The Inspiration And Interpretation Of God’s Word, With Special Reference To Peter Enns (Part II): The Interpretation Of Representative Passages

By James W. Scott

[James W. Scott is Managing Editor of New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Publications Coordinator for the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC.]

In Part I, we argued that the doctrine of inspiration has important implications for the proper interpretation of Scripture, especially providing guidance as we seek to understand passages that seemingly make erroneous statements or contradict other passages. We maintained, over against the views of Peter Enns, that if Scripture is truly the written word of God, then it rises above the personalities of those who wrote it and above the cultures in which it was written, reflecting the omniscience, truthfulness, and immutability of God himself. The entire text of Scripture, then, originated in the mind of God, not in human thought, and was written by men under the direct and immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit. We recognized that God communicates in a manner that is appropriate to the language, capabilities, and circumstances of his spokesmen and his intended audience, but we insisted that he does so in accordance with his nature and thus without compromising the truth and consistency of his word.

Thus, if any interpretation of any passage of Scripture is inconsistent with its being infallible and inerrant, according to God’s perfect standard of truth, then that interpretation must be rejected as contrary to the nature of Scripture. Since God is the Author of Scripture, his understanding of the sacred text is the original meaning of it, and that meaning may not have been fully understood by the human writer or his immediate audience. The divine meaning of Scripture is determined by the language of the text itself, with all of its assumptions and implications, as understood in its full context, which is the mind of God as it comes to expression in the totality of Scripture (and general revelation)—not by some calculation of what the human author (or his audience), within the supposed confines of his culture, probably thought it meant.

We will now illustrate our theoretical discussion with concrete examples from Scripture. These passages have been put forward by Peter Enns in support of his view of a thoroughly enculturated Scripture, and they include the passages upon which he has focused the most attention. We want to show that his interpretations are mistaken and that these passages can be persuasively interpreted in accordance with the biblical view of Scripture as the inspired and inerrant word of God.[1]

I. The Truth Of Scripture: The “Firmament” Of Genesis 1

It is no secret that there are statements in the Bible that appear to be contradicted by the findings of modern scientists and historians. In view of this situation, many have felt constrained to deny the divine origin and infallibility of Scripture, or at least to limit the scope of its infallibility so as to allow for factual errors. But if Scripture—the entire text of Scripture, not merely some “teaching” abstracted from that text—is the trustworthy word of the omniscient God, then its every assertion must be true. What could have been known by men (apart from revelation) or what was commonly believed in antiquity is irrelevant, for God knew everything when he caused the Scriptures to be written—much more than all modern scholars put together. So if Scripture is truly God’s very word, then it follows that apparent errors in it are not real errors.

The factual truth of Scripture, then, ought to be a fundamental hermeneutical principle. Any interpretation that implies any error in Scripture must be wrong. To be sure, this will strike many as mindless dogmatism. Even many conservative Bible scholars chafe at the suggestion that theologians, waving some long-outdated confessional statement, should prescribe boundaries for their thinking or stand in judgment of their work. These scholars want to believe that, after many years of perfecting their craft, they are quite capable of determining what a text says and whether (or in what respect) it is true or false. Such an attitude, however, manifests a basic doubt that Scripture is the word of God, if not an outright denial that it is. Those who genuinely believe that Scripture is the word of God will not be persuaded by any interpretation of it that finds an error in it. From the point of view of unbelief, or at least of methodological doubt, belief is an unscholarly presumption, but from the point of view of Christian faith, unbelief and doubt lack proper guidance and insight to understand the Bible properly. Each student of the Bible must determine where he or she stands. There is no middle ground.

As we noted in Part I, section 3, Enns denies that Scripture is objectively true when he asserts that Genesis “portrays the world as a flat disk with a dome above.”[2] He does not attempt to substantiate that assertion; nonetheless, we would like to consider the “dome” in this fanciful cosmology. Anyone who looks at the sky, with a clear view, will see that it does indeed seem to have a hemispherical shape, extending from horizon to horizon in all directions. We know today that an atmosphere surrounds our globe, creating the appearance of a dome, but it was evidently widely believed in the ancient world (with the exception of certain Chinese, at least) that a solid dome was up there, to which the heavenly bodies were attached.[3] So when Gen 1 tells us that God created an “expanse” (רקיע) (KJV, RSV: “firmament”; NRSV: “dome”), which he called “Heaven” (vv. 6-8), and “in” which he “set” various lights (the sun, the moon, and the stars) (vv. 14-19),[4] is God simply adopting the erroneous ancient view of the cosmos? Enns says yes. He no doubt would agree with this statement by Paul H. Seely:

Considering that the Hebrews were a scientifically naive people who would accordingly believe the raqiaʿ was solid, that both their Babylonian and their Egyptian background would influence them to believe the raqiaʿ was solid, and that they naturally accepted the concepts of the peoples around them so long as they were not theologically offensive, I believe we have every reason to think that both the writer and original readers of Genesis 1 believed the raqiaʿ was solid. The historical meaning of raqiaʿ in Gen 1:6-8 is, accordingly, “a solid sky.”[5]

There is, of course, no such solid object up there, and thus Enns finds it incredible that anyone would expect him, on the basis of Gen 1 and biblical inerrancy, to accept that there is “a raqia in the sky.”[6]

Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the writer of Genesis (whom we will identify as Moses) and the original readers and hearers of Genesis believed that the firmament was indeed firm (although we would not rule out the possibility of revelational correction as readily as Seely seems to do). However, Seely’s inference that “the historical meaning of raqiaʿ in Gen 1:6-8 is, accordingly, ‘a solid sky”‘ does not follow. First of all, רקיע in Gen 1 is simply the label for a particular celestial entity, implying nothing about its solidity. The word’s etymological associations and the characteristics attributed to its referent in antiquity are not part of the meaning of the word in the actual usage of Gen 1, any more than a reference to “the planet Mars” in a modern astronomy textbook implies adherence to Ptolemaic cosmology (with “wandering” planets among the fixed stars) or Roman mythology (with the god Mars).[7] The use of the word רקיע by God in Scripture, just like his use of any word in Scripture, does not carry with it the mistaken ideas that ancient people may have held about its referent.

Furthermore, if Genesis is the word of the omniscient and truthful God, and only secondarily and derivatively communication from Moses, then the statements in Genesis about the רקיע must be interpreted as God understood them, not necessarily as Moses or his original readers may have understood them. Their human understanding (which cannot be determined nearly as easily as is often assumed) would give us the approximate meaning of the text, but the understanding of God supplies its full, correct meaning. Since God knew that the firmament was not solid, he would not have said or implied that it was, and therefore he did not inspire Moses to write רקיע with the meaning “a solid sky” or “dome,” but rather “expanse” or the like. Seely calls such interpretation “taking Genesis 1 out of its historical context,”[8] but we call it understanding Gen 1 in accordance with the conceptual framework of its divine author. (But speaking of the historical context, while the ancients did see a dome above them, there is no indication that רקיע or its related words ever conveyed the idea of a hemispherical shape.)

Finally, we are not convinced that רקיע did in fact have the connotation of solidity in general usage. The word group based on the root רקע may have had the original literal sense of beating or hammering (especially of metal) to produce a flat or thin object, but the related words develop this idea in various ways, some focusing on the act of stamping, some on the idea of flatness, and some on the spreading out that results. Thus, the related verb means “spread out” in Isa 42:5; 44:24; Ps 136:6 (in each case referring to the forming of the land in creation). Significantly, those two verses in Isaiah refer first to the “stretching out” of the heavens and then to the “spreading out” of the earth, using synonymous verbs (without any notion of hammering).[9] So the heavens are pictured in Scripture as stretched or spread out, much like a tent would be. The use of the word רקיע in Gen 1, then, probably suggested nothing more than something that was spread out, such as an “expanse,” but not a gigantic piece of hammered metal.

The רקיע in Gen 1 is equated with the רקיע in Ezek 1:22-26 by Seely (and various other commentators). He argues that since it is solid in Ezekiel (evidently supporting the throne of God, v. 26), it must be solid in Genesis.[10] However, Ezekiel places it “over the heads of the [four] living creatures” (v. 22; see also 10:1), and there is no suggestion that it extends for vast distances in all directions, let alone in a hemispherical shape. Furthermore, the noun is indefinite in Ezek 1:22, unlike Gen 1:7-8, 14-17, and so cannot be “the firmament” of heaven, but rather must be a generic object. Ezekiel’s vision is not without its obscurities, but the picture arguably is of the throne of God on a crystalline platform that is transported by four winged creatures and their wheels. In any case, Zimmerli translates רקיע in Ezek 1:22 as “a fixed platform,” which he distinguishes from the word’s designation of “the vault of heaven” elsewhere in the OT.[11] Block agrees, commenting that “the possible analogue” in Exod 24:10 suggests “a platform, rather than a firmament.”[12] Seely argues in favor of his view that seven other OT passages likewise picture the throne of God “above the firmament of heaven,”[13] but this is a misleading characterization, for each passage places the throne of God in heaven, but does not even mention the firmament. Ezekiel, then, provides no support for Seely’s interpretation of the רקיע in Gen 1.

We do not want to get too deeply into the exegesis of Gen 1 here, but since we mentioned “lights” being put “in” the expanse (vv. 14-19), which might seem to reflect the erroneous cosmology of antiquity,[14] we should note that what we actually see in the sky is light from the heavenly bodies as it goes through and is affected by the atmosphere (giving us a red sun on the horizon, twinkling stars in a spherical array, etc.). The Genesis description is entirely phenomenological (i.e., what is observed by the unaided eye from earth), despite Seely’s denial,[15] and it is consistent with the heavenly bodies themselves either being formed at that time along with their light or having been created previously and only on “the fourth day” beginning to serve as discrete “lights” due to an unspecified change in conditions. And before anyone objects that Moses could not have known about atmospheric interference, we point out again that God knew about it and inspired his word accordingly (providing revelation as appropriate), even if Moses was under the mistaken impression that he was writing about objects being fashioned and attached to a solid dome.

Sometimes God refers to things about which people have significant misconceptions. This may be one such instance. The writer and initial audience of Genesis knew the object to which רקיע refers, and could see it in the sky, but their beliefs concerning its composition, solidity, dimensions, and other characteristics probably bore little resemblance to God’s knowledge of them. But God is not obliged to remove our misconceptions about everything to which he refers when he speaks to us. No doubt we have at least slight misconceptions about everything to which he refers in his word, but that does not make his word any less infallible and inerrant. Our goal is to understand God’s word as he understands it, not merely as the biblical writers may have understood it.

Seely argues that God has “accommodated” his message in Genesis to (i.e., expressed it in terms of ) the erroneous cosmology of antiquity, including the idea that a solid dome sits above the flat earth. Although Seely attempts to enlist Calvin in support of his expansive theory of accommodation (see Part I, section 5), Calvin describes the firmament of Gen 1:6 as an “expanse,” not a solid dome, and adds that “nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world,” for the benefit of “the rude and unlearned”—that is, phenomenologically.[16] He comments on v. 15 that the heavenly objects are described, not “philosophically” (i.e., scientifically), but according to “how much light comes to us from them.”[17] Similarly, he comments on v. 16, knowing that Saturn is actually larger than the moon, that “Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand”; that is, he described the heavenly bodies as they “lie open before our eyes” in the sky, not as astronomers are able to determine their characteristics.[18] In other words, the objects in the heavens are described according to their natural appearance from our perspective. There is nothing erroneous or misleading about that, for appearance is one aspect of reality.

