How do we make sense of difficult passages in the Bible? What about the violence or apparent contradictions? Peter Enns addresses these concerns in his book The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. Enns is concerned that instead of honest engagement with Scripture some Christian thinkers make unreasonable attempts to cover up or explain away the challenges. He specifically sees this occurring among those who treat the Bible like a rule book of fixed, timeless truths. Instead of a rule book, Enns suggests we read Scripture in the genre of storytelling, with inspired examples of how God-fearers of the past have wrestled with their faith.
To be clear, Enns affirms the value of Scripture—we know God better by reading it—but he believes we have erroneous expectations of it. He wants to help his readers understand the nature of Scripture and, therefore, how to correctly read and apply it. Instead of diminishing reverence for the Bible, Enns seeks to affirm it by accepting it for what it really is: an inspired but messy text.
Before I provide my own reflection on the book, here are the stats. The book is divided into seven chapters that each have multiple, short readable essays. He centers his thesis on three primary realizations that challenged him to re-think the nature of Scripture. The Bible depicts:
- God doing a lot of killing.
- Events or details that are not always historically accurate.
- Diverse, even divergent viewpoints held by the biblical authors.
The first portion of the book hammers home the reality that parts of the Bible show God sanctioning massacre. Enns states that God can appear “flat-out terrifying” and as a “perennially hacked-off warrior-god” (31). He concludes that killing is God’s go-to punishment, according to the Israelites. Enns says this is “barbaric tribal nonsense” (57). We do not have to accept everything the biblical authors endorsed as being God sanctioned. God in reality is not an ancient Near Eastern tribal god. Instead the Israelites “saw the world and their God in tribal ways” (61). It was how they understood and connected with God in their time. Enns anticipates our question: why would God allow himself to be portrayed in this way if it’s not accurate? Enns simply says, “I’ve given up trying to get into God’s head” (62).
In terms of historical accuracy, Enns does not believe the Israelite conquest of Canaan happened as depicted. There was no genocide. Archaeological evidence does not support the kind of mass take-over that the biblical authors describe. He also says we should not understand the story of Adam and Eve, talking animals, and the parting of the Red Sea in a literalistic manner, but as a form of storytelling. This does not mean the stories are fairy tales, but rather the biblical authors purposely conveyed their history and relationship with God in story-telling genres common to that time period and culture. Similarly, the Gospel writers probably creatively imagined some biblical scenes. For example, Matthew intentionally shapes his Gospel theologically by connecting Jesus with Moses and the exodus story.
But Enns does not see this as a problem. Matthew wrote the way he did in order to get the real Jesus across. The real Jesus was only truly understood after the resurrection. Enns says, “What makes the Bible God’s Word isn’t its uncanny historical accuracy, as some insist, but the sacred experiences these stories point to, beyond the words themselves. Watching these ancient pilgrims work through their faith, even wrestling with how they did that, models for us our own journeys of seeking to know God better and commune with him more deeply” (77). Enns concludes that storytelling is a better way to conceptualize the Bible rather than history writing (128). However, he seems to affirm the historical veracity of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Finally, Enns spends a good amount of time emphasizing the divergent views of biblical authors (e.g. Jonah vs. Nahum, Proverbs vs. Ecclesiastes, Kings vs. Chronicles, and the various Gospels). He states there are different perspectives of God in the Bible and stresses discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He notes that Jesus was not the kind of messiah Jews were expecting and that Paul’s perspectives on Mosaic law were a radical departure from Israelite religion.
Enns does not see these divergent views as a problem. Rather different parts of the Bible guide and comfort us at different times. He points to the book of Proverbs as a good example of how to read Scripture; this text places opposing maxims side by side. The proverbs don’t always express one right way to handle a situation, but suggest different situations call for different responses. Sometimes we answer the fool; sometimes we don’t. Instead of being a rule book, the Bible teaches us to grow in wisdom. Wisdom does not involve rote adherence to rules, but discerns situations on a case by case basis.
Reflections
Enns is firmly in the historical-critical camp of hermeneutics. He believes attending to the context, especially historical context, is essential and his book models historical criticism as the primary hermeneutical method. In fact, the book is the most witty and accessible overview of standard historical-critical views of the Bible (esp. the Old Testament) that I have read.
His analysis covers familiar assertions prominent in academia: The Old Testament was written by an ancient tribal people who believed their God was a warrior. The creation account is myth and the miraculous stories largely fiction (e.g. there was no parting of the Red Sea or talking donkey). Enns concludes the Israelites were simply wrong about God some (or much?) of the time. For example, God never commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. The Israelites mistakenly believed that God told them that. But, Enns also maintains that genocide or conquest never happened per archaeological evidence—at least on the scale that the biblical authors depict.
Many evangelicals will be tempted to dismiss Enns as having gone off the deep end. Yet, anyone who has spent time studying the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world quickly realizes that Enns has a point. The Bible is unnervingly similar to the cultural context in which it was produced. Evangelicals sometimes warn about the dangers of historical critical scholarship fueling people’s loss of faith. But it’s not the fault of academia; rather churches have often perpetuated an erroneous understanding of the Bible. When people later learn they have been taught faulty presuppositions, it causes them to doubt the veracity of Scripture as a whole.
