Entish

[Entish: An archaic dialectic, synonymous with double-talk, spoken by Pieter Enns and his Entish offspring during the Second Age of Middle-Earth.]

Art quotes the following statement by Jerry Shepherd:

“There is nothing in Enns’s book that is not in a trajectory with the teaching I received from the OT department at Westminster in the 80s and early 90s, and I mean the entire department: Dillard, Longman, Waltke, and Groves. For the Board to make this kind of decision with regard to Enns is also at the same time, in my opinion, a judgment on the entirety of the current OT dept., as well as a retroactive judgment on nearly three decades of OT instruction at WTS, especially since two of the endorsers on the back cover of the book are Longman and Waltke.”

http://aboulet.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/jerry-shepherd-on-peter-enns/

The funny thing about this statement is that Enns and his student groupies want to challenge the status quo where the traditional doctrine of Scripture is concerned.

But Shepherd is defending Enns by appealing to tradition, to the status quo. Why should we do it this way? Because we’ve always done it this way!

A pretty lame argument, don’t you think?

There is, indeed, a discernable trajectory afoot. We’ve seen that trajectory play out at Fuller Seminary, among others.

Incidentally, even moderate to liberal scholars can sometimes be useful commentators. Joseph Fitzmyer is a case in point. So this does not involve a wholesale rejection of everything they ever wrote.

Continuing with Art:

“I’ve also had Longman for Old Testament History and Theology II. He’s a great scholar, especially relating to the content of what Pete is writing about. This is why his word on the book means much more to me than Beale or Carson or Helm or a group of PCA/OPC ministers. Those who are trained in the fields of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations realize just how great Pete’s work is. Those who are not trained in these areas seem to be threatened by Pete’s work.”

At this point, Art has no intention of making an honest argument:

i) Beale, in his review of Enns, cited OT scholars with the same training as Enns who oppose Enns.

ii) When Enns writes about divine accommodation, using an “incarnational model,” he’s writing outside his field of expertise. A philosophical theologian like Helm is better equipped to discuss these issues than an OT scholar like Enns. Same thing with his discussion of general revelation. And hermeneutics is an interdisciplinary field as well.

iii) When Enns talks about apostolic exegesis, he’s writing outside his field of expertise. Both Beale and Carson are more qualified to speak to that issue.

iv) If the layman isn’t competent to evaluate Enns’ thesis, then that cuts both ways. If the layman is unqualified to return an unfavorable verdict, then he’s equally unqualified to return a favorable verdict. Yet Enns’ book was, to some extent, written for popular consumption.

“The interesting thing is that they seemed to be threatened because they really don’t have another way of answering the challenges of critical scholarship, except, “The Bible is divine.” Great. But what does that mean when Paul starts talking about movable wells.”

i) Enns and his student groupies are getting carried away with a picturesque metaphor. The point of 1 Cor 10:4 is that, wherever they went, the Israelites enjoyed a miraculous provision of water. Not that the same rock followed them around. But that wherever they went in the wilderness, God provided a source of water.

The wilderness was a rocky place. So water would issue from one rocky outcropping or another, as they went from one place to another. It needn’t gush from the very same rock.

ii) Thiselton also cautions against selective use of Jewish tradition. Cf. The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 728.

[Art, quoting Enns]: “Although Jesus was ‘God with us,’ he still completely assumed the cultural trappings of the world in which he lived…So, too, the Bible. It belonged in the ancient worlds that produced it.”

http://aboulet.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/thirsty-jesus/

In the Incarnation, Jesus “completely” assumed the “cultural trappings” of the world in which he lived?

Well, now, let’s see. The cultural trappings of the 1C Roman Empire included sodomy, polygamy, polytheism, and infanticide,” among other things. So, according to Enns’ Christology, Jesus must have been a polygamous, infanticidal, polytheistic sodomite.

“But if you follow the logic of Enns’ critics to the end on these points, then this is what you are left with. You end up having to say that Jesus’ divinity, at every point, shapes his humanity. You end up with a Jesus who doesn’t hunger, doesn’t thirst, doesn’t get tired, and never used the restroom. You end up with a Jesus who isn’t really human and who really cannot relate to us as his creatures. You end up practicing a sort of ‘spiritual docetism’ that Enns warns us about (18). And Docetism is not good for Christology, nor for a Doctrine of Scripture.”

i) What we have here is a demagogical ploy. Because their position on Scripture is indefensible, Enns and his student groupies shift grounds from Bibliology to Christology. Yet that’s a tacit admission that their position on inerrancy is too vulnerable to defend on its own terms.

ii) Since the Bible never uses the Incarnation to model its inspiration, it’s unscriptural to impose this framework on the doctrine of Scripture. Enns is trying to win the debate by framing the issue to his advantage. I reject his frame of reference, which is just a diversionary tactic.

“There are tensions in the NT as well. The suicide of Judas (which was brought up on Green Baggins and, in my opinion, swept under the rug via an insufficient quotation from a commentary attempting to harmonize the two events).”

i) What does Art think is wrong with, say, Darrell Bock’s explanation in his new commentary on Acts (pp83-85)?

ii) Speaking for myself, my best guess is that dogs pulled his body down. Dogs were notorious scavengers. And one reason the Jews removed human corposes was to avoid desecration by scavengers. Conversely, exposing a corpse to scavengers was a way to shame the dead.

Michael Bird also chimes in with some accusatorial questions:

http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com/2008/04/biblical-criticism-and-confessionalism.html

For example:

“Why is Genesis 1-3 similar to the Enuma Elish?”

It isn’t.

“Did the Apostle Paul believe in the inerrancy of the autographa? Why are Paul's citation of Scripture often different from the wording and meaning in the original Hebrew Bible and even the Septuagint (to give one example: Isa. 59.20 cited in Rom. 11.26-27)?”

i) Because Rom 11:26-27 is a composite quote. See Schreiner’s commentary on Romans (p619). Also Seifrid’s explanation in a Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (p677).

ii) As for Pauline practice generally, Bird is simply begging the question with respect to Apostolic exegesis.