I just read this, but I feel like I need to read it again for everything to sink in. As accessible as the book is, and it's often humorous as well, the ideas are challenging and will require further thought.
The author makes good points about keeping in mind time and culture when reading the Bible and not just seeing it as a rule book and trying to iron out/explain away inconsistencies.

The Bible—from back to front—is the story of God told from the limited point of view of real people living at a certain place and time.

He later says

These ancient writers had an adequate understanding of God for them in their time, but not for all time—and if we take that to heart, we will actually be in a better position to respect these ancient voices and see what they have to say rather than whitewashing the details and making up "explanations" to ease our stress.

Covering a variety of problem passages, he always comes back to his main point that "an owner's manual approach to the Bible doesn't work."
I picked this up because I'm re-reading the bible for the first time in years (I have one of those read-it-in-a-year versions—I'm increasingly skeptical of this approach, but I'll probably stick with it until I'm through), and there is quite a lot that bothers me, especially in the Old Testament. As a result, this book is my second foray this year into biblical scholarship, and I thought it made a lot of sense. That doesn't mean I'm on board with everything he says, but I will probably pick up more of his work, and that of others, as I look for answers. ( )

Started out good and then it just fails. The problem is Biblical literacy is abysmal in this country. Too many people are told what to read and how to read it and how to interpret it. Too many abdicate their brains for the pastor's word. And they take that word as law.

Especially when Enns got to the New Testament, I felt he was more interested in scrapping the Bible rather than understanding it as a whole. It became everything is just a fairytale rather than hard truths. And you wonder why there are over 40000 Protestant denominations in the US alone. Everyone can interpret and everyone thinks their interpretation is the correct one. The Christian Church in the US is failing and authors like Enns are helping it along. ( )

A really lovely and helpful take on how to understand and wrestle with the Bible—or any book of scripture. There are parts of this book that are a tad cheesy. And to be sure, some may not agree with Enns’ approach or conclusions. But this is a welcome approach that allows you to confront and reconcile the Bible with history and a modern understanding of God and religion.

Enns is a biblical scholar and does a masterful job of explaining various topics and the context behind biblical stories and history in a straightforward, easy to understand way. He doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the “hard parts” of the Bible, including those parts that appear to be contradictory, out of line with the historical record, or at odds with our present-day religious belief/practice. Indeed, Enns confronts many of those things head on and offers a legitimate—and in my opinion, helpful—way to understand the Bible.

Among other things, Enns argues that a “correct” understanding of the Bible requires you to look at the way the biblical writers understood God in their time and place in the world, the purpose they had in telling or re-telling biblical stories, and how subsequent prophets (and even Christ) re-examined biblical stories in new and creative ways. That allows you to accept the stories for what they are and the most important lessons to be drawn therefrom.

Most important of all, Enns is saying, applying this understanding of the Bible this allows us to take an even more expansive view of God and the Gospel, and to focus on the essential mission of scripture: to bear record of Christ and help readers come to know Jesus, feel His Spirit, and follow Him. After all, Enns notes, it is God and Christ, rather than the Bible, that are supposed to be at the center of every Christian’s faith. And for me, as a person of faith, that perspective is probably the most important thing I take away from this book.

So, despite a few quibbles on some minor points, a few new issues that this book raises but doesn’t address (for example, the problems that arise if the generally accepted meaning of scripture is always subject to change), and the cheesy way Enns approaches some issues, I found this book to be very well worth the read. I’d happily recommend it to anyone else interested in this topic. ( )

For many raised in conservative Christian churches, there comes a moment when you read a certain scripture and think, "What?!?! How can it say that???" It might be God in the Old Testament commanding the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman, and child. It might be the weird ways the New Testament writers use the Old Testament. Or it might be numerous contradictions between passages. (He addresses all these questions in the book!) At these times, it often felt like my faith was crumbling to oblivion.

This book certainly would have rocked my world 15 years ago. And yet, it might have hastened the growth process. Today after wrestling with these questions for 15 years, most of the book was a helpful summary of similar conclusions.

That said, Peter Enns is my go-to for understanding how to think about the Bible. He's a Harvard educated Old Testament professor who was fired for questioning the conservative presuppositions on scripture (for a little more, see his Wikipedia article). And, he remains solidly a Jesus follower through and through. I look forward to reading his other books. (His podcast - The Bible for Normal People - is also good. It seems to take what he writes here for granted and move on to next steps.)

My one complaint would have to be the tone. Get ready for some Dad jokes. Even for this new dad, it was a bit much. Okay, a second complaint (which might asking too much from one book and might be answered by his other books) is where to go from here. Sure, defending scripture skews our perspective, but where do we go from here? How does scripture relate to other literature?