As Enns points out, the problem is not with the Bible, but with the expectations we place upon it. The reality of God meeting us where we are at in our cultural context is evidence of God’s presence and nearness. God is with us and thus speaks our language. The cultural trappings that characterize the biblical text are not evidence of its lack of divine influence but, in fact, demonstrate God’s involvement with us. While some might dismiss Enns’ book as going too far, he is actually trying to help people hold onto their faith who might otherwise walk away from Christianity, precisely because the Church has not provided adequate answers to difficult biblical passages.
That said, what quibbles do I have with the book?
First, it risks reinforcing stereotypes about the Old Testament that many people already have (e.g. the Old Testament God is the vengeful God while the New Testament God is the nice one.) As a scholar and teacher of the Old Testament my desire is to help people gain greater appreciation and comprehension of it. There’s much more to the Old Testament than violence or contradictions, but that is hard to see in Enns’ book. I understand he had a particular objective in mind—to make us really reckon with the difficult passages. We do need to reckon with them. Yet, I would like to see more nuance. Using over-the-top descriptions such as “perennially hacked-off warrior-god” is an inadequate and incomplete presentation of Israelite theology. Enns acknowledges Scripture has a plurality of voices but, when it comes to discussing Old Testament violence, he presents a largely one-dimensional portrayal. Again, I understand he has a particular objective, but ultimately the book reinforces certain stereotypes of the Old Testament.
Second, it can imply that the Israelite people were backward and primitive. This comes out in Enns’ descriptions like “weird,” “bizarre,” or “tribal nonsense.” Too often, we view modern human beings as more enlightened and civilized than the so-called barbarians of antiquity. But this sentiment overlooks the fact that we still have pre-modern peoples living in many parts of the world today, including stone-age Indian tribes that are far more “primitive” than the Israelites. Yet, it’s no longer kosher to refer to tribes in Papua New Guinea or Columbia as “weird” or “bizarre.” Somehow we think that because ancient peoples are no longer able to speak for themselves we can relegate them to inferior status.
Cross-cultural sensitivity is essential for interpreting Scripture. The Bible is a collection of texts created by a people from a different culture. Cross-cultural sensitivity can help shed light on difficult passages. For example, hyperbole was common in ancient Near Eastern rhetoric. While war certainly happened, the language of “wiping out” a people did not necessarily mean wiping out. We see an example of this on the Merneptah Stele where the Egyptians claim to have wiped out Israel around 1207 BCE. Obviously that didn’t happen. Similarly, the biblical authors say the Canaanites were wiped out, but flip to the next page and we read they were not successful. K. Lawson Younger Jr. provides a helpful look at hyperbole in his book Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing.
Another cultural factor to consider is the role of a collective society versus an individualistic society. As in other parts of the ancient Near East, the Israelites sometimes practiced collective punishment. Collective reward also occurred. Americans have a difficult time understanding this mentality because of our individualistic culture. That doesn’t mean collective punishment is, therefore, excused but it does provide greater understanding than simply that the Israelites were weird. It should also be pointed out that some biblical authors actively spoke against collective punishment. It did not go unchallenged even in antiquity.
Third, Enns states that Israel’s monarchy is the central theme of the Old Testament. He writes: “Israel’s dismal story of the monarchy is the meat of the Old Testament” (103; emphasis in the original). While I agree that it’s a dominant influence, we don’t want to overstate it. Many scholars over the years have tried to find a “center” to the Old Testament, and they have all been unsuccessful because the Old Testament cannot be reduced to one theme. There’s much more to the Old Testament than only national politics.
Fourth, the book leaves out theological engagement. Bringing together historical criticism and theology is a challenge, but one that I hope more scholars will attempt. Enns’ conclusions are the result of historical-critical scholarship meets contemplative spirituality. The Bible provides a “model for our own spiritual journey” and “all of us on a journey of faith encounter God from our point of view” (24). I am all for historical-critical scholarship and contemplative spirituality. I practice both. And I agree that we can learn from how the biblical authors wrestled with God or experienced joy or suffering. But given that Enns sees the ancient perspectives as their views and now we encounter God from our view, there doesn’t seem to be a sense that the Old Testament conveys enduring theological truths.
The Old Testament is rich with theology on creation, sin, redemption, justice, righteousness, and much more. But the book doesn’t give attention to this. Similarly, it does not engage with the many theologians throughout Jewish and Christian history who have wrestled with and written about violence or contradictions in the Old Testament. For theological balance I recommend folk also read Old Testament scholars like Ellen F. Davis and Brevard Childs and check out books such as The Mighty from Their Thrones: Power in Biblical Tradition by J.M.P. Walsh.
To summarize, Enns has written a witty, accessible historical-critical account of the Old Testament that accurately describes many important facets of the biblical text. He is right that we cannot simply appropriate Scripture like some kind of rule book. That would mistake the nature of the Bible. Rather, Scripture helps us to grow in wisdom so that we can discern how to live a Christ-like life. At the same time, my hope is that we can approach the Old Testament in a cross-culturally sensitive way, as well as with attention to its rich theology. I suspect that Enns would agree. I don’t think his intention is to look down on the Israelite people or reject theological reflection. Rather, some of the language he uses likely results from writing a pop culture friendly account of the issues. Ultimately, Enns’ book might help those who are on the verge of leaving Christianity or throwing out the Bible because honest conversation on difficult texts is lacking. But, I hope readers will also explore books that take them deeper into the theological meaning of the Old Testament as well.