Seely tries to enlist the support of E. J. Young for his interpretation of the firmament in Genesis.[19] Seely refers to a footnote in which Young presents pertinent philological information, defining רקיע as “that which is hammered, beaten out,” mentioning a Phoenician cognate meaning “plating,” and noting the “satisfactory renderings” of the Septuagint and the Vulgate (which suggest solidity).[20] This information, by itself, might seem to suggest that Young understood the רקיע of Gen 1 to be solid, and Seely does not hesitate to laud Young as the only conservative who would not “alter or rationalize the historical-grammatical meaning of raqiaʿ.”[21] However, since Young was a staunch inerrantist, he would not have conceded that Gen 1 puts a solid dome in the sky, for that would be a factual error.[22] Therefore, his footnote should be understood as merely giving the etymological or root meaning of רקיע. Indeed, Young goes on in this footnote to refer to the רקיע twice as “the expanse.” This interpretation of Young’s footnote is confirmed by the fuller discussion in his text, in which, without directly addressing the issue of solidity, he indicates that the “expanse” of Gen 1 is, in his view, the huge region that extends from the atmosphere to outer space—most definitely not a solid dome.[23] Seely has taken a portion of Young’s footnote out of context and misinterpreted it to say the opposite of what Young believed to be true.[24]

We conclude that the רקיע of Gen 1 is an “expanse” of unspecified extent and solidity, not a “dome.” The writer and/or original audience of Genesis may have thought it was a solid dome, but the Author of Genesis knew that it was not, and so did not inspire anyone to state that it was. The references to this “expanse” can be reasonably interpreted without any notion that it is solid.

II. The Validity Of Harmonization: Exodus 21 And Deuteronomy 15

If Scripture is the word of the omniscient, truthful, and immutable God, then it is entirely harmonious and self-consistent. Each statement in Scripture, when properly understood, must fully harmonize with every other statement, for each one is true and one true statement will not contradict another true statement. Thus, whenever two passages of Scripture seem to conflict, we may be confident that the discrepancy is only apparent.

When we say that two passages dealing with the same subject are necessarily in harmony with each other, we do not mean that they necessarily say the same thing. All we mean is that they do not contradict each other. They may have different emphases or perspectives. They may present different aspects of the truth or use different terminology. They may pertain to different circumstances. They may differ in precision or completeness. In all of this, the Bible presents us with a rich complexity and diversity, without, however, crossing the line into contradiction. For example, 1 Kings describes the chief sins of King Solomon in its narration of his reign, whereas 2 Chronicles ignores them as it focuses on his role in the establishment of temple worship. Since Chronicles does not deny that Solomon committed the sins mentioned in Kings, and Kings does not deny his importance as a religious leader, what we have here are differences in emphasis and completeness, in accordance with the books’ different purposes, not contradictory accounts. Besides, Chronicles presupposes a knowledge of Samuel-Kings, just as John presupposes a knowledge of the Synoptic Gospels.

If one accepts Scripture as the actual word of God, one will search diligently for the deeper harmony of passages that seem to conflict at first glance. And if one cannot find that harmony—or at least a harmonization that is plausible, though not demonstrable—then one should humbly admit ignorance and continue searching, not brashly pronounce the passages contradictory. For example, Matt 27:5 relates that Judas hanged himself, yet Acts 1:18 indicates that his body burst open in a fall. There is no reason to insist that these passages represent contradictory traditions. It is reasonable to suppose that he tried to hang himself from a tree branch (perhaps extending over the edge of a precipice), but that the branch broke off (or the rope came loose) and he fell upon a rock with gruesome consequences. Since Scripture is self-consistent and this harmonization is plausible, there is no reason to decry it as “artificial.” By the same token, we should always be open to the possibility of a more plausible harmonization. As a historical problem, we want to determine more fully and more precisely what actually happened, but as a theological problem for the doctrine of inerrancy, it is sufficient to demonstrate a plausible harmonization. This sort of harmonizing is no different than trying to understand the deeper harmony of doctrinal passages that seem to conflict on a superficial level—and there, too, we must be open to the possibility of finding a better understanding of God’s truth.

We must not lose sight of what is at stake here. To declare that certain passages cannot be harmonized, or that we should not even try to harmonize them, has profound theological implications. To suggest that we should “move beyond” rational harmonization, as Enns does,[25] is either to deny that Scripture is the word of God (thus undermining its authority and shaking the Christian faith to its foundation) or to accept that there is inconsistency in truth and hence in God (thus undermining logical discourse and human knowledge, and ultimately reducing God to chaos and irrationality). If someone had confidence that Scripture is harmonious, when properly understood, he would have no interest in “moving beyond” harmonization. So when Enns wants to do that, he is apparently conceding that Scripture is not harmonious. He admits as much (perhaps unwittingly) when he says that “some” discrepancies “can certainly be harmonized,”[26] thus implying that other discrepancies cannot be harmonized.[27] At least, this statement indicates that he has no confidence that the Bible, at the textual level, is a harmonious whole. If there are passages that cannot be harmonized, then Scripture contains real contradictions, real errors.

And even if it merely may contain contradictions, then it cannot be the word of an all-knowing and self-consistent God. In other words, the Bible, as Enns sees it, is not the word of the God known to orthodox Reformed theology.

When Enns developed this line of thought in an article published in 2002, his case in point was “the laws concerning the release of slaves in Exod 21:2-11 and Deut 15:12-18,”which”differ on at least one well-known point: the former does not allow for the freeing of female slaves, while the latter does.” This “discrepancy” (not “apparent discrepancy”) he explains as due to “different” (but unexplained) “historical circumstances” in the two books. But such an explanation, he says, is not” ‘harmonizing’ these laws in any accepted sense of the word.” “In the end,” he concludes, “the Bible has two different provisions regarding the release of slaves,” and “any ‘rational’ attempt to reconcile these ‘contradictions”‘ is misguided.[28]

Now it is certainly true that the law of Moses was given to Israel gradually, from the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai to Moses’ farewell address as the people were about to enter the Promised Land forty years later. In some cases, the earlier laws were supplemented by later laws, sometimes anticipating the situation that Israel would face in their new land. A recognition of this development is part of the legitimate harmonization of the law of Moses, just as the recognition of general redemptive-historical development in Scripture, especially its covenantal structure, is a necessary part of proper harmonization. It is part of the consistency of God to apply the appropriate principles—which fit together in a harmonious whole—to different situations. If the reason for a certain legal provision is no longer present, the law should change to reflect that new reality. If this is all that Enns is talking about, then we can accept the substance of his remarks, except for his failure to see that this resolution is an exercise in harmonization.

When we look at the laws pertaining to the release of slaves in Exod 21 and Deut 15, we see that the latter text does not cover as many situations as the former one, but does add supplementary provisions. Both deal with Israelites being sold to Israelites involuntarily; other passages deal with voluntary servitude due to poverty (Lev 25:39-43, 47-55) and with foreigners being involved (Lev 25:44-55). Basically, Exod 21 deals with two situations: (1) the usual situation, when someone is sold into slavery and may go free after six years (vv. 2-6), and (2) a special situation, when a man sells his daughter as a slave-wife (or concubine) and she retains significant marital rights (vv. 7-11). Deuteronomy 15 deals only with the first situation (vv. 12-18), but adds humanitarian provisions pertaining to the slave’s release. Because Deut 15 deals only with the first situation, we will not discuss the second one in detail, since our purpose here is simply to demonstrate the harmony of the laws.

Exodus 21 states that when a (male) Hebrew slave has been bought (i.e., has sold himself as an indentured servant to pay off a debt, or perhaps has been sold as a thief unable to make restitution [22:3]), he may go free after six years of labor (v. 2). Nothing is said explicitly about a female Hebrew slave being bought, because it would have been rare for a woman to be in such a situation apart from her husband. And if a woman did get into such a predicament, the principles enunciated in this passage would presumably apply to her as well. Verse 3 adds that if the slave “comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.” (A wife given to him by his master, and any children that they may have, may not be taken away [without payment[29]] when the slave gains his freedom, but the slave may choose to remain a slave and stay with them [vv. 4-6]). The words “shall go out with him” imply that the woman was brought into the master’s household as a slave with her husband, and now goes free with him.

Deuteronomy 15 states that when “a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman” has been sold into slavery, he or she shall go free in the seventh year unless a desire to remain with the master is expressed (vv. 12, 16-17). This law is the same as that in Exod 21, except that it mentions “a Hebrew woman.” Two situations would appear to be involved in this. First, the woman would ordinarily be the wife brought into slavery with her husband, as implied in Exod 21:3. Second, this language makes explicit what is probably implicit in Exod 21:2, that the same principle would apply in the unusual circumstance of a woman being in the same situation. Perhaps Deuteronomy anticipates that women would have more occasions to run up their own debts once the people of Israel were settled in their own land. (Note that the situation of a slave acquiring a wife from his master, which is dealt with in detail in Exod 21:4-6, is not considered in Deuteronomy.) Deuteronomy then supplements this basic law by adding the provision that these slaves are not to be released empty-handed—the main focus of the passage (vv. 13-15, 18).

Thus we see that these laws are quite easy to harmonize. In discussing the usual situation of a person entering servitude to pay a debt, Deuteronomy simply makes explicit what Exodus implies about women entering such servitude and adds a humanitarian provision.[30] Such humanitarian concern is evident elsewhere in Deuteronomy, and is easily explained as an appropriate theme for a people about to form a new society in a new land.[31] The law in Exodus was meant to cover a wide variety of situations involving Israelite servitude, whereas the law in Deuteronomy mentions only the ordinary situation of Exod 21:2-6 because its purpose was to add the humanitarian provision (as befitting the overall focus of Deut 15:1-18), which would not apply in the situation of Exod 21:7-11.

The supposed “discrepancy” to which Enns calls attention arises only when the two texts are simplistically distorted. His claim that Exod 21:2-11 “does not allow for the freeing of female slaves” is true of the two categories of female slaves not mentioned in Deuteronomy (wives given to slaves by their masters and daughters sold as slave-wives), but is wrong with regard to the wives brought into slavery with their husbands and (implicitly) with regard to women sold into slavery for their own debts. The claim that Deut 15:12-18 “does” allow for “the freeing of female slaves” is true of the same categories of female slaves as go free in Exodus, but Deuteronomy does not deal with the other (presumably rarer) two categories. Each passage discusses certain things that the other does not, but when they discuss the same situation, they are in full agreement.

Enns discussed these laws again in Inspiration and Incarnation, five years later.[32] For whatever reason, he modified his argument considerably. After quoting passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy out of context to set up the misleading comment that the two books “seem to state different stipulations regarding the release of the female slave,” which is not available to “women” in Exodus, but is in Deuteronomy, Enns concedes that “on one level” there is “no real tension” between these passages because they “have different scenarios in view.” (Actually, their scenarios involving women overlap.) But now he discerns a shift in focus: Exodus specifies circumstances in which slaves “may (or may not) go free,” while Deuteronomy focuses on one scenario where slaves “must go free.” This would be no big deal if it were true, but it is not. Deuteronomy 15 does not say that any slaves “must” go free; just as in Exod 21, the slave in view may go free, but also may choose to stay with his or her master for life (Deut 15:16-17).

