The Bible Tells Me So
Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
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The controversial Bible scholar and author of The Evolution of Adam recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God’s Word. Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community. Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to “protect” the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God’s plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job—but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow. The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns’s spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God’s Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider—the essence of our spiritual study.
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I actually really enjoyed this one a lot better. I found this one easier to follow and while I didn't agree with everything he said I really enjoyed the thought exercises and book overall
Book Review: The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It by Peter Enns - Very good popular level book on biblical hermeneutics (how we read and interpret the bible.) It is well worth reading and at least today (March 24, 2015) it is on sale for $1.99 on kindle (blog link below has link to kindle).
The main point of the book is that the modern understanding of Scripture as rule book or guide-book or science book actually changes scripture to something that is different from what early Christians understood and how the writers seem to have intended. Some of the book is simply insight into biblical authors/reader's understanding and culture. Other parts are exploring difficult ideas (like Canaanite genocide) or New Testament author's use of the Old Testament.
Enns conclusion is that we need to allow the bible to be a collection of different voices and resist the impulse to harmonize and clean up scripture. God choose to give us a book written by many with a number of different voices and stories and attitudes and we need to deal with the bible we were given, not try to make it into something that is cleaner or more cohesive.
My full (nearly 1400 word) review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-bible-tells-me-so-why-defending-scripture-has-made-us-unable-to-read-it-by-peter-enns/
