updating Jesus as times change: hey, it’s in the Bible

Last updated on: October 1, 2013 at 9:29 pm By Peter Enns

The idea that God was “updated” is not restricted to the OT, a topic we’ve looked at in several recent posts, focusing on the work of Mark S. Smith (begin here with several follow up posts). Smith’s work suggests that post-exilic priest-scribes revised and edited older traditions in order to contemporize God as new circumstances and challenges arose. In this post, we’ll look briefly at the work of NT scholar James D. G. Dunn and his identification of a large swath of gospel material as giving... Read more

Raymond B. Dillard, 1944-1993: A Brief Remembrance

Last updated on: October 1, 2013 at 7:56 am By Peter Enns

20 years ago tomorrow I was on my way out the door to go apple picking with my family on a New England fall day. As I was walking out the door, the phone rang. My friend and former seminary professor, Al Groves, was calling to tell me that Ray Dillard, professor of Old Testament, had died suddenly the day before of a heart attack while deer hunting. He had had a history of heart problems and he succumbed that... Read more

Did biblical writers understand their past? (Mark Smith part 2)

Last updated on: September 27, 2013 at 8:03 am By Peter Enns

Today’s post is based on another idea I found interesting in Mark S. Smith’s article “God in Israel’s Bible: Divinity between the World and Israel, between the Old and the New.” The meat of it gives an overview of the evidence for the “early history” of Israel’s God Yahweh according to the biblical and extrabiblical evidence. The article is published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly (issue 74, 2012). My first post on this article is here. ****************** Like most (all?) biblical scholars, Smith considers Judges 5 and... Read more

Rob Bell, Oprah, and N. T. Wright. Yeah, you heard me.

Last updated on: September 25, 2013 at 10:27 pm By Peter Enns

Just yesterday on The Revangelical Blog, Brandan Robertson posted on Rob Bell teaming up with Oprah. Apparently, she sees Bell as a spiritual mentor of sorts along with a number of others that strike a nerve with her. Predictably, the internet equivalent of a switchboard is lighting up like the bombing of Dunkirk–and if I had more energy right now, I’d think of a better mixed similie. I still, for the life of me, cannot understand why Bell attracts so much... Read more

Is God restricted by what the Bible says?

Last updated on: September 23, 2013 at 9:51 pm By Peter Enns

Today we feature another guest post by Carlos Bovell, a third in what we might begin calling a series on Yahweh’s “evolving” character in the Old Testament (see here and here, and his earlier posts on Scripture here). His most recent book is Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear (2012). (Click here for complete book list.) Kent Sparks’s God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship is classified by Robert Yarbrough as a “shift story” (in his contribution to... Read more

Jesus wants you to take historical criticism seriously (or something like that; just read the post)

Last updated on: September 23, 2013 at 6:58 am By Peter Enns

In August 2011, Mark S. Smith (Skirball Profesor of Bible and Near Eastern Studies at New York University) delivered his presidential address at the Catholic Biblical Association of America meeting, which was published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly the next year (issue 74, 2012). The address is entitled “God in Israel’s Bible: Divinity between the World and Israel, between the Old and the New.” The meat of it gives an overview of the evidence for the “early history” of Israel’s God Yahweh... Read more

defending a literal reading of Genesis: an elderly pastor’s hill to die on

Last updated on: September 20, 2013 at 12:56 pm By Peter Enns

I recently stumbled upon a lengthy, passionate defense of a literal reading of the biblical creation story. This was posted by G. I. Williamson, a name likely not known outside of very conservative Presbyterian and Reformed circles, but within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church he is a revered and authoritative voice. I am not posting this to pick holes in his arguments or to ridicule his views. I want to make a few observations on what lies below the surface of Williamson’s... Read more

More on updating Yahweh: a possible way forward (Carlos Bovell part 2)

Last updated on: September 17, 2013 at 8:53 pm By Peter Enns

Today’s post is the second of two by Carlos Bovell (see first post and bio here) on how Israel’s understanding of God developed over time and what this says about God and how God speaks. In yesterday’s post, I made reference to Mark Smith’s book God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World to help describe briefly what might be called the “mainstream view” regarding the development of monotheism in Israel. The mainstream view holds that key parts of... Read more

Did ancient scribes update Yahweh? Probably. (and that’s OK)

Last updated on: September 17, 2013 at 8:35 pm By Peter Enns

Today’s guest blogger is Carlos Bovell, whom many of you know from some previous posts here. Carlos is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and The Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. He is also the author of Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals (2007), By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblical Foundationalism (2009), an edited volume, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture (2011), and Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear. In a recent post reflecting on Mark Smith’s book, The Early History... Read more

So, you want to publish a book, huh?

Last updated on: September 16, 2013 at 8:27 am By Peter Enns

Taking a small break this morning from my usual blah blah blahing about the Bible and such, this post about the present (and future) of book publishing might be of interest to you. This post appeared on the Creative Trust Literary Group website a few months ago, which is the agency I signed on with last year to help me in my quest to dominate the universe with my thoughts on God, Jesus, and the Bible. They suggested I dial down... Read more