Enns next declares that “it is counterproductive to attempt to reconcile these two laws by arguing that they really say the same thing. They don’t.” Of course, passages can be “reconciled” simply by showing that they do not contradict each other. But in this case, as we have seen, they in fact do say the same thing when they mention the same situation. Enns then gives two possible ways to “account for these differences.” His second one is basically correct, being in line with our analysis above: “We can appeal to the differing historical context of Deuteronomy and suggest that the former law (Exod. 21) needed to be expanded (Deut. 15) in order to assure the grandest measure of magnanimity possible as Israel entered the promised land.”

But Enns’s first proposed explanation indicates that he is open to historical-critical thinking, such as the Documentary Hypothesis ( JEDP), which denies that the Pentateuch is a genuinely historical, basically Mosaic narrative, containing laws given directly to Moses by God, and insists that it is a much later, largely fictitious narrative compiled over the centuries from various sources with diverse views. “From a historical point of view,” Enns says, we could account for the differences in the slave laws “by appealing to Israel’s ‘heightened social consciousness’ in Deuteronomy, as some do.” But Deuteronomy claims to have been, in large part, uttered by Moses (1:1-5) and written by him (31:9, 24) at the end of Israel’s wilderness wandering. Thus it cannot be an expression of “Israel’s ‘heightened social consciousness,”‘ which assumes that generations and indeed centuries of cultural development separate the different laws on slavery. According to the usual historical-critical theory, Exod 21:2-11 derives from an early period in Israel’s history and was incorporated into the Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:22-23:19), perhaps by the Elohist (early eighth century), whereas Deut 15:12-18 dates from the days of King Josiah in the late seventh century. As Driver explains, “No doubt the true explanation of the variation [in the laws pertaining to slavery] is that the law of Dt. springs from a more advanced stage of society than the law of Ex.”[33] A. D. H. Mayes similarly comments that the supposed extension of the Exodus law to women in Deuteronomy “reflects the changed status of women in Israelite society by the time of this law.”[34] But such an approach to Scripture fundamentally denies that the Pentateuch is what it purports to be. Enns’s first proposed explanation of the different laws on slavery must therefore be rejected; it cannot be considered a viable option by one who holds to a consistent view of Scripture as the word of God.

We conclude that the laws pertaining to the release of slaves in Exod 21:2-11 and Deut 15:12-18 harmonize well when properly understood. These passages provide no support for Enns’s notion of a “theological diversity” in the OT that includes real contradictions and thus makes harmonization futile.

III. The New Testament’s Fidelity To The Old Testament: Hebrews 3:7-11 And Psalm 95:7-11

If the NT quotes the OT, then what is quoted must actually be in the OT. If the NT interprets an OT passage, then that interpretation must be at least implicit in that passage. These basic principles follow from the fact that Scripture has one self-consistent, all-knowing Author. The NT’s use of the OT is an often puzzling phenomenon, so when we lose sight of these basic principles, we can easily go astray in interpreting that phenomenon. The next three passages with which we deal will be examples of that.

In the first article in which Peter Enns began to express his views on Scripture (in 1993), he examined the interpretation of Ps 95 in Heb 3:1-4:13.[35] In that article, he asserts that the author of Hebrews changes the LXX text in three places. We will focus on the first of these variants, for it supposedly “changes the meaning significantly” from that in Ps 95.[36] It is the insertion of διό in Heb 3:10: “Your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore (διό) I was provoked with that generation.” In both the MT and the LXX of Ps 95:9-10, the phrase “for forty years” should be construed with the clause following the inserted διό, but the insertion of that word puts the phrase instead with the former clauses. So in Ps 95, God was angry with the Israelites for the entire period of wilderness wandering, but in Hebrews, according to Enns, “anger is what follows the forty-year period in which they saw God’s works.” The psalmist “views the wilderness period negatively,” but that negativity “will not do” for the author of Hebrews. Israel may have experienced God’s wrath during its time of wilderness wandering, but the church experiences God’s blessing during its time of wilderness wandering. “Hence, in applying the psalm to the church, the writer of Hebrews is telling his readers that their wilderness period is one of blessing, not wrath or punishment. If they are unfaithful by following the example of the Israelites, . . . this present age will be followed by God’s anger in which they forfeit the promise of rest.” By quoting the psalm, the author of Hebrews indicates that there is continuity between Israel and the church; but by inserting διό, he indicates that there is an important difference in their situations.[37] He makes this and the other two changes in order “to make this psalm more relevant to his readers.” His motivation here, as throughout his book, is “to show that the full significance of the OT is realized by the church and only proleptically by Israel.”[38]

Twelve years later, in Inspiration and Incarnation, Enns revisited the methodology of Heb 3 and focused on the insertion of διό: “For Hebrews, the forty-year period is not defined by wrath, as in Psalm 95, but by God’s activity, his works. Anger is what follows this forty-year period if his readers do not rid themselves of ‘a sinful, unbelieving heart’ (Heb. 3:12).” “Because the analogy” between Israel and the church “breaks down,” Enns explains, “the author of Hebrews adjusts the psalm in order to reflect the realities of Christ’s work.” “However much we might frown upon this interpretive method,” Enns concludes, the author of Hebrews did this intentionally. His view was, “In order for the psalm to be read as a Christian psalm,... some changes need to be made.”[39]

When we compare Enns’s treatment of this passage in these two writings, we find that his analysis of what the author of Hebrews has done with Ps 95 has not changed. But his characterization of it has changed. In his 1993 article, he described what was going on in Hebrews rather conventionally, as its author applying and adapting the psalm to the church age, and thus showing how the church realizes the full significance of the OT. But in his book twelve years later, he regards this characterization as inadequate. Now, the author of Hebrews does not interpret the psalm by applying its principles to the church age, but rather changes the text so as to give it a meaning for the church that it did not originally have.

In Part I, section 3, we explained why such a characterization is contrary to a sound doctrine of Scripture. Basically, the omniscience and immutability of God make it impossible for him to say in the NT that a particular meaning is present in the OT when in fact it was not originally there as he inspired it. God cannot say in the Psalms that he was angry with Israel for forty years, and then say in Hebrews that he was not angry until the forty years were over. That said, we must agree with Enns that his new characterization of what is going on in Hebrews better suits his analysis of it. In other words, his exegesis of Hebrews does put it at odds with the original psalm, and he openly admits it.

Because Enns’s interpretation of Heb 3 is inconsistent with the inerrancy of Scripture, we can say with confidence that his view must be in error. There must be harmony between the original meaning of Ps 95 and Heb 3.[40] Our task is to find it. In this case, the harmony is easy to find.

The harmony may actually be clearer than anyone has imagined. It is quite possible that διό was originally inserted by the author of Hebrews before “for forty years,” not after it. Apparently all of the extant manuscripts of the Pauline epistles derive from the so-called Corpus Paulinum, of which Hebrews was an original part (as I am inclined to believe), or to which it was soon added (so Zuntz). Since the Corpus Paulinum was created by copying from the autographs or copies thereof, the possibility must be considered that the text of Hebrews (and indeed of other epistles) in it may have contained copying errors (its own or earlier ones) that then entered into all the copies now extant.[41] Primitive corruptions have indeed been proposed elsewhere in Hebrews,[42] and this may be another one. It would involve a simple transposition of words, which is common in NT manuscripts, and could have arisen in various ways. The evidence for this being a corruption is that in v. 17 the author refers to the quotation in v. 10 as if it read the other way: “And with whom was he provoked for forty years?” It seems odd that he would quote the psalm one way and then refer to it as if it read differently. Besides, if διό had originally been inserted before the reference to forty years, as v. 17 may suggest, it would have more naturally followed the flow of the psalm. Thus, it is quite possible that Enns has built his whole case, with its denial of the integrity of Scripture, on a copyist’s error. Nonetheless, we will proceed on the assumption that the text as it stands in the manuscript tradition is authentic and show that even with that text the author of Hebrews has not changed the meaning of Ps 95 to suit his purposes.

First of all, διό (whether considered part of the quotation or a transitional word by which the author divides the quotation into two parts) simply brings out what is implicit in Ps 95:9-10, namely, that the anger of v. 10 is caused by the testing of v. 9. It ought to be clear that God’s initial anger followed Israel’s first testing of him, and that his anger simply increased as the testing increased. Indeed, from the day the people of Israel came out of Egypt, they were rebellious and provoked the Lord to anger, and that continued for forty years until they were ready to enter Canaan (Deut 9:7). In other words, the people were rebellious for forty years, and the Lord was angry with them for the same forty years. The first major incident was at Massah and Meribah (Exod 17:7; Ps 95:8-9; Heb 3:8-9), and after the Israelites had put the Lord to the test “ten times” (Num 14:22) within about two years (cf. Num 1:1; 9:1; 10:11; 14:33-34), he had had enough and swore that that generation would not enter the Promised Land (Num 14:21-35; Ps 95:10-11; Heb 3:10-11). Since both the testing and the anger continued for forty years, it is simply a matter of emphasis whether the “forty years” of our text is attached to the testing (as in Heb 3:10) or to the anger (as in Ps 95:10). The emphasis in Heb 3:10 would seem to be on God’s patience and the full extent of his works for his people to see, but that does not lessen the fact that he was angry the whole time at their continual rebellion. The full reality of the passage, as made perfectly clear by the rest of Scripture, is that both the provoking and the being provoked continued for forty years. The word διό simply underlines the fact that Israel’s provocations caused the Lord’s anger.[43]

Accordingly, it would be absurd to interpret Heb 3:9-10 as teaching that only after forty years of being put to the test did God become angry. Verse 17 confirms that God was angry for the entire forty years. Furthermore, the “wrath” of which v. 11 speaks precipitated his oath that those people would not enter Canaan, and that occurred, as we have seen, early in the wilderness experience. Again, for forty years the people rebelled, and for forty years God was upset with them. Thus, Enns is certainly wrong to assert that, in Hebrews, God’s “anger is what follows the forty-year period in which they saw God’s works.”[44] The author of Hebrews may move the reference to forty years, but he does not change the meaning of Ps 95 by so doing.

Enns seeks to avoid all the evidence that his interpretation of Heb 3:9-10 (that God’s anger only begins after forty years of rebellion) is wrong by agreeing that all the passages that we have brought to bear on the interpretation of that quotation do describe the scenario for Israel, but then insisting that the quotation in 3:7-11, as modified by adding διό, refers to the NT church, not to Israel. That is, “in 3:10 he is talking about the church; in 3:17 he is talking about Israel.”[45] But this is absurd. The psalm is quoted (and explained) to provide an example from the OT of how God deals with his unbelieving people (cf. 1 Cor 10:6). Then the reader is warned not to be unbelieving and rebellious like the Israelites of old, lest God deny them entry into his rest as well (Heb 3:12-14; 4:1-3, 11). This lesson from history is even set up in the first part of the quoted passage: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years” (vv. 7-10). “Today” is the time of application, extending into NT times (3:13; 4:6-7), when we are exhorted not to harden our hearts. The rest of the quoted psalm draws a comparison with the Israelites who did harden their hearts in the wilderness: “Do not harden your hearts [today] as in the rebellion [long ago].” The situation described in vv. 9-10 is clearly the wilderness experience of Israel, long past, not the “today” of v. 7. Psalm 95 can be “read as a Christian psalm,” not because “some changes” have been made in the text, but because, as Heb 3 explains in detail, we live in the time that the psalm calls “today.”

