A New Lens on the Bible

It has been a month since I have posted a blog, in large part due to the fact that I'm experiencing the effects of a severe back injure. With the pain, the medication, the immobility and disfunction that I'm experiencing it has been really hard to focus and produce many coherent thoughts. However, I'm have a day or two of some relief and I just had to pass on to you the link for a brief video by one of my favourite Old Testament/Hebrew Bible scholars, Peter Enns.

What Peter Enns and Adrienne Brenner have put into words is one of the best summaries yet brief explanations of the "new lens" through which I have been seeing the Bible over the last 15 years, but that has truly sharpened my focus in the last 5 years. 

If you watch the video (less than 15 minutes) and read the brief commentary in this post, you may not agree, but you'll have a better grasp on what is a growing scholarly (and popular) perspective regarding the nature of the Bible and thus how we should read/study it. For this practical realist, Enns and Brenner have concisely put into words, the lens through which I have been reading/studying all things biblical. 

Here is the link to the video:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/looking-at-bible-22901776?utm_medium=post_notification_email&utm_source=post_link&utm_campaign=patron_engagement&token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWRpc19rZXkiOiJpbnN0YW50LWFjY2VzczplZGMxMzA2Yi1mZDY1LTQ1OTEtYjQzMi05ZWRjNGM4MmQ3NzMifQ.3XPKMCpbidFrUBjed2RQIFjL1HPxlFNx13h8o8tsgr8

Here are the points that Adrienne Brenner made to Peter Enns: 

1. Sometimes we’re only taking the Bible seriously when we’re not taking it literally. 
2. It is a human book, and the stories reflect people’s understandings of God in their time and culture.
3. Biblical scholarship, archeology, and the study of ancient cultures can help illuminate the historical and cultural context for Scripture. It can also help us understand how, when, and by whom different books of the Bible were written.
4. The Bible isn’t inerrant. It contains contradictions, and that’s okay. The Bible represents the diverse perspectives of its authors over centuries.
5. The Bible must be interpreted, and there isn’t one “true” way to read it. Jewish and Christian traditions have a long history of diverse interpretations that we can learn from.

Here is the comment that I posted after watching the video:

"After 25 years of defending the "inerrancy" of the Bible, two of the points you make in this video served primarily as my "ah-ha moments" and created a new lens through which I now see the Bible. First was "the developmental nature of the OT," how it grew over time via redaction until it reached its "final forms" during the post-exilic period. Second was acceptance of the humanness of the biblical text as an expression of the Israelites' changing and "growing" understanding of who God is and how he works in human affairs. Thanks to you and others like yourself,  my new lens has brought so much joy and freedom and anticipation to my ongoing study of these incredible texts."

Here are some books that have helped reform and reshape the lens through which I see the Bible: 

• Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns
• The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
• God's Word in Human Words by Kenton Sparks
• Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliot Friedman
• How the Bible Became a Book by William Schniedewind