Praise for "Inspiration and Incarnation"

Now Featured in the Patheos Book Club
Inspiration and Incarnation, Second Edition
Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament
By Peter Enns

"Peter Enns has done the evangelical church an immense service by challenging preconceived notions of what the Bible ought to be by insisting on building his high view of Scripture on what God intended Scripture to be. When the first edition appeared, it started important and healthy conversations about the Bible in spite of efforts to dismiss or marginalize Enns's viewpoint. One does not have to agree with all his conclusions to understand why this book has helped and will continue to help many people to embrace Scripture as God's Word to us. Everyone who loves the Bible ought to read this important book."

Tremper Longman III, Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, Westmont College

"The first edition of Peter Enns's Inspiration and Incarnation has been a superb resource for helping students of the Bible take the human dimension of this ancient text seriously. Enns's discussion of the Bible's ancient cultural context not only is illuminating but also can deepen the reader's faith in the God revealed in the nitty-gritty of history. This second edition, with its profound concluding reflections on the nature of Scripture after ten years of responses to the first edition, promises to be even more effective in helping students of the Bible appreciate more fully the inscripturated Word made flesh."

Richard Middleton, professor of biblical worldview and exegesis, Northeastern Seminary, Roberts Wesleyan College

"I have used this book to great effect in the classroom. Divinity students welcome Enns's invitation to think theologically about history--how the historical 'problems' of the Bible may in fact be a crucial aspect of its theological witness. Of course, the incarnational analogy can be pressed too far, and there are other models on offer. But Enns's model is traditional, illuminating, hospitable to other models, and urgently needed by Christians still caught in late modern debates about inerrancy, inspiration, and revelation. This book continues to strike a chord that resonates."

Stephen B. Chapman, associate professor of Old Testament, Duke University

"Inspiration and Incarnation was a watershed in evangelical hermeneutics. Written primarily for lay readers and seminarians, it served as a release valve for some and a source of consternation for others. The controversy was to be expected. Enns's argument--that, however highly evangelicals may laud the Scriptures, an honest and serious approach to the text cannot ignore the findings of critical scholarship or the reality of Scripture itself--was as correct as it was forceful. This second edition is warmly welcomed. In a new postscript, he addresses his motivations for writing the book and addresses his critics. Throughout, Enns writes with the insight of an accomplished scholar, the wit of a skilled teacher, and the heart of a concerned pastor."

Chris Keith, professor of New Testament and early Christianity, director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible, St. Mary's University, Twickenham

"Some of those most dedicated to biblical studies unfortunately begin from inadequate theological presuppositions. If everyone who identifies as a conservative evangelical would read and absorb this book, the field would be better for it--and so might the church and the world."

Christopher B. Hays, D. Wilson Moore Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Peter Enns is to be applauded for the second edition of this important and insightful book. The questions he raised a decade ago continue to demand our careful attention today. In Inspiration and Incarnation, Enns challenges evangelicals (and others) to rethink traditional views of Scripture by considering the implications of the Old Testament's theological diversity, the New Testament's reuse of the Old, and the Bible's similarities with other ancient Near Eastern texts. Enns is a skilled and gracious guide through this difficult terrain, and readers benefit enormously from his expertise. Highly recommended for biblical scholars and general readers alike!"

Eric Seibert, professor of Old Testament, Messiah College

"Peter Enns is a leading voice in a new generation of evangelicalism. Inspiration and Incarnation has already helped guide many both to accept the unexpected content of Bible and to begin to wrestle with what it means to call this surprising set of texts the word of God. Deploying a time-honored incarnational analogy, Enns offers a model for understanding scripture that invites serious consideration of ways in which the divine word is at the same time fully human. While exploring aspects of the Old Testament that many find unsettling at first, Inspiration and Incarnation offers us the good news that God is not limited by our expectations but can and does speak through the Bible we actually have."