Thus we see that Heb 3:1-4:13 is faithful to Ps 95, at least insofar as the insertion of διό is concerned. The argument that Enns builds upon that insertion, culminating in a denial of the consistency of Scripture, is easily demonstrated to be erroneous.

IV. Jesus As An Interpreter Of The Old Testament: Exodus 3:6 And Luke 20:37-40

As part of his argument that NT interpretation of the OT is to a significant extent a cultural phenomenon, specifically a Second Temple phenomenon, because of the interpretive methods employed and the traditions transmitted, Enns declares that Jesus, no less than the apostles, was to a significant extent the product of his culture, and therefore interpreted the OT in the same ways as his contemporaries. “What else can be said,” he asks, “of Jesus’ argument with the Sadducees over the resurrection of the dead (Luke 20:27-40; Matt 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27)? To understand Exod 3:6 as demonstrating that ‘the dead rise’ (Luke 20:37), as Jesus does, violates our hermeneutical sensibilities, and we should not pretend otherwise.”[46] In that verse, the Lord simply identifies himself to Moses at the burning bush: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Thus, Enns insists, “there is no persuasive connection between that passage and how Jesus uses it.” Only by using dubious first-century “hermeneutical conventions” could Jesus get from Exod 3:6 to the idea that there is a resurrection of the dead.[47]

In Part I, section 7, we refuted Enns’s claim that Jesus employs specifically first-century hermeneutical techniques in this passage. We also argued that Enns’s contention, that Jesus misunderstands the passage in Exodus, presupposes a faulty Christology, with grave consequences for the Christian faith. Here our task is to demonstrate that Jesus is correct, that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is implied by Exod 3:6. We will follow Jesus’ argument as it is presented in Luke’s gospel (20:37-38), as does Enns. (The parallels in Matthew and Mark add little to it.[48])

In order to defend the doctrine of the general resurrection, in opposition to the Sadducees, who denied that doctrine, Jesus appeals to that portion of Scripture that they acknowledged as most authoritative (rather than such obvious OT passages as Dan 12:2), the Law of Moses. “Moses showed, in the passage about the bush,” Jesus declares, that “the dead are raised.” Moses did so “where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” This refers to Exod 3:6, where the Lord identifies himself to Moses as the God of the patriarchs. Jesus derives the doctrine of the resurrection from this passage by simply saying, “Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”[49]

The key point on which Jesus picks up in Exod 3:6 is the Lord’s statement that he is the God of the deceased patriarchs—not that he was their God back when they were alive, but is no longer.[50] This is implicit in the MT (in a nonverbal sentence), and is made explicit in the LXX (where the implied verb is included). When the Lord declares that he is “the God” of the patriarchs, he is referring to himself as the living God, with all of his power and redemptive grace. He is the One who has a permanent relationship with his people, grounded in his eternal, electing love for them. So if God says that he is the God of someone, he is saying that he has a permanent relationship with him, a relationship of communion with him for eternity. Because God is all-powerful and his love cannot be thwarted, it follows that he will not allow the death of his beloved saints to end his relationship with them. Hence, his saints, though dead, must yet live. If we probe deeper into this profound truth, we see that it implies both an intermediate state of presence with the Lord after death (for the connection between God and his people cannot be severed, Rom 8:38-39) and also a future time of fully restored life, when death itself is conquered (1 Cor 15:53-57). In other words, there must be and therefore will be a resurrection of the dead, in which the life of the saints will be fully restored (1 Cor 15:51-52). As we ponder the power and goodness and love of God, we can even see that the resurrection will involve eschatological blessing, the full realization of communion with God.

All of this is implicit in the Lord’s pronouncement, “I am (now) the God of (the deceased) Abraham,” as understood in the full revelation of the mind of God in Scripture. It is what Jesus means when he explains that God “is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” His assertion that God “is not God of the dead” cannot contradict his previous point that God is the God of the deceased patriarchs. Thus, Jesus is here speaking of “the dead” in the sense that the Sadducees thought of them, that is, as those who have died in a final and irreversible sense. In other words, God’s people are never ultimately “dead.” The reason for that is that they all “live to him.” That is, they live and keep on living with respect to him, in communion with him, as his people. Hence, they live on after death in a limited sense (apart from the body) and will eventually be resurrected unto life, eternal life with him. That is assured simply because God is what he is and because he loves his people.[51]

Enns wonders how Exod 3:6 “could have been intended” as “a proof-text for the resurrection.” Here again the point must be made that the full meaning of a text is what its divine Author intends for it to mean. Perhaps Moses did not realize, as he wrote this narrative, that he was making an argument, by implication, for the resurrection of the dead—although the words “Moses showed” (Luke 20:37) seem to suggest that he did know what the verse implies. In any case, the important consideration is that God inspired Moses to write that passage with that meaning in it, and the Son of God has drawn it out for our edification. If this interpretation offends someone’s “hermeneutical sensibilities,” then he needs to revise his hermeneutics and change his sensibilities. For we see that Jesus had a profound understanding of Exod 3:6, unlike his modern detractors.

Jesus drew an important theological inference from Exod 3:6, not using the particular techniques of his day or of any other day, but using the method approved by God, which is that of drawing from the text something that is actually there. In doing so, he demonstrated a profound insight into the meaning of Scripture, an insight that should cause us to marvel.

V. Jesus Fulfilling The Old Testament: Hosea 11:1 And Matthew 2:15

We come now to what Enns calls a “parade example” of how the NT authors handle the OT within the often strange “hermeneutical world of Second Temple literature”: the seemingly bizarre claim in Matt 2:15 that Hos 11:1 was fulfilled in the infancy of Jesus.[52] Enns deals with this passage in no less than seven of his writings. If he had to stake his general position on one text, this would be it.

One must admit that traditionally minded exegetes have had a difficult time with this passage in Matthew. With good reason, Martin Pickup has recently observed that this is “the most troubling case” of “NT exegesis of the OT” for “many Bible believers.”[53] Elaborate explanations have been propounded, usually based on the idea that Israel (in its infancy) was a type of Christ (in his infancy),[54] but they fall short of persuasion because it seems contrived and not a little underwhelming to see the exodus pointing forward to the holy family’s return from Egypt after a short stay. Nonetheless, if we have reason to be confident in the historic Christian understanding of Scripture as the inspired and infallible word of God, then we must proceed on the assumption that the correct explanation of what is going on in this verse is consistent with that view. We may not be sure that we have that correct explanation yet, but we must still oppose any effort to undermine the biblical doctrine of Scripture on the basis of this passage—or on the basis of any other problematic passage. Sometimes we must wait humbly for God to shed more light on his word. And sometimes more light does come, but not to those who sacrifice the doctrine of Scripture in an effort to see it. With that in mind, an explanation of Matt 2:15 will be set forth here that is consistent with the implications of inspiration; perhaps the reader will find it enlightening.

Joseph took the child Jesus and his mother to Egypt to keep him safe from the wrath of Herod, and they remained there until the king died and it was safe to return to the land of Israel. Matthew 2:15 states: “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.”‘ At first glance, this may seem to be saying that there is a prediction in the OT that God would call his Son (presumably the Messiah, Jesus) out of Egypt, perhaps to save his people in their land. However, when we find that prophecy in Hos 11:1, we discover that it is not a prediction about the Messiah, or even a prediction at all. Rather, it is a historical reference to God bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt in the exodus: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” Verse 2 leaves no doubt that this has to do with the Israelites of old: “The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.”

“It is clear,” Enns declares in his initial treatment of this passage, “that Matthew was not interested in reproducing the meaning that Hosea 11:1 might have had for the prophet or his audience.” Matthew did not study the passage and determine that it referred to Christ. “Rather, like other interpreters of his era, Matthew began with the assumption that Scripture speaks to his situation. In other words, he understood Christ to be the proper goal of interpretation.” That is, Matthew, like the other NT writers, began with the goal “to interpret the OT in light of the coming of Christ. The methods of interpretation are subservient to the goal.”[55]

This analysis may be “clear” to Enns, but it is deficient in all respects. First, he asserts that Matthew does not—and does not even intend to—bring out any of the original meaning that is in the text of Hosea.[56] But Matthew explicitly says that the events that he has just narrated took place in order to fulfill “what the Lord had spoken by the prophet,” which words he then quotes. According to Matthew, then, there is a real connection between the meaning of the text as inspired by God (and written by Hosea) and what happened in Jesus’ life.[57] And as for Enns’s assertion that Matthew assumed, “like other interpreters of his era,” that “Scripture speaks to his situation,” we showed in Part I, section 6, that this has nothing particularly to do with “Second Temple hermeneutics,” but is simply what all interpreters do who take Scripture seriously as God’s word to his people. The real question is whether it is done properly, that is, in accordance with what God actually says in the text. Yes, Matthew does “interpret the OT in light of the coming of Christ,” but that means using that light to see what is (that is, what was originally) really there, not using it to give meaning to the text that was never there before. Finally, to say that “the methods of interpretation” are “subservient to the goal” is to say that the means justify the ends, that whatever gets to the desired result is acceptable, that whatever argument convinces people is appropriate. But that is morally reprehensible and logically invalid. God would not and does not stoop to using such erroneous and misleading argumentation; he would not and did not inspire Matthew to use such methods. God is the God of truth, not merely in the conclusion reached about Jesus, but in the methods and arguments by which that conclusion is reached.

Throughout his writings on Matt 2:15, Enns consistently claims that Matthew is not bringing out any of the original meaning of Hos 11:1. Matthew does not “ask first what an original author meant in his own time.”[58] “It is difficult indeed to read Matt 2:15 as an objective reading of Hos 11:1,” because Matthew has not “arrived at his conclusions from reading the OT.”[59] “Hosea’s words . . . in their original historical context (the intention of the human author, Hosea) did not speak of Jesus of Nazareth.”[60] “It would take a tremendous amount of mental energy to argue that Matthew is respecting the historical context of Hosea’s words.”[61]

Enns also consistently argues that Matthew is adding Christian meaning to the passage in Hosea, in a way that would have been familiar to contemporary Jews. Matthew and the other NT writers “go immediately and without hesitation to the meaning . . . the text now has for the contemporary audience in the light of messianic fulfillment.”[62] In interpreting Hos 11:1, Matthew “began with the event from which all else is now to be understood” (i.e., “the death and resurrection of Christ”).[63] “Hosea’s words” did not originally refer to Jesus, but “now” they “do.”[64] “In writing to a Jewish audience,” Enns explains, Matthew’s handling of Hosea “would not have seemed strange but very familiar.”[65] But what it is that is so “familiar” about his interpretive method here, Enns does not say, beyond the vague notion of finding the OT to refer to one’s own situation.

