In my opinion, the best chapter in Pete Enns’ book, Inspiration and Incarnation, was Chapter 2, when he discussed the importance of reading and understanding the Old Testament within its ancient Near Eastern (ANE) context. This chapter affirmed so many things I had come to realize about the Old Testament, in both of my MA programs, as well as the PhD work I was at that time working on. Now, Enns devoted 45 pages to this topic; I am only going to devote about a 2,000-word overview of this tremendous chapter.
Enns begins the chapter by pointing out the completely undeniable fact that there is a host of writings from the ANE that are really similar to things in the Old Testament: the creation myth of Enuma Elish, the flood story of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh, the legal material found at the ancient city of Nuzi, the law code of Hammurabi, the ancient Hittite Suzerainty Treaties, various historical references from the surrounding countries concerning Israel that give a different interpretation of certain events, and the Instruction of Amenemope to name a just a few.
Given these undeniable similarities between the Old Testament and other ANE writings, Enns then discusses why many Evangelicals no doubt feel uneasy about admitting this. After all, what one is forced to wrestle with, is the following:
- Since there are ANE creation and flood stories that look a lot like the ones in Genesis 1-11, does that mean Genesis 1-11 is just another ANE myth, or is it history? There are quite a few Evangelicals who feel that if Genesis 1-11 isn’t history, then that calls the reliability of the whole Bible into question.
- Since there are ANE legal codes that bear a close resemblance to the Torah given at Sinai, does that mean the Torah is just another law code, and not really divinely inspired? Since other nations had wisdom literature like Proverbs, isn’t it possible that the Wisdom Literature in the OT isn’t really revealed, and is just like the Wisdom Literature of other nations?
- Since other nations have a different interpretation of certain events in the Old Testament, is it possible that the OT writers were just biased in their recording of history?
So now let’s unpack what Enns says about each one of these issues.
Is Genesis 1-11 Myth or History?
Essentially, Enns asks the question, “Why can’t God use the kind of writing we label as ‘myth’ in order to speak to ancient Israelites?” “Myth,” as Enns defines it, is “an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins and meaning in the form of stories: Who are we? Where do we come from?” (39). I would say that “myth” was the creative way ancient people talked about what they believed about the gods, about the purpose of creation, and about the meaning and identity of human beings.
In any case, one thing is clear: ANE myths weren’t trying to give historical or scientific information. Therefore, to assume that God would, out of the blue, reveal to ancient Israel information that no one in the ANE would have really been asking or even cared about is to assume something that doesn’t make sense.
Incidentally, this topic regarding Genesis 1-11 is of extreme importance when it comes to the current creation/evolution debate. In fact, I would argue that it is misunderstood by both YECists and atheists alike. When it gets right down to it, both groups simply cannot conceive that Genesis 1-11 wasn’t written to address modern scientific/historical questions.
YECists conclude that if Genesis 1-11 isn’t literal history and accurate science, then the integrity of the entire Bible goes out the window, and they say things like, “Well, if there wasn’t a literal Adam and Eve, then how can you believe that there was a literal Jesus? If the flood was just a myth, then that must mean the resurrection is just a myth too!” Therefore, they insist that it has to be scientific and historical, or else it’s not true.
Ironically, many atheists share the exact same mindset. They assume that Genesis 1-11 is trying to give scientific and historical information, and since it is obvious to everyone that modern scientific discoveries have shown (for just one example) that the universe is closer to 14 billion years old, and not 6,000, they thus conclude that not only Genesis 1-11, but indeed the entire Bible, is just full of outrageous stupidities and superstitions, and thus is worthless.
And if you try to point out the them the kind of thing that Enns argues in his book, namely that Genesis 1-11 is mythological literature and isn’t even addressing modern scientific/historical questions, they think you’re just a foolish religious zealot making excuses for what clearly has been proven false by modern science. And, ironically, they end up saying things very similar to YECists: “There was no Adam and Eve, so how can you be sure Jesus even existed? If Noah’s flood was just a myth, then you might as well admit that the resurrection is a myth too!”
Neither group can get their heads around the fact that Genesis 1-11 wasn’t written directly to them in the 21st century. Neither group seems to understand that the gospels (for example) are clearly a different genre of writing than Genesis 1-11. Both groups wrongly assume that Genesis 1-11 must be attempting to do modern science and history, because, in reality, neither group takes the original historical and literary contexts of Genesis 1-11 seriously. And let’s be clear, that is precisely why there is a creation/evolution debate to begin with, and that’s why it almost always gets shoe-horned into atheism/Christianity debates.
YECists reject evolution and much of modern science, not really because there’s any real science that supports a young earth, but because of their pre-conceived assumption that Genesis 1-11 must be literal history and science or else it can’t be true. And many atheists try to use evolution to attack Christianity and the Bible because of their pre-conceived assumption that Genesis 1-11 was really trying to do literal history and science; and therefore, since it doesn’t make sense when interpreted as literal history and science, they then use that as the justification to immediately reject and dismiss anything else that smacks of “God” or “religion.”
