| Bible Research > Interpretation > inspiration > Peter Enns |
In the past thirty years or so, various "evangelical" scholars and institutions have been moving away from traditional Christian doctrines concerning the nature of Scripture, and adopting views which are not essentially different from those espoused by liberal churchmen of the late nineteenth century. One of the institutions where this leftward drift has been happening is Westminster Seminary at Philadelphia. Recently, however, the advance of liberalism there hit an obstacle after one of its faculty, Peter Enns, published a particularly offensive book, entitled Inspiration and Incarnation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005). This book presented a view of "inspiration" which was intolerable to most members of the conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches served by Westminster Seminary, and to the few professors at Westminster who have continued to teach the old views of scripture set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith. The result was the suspension of Enns from his teaching duties at the seminary, amid much controversy.
In his book, Enns did not present anything substantially new, beyond what he had picked up from liberal books and from what he had maintained previously in journal articles and in his lectures to students at the seminary. The substance of it was, that in his opinon the traditional doctrine of inspiration is clearly wrong, because modern critical study has established beyond all reasonable doubt that the Bible contains mythological and legendary material borrowed from various Ancient Near Eastern traditions, that it is composed of parts which contradict one another in many ways, that the New Testament interpretations of the Old Testament are invalid and misleading, and so forth. These views he put forth in somewhat guarded language—e.g. using the words "tensions" and "diversity" when he meant "contradictions"—but the ideological tendency of his argument was unmistakably liberal, and he did not refrain from insinuating that those who hold to the old orthodox teachings about verbal and plenary inspiration were intellectually incompetent and dishonest.
Most of the professors at Westminster found nothing objectionable in all this, and tried to protect Enns from the criticism that he provoked. We will pass over their arguments in silence. But we reproduce here two reports authored by the conservative members of the Westminster faculty, in which they explain why Enns' views are in conflict with biblical and historic Christian teachings on the nature of Scripture. They are:
"Inspiration and Incarnation:" A Response, by members of Westminster Seminary's Historical and Theological Field Committee.
The Minority Report of Eight Faculty Members of Westminster Seminary