Sunday Reading

Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns.

As one might guess from the title Enns draws an analogy between the incarnational nature of God’s word in Christ and the similarly incarnational nature of Scripture. So just as Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine so too the scriptures. Specifically, based on this analogy, one should expect Scripture to bear the marks of the times and cultures from which it proceeds. So for instance certain parts of the old testament seem to assume an ancient cosmology; Enns argues that, far from being a problem, this is exactly the sort of thing we should expect. He proceeds to briefly look at three areas: the similarities between the OT and Ancient Near Eastern literature, the theological diversity within the OT and examples of interpretation of the OT by NT writers that would appear to be highly suspect by modern historical-grammatical criteria.

The book is well written and concise and was, overall, an enjoyable read. Enns’s thesis is more or less controversial depending on which portions of scripture one applies it to.

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