RESPONSE TO G. K. BEALE'S REVIEW ARTICLE OF INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2006 by Enns, Peter

A phrase Beale uses to capture this problem is "essential history." I certainly understand that Beale would have liked a positive articulation of the "essentially historical" nature of Genesis 1-11, but the problem readers of Scripture face, and that this section of the book is trying to address, is how the "essentially historical" nature of Genesis can so approximate other ancient texts, which neither Beale nor any other evangelical would likely call "essentially historical." True, as Beale affirms, the relationship between Genesis and its ANE analogs is highly polemical. I fully agree, but as I try to point out in the book, the polemic only works because of the shared worldview. And it is precisely here that the tensions begin to mount. Our recognition of the fact that Genesis shares the cosmology of its ancient analogs, even while it contests their theology, cannot help but affect how we think about the "essentially historical" nature of Genesis.

Evangelical biblical scholars are well aware of this, but we could do evangelical lay readers a great service by laying out more clearly the issues and their implications. By chiding me for not employing the familiar terminology of "essential history," Beale errs in thinking that such an affirmation is crucial to addressing the very difficult but real myth-history problem in Genesis. Rather, the phrase amounts to little more than a slogan that obscures the issue when further explanation is not given as to how, in what way, and to what extent Genesis is essentially historical. What, for example, is "essentially historical" about Genesis 1? Is it the bare affirmation that God did "something" in space/time history? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, is it the affirmation that Genesis 1 describes creation in literalistic terms (literal 24-hour days, canopy of water, etc.)? If the former, are the specific form and content of Genesis 1 just decorative flourishes (which leaves one wondering why God put them there in the first place)? If the latter, are we to say that Genesis 1 can be safely understood at arm's length from the ancient world in which the texts were intended-by God-to speak? What precisely about Genesis 1 needs to be affirmed as "accurate, true, real" (to use Beale's terms), and how does one even begin to make these judgments, given the antiquity and foreignness of Genesis vis-a-vis modern historical standards? These are the kinds of things that can and do trouble lay readers.14

Although for some readers an affirmation of essential historicity can have a calming influence, it would be at least as calming, if not more so, for many other readers to reassure them that they should expect Genesis to approximate its ANE analogs, rather than giving the impression, however unintentional, that the Bible and its environment need to be kept at some distance-which is not only counterproductive but also dishonoring of Scripture itself. The precise nature of the relationship between Genesis and ANE mythic texts is far from a settled issue, but, at least for the readers I target in this book, the proper starting point is to affirm the roots of the biblical creation account in its ANE setting.15