Dispelling the fog

Debates over the inerrancy of Scripture can be misleading. That's because inerrancy is an implication or effect (both, in fact) of something deeper: the inspiration of Scripture. We can lose sight of this by constantly casting the issue in terms of Biblical inerrancy. But the underlying issue is the inspiration of Scripture.

However, we also need to unpack that concept. Roger Olson recently expressed the alternative: "Yes, I believe the authors of the OT 'texts of terror' recorded correctly what the Hebrew people believed."

So this is what the issue boils down to: Is the Bible God's self-revelation to man, or is the Bible man's idea of God? 

Is the Bible a record of what some humans believe about God, or is the Bible a record of God actually telling us what to believe about himself?

When we read the Bible, is God speaking to us? Is this the voice of God? Or is this simply an objectification of human imagination? A self-projection of human ideas about God?

If the Bible is just a record of what ancient Jews and Christians thought God was like, rather than God's self-revelation, then why assume there even is a God? Why not consistently view religion as a psychological and sociological projection of human concepts and cultures? 

You can see this dawning on Peter Enns. He's increasingly clear on what he denies. What he's left behind. But once he repudiates the revelatory status of Scripture, he has no way forward. He's lost his bearings. You can watch him flailing about for something to give him direction. But there's no where to go, no middle ground; for once you repudiate the Bible as God's self-revelation to man, atheism is the logical alternative. Like all religions, the Bible depicts an imaginary God. Ancient Jews and Christians externalized their subjective notions of God. Just like Homer, or the Vedic sages. 

Now, in affirming the inspiration of Scripture, we don't deny that God often speaks to humans by speaking through humans. However, OT prophets typically quote God. They speak when spoken to. God tells them what to say. A prophet is a mouthpiece. That's the prophetic model. 

To be sure, there are more oblique ways in which God can express himself. You have narrative theology, where the narrator uses a protagonist to give voice to his own outlook. He can also recruit an antagonist as a foil. And the viewpoint of the narrator mirrors the divine viewpoint. 

But that won't salvage the position of people like Olson, Enns, or Rauser, for the narrator's viewpoint is often what they find most troublesome. They reject the narrator's viewpoint.