The Bible Tells Me So

Why defending Scripture has made us unable to read it

Peter Enns

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781529343151
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Peter Enns 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' 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.

1

I’ll Take Door Number Three

When the Bible Doesn’t Behave

The Bible.

It’s been around in one form or another for twenty-five hundred years or so, and, by anyone’s standards, it’s had quite a run.

From its murky beginnings as ancient stories and poems written by obscure peoples living along the eastern Mediterranean coast in a plot of land the size of New Jersey, it became a worldwide sacred and revered text, the Holy Bible, the Word of God, read in hundreds of languages and dialects, the number one bestselling book of all time, with billions of copies sold and a hundred million more sold each year.

The Bible isn’t going anywhere. Christians have been reading it ever since there have been Christians. It remains the main way for Christians today to learn about God, the go-to sourcebook for spiritual comfort, guidance, and insight.

Count me among them. I am a Christian, and the Bible has shaped and continues to shape my life and my faith. I love the Bible, because I meet God in its pages. I teach the Bible because I want to help others meet God, too.

So what’s the problem?

Many Christians have been taught that the Bible is Truth downloaded from heaven, God’s rulebook, a heavenly instructional manual—follow the directions and out pops a true believer; deviate from the script and God will come crashing down on you with full force.

If anyone challenges this view, the faithful are taught to “defend the Bible” against these anti-God attacks. Problem solved.

That is, until you actually read the Bible. Then you see that this rulebook view of the Bible is like a knockoff Chanel handbag—fine as long as it’s kept at a distance, away from curious and probing eyes.

What I discovered, and what I want to pass along to you in this book, is that this view of the Bible does not come from the Bible but from an anxiety over protecting the Bible and so regulating the faith of those who read it.

Why do I say this? The Bible tells me so.

I will tell you my story soon, but in sum I would say this: When you read the Bible on its own terms, you discover that it doesn’t behave itself like a holy rulebook should. It is definitely inspiring and uplifting—it wouldn’t have the shelf life it does otherwise. But just as often it’s a challenging book that leaves you with more questions than answers.

For one thing, you don’t have to go beyond the first two books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus, to find stories that are hard to take at face value and read more like scripts for a fairy tale.

Adam and Eve, the two first humans, live in a garden paradise with not one but two magical trees, and lurking nearby is a talking serpent with an ax to grind. God shows up on a semiregular basis and chats with humans—as if, what could be more normal? A sea parts down the middle so Israelite slaves can escape Egypt on dry land. Fire comes out of the sky. God slays sea monsters.

Christians know deep down that these stories, as part of the Holy Bible, need to be taken seriously. But still. If we read these sorts of episodes outside of the Bible, from another ancient culture, we wouldn’t blink an eye. We’d know right away we were dealing with the kinds of stories people wrote long ago and far away, not things that happened, and certainly nothing to invest too much of ourselves in.

Yet this stuff is in the Bible, the Holy Bible, the book that we are told gives the faithful sure spiritual guidance and relays absolutely reliable information about God. It’s not supposed to feel like Norse sagas or the SyFy Channel.

So what are we supposed to do with a Bible like this?

Another challenging part for Christian readers who see the Bible as an unerring rulebook is the many laws God gave the Israelites on Mount Sinai (with Moses as the go-between). These laws are at the heart and center of Israel’s story, the Old Testament,1 which makes up three-fourths of the Christian Bible.

I will use the conventional Christian term “Old Testament” when talking about the sacred writings of the ancient Israelites—a.k.a. the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, an acronym for the three sections of the Jewish Bible, Torah (five books of Moses), Nevi’im (prophets), and Kethuvim (writings).

But for Christians many of these laws are completely out of touch with their day-to-day spiritual reality, and it’s hard to know whether we should take them seriously or move along without making eye contact.

Animals are sacrificed on a regular basis to appease God, with very specific instructions given by God about what kind of animals and when to sacrifice them to keep him1 calm. Other laws are just plain weird. Wet dreams, contact with mold and bodily discharges, and eating pork, dolphin, and lobster make you “unclean,” an ancient notion about being unfit to be in the company of God and fellow Israelites. The blind, disfigured, hunchbacked, dwarfed, and those with crushed testicles (I suppose it could happen) are barred from the priesthood. Strictly speaking, the Americans with Disabilities Act is unbiblical.

