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7551e75
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Literalism is a hermeneutical decision (often implicit) stemming from the belief that God's Word requires a literal reading.
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Peter Enns |
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a literal reading of Genesis is not the firmly settled default position of true faith to which one can "hold firm" or from which one "strays." Literalism is a hermeneutical decision (often implicit) stemming from the belief that God's Word requires a literal reading."
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Peter Enns |
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ee9c61f
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The bottom line is that for Wellhausen and many other biblical scholars before and since, the Pentateuch as we know it (an important qualification) was not completed until the postexilic period (after the Israelites were allowed to return to their homeland from Babylon beginning in 539 BC). There were certainly long-standing written documents and oral traditions that the postexilic Israelites drew upon, which biblical scholars continue to d..
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Peter Enns |
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edbfed0
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Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it's not meant to be, isn't a pious act of faith, even if it looks that way on the surface. It's actually thinly masked fear of losing control and certainty, a mirror of an inner disquiet, a warning signal that deep down we do not really trust God at all. A
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Peter Enns |
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69485f1
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One cannot read Genesis literally--meaning as a literally accurate description of physical, historical reality--in view of the state of scientific knowledge today and our knowledge of ancient Near Eastern stories of origins. Those who read Genesis literally must either ignore evidence completely or present alternate "theories" in order to maintain spiritual stability. Unfortunately, advocates of alternate scientific theories sometimes keep ..
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Peter Enns |
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088028d
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This is extremely significant. Knowing something of when the Pentateuch came to be, even generally, affects our understanding of why it was produced in the first place--which is the entire reason why we are dipping our toes into this otherwise esoteric pool of Old Testament studies. The final form of the creation story in Genesis (along with the rest of the Pentateuch) reflects the concerns of the community that produced it: postexilic Isra..
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Peter Enns |
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077e17f
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it is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judged on the basis of standards of modern historical inquiry and scientific precision, things that ancient peoples were not at all aware of? Is it not likely that God would have allowed his word to come to the ancient Israelites according to standa..
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Peter Enns |
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Protestant church tradition developed over several centuries when Christians were not yet forced, by virtue of the culminating evidence, to see the Bible in its ancient context.
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Peter Enns |
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If, in full conversation with the biblical and extrabiblical evidence, we can adjust our expectations about how the Bible should behave, we can begin to move beyond the impasse of the liberal/conservative debates of the last several generations.
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Peter Enns |
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4ea7671
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Probably for the first time in my life I was beginning to comprehend that trust was a habit I would need to cultivate.
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Peter Enns |
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c0e204d
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We do not honor the Lord nor do we uphold the gospel by playing make-believe. Neither are those who engage the kinds of issues discussed in this book necessarily on the slippery slope to unbelief. Our God is much bigger than we sometimes give him credit for. It is we who sometimes wish to keep him small by controlling what can or cannot come into the conversation.
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Peter Enns |
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d26c38e
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The findings of the past 150 years have made extrabiblical evidence an unavoidable conversation partner. The result is that, as perhaps never before in the history of the church, we can see how truly provisional and incomplete certain dimensions of our understanding of Scripture can be. On the other hand, we are encouraged to encounter the depth and riches of God's revelation and to rely more and more on God's Spirit, who speaks to the chur..
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Peter Enns |
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daa2913
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looking for fights--encouraging and even creating controversy thinking that God wills it--is pathological.
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Peter Enns |
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af4640e
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As quite distinct from Jewish interpretation, the history of modern evangelical interpretation exhibits a strong degree of discomfort with the tensions and ambiguities of Scripture.
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Peter Enns |
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a13c979
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The root of the conflict for many Christians is not scientific or even theological, but group identity and fear of losing what it offers.
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Peter Enns |
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a89c348
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It is a fundamental misunderstanding of Genesis to expect it to answer questions generated by a modern worldview, such as whether the days were literal or figurative, or whether the days of creation can be lined up with modern science, or whether the flood was local or universal. The question that Genesis is prepared to answer is whether Yahweh, the God of Israel, is worthy of worship.
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Peter Enns |
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8a4b332
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Adam in primordial times plays out Israel's national life. He is proto-Israel--a preview of coming attractions. This does not mean, however, that a historical Adam was a template for Israel's national life. Rather, Israel's drama--its struggles over the land and failure to follow God's law--is placed into primordial time. In doing so, Israel claims that it has been God's special people all along, from the very beginning.
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Peter Enns |
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09882be
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But doubt is not the enemy of faith, a solely destructive force that rips us away from God, a dark cloud that blocks the bright warm sun of faith. Doubt is only the enemy of faith when we equate faith with certainty in our thinking.
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Peter Enns |
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5a8889c
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Doubt tears down the castle walls we have built, with the false security and permanence they give, and forces us outside to walk a lonely, trying, yet cleansing road. In those times, it definitely feels like God is against us, far away, or absent altogether. But what if the darkness is actually a moment of God's presence that seems like absence, a gift of God to help us grow up out of our little ideas of God?
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Peter Enns |
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f246e38
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Aligning faith in God and certainty about what we believe and needing to be right in order to maintain a healthy faith--these do not make for a healthy faith in God. In a nutshell, that is the problem. And that is what I mean by the "sin of certainty." It is sin because this pattern of thinking sells God short by keeping the Creator captive to what we are able to comprehend--which is the very same problem the Israelites had when they were t..