When Enns tries to explain how Matthew adds new meaning to the passage in Hosea, his story keeps changing. Writing with Dan McCartney, he declares that “Matthew does not quote Hos 11:1 on the occasion of Jesus’ return from literal Egypt, but regards it as fulfilled by Jesus’ departure from Israel into Egypt.”[66] But writing by himself, he declares that “Matthew is drawing an analogy: as God called the Israelites out of Egypt, so too did God call Jesus out of Egypt as a boy.”[67] The idea of analogy that Enns appeals to on this one occasion is, in general terms, the usual way in which Matthew’s reference to Hosea is interpreted (where the “type” anticipates or predicts the analogous “antitype”)—not Enns’s own christotelic interpretation. But in another work published in the same year, he states to the contrary, “This passage is not predictive of Christ’s coming but [only] retrospective of Israel’s disobedience.”[68] But he also tries to have it both ways, saying first that “Jesus’ trip as a boy to Egypt to escape Herod is a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1,” but then adding that “strictly speaking, Hosea’s words are not fulfilled with Jesus going down to Egypt, but only upon his return.”[69] Finally, Enns admits that he cannot “outline precisely how he [Matthew] understood Hosea.” He conjectures on this occasion that Matthew may have been referring to the whole of chapter 11, intending to contrast (not compare) Israel with Jesus: Israel “came out of Egypt, was disobedient, deserved punishment, yet was forgiven by God (Hos. 11:8-11),” whereas Jesus “came out of Egypt, led a life of perfect obedience, deserved no punishment, but was crucified.” In this way, supposedly, “Matthew was able to mount an argument for his readers that Jesus fulfilled the ideal that Israel was supposed to have reached but never did.”[70] The problem with this highly expansive interpretation is that the only argument that Matthew mounts in Matt 2:13-15 is that the holy family’s flight to Egypt set up a fulfillment of Hos 11:1 in their return from Egypt. Matthew says nothing about any contrast between Israel and Jesus. And then in another writing, Enns puts this slant on this passage: Matthew is “‘widening’ the Old Testament passage.” He “turns Hosea’s retrospective observation into a prophetic utterance”; he “transforms Hosea’s words in light of the grand, ultimate context of the eschaton.”[71] What interpretation of this passage will Enns propound next?[72] He himself has admitted that he does not know what is going on here. So how can he be so sure that Matthew, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking through the apostle, is not bringing out an aspect of the original meaning of Hos 11:1?

Let us now consider this passage from the proper hermeneutical standpoint. Matthew must respect the original meaning of Hos 11:1, because God could not have inspired him to misrepresent it. Matthew does not attribute any meaning to the OT passage that it does not already have, because God, being the Author of both passages, is consistent, and truth does not change. Matthew does not use the particular interpretive methods of his day or any other day; rather, being inspired, he uses only such methods as are approved by God and therefore permanently valid.

We can begin to understand what is really going on in Matt 2:15 by looking carefully at what Matthew himself says he is doing with Hos 11:1.[73] The ESV paraphrases slightly (though not incorrectly), so we will work with this more literal translation: Joseph took Jesus and Mary to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died (2:14-15a) “in order that (ἵνα) that which had been spoken (τὸ ῥηθέν) by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled (πληρωθῇ): ‘Out of Egypt I called my son”‘ (v. 15b). Joseph journeyed to Egypt with his family in order that (in God’s plan, not in Joseph’s) the words spoken by the Lord, namely, the words quoted from the book of Hosea, might be (subsequently) fulfilled. Joseph then left Egypt with the Lord’s Son and returned to the land of Israel (2:19-21), thus fulfilling the prophecy of Hosea. They departed when told to do so by an angel of the Lord (2:13, 19-20); that instruction should be understood as conveying God’s specific “call” to his Son to leave Egypt.[74]

The connection with Hos 11:1 is specifically stated by Matthew to be between the text of Hos 11:1 (i.e., what the Lord spoke) and the event in view in Matt 2:15 (i.e., the event narrated in 2:19-21). That is, the event in Jesus’ life took place so that the text in Hosea “might be fulfilled” (πληρωθῇ). Thus, all the interpretations that try to draw a typological connection between the event of Israel being delivered from Egypt and the event of Jesus returning home from Egypt misunderstand Matthew’s statement. He is not saying that the exodus was typologically prophetic of the infant Jesus being taken out of Egypt.[75] It is not wrong to see a connection between the two events, for the event narrated in Exodus is described in Hosea, and Hosea’s description is fulfilled by the event narrated in Matthew, but Matthew sees Jesus’ departure from Egypt as a fulfillment of Hosea’s text, not necessarily as a fulfillment of the exodus.

The connection between the text in Hosea and the event narrated in Matthew is described by the word πληρωθῇ, “might be fulfilled.” The verb πληρόω expresses, in general, the concept of “making full” (i.e., πλήρης +-οω), which takes various forms in the NT, even when the verb refers, as here, to a text or other statement being “made full” in a subsequent event. In this usage, the text or other statement describes whatever it is that subsequently takes place. That which is pictured by the words becomes an actual reality in the subsequent event. That which takes place makes the statement full, or “fulfills” it (as it is usually expressed in English), then, in the sense that the event actualizes the text—making it actual, converting it into an actual fact (or realizes it—making it real, bringing it into real existence).

For example, the law is “fulfilled” whenever it is obeyed by people (Rom 8:4) or whenever people express love to others (Rom 13:8). Their actual behavior, in other words, corresponds to what the law describes (cf. Jas 2:23). Descriptions of other behavior are likewise said to be “fulfilled” when that behavior occurs. For example, Isa 53:1 describes the response of unbelief that will greet the report of the coming of the Messiah into the world, and so when Jesus encounters such unbelief, that response to him fulfills the prophecy (see John 12:38, citing Isa 53:1). But any response of unbelief to the message of Christ would also fulfill the prophecy (as in Rom 10:16, also citing Isa 53:1). Jesus’ messianic activity likewise fulfills messianic prophecy (Luke 4:21). Sometimes a prophecy has in view a specific event, and thus is fulfilled when the predicted event actually takes place (as in Luke 1:20). People often assume that such specific predictions are (or should be) in view whenever the OT is said to be fulfilled in the NT, but as a matter of fact that is quite often not the case. As we have seen with regard to the law and descriptions of behavior, a general sort of activity may be spoken of, and whenever that activity takes place, the statement is fulfilled.

A statement of historical fact can also be said to be fulfilled when a subsequent event take place that fits that description. For example, Jesus, in his High Priestly Prayer, declared with regard to his disciples, “I am praying . . . for those whom you have given me. . . . I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction” ( John 17:9, 12). Later, when Jesus was being arrested, he identified himself to the soldiers as the one they wanted and added, “So, if you seek me, let these men go” ( John 18:8)—and they did get away safely. John then comments: “This was to fulfill (ἵνα πληρωθῇ) the word that he had spoken: ‘Of those whom you gave me I have lost not one”‘ (18:9). In his prayer, Jesus was stating a historical fact (summarizing one aspect of his ministry), not making a prediction. Yet that statement was “fulfilled” by a subsequent event. What we see happening here is that a description of historical fact (“I have not lost any of my true disciples”) contains an activating principle (“I do whatever is necessary to protect my disciples”). That activating principle, that principle of actualization, then comes into play in a subsequent event (“If you seek me, let these men go [so I won’t lose any of my disciples]”). Thus, the principle that Jesus protects his disciples is carried out, or fulfilled, in the subsequent event—just as the law is carried out, or fulfilled, by those who obey it. In short, a statement, even a statement of historical fact, is fulfilled in a subsequent event if that statement contains a principle that is manifested in that event.

Another way to look at this is that the statements of law and of historical fact contain implicit predictions. The law implicitly predicts that people will keep its provisions, and so whenever they do, they are said to be fulfilling it. Similarly, when a statement of historical fact mentions how someone (especially God) has acted in the past, it contains an implied prediction that in similar circumstances he will act in the same way. So when he does act in the same way later, the statement is fulfilled. When a statement of fact describes how God has acted in the past, that description in effect becomes a prophecy of how he will act in the future, for he is both omnipotent and immutable.[76]

Whichever way one looks at statements of historical fact being “fulfilled” in future events—as statements containing principles that come into play in subsequent events, or as statements containing implied predictions of future action—this is precisely how we should interpret Matt 2:15.[77] It refers to a description of historical fact made in Hos 11:1 and says that that statement was fulfilled in the life of Jesus. That statement contains a principle of divine action (that God calls his people out of Egypt), and so, when that principle is carried out in the life of Jesus, it follows that Hos 11:1 is fulfilled, or actualized.[78] And since that statement describes how God has acted in the past, it becomes in effect a prophecy of how God will act in the future—and he does so act in the life of Jesus. The principle underlying Hos 11:1 demands and predicts that if Jesus should ever be in Egypt, God will call him out of there and back to the land of Israel. Egypt was not the Promised Land, the place of divine redemption and blessing; rather, it was a center of worldly enticement, idolatry, and sin (see, e.g., Exod 16:3; Num 11:4-6; 14:3-4; Ezek 16:26; 23:19-21, 27; Heb 11:24-27; Rev 11:8). The Redeemer could not stay in Egypt, both for his own sake and for the sake of the people he had come to redeem. So when God called him out of Egypt at the first opportunity, Hos 11:1 was fulfilled.[79]

The context in Hosea provides clear evidence that 11:1 has in view not merely the one-time event of the exodus, but indeed a principle of divine action that is fulfilled, or actualized, in the life of God’s people throughout their history. The continued operation of this principle is in fact explicitly stated in v. 2: “The more they were called, the more they went away.” Long after the exodus, then, the people of Israel continued to be called out of Egypt. That is, whenever they were tending to revert to the sinful ways of Egypt, God called them away from there and back to his covenant. This problem with sin continued, in fact, throughout the remaining history of Israel (see the rest of Hos 11). When God calls his people out of Egypt—either literal Egypt or figurative Egypt— and into the Promised Land (again, either literally or figuratively speaking), he is calling them out of an environment of sin and into the sphere of covenant righteousness.

We see then that the “Israel” mentioned in Hos 11:1 is not merely the set of individuals who accompanied Moses out of Egypt. Israel is a corporate entity. The covenant community remains, as individuals enter and leave it, over many generations. The Israel called out of Egypt, accordingly, was the entire people of Israel, not only at the time of the exodus, but in all generations thereafter— including even the “Israel of God” today (Gal 6:16). That corporate entity, of course, included Jesus. He, no less than any other Israelite, was called out of Egypt. That call was issued by God when Israel was first a people (Hos 11:1a), and it remained in effect throughout its history (v. 2), especially when Jesus, the defining person in its history, was in Egypt.

Furthermore, it is significant that Hos 11:1 refers to Israel as “my son.” Prior to the exodus, the Lord referred to the people of Israel as “my son.” He told Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Israel is my firstborn son” (Exod 4:22). This term expressed the Lord’s special love and care for Israel in her early years as a nation. However, true Israel consisted of those Israelites who had the faith of Abraham, and thus had a personal relationship with the Lord in Christ, the Son of God. Thus, only in Christ could any Israelite ever claim this sonship, and only by adoption. Accordingly, Israel’s sonship focused on Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So when the Lord called his son out of Egypt, he was above all calling his Son out of Egypt—not only in the time of Moses, but whenever he would be there. It is not often that the OT speaks of Israel as God’s son. Why, then, does Hos 11:1 speak of Israel in that way? The answer is that this appellation was particularly appropriate to one Israelite, Jesus, in whose life this passage would one day be fulfilled. We see here, then, that when God inspired Hosea to write this passage, he had his Son as much in mind as the people of Israel generally, and so caused the prophet to use language that would be particularly appropriate to, and indeed evocative of, that Son—thus preparing for the quotation of this passage in Matt 2:15.

Thus we see that Christ, while not explicitly mentioned in Hos 11:1, is nonetheless within the scope of it. And when we use the rest of Scripture to probe the depths of the meaning of this passage as intended by God, we discover that Christ is actually the focal point of it. Thus, it was entirely appropriate for Matthew to write that this prophecy was fulfilled, or actualized, in the infancy of Jesus. It turns out that Peter Enns, not the inspired apostle Matthew, is trapped in the interpretive conventions of his day, and thus fails to understand the original meaning of Hos 11:1.