Yet neither group seems to know how to be good, responsible readers of Genesis 1-11. They don’t want to be bothered with critically considering what Genesis 1-11 actually is, what it was originally addressing, and how it spoke to the questions and concerns of the original ANE audience. They have their agendas to push, so forget all that.
If they did take some time to consider what Enns says in his book about Genesis 1-11, they’d realize, not only what Genesis 1-11 actually is, but that, when seen against the backdrop of the ANE, how unique, remarkable, and subversive it is of the entire ANE worldview.
The unique thing about Genesis 1-11 isn’t that it is “really history” whereas the other stories are “just myths.” When it comes to the genre of literature, they’re all mythological literature. What makes Genesis 1-11 unique is not only that it teaches something radically different about the true God, about the goodness of creation, and about the dignity and worth of mankind, but then how it ties those myths directly into the historical story of Abraham, his descendants, and the nation of Israel itself. Tying myths into real human history just wasn’t done in the ANE, yet that’s exactly what Genesis 1-11 ends up doing…and most of us completely miss how revolutionary that was.
Enns insists that just because Genesis 1-11 is mythological literature doesn’t make it any less inspired; in fact, it makes it incarnational—for God is using the genre of myth to reveal the truth about Himself. Simply put, the truth about God is revealed in the genre of myth. How else would God communicate to an ancient culture that used myths to talk about their beliefs in the gods, if not through myths?
So whether one believes in God or not, if one understands that Genesis 1-11 is stating what the ancient Israelites believed about God, the created order, and human beings, and that it is not even attempting to discuss science and history, then one has to acknowledge that evolutionary theory is not a threat to the Bible. Genesis 1-11 and modern science are addressing two completely different things.
Is Revelation Unique?
The second issue Enns addresses is the fact that not only does the Torah look a lot like other ANE law codes, but that the Wisdom Literature in the OT looks very much like the Wisdom Literature of the surrounding ANE nations. To the point, “…what marks off Israel’s legal and wisdom texts is not the unique context of these texts; it is something else” (45). What makes them different is the goal for which they are intended: to form a godly community that reflects the character of the true God.
In other words (and this shouldn’t be surprising), when we find in the Ten Commandments, “Do not murder,” it’s not like people were saying, “What? It’s not okay to murder people anymore?” People throughout history, even before Sinai, have some sense of right and wrong that is reflected in the legal codes of various nations. But what made the Torah unique was how it was structured around the idea of YHWH’s covenant with Israel, and His purposes for what kind of nations He wanted them to be.
Even though Enns doesn’t go into it, we can see the OT sacrificial system in the same light. All ancient cultures had sacrificial systems; in that respect, Israel was no different. The difference was in the purpose of the sacrificial system and what was being emphasized.
We can also see this similar dynamic when we consider the similarities the OT Wisdom Literature has with that of the surrounding nations. It’s not that the other nations had no concept of Wisdom Literature, and that it was a brand new thing with Israel. What made the OT Wisdom Literature unique was how it was connected to the one true God and the covenant He entered into with Israel.
Essentially, what it comes down to is this: the historical realities of God’s covenant with Abraham and God’s bringing the Hebrews out of Egypt during the Exodus put all the legal and wisdom material that Israel would have been familiar with into a new light.
Is Good Historiography Objective or Biased?
The final big issue Enns addresses is the question regarding how the OT writers told of the history of Israel: Aren’t the writers just biased in the telling of Israel’s history? Can we trust them to be truly objective?
To the point, of course they are biased, because “objective” history is an impossibility. Furthermore, they weren’t “writing objective history” as if it were material for a documentary on the History Channel. As Enns says, they weren’t even writing “history” in our modern sense of the word. They were writing historiography—and that involved not just statements of facts, but rather the shaping of those facts for a particular purpose. And in the case of Israel, what was that purpose? Well, they wrote books like I/II Samuel and I/II Kings in the Exile in order to explain why Israel ended up in Exile.
That’s why so much of the history of the Old Testament covers so much bad behavior and unfaithfulness on the part of Israel: the writers were saying, “Hey, look at all these ways in which we violated God’s covenant! That’s why we ended up here in Exile!” But the point is that, of course the writers were biased; of course, they were giving an interpretation of historical events. But that doesn’t mean they are untrustworthy in their telling of their history.
Enns’ Conclusion
Enns concludes the chapter by emphasizing that, although Evangelicals shouldn’t be afraid of admitting these cultural connections between the Old Testament and the ANE, they should realize that understanding these things will and should have an impact on the way they understand Scripture. As Enns puts it: “…the central function of the Old Testament may not be there to ‘tell us what to do.’ It may be more part of a larger story that God brings to an end many hundreds of years later in Christ” (56).
More can probably be said, but I will end this post with this thought: there should be nothing frightening in trying to understand anything in the Old Testament in its original, historical, literary, and cultural contexts. Far from being frightening, I have found it freeing. I’ve stopped trying to impose upon the Bible what I think it should be, should say, and should mean, and have instead learned to accept what it actually is, and what it actually says. And let me tell you, when you do that, things get a whole lot more interesting, because you realize that you are no longer afraid to truly seek and find.
