Honzo March 31st, 2008
I, like a lot of the Christian side of the blogosphere, have taken more than a fleeting interest in the Enns/Westminster controversy.
For a run down of what the hub-ub is all about, check out Kingdom People :: The Peter Enns Controversy:
- Enns has been criticized for emphasizing the human nature of Scripture over against the divine.
- Enns has written that the first chapters of Genesis are firmly grounded in ancient myth, which he defines as “an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins in the form of stories.”
- Enns claims that Scripture is inspired and inerrant, however the way he describes Scripture seems to counter that belief.
- Enns does not seek to harmonize seemingly-contradictory parts of Scripture because he believes the diversity of Scripture is complementary.
- Enns rejects the idea of objective unbiased historiography.
Here is an exchange between Paul Helm and Enns about Helm’s review of Enns’ book.
Here is an interesting (and instructive) review of Helm’s review by Cdero’s Weblog entitled Bible Monopoly. Here are the central tenets of Bible Monopoly:
* An unwillingness to deal with the plural complexity of interpretation
* A failure to wrestle with the difficult matters of Biblical scholarship
* A failure to see the provisional nature of scripture
* An obsession with turning honest interaction with extra Biblical data into an evil foe of orthodoxy
* A tendency to use past theologians (the one’s they agree with) as the standard of Biblical interpretation
To say on top of what people are saying about this situation, check out Google’s Blogsearch and Technorati’s watchlist.
Honzo January 30th, 2008
As I am wading through In Memory of Her I came across this quote from Fiorenza where she outlines what she considers to be the goals of good feminist scholarship. Given some of the issues that came up in another post, I thought this was appropriate.
The debate between feminist “engaged” and androcentric academic “neutral” scholarship indicates a shift in interpretative paradigms. Whereas traditional scholarship has identified humanness with maleness and understood women only as a peripheral category in the “human” interpretation of reality, the new field of women’s studies not only attempts to make “women’s” agency a key interpretative category but also seeks to transform androcentric scholarship and knowledge into truly human scholarship and knowledge, that is, inclusive of all people, men and women, upper and lower classes, aristocracy and “common people,” different cultures and races, the powerful and the weak.
Methods and implementation aside, the above is a worthy and necessary goal in biblical interpretation. Historically, scholars have viewed women as a variation of men, often as incomplete version of a man. Accordingly all scholarship and philosophical reflection is colored with this lens.
Honzo November 28th, 2007
Wayne Leman over at Complegalitarian looks at what Wayne Grudem said at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting last week.
Grudem on the State of the Gender Debate and the Way Forward
Grudem had this to say:
I am surprised that this controversy has gone on so long. In the late 80’s and early 90’s I expected that this would probably be over in 10 years by the force of argument, by the use of the facts, by careful exegesis, by the power of the clear Word of God, by the truth. I expected the entire church would be persuaded and that the battle for the purity of the church would be won. I still believe that will happen because Jesus Christ is building his church and purifying it so that he might present it to himself without spot or wrinkle. But, it is taking much longer than I expected.
Leman responded with:
The logical fallacy in Dr. Grudem’s statement, of course, is the assumption that his interpretation of the scriptures concerning the role of women in the home and church is the only possible biblical interpretation. He equates following his interpretation of the scriptures on gender issues with having a high view of scripture and its infallible truth.
A strong case could be made for the claim that the reason the gender debate is taking so long is that it truly is a matter of how Bible-believing Christians understand the scriptures about gender differently. It is not a matter of whether or not they believe the Bible and seek to have it transform our lives.
Some really good points are being brought up in the comments. I suggest heading over there and contributing to the discussion.