Enns Times
and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: Luke 4:17 NIV
Scroll – Peter Enns is the sort of radical thinker that Christians need to read. He’s not Messianic. He might not even lean toward Judaism. But his insights into how Christianity understands the Bible challenges all believers to take a step back from the popular reading of the texts. In general, Christianity reads the Bible through the lens of theology, something the original authors never did. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin are the real authors of our Bible simply because their influence shapes how we understand what the text says. But if we are able to put aside their philosophical/theological assumptions (like the via negativa or Luther’s view of “law”), we come much closer to the ancient Semitic approach of the original authors. Enns pushes us in this direction by simply noting what the text says without the theological overlay. For example:
on the Bible’s view of pagan gods:
. . . the Bible treats these gods as real, actually existing and who have to be reckoned with. Israel’s God isn’t the only God; he’s the best and mightiest among the gods. All of Israel’s neighbors had a high god, sort of a chairman of the board over the lesser gods. For Israel, Yahweh was this high God.[1]
(But as a side note, Yehezkel Kaufmann disagrees. We will investigate this later.)
on God’s involvement with us:
Seeing God as a character in the story who can be talked to, reasoned with, shows regret, finds out things, and changes his mind can be troubling because it doesn’t sound very much like the sovereign signal-caller of the universe. . . . But this ungodlike God of the Bible gets at the very heart of both Jewish and Christian beliefs about God. This God doesn’t keep his distance but embraces human experience and becomes part of the human story. He is “on the scene” with bracing regularity.[2]
on the necessity of interpretive flexibility:
Debating the Bible, especially Torah, and coming up with creative readings to address changing times was a mark of faithful Judaism. . . . Remaining faithful to the Bible here and now meant having to be flexible.[3]
on the sin of certainty:
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.[4]
Do you think it’s possible to unravel your past assumptions about Scripture? Can you really read that leather-bound, holy (!) text without the gold-edged pages on that special paper? Are you able to discover the story instead of the platitudes?
Reflect for a moment on one physical implication. The original text was written on a scroll, a continuous flow of letters constantly needing unrolling. No breaks. No chapters. No verses. We converted that continuity into a book of pages, each page separated from all the others. Breaks. Chapters. Verses. Disconnection. Does that affect your subconscious view of Scripture? Piecemeal. Compartmentalized. Shelved. Even the way we handle the text shapes how we think about God. A scroll flows, a book chops. Is your Bible living water or sandcastles?
Topical Index: Peter Enns, Bible, history, culture, Luke 4:17
[1] Peter Enns, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending the Bible Has Made Us Unable to Read It, p. 151.
[2] Ibid., p. 158.
[3] Ibid., p. 174.
[4] Peter Enns, The Sin of Certainty, p. 19.