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Peter Enns |
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8f1d667
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Watching how the biblical writers looked at faith as trust rather than certainty helps us through our inevitable uh-oh moments from a different perspective. These moments are not proof that faith doesn't work, but only that a certain kind of faith doesn't work--one that needs correct thinking in order to survive (chapter 6).
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Peter Enns |
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I can choose to trust God with childlike trust regardless of how certain I might feel.
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Peter Enns |
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When we think of "strong" faith as something that should be free of uncertainty or crises, I believe we have gotten wrong an important part of who God is and how the Christian life really works."
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Peter Enns |
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bc32ab9
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Walking the path of faith means trusting God enough to let our uh-oh moments expose how we create God to fit in our thinking.
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Peter Enns |
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A relationship based on trust means not walking on eggshells, but talking openly, honestly, with no hint of passive-aggressiveness or any of the other dysfunctional manipulative tactics we tend to impose on family and friends.
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Peter Enns |
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3533603
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I find it strangely comforting that walking the path of Christian faith means being confronted moment by moment with what is counterintuitive and ultimately beyond my comprehension to understand or articulate. In an unexpected way, God becomes more real to me, not less.
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Peter Enns |
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a01604f
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Following Jesus isn't like a burden we carry on our shoulders. It's an internal process so radical and painful that the best way to describe it for people of that day is as the act of being bound and nailed like a criminal to a piece of wood lifted above the ground where you are left hanging in naked humiliation and intense pain until you suffocate.
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Peter Enns |
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bf93c04
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There's an irony: the passionate defense of the Bible as a "history book" among the more conservative wings of Christianity, despite intentions, isn't really an act of submission to God; it is making God submit to us."
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Peter Enns |
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e44ff6c
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As we saw concerning Chronicles in chapter 2, the Old Testament already does in principle what Paul is doing here: reworking the past to speak to the present. That interpretive conviction is seen time and time again throughout Second Temple Jewish literature where the past needs to be rethought in view of the present. This can be counterintuitive for modern readers: it is the very act of altering the past to address present circumstances th..
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Peter Enns |
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God wants us dead. Or better: God wants us to get used to the need to die, not once, but as a pattern for our lives.
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Peter Enns |
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When we grab hold of "correct" thinking for dear life, when we refuse to let go because we think that doing so means letting go of God, when we dig in our heels and stay firmly planted even when we sense that we need to let go and move on, at that point we are trusting our thoughts rather than God. We have turned away from God's invitation to trust in order to cling to an idol."
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Peter Enns |
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Another dynamic at work here is how friends, family, and church members would handle it if they knew what you were thinking. Feeling judged and banished is a common story among those who take a risk to let people in on their well-guarded secret.
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Peter Enns |
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77102cb
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I feel that if we do not engage Scripture with future believers in mind, we will unwittingly erect unnecessary and tragic obstacles to belief. Part of what drives this book is my concern to help prevent that scenario.
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Peter Enns |
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e4b2024
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I believe that the Bible does not model a faith that depends on certainty for the simple fact that the Bible does not provide that kind of certainty. Rather, in all its messy diversity, the Bible models trust in God that does not rest on whether we are able to be clear and certain about what to believe.
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Peter Enns |
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When knowing what you believe is the nonnegotiable center of true faith, questions and critical self-examination pose a threat.
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Peter Enns |
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When Christians feel crushed by such "people of God," faith is exposed as something that just doesn't work here and now. And if something doesn't work, intellectual arguments for staying in the faith lose their appeal over time. Why bother?"
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Peter Enns |
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b9dad97
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A faith that eats its own not only drives people out but also sends up a red flare to the rest of humanity that Christianity is just another exclusive members-only club, and that Jesus is a lingering relic of antiquity, rather than a powerful, present-defining spiritual reality; a means of gaining power rather than relinquishing it. And who needs that, really?
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Peter Enns |
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9d6ea35
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Doubt can certainly leave us empty and frightened, but that is precisely the benefit of doubt: it exposes the folly that strong faith means you need to "know what you believe," that the more faith you "have," the more certain you are."
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Peter Enns |
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Doubt means spiritual relocation is happening. It's God's way of saying, "Time to move on."
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Peter Enns |
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Doubt is powerful. It can do things spiritually that must be done that we would never do on our own. Doubt has a way of forcing our hand and confronting us with the challenge of deeper trust in God, rather than leaning on the ideas we have been holding in our minds about God. Doubt exposes our frail thinking.
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Peter Enns |
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e27290d
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We might be accustomed to thinking of our faith as a castle--where we go to be safe and protected. That's a good place to be, and we all need that experience now and then. But what if God isn't a helicopter parent? What if feeling safe and secure aren't always signs of God's presence but a pattern of fear that keeps God at a distance? And what if God wants to close that gap, for our sake, and doubt helps get us there? Doubt isn't a sign of ..
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Peter Enns |
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a028687
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Doubt tears down the castle walls we have built, with the false security and permanence they give, and forces us outside to walk a lonely, trying, yet cleansing road. In those times, it definitely feels like God is against us, far away, or absent altogether. But what if the darkness is actually a moment of God's presence that seems like absence, a gift of God
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Peter Enns |
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004803e
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Doubting God is painful and frightening because we think we are leaving God behind, when in fact we are only leaving behind ideas about God that we are used to surrounding ourselves with--the small God, the God within our control, the God who moves in our circles, the God who agrees with us.
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Peter Enns |
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98caee0
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Doubt strips away distraction so we can see more clearly the inadequacies of whom we think God is and move us from the foolishness of thinking that our god is the God.
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Peter Enns |