In John 14:8 Philip the Apostle asked Jesus to reveal the Father. Jesus answered, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Think about that: God, the greatest mystery imaginable, is now available to us, and he looks […]
scripture
The Bible Tells Me So: A Review
Peter Enns. The Bible Tells Me So… Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. HarperOne: 2014. Like many Christians raised in the church, I grew up singing “The B-I-B-L-E Song” in Sunday school: The B-I-B-L-E Yes that’s the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, The B-I-B-L-E. Back […]
How do you preach killing babies? A sermon on the Imprecatory Psalms
This past weekend I spoke on divine violence at Mountainside Baptist Church in Fernie, BC. My first talk was a sermon on the imprecatory (or cursing) psalms. These psalms express hatred of one’s personal enemies (which the psalmist assumes are God’s enemies as well), they describe God as hating the evil doers as well and as […]
42. Peter Enns on Inerrancy and the Bible
At the beginning of his book Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman tells the story of his conversion to conservative Christianity as a young man. And then he relays how, over the next several years, his faith in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible was gradually taken apart as he confronted the full range of human […]
12. A conversation on scripture as narrative with biblical scholar Keith Bodner
In this episode of the podcast we sit down with Dr. Keith Bodner, Professor of Religious Studies and the Stuart E. Murray Chair of Christian Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick. While the study of scripture since the Enlightenment has frequently been dominated by textual critical questions, Professor Bodner brings his background in English […]
Violence and the Canonical Bible: A Response to Reasonable Doubts
Back in February 2013 Reasonable Doubts (henceforth RD) responded to a critique I’d written of one of their episodes. (You can read my critique here.) Their response was titled “Response to Randal Rauser’s critique of episode 110.” I promised to reply shortly to their rebuttal but alas I failed to keep my word. (Middle of […]
Inerrancy by induction?
In “Can N.T. Wright save Paul the Apostle?” I identified an assumption that guides the way many Christians read the Bible. I called it MIS: Moral inerrancy standard (MIS): While the human authors of scripture were fallen, morally errant beings, the process of inspiration protected the authors from writing down any morally errant sentences which […]
Inerrancy: how to save a lost concept by comparing the Bible to “Ulysses”
In my experience the person who stresses that inerrancy is an attribute of scripture does so thinking that this is the way to secure a high view of scripture. Inerrantists take the lofty position that the whole kit and kaboodle is error free. Once you start allowing errors into the text you’re on the road […]
How to hate your enemies: Lessons from the Psalms (Part 1)
I just got back from a conference I spoke at in Vancouver, my topics being genocide, doubt, and the imprecatory (cursing) psalms. I offer here some initial thoughts on the imprecatory psalms. A friend of mine says, “I know what you mean by what you do.” Evangelicals say that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is […]