VI. The New Testament’s Use Of Extrabiblical Traditions: 1 Corinthians 10:4

According to Enns, the NT writers adopt not only the interpretive methods, but also the extrabiblical traditions, of their contemporary culture (especially Second Temple Judaism).[80] Having disposed of supposed examples of the former phenomenon, we now turn to examples of the latter. Actually, there are a few extrabiblical Jewish traditions presented in the NT as true. Evidently, the Holy Spirit accepted them as true, and he was in a position to know. It would be perverse to suppose that no accurate information about the past was passed down by the Jews outside the Bible. The fact that such information appears both in extrabiblical Jewish literature and in the NT is therefore a matter of no consequence for the doctrine of Scripture. The NT simply confirms that those traditions (at least in the forms presented in the NT) are true.

For example, Stephen in Acts 7:22 states that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” This fact is nowhere stated in the OT (although it is certainly plausible, since Moses was adopted as an infant by Pharaoh’s daughter), but it was evidently preserved in Jewish lore. Otherwise, Stephen probably would not have referred to it in his address to the Sanhedrin. Enns notes that two Jewish sources older than the NT make much of Moses’ education, but so what? They may have added fanciful details, but the evidently inspired Stephen (Acts 7:55) stuck to the historical facts.[81]

However, one extrabiblical tradition apparently mentioned in the NT does appear to be fanciful. In 1 Cor 10:4, Paul states that the Israelites in the wilderness “drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Enns argues from rabbinic and other Jewish sources, as have many exegetes going back for generations, that there was a Jewish tradition in Paul’s day that a certain rock, which functioned as a well, miraculously followed the Israelites as they wandered about and supplied their need for water. The OT mentions no such movable well, and, because of its patently fantastic character, we must assume that this Jewish tradition (which took various forms) is legendary and unhistorical.

But Enns argues that Paul accepted this tradition as true. Paul “is simply talking about the biblical story in the only way he knows how, in accordance with the way he (and apparently his audience as well) had received it.” Paul, after all, “was a ‘product’ of his own time” and was subject to “certain intellectual influences,” so that his “understanding of his Bible was determined to a certain extent by his historical situation.”[82] Now Paul no doubt believed some things that were not true, but one function of inspiration is to ensure that the erroneous beliefs of the biblical writers do not get into their writings. Enns insists that the notion that the Holy Spirit would “communicate the supreme Good News through pedestrian and uninspired Jewish legends” is not contrary to “a high view of Scripture,” and indeed is part of “the very nature of revelation.”[83] Enns evidently has a low view of what a “high view of Scripture” is, for his explanation of how the Holy Spirit communicates amounts to a denial that Scripture is the word of an all-knowing and truth-telling God. Enns’s view contrasts sharply with that of Hodge and Warfield, who declared that the Holy Spirit superintended the writing of Scripture, “causing his energies to flow into the spontaneous exercises of the writer’s faculties, elevating and directing where need be, and everywhere securing the errorless expression in language of the thought designed by God.”[84] The doctrine of inspiration assures us that if Paul believed this fanciful Jewish legend, God would not have permitted him to put it in the Scriptures. Enns’s interpretation of 1 Cor 10:4 is contrary to the biblical doctrine of Scripture, and therefore must be wrong.[85]

G. K. Beale disputes Enns’s contention that the legend of the movable well was known in the first century,[86] but we think that Enns makes a stronger case than Beale. As Enns notes, Paul’s reference to the rock’s mobility is brief and incidental, which seems to take the legend as a given.[87] Furthermore, it is very difficult not to see a reference to this tradition in any mention of an accompanying rock in this context. There is no mention in the OT of any rock following the Israelites and providing them with water to drink. A Jewish tradition would certainly seem to be in view.

But before we explain what Paul is doing with this Jewish legend, we should consider the fact that without supernatural intervention there was not enough water for the Israelites and their animals in the wilderness. Early in their first year in the wilderness, they reached Rephidim, where Moses struck “the rock at Horeb” and enough water came out to satisfy the people (Exod 17:1-7). Nothing is said in the books of Moses about their water supply again until their final year in the wilderness, when, at Kadesh, Moses “struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly” (Num 20:10-11). We must assume that during the intervening thirty-nine or so years, for most of which our only information is the itinerary of Num 33, the Lord miraculously provided water when needed, just as he provided manna continually (Exod 16:35; Josh 5:12). Where no springs could be found, the Lord must have provided water from the rocks. We are told how water came out of a rock near the beginning and again near the end of the forty years in the wilderness; the same thing probably happened many times in between.[88]

This is arguably confirmed by Ps 78:15-16: “He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink.... He made streams come out of the rock and caused rivers to flow down like rivers.” The word for “rock” in v. 15 (צור) is the same as that in Exod 17:6; the word in v. 16 (סלע) is the one used in Num 20:10-11. So the psalm may simply refer to these two incidents. However, v. 15 does say “rocks” (plural), suggesting an ongoing activity.[89] Also, as Perowne notes, the verb in v. 15 “is apparently the aorist [imperfect] of repeated action”; hence, “the miracle seems as if ever repeated” (although he regards this as only “poetic amplification”).[90] Thus, v. 15 may well describe the Lord’s continuing work over the forty years, which culminated in the event of v. 16.

If this is so, it is easy to understand how the story arose that one particular rock moved around with the people and continually supplied them with water. The Jews knew about the continual water supply, either as an extrabiblical tradition or as an inference from Scripture, and that knowledge grew into a legend about one rock that moved around with the people.[91] Over the years, the story was embellished in various forms as a movable well. Of course, we know that there was not a supernatural rock, a movable well, that accompanied them. Rather, it was the Lord who was with them, and he caused water to gush forth from various rocks when it was needed.

In 1 Cor 10, Paul relates that all the Israelites in the wilderness ate “the same spiritual (πνευματικόν) food” (v. 3) and drank “the same spiritual (πνευματικόν) drink” (v. 4a). They were able to do the latter because “they drank (ἔπινον) from the spiritual Rock that followed them (ἐκ πνευματικῆς ἀκολουθούσης πέτρας), and the Rock was Christ” (v. 4b). There are several inadequacies in the ESV’s translation of this passage, which tend to obscure its meaning somewhat. First, the food (manna) and the drink (water) to which Paul refers were material entities, which were consumed for bodily nourishment. Their only “spiritual” quality was their miraculous origin by the operation of forces in the spiritual realm, beyond the natural realm (cf. “bread from heaven,” Exod 16:4; Neh 9:15). In other words, they were food and drink of supernatural origin. The rock to which Paul refers was also supernatural—not simply in its origin, but also in its attributes and operation. Thus, πνευματικός is best translated “supernatural” in this context.[92] Second, there is no reason to capitalize “rock.” “Rock” is not a name here, because a name would not have adjectives attached to it. To speak of “a/the supernatural Rock” would imply that there are other Rocks (not just rocks), which there are not. Third, πέτρας is anarthrous, and thus should be translated “a rock,” not “the rock.”[93] Wherever else in the NT “drink from” (πίνω+ ἀπό or ἐκ) has a noun for the object of the preposition, the definite article is included (see Matt 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18; John 4:13, 14; 1 Cor 11:28; Rev 14:10; 18:3), so its absence here should be considered significant. Fourth, the verb describing the drinking in v. 4b is in the imperfect tense (ἔπινον), “were drinking,” indicating an ongoing activity.[94] Fifth, the definite article in the final clause is best understood as having demonstrative force: “that rock,” not “the rock,” since “the rock” was not previously mentioned. Finally, the final clause is linked to what precedes by δέ, indicating a mild disjunction, the force of which would be well conveyed by a dash. Putting all this together, we find that v. 4b should be translated like this: “For they were drinking from a supernatural rock that followed them—and that rock was Christ.”

Now since there was, in fact, no mobile rock or well that accompanied the Israelites, we can be sure that God did not inspire Paul to say that there was. Yet his language certainly conjures up the image of just such a legendary rock. The key to understanding Paul’s statement is the anarthrous πέτρας. He does not grant that “the” rock of Jewish legend accompanied the Israelites; instead, he says that “a” rock accompanied them. But what rock? The legendary rock? He quickly explains: “and that rock was Christ.” In other words, the source of their supernaturally originating water was indeed a supernatural “rock” that followed them in their travels, but that rock was not the movable well of Jewish legend, but rather the preincarnate Christ. He was the Lord, often called “the Rock” in the OT (e.g., Deut 32:15; Pss 18:2; 42:9; 78:35; 89:26), who accompanied them and provided their water as needed. He did this, we have suggested, throughout the forty years in the wilderness, and this verse confirms it, both by using the imperfect ἔπινον and by noting that the water-producing rock “followed” the people.[95] So Paul describes this rock in a way that causes the knowledgeable reader to think of the Jewish legend, but then he immediately corrects that impression, indicating that Christ, not a magical rock, provided the water.[96] Paul’s denial that a literal rock was following the Israelites would be best conveyed in English by putting the word “rock” in quotation marks: “For they were drinking from a supernatural ‘rock’ that followed them—and that ‘rock’ was Christ.” The sense of the passage, then, is this: “For they were drinking from a supernatural ‘rock’ that followed them—not the rock of Jewish legend, but the Rock, Christ himself.”

But why did Paul bother to allude to the Jewish legend at all? He could have left out the word ἀκολουθούσης without weakening his argument. Certainly Paul was not simply “talking about the biblical story in the only way he knows how,”[97] for he could have talked about it in any number of ways, especially under divine inspiration. We know that behind this epistle was not merely a letter that the Corinthians had written to him on various subjects (see 7:1), but also discussion that he had had with them in Corinth for a year and a half (cf. Acts 18:11) and further reports (see 1 Cor 1:11) that mentioned divisions regarding the Lord’s Supper (11:17-22). It is reasonable to think that the Jewish legend had come up in this interaction. Perhaps the Corinthians’ letter, which most scholars believe is quoted in snippets here and there in Paul’s epistle, referred to the legend (perhaps as “the rock that followed them”). In any case, Paul’s references to the wilderness eating and drinking (10:1-5) are formulated as allusions to the Lord’s Supper, so as to teach that participation in them does not automatically secure salvation (vv. 5-13).[98] Evidently, some of the Corinthians, failing to perceive Christ in the Lord’s Supper by faith (11:29-30), had adopted a magical view of the sacrament, and had appealed to the magical rock of Jewish legend in support of their view. If so, Paul responds in 10:4 by reminding them that Christ was sustaining his people in the wilderness, not a magical source of nourishment.

That historical reconstruction is not certain, of course, but in any event we have seen that when we exegete 1 Cor 10:4 carefully and interpret it properly against the full background of the OT, we find a simple and natural solution to a “problem” passage, one that is completely compatible with the traditional view of Scripture as the word of God. There is no evidence here of Paul’s supposed adherence to fanciful Jewish legends, let alone the incorporation of such belief in his inspired writings.

