Inspiration and Incarnation - Paperback

by Peter Enns (Author)

How can an evangelical view of Scripture be reconciled with modern biblical scholarship? In this book Peter Enns, an expert in biblical interpretation, addresses Old Testament phenomena that challenge traditional evangelical perspectives on Scripture. He then suggests a way forward, proposing an incarnational model of biblical inspiration that takes seriously both the divine and the human aspects of Scripture. This tenth anniversary edition has an updated bibliography and includes a substantive postscript that reflects on the reception of the first edition.

Back Jacket

Inspiration and Incarnation addresses Old Testament phenomena that challenge traditional evangelical perspectives on Scripture and suggests a way forward. This tenth anniversary edition includes a substantive postscript that reflects on the reception of the first edition.

"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, 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. 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, 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, Duke University

"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, Fuller Theological Seminary

Author Biography

Peter Enns (PhD, Harvard University) is the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He has authored or edited numerous books, including The Bible Tells Me So and The Evolution of Adam.