Peter Enns' Blog

[Alex]

I am married to Susan since Sept. 15, 1984. We have three children: Erich (11-3-87), Elizabeth (7-3-90), and Sophia (6-4-93), all shown here four-wheeling, and below at Stone Harbor, NJ in August 2008 (Sue, Lizz, and Sophie are happy, I am putting up with it all, Erich’s disdain is palpable).


http://peterennsonline.com

The focus of this website is Biblical Theology and Biblical Studies and how these fields interface with contemporary Christian faith. ...


About Peter Enns

...I graduated from Messiah College in 1982, from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1989, and from Harvard University in 1994. I taught at Westminster Theological Seminary from 1994-2008.
 
My academic interests continue to develop, but they include: Old Testament Theology, Biblical Theology, Wisdom Literature (esp. Ecclesiastes), the NT’s use of the OT, Second Temple literature, and the general issue of how the historical context of Scripture affects how we understand the nature of Scripture within Reformed and Evangelical commitments. ...

[Alex]

http://peterennsonline.com/2011/07/02/starting-on-a-new-book/

I will soon begin working on my contribution to Zondervan's latest "Counterpoints" book, this one on inerrancy. ...
 
There are four other contributors: John Franke, Kevin Vanhoozer, Michael Bird, and Al Mohler.
 
...not represent five distinct positions but three general ones...
 
...focusing on the same three passages..."How does inerrancy work here in this passage?"
 
This won’t see the light of day until 2013...

[Alex]

http://peterennsonline.com/2011/07/02/protestants-and-biblical-criticism/

The Bible and the Believer: How to Read the Bible Critically and Religiously
Oxford University Press
 
The idea for the book came out of a symposium I participated in at the University of Pennsylvania last October. I gave a Protestant perspective. A Jewish perspective was given by Marc Brettler (Brandeis) and a Catholic perspective by Dan Harrington (Boston College)...

[Alex]

Have Evangelicals Made the Bible Impossible? (a sociologist says "yes")
http://peterennsonline.com/2011/07/11/have-evangelicals-made-the-bible-impossible-a-sociologist-says-yes/

Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible (Brazos) ...

To summarize, Smith shows how evangelical "biblicism" (his term) crumbles under its own weight, but continues to survive because of its historical role in establishing evangelicalism's sociological boundary markers.

This is why evangelicals have had a history of bending over backwards to protect their doctrine in the face of clear evidence to the contrary.

Smith's central contention is that "pervasive interpretive pluralism" renders moot evangelical presumptions of the nature and authority of Scripture. Smith means that since the Bible clearly "teaches very different things about the most significant subjects" and since highly competent biblical interpreters come to very different conclusions about the same texts, assertions about the Bible's inerrant authority ring hollow (pp. x-xi).

Smith's solution to this dilemma...is to be more consistently evangelical, which for Smith would involve a Christ-centered hermeneutic and accepting complexity and ambiguity as part of the nature of Scripture. ...