Inerrancy: A Very Different, Divine Sort of Thing
One of the areas of theological reflection that I have been thinking about lately is the interface between what we think the Bible is and what it says it is. Evangelicals have come up with very clear formulations of what they think the Bible should be, or rather, what an inspired, authoritative book should look like. Inerrancy debates are looming up all over the place, and part of the debate is exactly about one’s presupposition of the nature of Scripture. Although “inerrancy battles” are mostly fought within evangelicalism, I have come to realize more and more that the assumptions that often fuel the epistemological, pre-suppositional and theological fire of these discussions are not privy to fundamentalists and a certain cross-section of evangelicals. The same question-begging assumptions come from the academia, and the presently raging debates are bringing these to light in more nuanced ways.
James Kugel in his How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now concludes his chapter on the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) with what scholars see as the incompatibility of the human elements they find in a text that is taken to be divine. After showing why scholars think that the command not to make any images was inserted at later period (which does not imply that it did not exist early on), he writes the following:
[The Decalogue’s] very form now appears to most scholars to assimilate them to the covenant stipulations found in old Hittite and other ancient Near Eastern treaties. This fact itself raises disturbing questions about the divine origin of these laws. For why should God, in this crucial act of binding the people of Israel to Himself, have chosen to rely on an utterly human set of conventions instead of going about things in some very different, divine sort of way? (p. 259, my emphasis)
The point here is not whether scholars are right about their conclusions; for example, that the command that not make images of YHWH was a later insertion. The point is that there is an assumption, shared by many evangelicals, that an “utterly human set of conventions” and a “very different, divine sort of way” are at odds with each other. I think that this goes to the heart of what Peter Enns is trying to challenge. In his response to Bruce Waltke, he answers the question about the purpose of tensions and paradoxes in a Bible that is “consistent in all its parts” (according to Waltke) this way:
My answer is that they reflect the variegated human settings that the portions of the Bible were written in, and I have no further need to reconcile this fact with what is happening “in the mind of God” other than saying, “If we believe that the Bible is God’s word, then, quite obviously, God is OK with all of this.” The question now becomes “what do we learn about God from how he himself, in his wisdom, speaks?” (Further Interaction with Bruce Waltke: Introduction Part 3)
What Enns is proposing is not an easy task, for it invites most of us to a paradigm shift in the way we think of an inspired book. For some of us, the question is not “is the Bible inspired?” but “how is the Bible inspired?” We should all benefit from thinking about this question, and following the interaction between Bruce Waltke and Peter Enns should give us enough to think about.
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Tags: Bruce Waltke, Inerrancy, James Kugel, Peter Enns, Scripture
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By Harry, October 31, 2009 @ 3:44 pm
So, what we learned here is our all-knowing and all-powerful God gave us a message that requires an unnatural way of thinking to make sense of what would otherwise be seen as absurd. And if we can not grasp that way of thinking in time, then oh-well, hell it is for us. Does that really make sense for a merciful and just God? It does appear the attributes of God and reality must be ignored to accept this explanation to the “tensions and paradoxes” (i.e. absurdities) found in the Bible.
By Barry, October 31, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
I noticed you only post comments from people who agree with your point of view. Why is that? Are you really being honest with yourself when you hide comments that reveal problems with your point of view?
By Maer, November 1, 2009 @ 10:57 am
Harry – I believe you wrote your second comment because I had not had time to moderate the first one. Your comments are welcome whether or not they agree with my (tentative) conclusions.
I think your questions are valid, but they also bring out the issue addressed in this post–in other words, who is God? People have struggled with this question, and many have tried to systematize the attributes of God as a way to find an answer. What this post is trying to address is the fact that whatever we say about God has to make sense of the text we have today—as it is, not as it should be. That’s what Peter Enns is trying to engage with. Have you read his book? I am just trying to determine where you are coming from in this debate.
I apologize if I am not able to engage with your comments right away. I haven’t posted in a while for personal reasons, but I hope to resume posting soon.