’t have some valid points (this back-and-forth is what should be happening). What I did not appreciate was the format and the fact that Beale seems to put Enns in the worst possible light. This part of the book will satisfy those who didn’t like Enns’ book and irritate those who did.
The chapter on Isaiah’s authorship basically repeats traditional arguments and, from what I could see, does not advance the discussion. This will probably be of interest to people who would like to have a summary of the arguments for the single authorship of Isaiah and why Beale believes they are important. In the end, he concludes that a different view can not be said to hold a high view of Scripture.
Perhaps, the best chapter in the entire book in my opinion is chapter 6 entitled “‘Can Old Testament Cosmology be Reconciled with Modern Scientific Cosmology? Part 1.” And I think I would probably go as far as recommending the book not only for readers to know what the issues are from Beale’s perspective but also to be exposed to this chapter. I like this chapter because it is a concise (although skewed) summary of his main thesis in The Temple and the Church’s Mission. I think people should be exposed to this work as I believe that the way that the Temple theme is presented in the Old Testament can be extremely illuminating. But let me stress that I recommend “Part 1.” What Beale does in “Part 2″ is to draw some conclusions from the first part to answer the question in the chapter’s title. Here is what he does: once he arguably establishes in the previous chapter that there is a theological warrant for understanding God’s creation as a temple, the whole question becomes theological and asking if OT and modern scientific cosmology can be reconciled is really beside the point. Then what ends up happening is that Beale sees most things through the prism of phenomenological language or Temple theology.
“Do certain descriptions of the cosmos reflect only language expressing the ancient mythological worldview, which was built into the substructure of the biblical writers’ thinking through acculturation, and not a phenomenological view or temple-theological perspective? Perhaps. I have discussed this with some ANE scholars, and the best assessment they give me is that sometimes the cosmological language is purely phenomenological (a view with which moderns can identify), sometimes it expresses the cosmic temple notion, and sometimes it reflects the socially constructed mythological geographical assumptions and understanding of the parts of the cosmos, apparently unrelated to the cosmic temple perspective.
For myself, I think the descriptions that scholars might place in the last category may well be tangentially related in one way or another to phenomenological observations, or they could be descriptions related more directly to a cosmic temple” (p. 195-6, my emphasis) .
However, as helpful as these theological considerations are, they do not explain everything. For example, I was not in the least persuaded by his treatment of raqyia (firmament, expanse), so pertinent questions still remain. The way I see it, Beale has found a key and will try to use it whenever difficult questions arise in the text. The fact that he honestly answers “perhaps” to the question he poses at the beginning of the quote tells me that people who are struggling with such questions are not delusional.
The question is: can someone disagree with Beale and still hold a high view of Scripture? The goal of this book is to show why the answer to this question has to be no. But to see why there are still many open and legitimate questions and why the answers are not so simple, you will have to go elsewhere.
