Review: Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, by PETER ENNS. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. 197 pp. $17.99

In light of the recent action of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia to suspend Peter Enns, and to promote a more informed dialogue regarding that action, I offer the following review of his now infamous book. I do so as a layman quite unfamiliar with Enns’ field of specialization, but I hope that my lack of expertise should be functional below, since my amateur status places me at the level of many bloggers, updaters, whisperers, and second-hand-opinion-getters that make up the evangelical and reformed “public.” During the past week or so, I found myself wondering what in the world it was that Enns actually wrote to stir up such a hullabaloo, and that question led me to acquire the book and read it. For those of you who do not have the time or desire to do the same, the following review provides a small taste of the whole. After a synopsis of the book are a few questions designed to facilitate further (constructive) discussion about the book.

If you decide to read Inspiration and Incarnation, you will be delighted to find that Enns is writing with folks like us in mind; namely, lay-people without scholarly expertise in biblical studies who still have questions about how our commitment to Scripture intersects modern scholarship. Enns is careful not to assume a knowledge of his field. His style is clear and engaging, allowing even an amateur like me to follow his cogent argumentation. He often pauses, for example, to define technical terms and to recapitulate ideas. In other words, Enns demonstrates careful scholarship without losing his audience. The argument of the book is organized around three problems of OT scholarship: 1) How does one explain the remarkable similarity between the OT and other Ancient Near Eastern texts? Is it really unique? 2) How does one explain the contradictions in the OT? Is it really whole? 3) What about the way NT authors interpret the OT? Do they not take it out of context? Enns suggests a Christological analogy as a way forward from each of these vexing problems. Just as Christ, the Word, is fully human and fully divine in His person, so Scripture, the Word, is fully human and fully divine as a revelatory text.

In a chapter titled, “The Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Literature,” Enns tackles the first problem. During the past 150 years or so, archaeologists discovered many ancient texts such as Enuma Elish, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Instruction of Amenemope. These texts offer insight into the cultural life of the ancient near eastern (ANE) world. They also contain accounts of creation, and a flood, codes of laws, and epithets of wisdom that are strikingly similar to the OT. Enns points out that liberal critics of the 19th century improperly employed these parallels as evidence against Scripture’s divine authority, while 20th century fundamentalist and evangelical engagement of modern scholarship, in an effort to preserve the divine authority of the Bible, was selective at best. Dissatisfied with both trends, Enns promotes a rigorous, scholarly interaction with ANE texts, not as a way of debunking Scripture, but as a way of developing a Christological parallel. As Christ took on the customs, dress, and language of his first century world, so God’s revelation took on the culture of the ancient near east. Yet this was no mere accommodation, says Enns, but an incarnation that called the Hebrew people to a heritage, ethics, and wisdom radically different than their ANE counterparts.

In “The Old Testament and Theological Diversity” Enns addresses a tension not between the OT and its ANE counterparts, but between the OT and itself. For example, Enns notes a tension between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles: 1) “Chronicles greatly diminishes the sins of David”; 2) “Chronicles emphasizes the unity of God’s people”; 3) “Chronicles strongly emphasizes the temple and Solomon’s role in building it”; and 4) “Chronicles emphasizes a theology of ‘immediate retribution’” (84). These different emphases reflect the situation of Israel at the time Chronicles was written, after returning to the land from the Babylonian exile. Samuel-Kings, on the other hand, was written “to explain the exile to an exilic audience,” and hence its emphases differ (83). According to Enns, then, modern critical anxieties concerning the disparity between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles only exist because of historical and scientific assumptions not possible until after the Enlightenment. The OT authors simply did not think in such terms, and we as interpreters must learn to think from their perspective, not ours.

“The Old Testament and Its Interpretation in the New Testament” is a discussion of apostolic hermeneutics and its implication for contemporary interpretation of the OT. As in previous chapters, Enns is careful to emphasize an awareness of our own culturally conditioned interpretive framework, namely the grammatical-historical method. He then differentiates our method from the method of the apostles. While there is no grammatical-historical reason to read “out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1) as an allusion to Christ, for example, Matthew 2:15 demonstrates that the apostles had no problem with doing just that. For Enns, this interpretive method cannot be explained as only a function of apostolic authority without consequences for our own hermeneutic, and though he offers a way forward, Enns seems least sure of himself at this juncture of the book. One can hardly blame him, for the problem is quite sticky: How does one uphold the grammatical-historical method on one side, acknowledge apostolic divergence from that method on the other, and still determine an acceptable hermeneutic for contemporary readers and scholars? His suggestion is a christotelic and ecclesiotelic reading that both rigorously employs the grammatical-historical method but simultaneously asks, “What difference does the death and resurrection of Christ make for how I understand this part of the Old Testament?” (159)

For many evangelicals, Inspiration and Incarnation presents a shock, perhaps even a scandal. But for others, like myself, it is a ray of light, a genuine engagement with modern scholarship for a lay audience that is intended to revere Scripture rather than debunk it. Whatever happens at WTS, I am truly grateful for Enns’ work, and I hope he will continue to produce scholarship for the benefit of the Church. Along that vein, below is a list of questions and thoughts about the book. They are written as though we were chatting over coffee, not as though I knew the answer.

Questions I would ask Dr. Enns over a cup of coffee:

- Your audience for the book may not have required a full explanation, but doesn’t your incarnational analogy assume the divine inspiration of Scripture rather than demonstrate it?

- What about the old axiom: Scripture interprets Scripture? Do we need to adjust our understanding of WCF I.IX in light of ANE texts, many of which were discovered 200 years after WCF was written?

- If oral traditions existed prior to written accounts, then do we need to adjust our understanding of the “original autograph?” i.e. Did inspiration occur when the story was first told? When it was first written? Was it rather a process?