I do not believe that the God of the universe is male or female, but, following the biblical convention, I will use male pronouns when speaking of God. We will be looking at a lot of passages from the Bible, and adjusting the language at each point could get distracting and become the unintended focus. I realize—and respect—that not all would agree with me in this decision, but I just want to be clear about what I am doing and why.

There’s a reason pastors’ sermons and Bible study groups don’t spend a lot of time in these sections: it’s hard to know what to do with all this, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of payoff in investing the effort to try.

Other parts of the Bible are shocking to read, even barbaric, and hard to defend as the Word of God in civil adult conversation. God either orders a lot of killing or does it himself—and even comes across as a bit touchy. You only have to get to the sixth chapter of the Bible to see God drown all but two of every living creature on earth in a forty-day tsunami because humanity was wicked and evil (except for Noah). Later God drowned (what is it with water?) the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea after the Israelites passed through safely.

Then (as we’ll see in the next chapter), to take occupation of their new homeland, the land of Canaan—the Promised Land—God commanded the Israelites to go from town to town and exterminate the current residents—men, women, children, and animals—and move in. If we read this anywhere else, we would call it genocide. Later, for much of Israel’s history, warfare with other nations was as common as football in October, and defeating Israel’s enemies wasn’t a necessary evil but brought God glory and honor. And when provoked, God wasn’t bashful about killing or plaguing his own people. The God of the universe often comes across like a tribal warlord.

All this is part of the Christian Bible that Christians are often taught to take without question as God speaking to them.

What are we supposed to do with a Bible like this?

What are we supposed to do with a God like this?

***

Taking the Bible seriously enough to read it carefully, as many Christians can testify to, can generate more than its share of uh-oh moments. The Bible can become a challenge to one’s faith in God rather than the source of faith, a problem to be overcome rather than the answer to our problems.

The Holy Bible, the sourcebook for spiritual comfort, guidance, and insight, makes you squirm—or at least fidget. It just won’t do to make believe otherwise. In fact, it’s good to come clean about it and clear the air. The question is what to do about it.

The Bible Isn’t the Problem

Christians who look to the entire Bible as God’s Word, and so take the time and effort to respect the Bible enough to read it carefully, often find their faith deeply challenged—even stretched to the breaking point. Feeling like you are losing your handle on your faith and on God produces stress.

No one likes stress. We want to get rid of it, or at least take it down a few notches. To cope we often ignore or push down the stress and go along with life on autopilot, acting as if everything is okay. But “keeping it together” uses up a lot of energy and eventually takes its toll.

Think of a relationship where something is clearly not right, but facing the problem is too emotionally risky. We come up with all sorts of ways to convince ourselves that so-and-so really is a thoughtful sweetheart deep down and not a narcissistic sarcastic dipwad. Holding on tooth and nail to something that’s not working, denying that nagging undercurrent of tension, that feeling that you know something’s just not right, and just going on with life—well, that’s hard, stressful work.

Plus, stress erodes basic people skills we learned in kindergarten. It makes us edgy, angry, nasty, and passive-aggressive. We kick the dog, yell at the kids, and make ourselves and those around us miserable.

I know many Christians who deal with this stress every day—sometimes they don’t even know it’s happening until some unexpected experience snaps them out of the stupor and connects them with their heart. I’ve been there. Sometimes I still am.

The real shame is that it’s hard to talk about Bible-induced stress with the very people you’d think you should be able to talk to—religious leaders, teachers, and church friends. It’s risky to let them in on your little secret, what you’re really thinking, because you’re afraid they’ll look at you like you have a massive zit on your nose. Or worse, you’ll be scolded like a misbehaved child or shamed and shunned for your faithlessness.

And for good reason: we have all heard of stories where people have become casualties for asking questions about scripture. So, you go it alone, doomed to a ...