VII. Conclusion

In each of the cases examined above, we have found that the biblical passages involved are consistent with the traditional view of the inspiration, truth, and consistency of Scripture. Good reason has been shown for rejecting contrary assessments of those passages made by Peter Enns. In each instance, a hermeneutic based on the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture as the word of God has borne, we believe, significant exegetical fruit. These results support the validity of that approach to Scripture, as developed in Part I. This is especially so because these passages were chosen by Enns as supposedly providing clear and compelling evidence for a contrary view of Scripture. If his interpretations of these carefully selected passages collapse under careful scrutiny, should we expect his view of Scripture to be supported by other passages?[99]

One can only hope that the exegesis presented here will at least give pause to those who insist that “the weight of accumulated evidence” requires a different view of Scripture. However, the writings of Enns suggest a different mind-set. On one occasion, he describes his views on the alleged “Second Temple influence on the NT” as being true “beyond any reasonable doubt”; if anyone disagrees with him, it “is not because the facts are in serious question.”[100] And then, at the end of his criticism of Jesus’ interpretation of Exod 3:6 in Luke 20:37-40, Enns comments: “In isolation one can certainly find creative ways of ‘handling’ this and other problematic passages in conventional ways, but the weight of accumulated evidence, both from the NT and its surrounding world, would quickly render such arguments unconvincing.”[101]

That last remark is quite revealing. There are two ways of approaching problem passages in the Bible. If we are confident that Scripture, because of its divine authorship, is entirely true and self-consistent, then we will approach them on the assumption that inconsistencies are only apparent. We will search diligently for reasonable harmonizations or other solutions, and we will find them convincing (or at least sufficiently plausible not to draw the biblical view of Scripture into question). That is the approach taken in this article. On the other hand, we have the approach taken by Enns. He begins with the conviction that the Bible is characterized by inconsistencies of various sorts (which he attributes to its “incarnational” nature), and so when he comes to an apparent inconsistency, he assumes (unless there is an immediately obvious explanation) that it fits in with the overall pattern of inconsistency (the “accumulated evidence”), and he therefore “quickly” pronounces any proposed harmonization or similar explanation “unconvincing.” Such impatience does not characterize serious scholarship. And such a dismissive attitude certainly does not characterize Christian scholarship.

As explained in Part I, the view of Scripture propounded by Enns is greatly mistaken and must be rejected. However unintentionally, he undermines the truth and authority of Scripture, debases the Author of Scripture, and jeopardizes the Christian faith based upon Scripture. He seeks to justify his view of Scripture by basing it upon a certain view of the incarnation, but that view is equally erroneous and likewise threatens the Christian faith, and so too must be rejected. Only when Scripture is properly respected as the inspired word of our omniscient and immutable God, and therefore completely true, can it be interpreted correctly. The truth of inspired Scripture is the only reliable and authoritative foundation for Christian teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