All that said, if you are coming from a conservative background and struggle to understand how to deal with scripture, this is an excellent resource. It's fun and accessible, critical and honest, and yet still remains committed to Jesus. ( )

"The Bible Tells Me So" is an excellent and entertaining read that demonstrates, through scholarship and deep understanding, the Bible is not a literal, one-size fits all manual for how to live in the modern age. Enns's analysis of the Old Testament scriptures is particularly rigorous and he contextualizes much of these scriptures in light of their historical and cultural background. While Enns takes a sharp lens to the story of Israel I was a bit disappointed that the New Testament did not also get the same treatment. Enns asserts that Jesus changed the way the Jewish scriptures were meant to be read and understood, demonstrated in the writings of Paul, and this gives a cohesion to the Christian story in the Bible, but the NT are primarily discussed in light of the OT. More discussion, especially around the political intentions of the writers of the Gospel would have been welcome and warranted. Perhaps that is just the purview of another book. ( )

Fun Read About A Big Book

Once I started reading The Bible Tells Me So I had to rip myself away from it to go eat and sleep. I loved this Peter Enns book. Now, inspired, I've got to go dig into my Bible and expand my vision of God once again. ( )

The Bible Tells Me So challenges us to look at Scripture in a new light. Rather than feeling the need to defend the historical accuracy of each and every portion, the author encourages us to instead look at the bigger picture these stories might be trying to convey and to not get hung up on the literal historicity of certain portions.

The book is conversational and easy to read, but its ideas will be very challenging for more conservative folks. ( )

Enns makes a lot of good points about biblical interpretation--especially biblical mis-interpretation and mis-prioritization, but what the book lacked was a constructive hermeneutic to replace the one he was criticizing. A full method wasn't needed, but suggestions of where to look for a more promising method, from his point of view, would have been helpful and grounded his criticisms better. ( )

Awesome book! There is so much good stuff here. If you like theology, READ this book! ( )

Fascinating look at the context of the Bible and how that informed the words that were written. ( )

Based on the title, and the "Hebrew of the Hebrews" qualifications of the author in the Evangelical world (former tenured professor at Westminster Seminary), I expected this to be a good book. I was disappointed. Seems to be standard liberal claptrap for the most part. The author claims to have been set off on his liberal trajectory by considering that St. Paul referred to Christ as the rock that traveled with the Israelites in the wilderness. Pretty slim basis, it seems to me. But maybe the book will help some folks.

Fear not.

Those two simple words comprise the most common command in the Bible. Ironically, though, many Christians live in—if not precisely fear—at least a certain uneasiness about scripture. Here are some of the big issues:

- How could God command the genocide of the Canaanites?
- How could God annihilate the entire human race in a flood?
- Why do different passages of scripture take opposing views?
- How can Genesis speak intelligently to the modern world?
- How did Jesus and Paul get away with interpreting scripture so ... creatively?

Many Christians repress or explain away these issues, but deep down, the tension remains.

Peter Enns confronts the questions head on. His solution is simple: the Bible isn't an instruction manual on God, it's the account of how flawed human beings experienced God.

Reading the Bible responsibly and respectfully today means learning what it meant for ancient Israelites to talk about God the way they did, and not pushing alien expectations onto texts written long ago and far away. (65)

If the Bible is analogous to incarnation (fully God and fully human), Enns swings the pendulum from our longstanding Evangelical Docetism (not fully human) towards the Ebionism (not fully divine) side of the spectrum.

Now, you may not agree with Enns. Many people don't. (There's a great joke in the Acknowledgements section about the "Evangelical Witness Protection Program.") You do have to respect a man who is so transparent with his views that he lost his teaching post at Westminster Theological Seminary. He also handles these issues with a genuine laugh-out-loud sense of humour.

Whether you agree or not, "fear not." God is more than big enough to handle our questions. ( )

Fantastic book! If you’ve ever wondered how to read the Bible like Jesus, here’s your answer in a fun, easy-to-read publication. Peter Enns takes you on a walk through the Bible, pointing out how impossible it is to read it as either a history book or a rulebook. Eventually, he winds up in the New Testament giving examples of how Jesus himself interpreted scripture in his day … the Jewish way, which emphasized creative engagement with the scriptures.

Says Peter, “I believe God wants us to take the Bible seriously, but I don’t believe he wants us to suppress our questions about it.” So, he gives you lots to question. By the time you finish, you’ll be overloaded with practical examples from scripture itself on how to transform the Bible from a stale instruction manual into living, growing Word, able to stretch across the centuries.

Peter’s discussion about the evil of the conquest of Canaan is enlightening. Did God really tell Israel to slaughter every man, woman and child in their way? Or did the Bible’s storytellers–who were tribal, and who connected with God in their day as a tribal warrior God, much differently than we relate to Him today–simply assume that’s what any proper God would want? The answer may be moot: archaeologists are certain no such conquest, such as described in the Bible, really happened. So now what are we supposed to make of the Bible?

Can we trust God enough to let the Bible be what it is?

Peter’s writing style is conversational and … oh, he’s going to kill me for saying this … sort of cute. But don’t let this fool you into thinking his research isn’t scholarly, or that it won’t resurrect new passion within you for the Bible. I absolutely loved this one.

HarperOne, © 2014, 262 pages

ISBN: 978-0-06227202-7 ( )

4.0 stars ( )