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MYTH, HISTORY, AND INSPIRATION: A REVIEW ARTICLE OF INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION BY PETER ENNS

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2006 by Beale, G K

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Therefore, he is espousing that early parts of the OT held to henotheism (belief in one god without asserting that this god is the only god). Is this a necessary deduction from the evidence that he has presented? There are other viable interpretative options for understanding the biblical view of these other gods. Some scholars see that there are real spiritual realities behind pagan idols but that they are not divine realities but demonic (e.g. the view is testified to early on in the OT that demons were behind idols: Lev 17:7 [on which see BDB 972]; Deut 32:17). Others would understand that though the OT writers refer to "gods" (sometimes using the very word Klohlm in Hebrew), they are not divine realities at all but a lie or deception.10 Both these alternatives have just as much "punch," indeed, probably more "punch," than making the assumption that these "gods" are really divine realities.

More Articles of Interest: RESPONSE TO G. K. BEALE'S REVIEW ARTICLE OF INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION; THREE MORE BOOKS ON THE BIBLE: A CRITICAL REVIEW*; EVANGELICAL VIEWS ON ILLUMINATION OF SCRIPTURE AND CRITIQUE; GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BART: A REVIEW ARTICLE OF MISQUOTING JESUS BY BART...; Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus

In fact, early on in Israel's history, there are clear statements against the existence of any other gods besides the God of Israel: in the directly following context after the statement in Deut 4:28 that Israel "will serve gods, the work of men's hands," twice God is said to be the only truly existing God (Deut 4:39, "the Lord, he is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other"; Deut 4:35, "He is God; there is no other besides him").11 This Deuteronomistic affirmation is developed later in the OT (2 Kgs 19:18; Jer 2:11; 5:7). Hence, when Moses calls God "the God of gods" in Deut 10:17 he is not assenting to the existence of other deities, but affirming "Yahweh's supremacy over all spiritual and heavenly powers."12 In this light, there is no need to compare God's relationship with early Israelites to parents who allow their children to believe in the boogey man.

However one evaluates Enns's positive approach to "myth," what should be kept separate is the notion of "history" and "scientific precision." Recall that he acknowledges elsewhere in the book that modern views of history are very comparable to the historical consciousness of Israel's scriptural historians beginning around the tenth century BC. Thus, his apparent equation of a modern historiography and modern science in the preceding quotation should be qualified: could there not be "history" as we understand it in the OT, including Genesis, but not an expectation that these same writers would intend to write with scientific precision? I think the answer is that OT writers record history as we would understand it as "events that happened," and which correspond to past reality, but they do not attempt to record in some sort of strict chronological fashion or with so-called modern "scientific precision" (which, of course, are kinds of accepted history writing done even in modern times). To say that ancient people could not narrate history in a way that sufficiently represented actual events of the past because they were not modern historians is a false dichotomy.

I want to repeat and underscore that Enns himself states that beginning with the tenth century BC history "is recorded with a degree of accuracy more in keeping with contemporary standards" (p. 43). If so, why could not earlier writers have written with the same historical awareness? What is particularly troubling about Enns's view is that he does not include "essential historicity" in his definition of the kind of "myth" contained in the OT (see the above quotations in this respect, e.g., p. 44) in distinction to ANE myth, which is how he categorizes the creation and Flood accounts in Genesis (and also possibly the narratives about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the event of the Exodus, since they are also pre-monarchic, recalling that all pre-monarchic historical narratives, for Enns, face the problem of "essential historicity" in contrast to monarchic history writing; does he see a historical core to such narratives, and if so, how much or how little?).13

MYTH, HISTORY, AND INSPIRATION: A REVIEW ARTICLE OF INSPIRATION AND INCARNATION BY PETER ENNS

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2006 by Beale, G K

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