Notes

1. Limitations of space prohibit the consideration of all the passages mentioned by Enns as he develops his view of Scripture, but the reader should know that the passages not addressed here can be explained in accordance with the principles set forth in this article just as easily as the ones that are addressed here. (However, I do not claim to have the answer for every problem in the Bible!) In Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), Enns sets forth his explanations for various passages that present problems for the traditional view of inspiration and inerrancy, but he generally ignores interpretations that are consistent with the traditional view, thus giving the false impression that these passages cannot be plausibly explained in accordance with it.
2. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 54. By “objective truth,” we mean God’s truth, which corresponds to his perfect knowledge of what actually is in the world and what actually happened in the past.
3. See Paul H. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” WTJ 53 (1991): 227-40 and 54 (1992): 31-46.
4. As in Part I, all Bible quotations are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.
5. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:235.
6. See Enns’s “Conversation” with Richard Pratt’s “Westminster and Contemporary Reformed Hermeneutics,” at www.peterennsonline.com.
7. Similarly, most Americans probably think that all swans are white, but that does not make whiteness part of the definition of swan in American English. If it did, it would be impossible to make a true statement about swans in American English, for there is in fact a species of black swans native to Australia.
8. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:236. For Seely, apparently, revelation and inspiration are not part of the biblical writers’ experience.
9. Contrary to John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 117, who comments on 42:5: “The picture of God spreading out the heavens like a tent (cf. 40:22) and flattening out the surface of the earth with a hammer as he would a piece of metal is endearing.” But Oswalt forgets the latter half of this “endearing” picture when he gets to 44:24, translating “who stretches out the heavens by myself, who founded the earth” without comment on his change of translational imagery (pp. 189, 192).
10. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:238-39.
11. Walther Zimmerli, A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24 (trans. Ronald E. Clements; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 87. Seely (“The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:239 n. 49) erroneously claims Zimmerli’s support for his view that Ezekiel describes the firmament of heaven. He also erroneously claims the support of C. F. Keil, who comments: “It is not the firmament of heaven which Ezekiel sees above the heads of the cherubim, but an expanse resembling it” (K&D, vol. 9, 1:29).
12. Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 101 n. 75.
13. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:239.
14. So ibid., 53:237.
15. Seely (ibid.) objects that “the stars do not look like they are located in the air or atmosphere”; rather, “they look like they are embedded in a solid vault.” But in fact the distorted stellar light that we see does look like it comes from the atmosphere, as we have explained. That atmosphere does not look solid; the ancients merely supposed that it had to be solid in order to hold lights.
16. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (trans. John King; 2 vols.; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 1:79-80. When Calvin adds, “He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere” (p. 79), he is not suggesting that the Genesis account is contrary to science, but only that it does not describe things that ordinary people do not observe.
17. Ibid., 1:85.
18. Ibid., 1:86-87.
19. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:238-40.
20. Edward J. Young, Studies in Genesis One (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1964), 90 n. 94.
21. Seely, “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:240.
22. Edward J. Young, Thy Word Is Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 172: In “the first chapter of Genesis” we read “a scientifically accurate account of that which actually transpired.”
23. Young, Studies in Genesis One, 69, 90-91, 93-96.
24. In “The Firmament and the Water Above,” 53:240, and “Noah’s Flood: Its Date, Extent, and Divine Accommodation,” WTJ 66 (2004): 291-311, at pp. 310-11, Paul H. Seely attempts to portray Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield as accepting that Genesis speaks of a solid firmament, but we saw in Part I, section 5, how woefully he misinterprets the Princeton scholars with regard to the creation account. Indeed, we have seen Seely misrepresent his sources so often that one should hesitate to accept anything that he says about them without independent verification.
25. Peter Enns, “William Henry Green and the Authorship of the Pentateuch: Some Historical Considerations,” JETS 45 (2002): 394. Enns imagines that the equation of “discrepancy/contra-diction” with “error/mistake” is a “thoroughly modernist-critical assumption,” whereas in fact it is the foundation of all rational discourse, reflecting the self-consistency of God, who created rational man in his image.
26. Ibid.
27. Enns appeals to his predecessor at Westminster Seminary, Raymond B. Dillard, in support of the view that “harmonization of synoptic accounts can no longer be considered to be the consensus evangelical position” (“Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse,” WTJ 65 [2003]: 264 n. 4). In fact, however, in “Harmonization: A Help and a Hindrance,” in Inerrancy and Hermeneutics: A Tradition, a Challenge, a Debate (ed. Harvie M. Conn; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), Dillard speaks of the “theological warrant” for harmonization, namely, the fact that “God is true,” so that “the written Word” of God is “without error” (p. 156). He states that “the goal of harmonistic exegesis,” which is “primarily to defend a doctrine of Scripture,” is “immeasurably important” (p. 162). Dillard is critical, not of harmonization in principle, but of how it has often been done in practice (pp. 157-64).
28. Enns, “William Henry Green,” 393-94. He (or his editor) toned this down in his commentary on Exodus aimed at evangelical believers: “Male slaves may go free in the seventh year, but female slaves may not. (This gender distinction does not seem to be carried through in Deut. 15:12.)”(Exodus [NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000], 444).
29. This possibility is understood, though not stated. So U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967), 267.
30. The harmony involving the status of female slaves in Exod 21:2-3 and Deut 15:12 would be even clearer if we adopted Cassuto’s interpretation of Exod 21: “The term ‘Hebrew slave’ in v. 2, according to the plain meaning of the verse [v. 3], includes also the bondwoman, and the law in regard to her is the same as that for the male slave” (A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 266). However, the bondwoman of v. 3 is the wife of the Hebrew slave of v. 2.
31. Even the provision for the piercing of the ear of the slave who has become “well-off “(presumably having gained the family mentioned in Exod 21:4-6 and/or having achieved a better standard of living than he could on his own) and has chosen to remain for life with his master (Deut 15:16-17) was humanitarian in that it gave the slave proof of a permanent status that would be legally enforceable.
32. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 90-91.
33. S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895), 182-83.
34. A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 251.
35. Peter E. Enns, “Creation and Re-Creation: Psalm 95 and Its Interpretation in Hebrews 3:1– 4:13,” WTJ 55 (1993): 255-80.
36. Ibid., 273.
37. Ibid., 273-74.
38. Ibid., 278.
39. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 139-42.
40. When we speak of the original meaning of the OT, we realize that Hebrews (like the NT generally) quotes the LXX, which often departs materially from the MT, sometimes even in passages quoted in the NT. This raises difficult questions about the originality of the MT, possible canonical revision of the OT, and the authority, or least the use, of the LXX in the apostolic church (and today)—important matters that we cannot address here.
41. See G. Zuntz, The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (London: British Academy, 1953), 14-17.
42. Harold W. Attridge, in The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 32, mentions possible corruptions at 1:8; 2:9; 4:2; 9:2-3; 10:1; 11:4, 37; 12:7, 11.
43. George H. Guthrie, “Hebrews,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 919-95, on p. 954, summarizes Enns’s interpretation and then remarks that “dio does not necessarily indicate a temporal distinction between two periods, but rather serves to highlight the causal relationship between disobedience and God’s wrath.”
44. Enns, “Creation and Re-Creation,” 273-74. So also Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 140-41.
45. Enns, “Creation and Re-Creation,” 274. So also Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 140-41.
46. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 269-70.
47. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 114-15.
48. Matt 22:29 and Mark 12:24 do include Jesus’ introductory remark to the Sadducees, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” So Jesus claims to understand the Scriptures—a claim that Enns challenges.
49. Note that Jesus does not say that the resurrection is “suddenly the topic of conversation” in Exod 3:6, as Enns caricatures the argument (Inspiration and Incarnation, 114). All Jesus does is draw an inference from the passage.
50. Enns is oblivious to this. In Exodus, 98, he describes God’s pronouncement simply as “a reminder of the past,” i.e., of Moses’ “Israelite heritage.” But God is not reminding Moses that he ultimately failed his forefathers (in their death); rather, he is asserting that he is even now their God. In his commentary, Enns ignores what Jesus has to say about the passage.
51. God’s nature (in this case, his justice) also requires a resurrection of the unjust, for he cannot allow them to escape eternal judgment through temporal death.
52. Peter Enns, “Biblical Interpretation, Jewish,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background (ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000), 164.
53. Martin Pickup, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament: The Theological Rationale of Midrashic Exegesis,” JETS 51 (2008): 353-81, at p. 371.
54. For a survey of typological and other interpretation, see Craig L. Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 8; Pickup, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament,” 372-74.
55. Enns, “Biblical Interpretation, Jewish,” 164.
56. As we saw in Part I, section 6, Enns equates the original meaning of the text with the meaning intended by the human writer, whereas it should be equated with the meaning intended by God as he caused the passage to be written as his word—the meaning that Matthew describes as “what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” So for Enns to speak of what “the prophet or his audience” “might” have understood merely confuses matters, for Enns is really setting the meaning in Matthew over against the meaning in Hosea, not over against what the prophet or his audience presumably understood his text to mean. In other words, Enns is trying to capitalize on the assumption that Hosea would have had no idea that Christ was in the passage, whereas we would insist (as we will explain) that a reference to Christ is in the passage—in its actual language, fully understood, not in some fanciful sense—because God had him in mind when causing it to be written. This may not have become apparent in the history of redemption until after the coming of Christ, but it was there in the inspired text of Hosea all along.
57. In Inspiration and Incarnation, 134, Enns claims that “what the Lord had spoken by the prophet” refers not to the words written by Hosea, but to “what God says,” the latter being “not captured by the surface meaning of the words on the page, but by looking at the grander scope of God’s overall redemptive plan.” This refers to the so-called christotelic meaning that the NT church supposedly reads into the OT. However, contrary to Enns, Matthew does not refer to “what God says” (present tense) in the NT age, but to “what the Lord had spoken” (past perfect tense, ESV; aorist participle in Greek, referring to what happened long before the flight to Egypt) when Hosea wrote under divine inspiration. Matthew, using the standard biblical formula for inspiration, represents the Lord as speaking at the time of, and through the written words of, the OT prophet.
58. Dan McCartney and Peter Enns, “Matthew and Hosea: A Response to John Sailhamer,” WTS 63 (2001): 104.
59. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 276. So also Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 153.
60. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 277. (Enns repeats this statement in Inspiration and Incarnation, 153.) Note that Enns continues to equate the meaning of the original text with the intention of the human writer, not with the intention of God. Cf. n. 64 below.
61. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 133.
62. McCartney and Enns, “Matthew and Hosea,” 104.
63. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 276. So also Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 153.
64. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 277. (Enns repeats this statement in Inspiration and Incarnation, 153.) Hosea’s words have this new meaning, Enns claims, “precisely because they are inspired by God, the divine author” (p. 277). How the inspiration of an ancient text that once meant one thing enables it now to mean something else, Enns does not explain. The truth rather is that inspiration gives an ancient text a divine meaning that always remains the same (in accordance with the divine nature); the coming of Christ does not change that meaning, but it may help us to understand that original meaning more fully.
65. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 133-34.
66. McCartney and Enns, “Matthew and Hosea,” 103. Their notion that Matthew understands Israel to be the “Egypt” out of which Jesus is called is twice refuted in the immediate context. First, the “calling” out of Egypt in v. 15 corresponds to the “telling” to come out of literal Egypt in v. 13. Second, Matthew states that Joseph (when he was in literal Israel) took Jesus and “departed to Egypt” (v. 14) in order that (ἵνα) the child might subsequently be “called” “out of Egypt” (v. 15).
67. Peter Enns, “Exodus/New Exodus,” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 217. There is no suggestion here that “Egypt” means “Israel” in connection with Jesus.
68. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 133.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., 134.
71. Peter Enns, “Response to Professor Greg Beale,” Them 32.3 (May 2007): 10.
72. In October 2008, after this article was written, Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007 [sic]) appeared, containing “Fuller Meaning, Single Goal: A Christotelic Approach to the New Testament Use of the Old in Its First-Century Interpretive Environment,” by Peter Enns, on pp. 165217, followed by a trenchant response by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., on pp. 218-25, and a milder response by Darrell L. Bock on pp. 226-31. Nothing in Enns’s essay requires any modification of anything in this article. Enns discusses Matthew’s treatment of Hos 11:1 on pp. 198-202, repeating previously published discussion, sometimes word for word (e.g., the conjecture referenced above in n. 70 is repeated nearly verbatim on p. 200), and concluding: “And so Hosea’s words, which in their original historical context did not speak of Jesus of Nazareth, now do.” Enns claims that an inspired Matthew could legitimately give new meaning to the words of an inspired Hosea (pp. 201, 202). But inspiration prevents arbitrary interpretation of the OT in the NT; it does not justify it. Contrary to Enns, God does not inspire misrepresentations of his own word, for that would amount to self-contradiction and a denial of himself.
73. Ideally, we should deal with this passage on the basis of a general study of Matthew’s formula quotations, but that will not be possible here (though we are not unmindful of the similar problems posed by the other passages).
74. It might seem more appropriate for Hos 11:1 to have been quoted at the end of the narrative of the family leaving Egypt and returning to Israel (Matt 2:19-23), rather than at the end of the narrative of them fleeing to Egypt and remaining there (2:13-15), but Hos 11:1 is quoted in Matt 2:15 in anticipation of the fulfillment because the account of leaving Egypt quickly turns into a consideration of where the family will live, and that brings another prophecy into view in 2:23. By quoting Hos 11:1 where he does, Matthew spreads out the OT quotations. Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 7, comments: Matthew “inserts the reference to the prophecy about coming out of Egypt already here in order to create five discrete pericopes concerning five fulfillments of prophecy.”
75. John Murray, “The Unity of the Old and New Testaments,” in Collected Writings of John Murray (4 vols.; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976-82), 1:23-26, states: “The deliverance of Israel from Egypt found its validation, basis, and reason in what was fulfilled in Christ” (p. 26). It may be true that “the events of New Testament realization,” taken together and focusing on Christ’s death and resurrection, provide “the ground and warrant for the revelatory and redemptive events of the Old Testament period” (p. 25), but to suppose that the calling of Jesus out of Egypt specifically was “the archetype that gave warrant to the redemption of Israel from Egypt” (p. 26) strikes us as quite a stretch. There surely was plenty of warrant for the exodus (namely, the promises given to the patriarchs), quite apart from the fact that the baby Jesus would someday be taken down to Egypt and back to Israel.
76. The predictions of similar divine action in the future that are implicit in OT narratives are usually thought of as lessons to be drawn from biblical “examples” (1 Cor 10:6).
77. O. Palmer Robertson has written briefly along similar lines in “Genesis 15:6: New Covenant Expositions of an Old Covenant Text,” WTJ 42 (1980): 259-89, at p. 285: Matthew’s reference to fulfillment in 2:15 “conveys the idea of ‘bringing to the point of fullest realization,’ or ‘bringing to fruition’ of a principle operative in redemptive history.” However, there is nothing in the word πληρόω that suggests that the “fullest” realization is necessarily in view.
78. In “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament,” 374, Pickup somewhat similarly finds meaning in Hos 11:1 “that found actualization when God summoned the infant Messiah from Egypt.” However, like Enns, Pickup asserts that this meaning is “additional” to the one “possessed inherently” by “the prophet’s words.” Matthew obtains it “atomistically,” “in true midrashic fashion,” i.e., by isolating the desired words and giving them a sense contrary to their context in Hosea. Pickup supposes that God intended this exegesis all along, but the truthful and self-consistent God would deny himself by being capricious and illogical, inspiring words that have one meaning within their context while intending a contrary meaning for the future. When these words are “recontextualized” as Pickup imagines them to be, they cease to be the inspired words of Hosea, for the words of a text carry with them their original meaning. When given a different interpretation, they are no longer the message of the author.
79. Note that Matthew, in seeing an actualization of the OT text in the life of Jesus, interprets that text less in the sense of providing an exegesis and more in the sense of providing an application.
80. Enns lists these traditions in “The ‘Moveable Well’ in 1 Cor 10:4: An Extrabiblical Tradition in an Apostolic Text,” BBR 6 (1996): 23-38, at p. 36; “Biblical Interpretation, Jewish,” 164-65; “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 272-73. They are discussed in more detail in Inspiration and Inerrancy, 142-51, and in “Fuller Meaning, Single Goal,” 185-97, where he suggests that we may be “barking up the wrong tree” if we try to “defend Scripture’s historicity” in these cases (pp. 195-96). In a less-guarded moment, Enns asserts that “alteration of events” characterizes the historiography of both the OT and the NT (p. 196 n. 26, referencing the more circumspect discussion in Inspiration and Inerrancy, 59-66).
81. Enns gives this enigmatic explanation for Stephen’s reference to Moses’ education: “Acts 7:22 says what it says, however, because Second Temple interpreters were not silent” (Inspiration and Incarnation, 147). What exactly Enns is hinting at here is unclear, but it is true that Stephen probably would not have referred to Moses’ education if his audience was not already aware of it.
82. Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well,”‘ 32-34.
83. Ibid., 34.
84. Archibald A. Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield, Inspiration (1881; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 16.
85. Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: R. Carter, 1857), 174, comments that the view held by Enns “makes the apostle responsible for a Jewish fable, and is inconsistent with his divine authority.”
86. G. K. Beale, “Did Jesus and the Apostles Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Revisiting the Debate Seventeen Years Later in the Light of Peter Enns’ Book, Inspiration and Incarnation,” Them 32.1 (October 2006): 18-43, at pp. 32-34.
87. Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well,”‘ 32; Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 150-51.
88. Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 324: The incidents in Exod 17 and Num 20 are two examples of God’s daily provision of water in the wilderness.
89. However, Mitchell J. Dahood, Psalms (AB; 3 vols.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966– 1970), 2:240, favors the singular “rock” of the LXX.
90. J. J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms (2 vols.; 4th ed.; London: George Bell & Sons, 1878), 2:63.
91. Favoring the idea that the legend grew out of an exegetical tradition are Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well,”‘ 31; Christian Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (THKNT; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1996), 216-17; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 456.
92. So RSV, NEB; Hodge, First Corinthians, 175; F. Godet, Commentary on St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (trans. A. Cusin; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889), 2:54-56; Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1911), 200; James Moffatt, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), 129, 130; Garland, 1 Corinthians, 454; cf. Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (EKKNT; 4 vols.; Zu¨rich and Du¨sseldorf: Benziger, 1991– 2001), 2:392 and 393 n. 63 (“u¨berirdisch”); cf. F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 220-21 (“not of the natural order of things,” “miraculous”); Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 447 (“supernaturally given”). Among the lexicographers, “supernatural” is favored by Grimm-Wilke-Thayer, Souter, and Newman; BAGD is unclear.
93. So Charles J. Ellicott, St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Longmans, Green, 1887), 175; C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC; London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968), 222.
94. So Godet, First Corinthians, 2:57; Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 201; Fee, First Corinthians, 447 n. 33 and 448; Kistemaker, First Corinthians, 323.
95. So Hodge, First Corinthians, 174.
96. Cf. Robertson and Plummer, First Corinthians, 201: “That the wording of the passage has been influenced by the Jewish legend about a rock following the Israelites . . . is hardly doubtful; but that the Apostle believed the legend is very doubtful.”
97. Enns, “The ‘Moveable Well,”‘ 32.
98. Pace Garland, 1 Corinthians, 453-54, who suggests that Paul is merely opposing idolatry and thinking about idol meats, but that is insufficient to account for the terminological links to all three sacramental elements (including baptismal water). It is significant for dogmatics, by the way, that in this passage (alone in the NT) baptism and the Lord’s Supper are brought together as the two sacraments of the Christian faith.
99. Of course, the validity of the traditional view of Scripture, as I develop it in Part I, does not depend on the correctness of my exegesis in Part II. There may be better interpretations for one or more of the passages with which I deal. However, I hope at least to have shown that the approach taken remains fully viable and should be followed vigorously and confidently (though also humbly and carefully) by Christian scholars, and that both the hermeneutical objections and the supporting exegesis offered by Enns are deeply flawed.
100. Enns, “Apostolic Hermeneutics,” 273-74.
101. Ibid., 270.