Inspiration and Incarnation

[arapahoepark]

Hey!
I was wondering you all are familiar with Pete Enns? He was fired, reluctantly, from Westminster Theological Seminary after a book called Inspiration and Incarnation where he pretty much bashes the inerrancy of the Bible. It's so sad to have a professor who supposedly 'belongs to the church' to be leading people astray going with so a so called 'scholarly' approach in a church institution.
Now he works for Biologos, an extreme leftist/liberal Christianity Blog endorsing evolution and everything else to make the Bible smaller. I used to believe in evolution, and thought I could be a christian (You can I am not saying you can't)after reading The Language of God and taking AP Biology junior year of high school. I had an epiphany, presumably from God, that Jesus would have died in vain, since our own stupid mistakes cause death. I have also seen so much design it's unbelievable and we haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg!
Nevertheless, when I was on Biologos I read through blogs concerning this, and it was....faith shaking to say the least. I also saw a video posted from a fired seminary professor about how pastors shouldn't teach on Genesis since there are 'educated people' who go to church. So ever since I have strengthened my faith and not visited the website.
Here is Wayne Grudem's rebuttal to this book (as he is an alumni from WTS):
Wayne Grudem’s 2008 Letter Regarding Pete Enns « Green Baggins

After reading this it was comforting; and it gives some insight on what Enns said in the book.

Anyway, I bring this up because I believe that the biggest threat to the church from the world, that is now penetrating the church is the eroding of the authority of Scripture, not mention the inerrancy. I would like to hear your comments on this.
I hope and pray that people are not sucked into such worldly views just to gain status or glory.
God Bless!

[Meg]

The first warning is this business of using multiple translations to develop his ideas. Seems to me if a sound translation doesn't suit his agenda, he goes looking for a wording style that does. That is a sure sign of a badly composed argument. The second warning is he's bashing the Old Testament against Middle Eastern Mythologies. That is also incredibly weak, as there simply is almost no basis for comparison. I studied mythologies of many cultures for over ten years intensively, along with more casual exposure for most of my life. Having read the bible in depth as well, there is simply no basis for comparing the Bible to any mythology, particularly Middle Eastern. The comparative value is so slight, that being the Genesis Flood account pretty much exclusively, otherwise, the Bible cannot be compared to the rest of ME mythology, because the differences are too extreme. The majority of the OT is more of a sort of historical account than a mythological one. A quick glimpse of the Wikipedia site covering Mesopotamian mythology will suffice to explain the striking difference

Mesopotamian mythology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is this odd type of people who study Christianity in college as a religion devoid of any genuine truth. They seem to utterly lack any ability to believe God is real and alive, then spend the remainder of their careers trying to convince other people of the same. Why they bother to study what they don't seem to believe in let alone respect or value remains a mystery to me. People like that are best ignored. Our time in this life is valuable, and better spent deepening and refining our faith in the Living God, Jesus Christ. He is very much alive, Arapahoepark, and well worth the effort to understand and get to know. The greatest truths and value of Scripture are the testimonies of the men and women who discovered that fact for themselves, searched for Him, found Him, and spent their lives trying to make sense of all that. Some did really well, others completely blew it, but everyone spoken of in Scripture, one way or another, proved through their life stories that the Lord is very much real.

Now maybe Mattfivefour will come along and address this issue way better than I just did...

[Robert]

The first warning is this business of using multiple translations to develop his ideas. Seems to me if a sound translation doesn't suit his agenda, he goes looking for a wording style that does. That is a sure sign of a badly composed argument. The second warning is he's bashing the Old Testament against Middle Eastern Mythologies. That is also incredibly weak, as there simply is almost no basis for comparison. I studied mythologies of many cultures for over ten years intensively, along with more casual exposure for most of my life. Having read the bible in depth as well, there is simply no basis for comparing the Bible to any mythology, particularly Middle Eastern. The comparative value is so slight, that being the Genesis Flood account pretty much exclusively, otherwise, the Bible cannot be compared to the rest of ME mythology, because the differences are too extreme. The majority of the OT is more of a sort of historical account than a mythological one. A quick glimpse of the Wikipedia site covering Mesopotamian mythology will suffice to explain the striking difference

Mesopotamian mythology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is this odd type of people who study Christianity in college as a religion devoid of any genuine truth. They seem to utterly lack any ability to believe God is real and alive, then spend the remainder of their careers trying to convince other people of the same. Why they bother to study what they don't seem to believe in let alone respect or value remains a mystery to me. People like that are best ignored. Our time in this life is valuable, and better spent deepening and refining our faith in the Living God, Jesus Christ. He is very much alive, Arapahoepark, and well worth the effort to understand and get to know. The greatest truths and value of Scripture are the testimonies of the men and women who discovered that fact for themselves, searched for Him, found Him, and spent their lives trying to make sense of all that. Some did really well, others completely blew it, but everyone spoken of in Scripture, one way or another, proved through their life stories that the Lord is very much real.

Now maybe Mattfivefour will come along and address this issue way better than I just did...

I agree with Meg on all counts here, and want to posit a few of my own point:

One big difference between the Bible and the Mesopotamian myths is that the Bible has backing in archaeology. That backing is NOT that the myths were told, as would be the case with the ME myths, but that the events described in scripture DID HAPPEN as recorded. The evidence at many different sites confirms this fact.

As for the skeptics who study Christianity in order to destroy it, they do not deal with scripture with an even hand, as so to speak. With other ancient writings, the number of manuscripts, and amount of time between the originals and the copies, and external evidence that corroborates the writings are taken into account. But with scripture, even though there are numerous manuscripts (more so than other ancient writings), the amount of time between the original events and the writing of the manuscripts is minuscule in comparison to other writings (within several years rather than hundreds or even thousands of years as in other cases), and archaeological evidence as well as other secular sources confirm it's veracity, the skeptics maintain that scripture is still "a bunch of unsupported myths".

In short: t isn't evidence that is the problem. These folk have simply chosen not to believe and will disregard any evidence to the contrary, no matter what it is. They don't want to accept any evidence, because it then puts the onus on them. The scriptures are then no longer subject tot hem, but vice versa, and they don't like a LOT of what it says, which would apply to them in FULL FORCE.

[mattfivefour]

Satan's VERY FIRST attack in the history of man was against God's Word— "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?'" (Genesis 3:1)

He has not changed. His only two attacks against God and against Christians function along the same two lines: 1) God is a liar; 2) God is not good but selfish, and does not want what is best for man (Genesis 3:4) The truth, of course, is that it is Satan who is the liar and Satan who does not want the best for man.

So your observation that in these last days Satan is stepping up his attacks on the Word of God, is right on the money, arapahoe!

[arapahoepark]

I found this: I hope it helps. I really want to admonish people who are just like the church of Laodicea, one foot in the world and the other in the church. Accepting man's fallible attempts at everything and making smaller God.
Biologos evolutionary syncretism