Can Christianity and evolution coexist? Traditional Christian teaching presents Jesus as reversing the effects of the fall of Adam. But an evolutionary view of human origins doesn't allow for a literal Adam, making evolution seemingly incompatible with what Genesis and the apostle Paul say about him. For Christians who both accept evolution and want to take the Bible seriously, this can present a faith-shaking tension. Popular Old Testament scholar Peter Enns offers a way forward by explaining how this tension is caused not by the discoveries of science but by false expectations about the biblical texts. In this 10th anniversary edition, Enns updates readers on developments in the historical Adam debate, helping them reconcile Genesis and Paul with current views on evolution and human origins. This edition includes an afterword that explains Enns's own theological evolution since the first edition released.

The first in a series designed to guide young students through the Bible, Telling God's Story: Year One provides weekly lessons for young elementary-grade students, based on the parables and the Gospels. This bundle includes everything you need for a full year of religious instruction: The Instructor Text and Teaching Guide contains pithy, content-filled background information for the teacher, a biblical passage to read aloud, and a scripted explanation of the passage designed especially for young children to grasp with ease. The accompanying Student Guide and Activity Book provides historically accurate coloring pages, learning projects, and group activities to fill out an entire week of home, school, or Sunday School study.

How can an evangelical view of Scripture be reconciled with modern biblical scholarship? In this book Peter Enns, an expert in biblical interpretation, addresses Old Testament phenomena that challenge traditional evangelical perspectives on Scripture. He then suggests a way forward, proposing an incarnational model of biblical inspiration that takes seriously both the divine and the human aspects of Scripture. This tenth anniversary edition has an updated bibliography and includes a substantive postscript that reflects on the reception of the first edition.

The second in a series designed to introduce young students to the Bible, Telling God's Story, Year Two shows children the Kingdom of Heaven as seen in the parables, miracles, and mission of Jesus. Bundled together to provide an entire year of religious instruction: The Instructor Text and Teaching Guide provides content-filled background information for the teacher, a biblical passage to read aloud, and a scripted explanation of the passage designed especially for children to grasp with ease. The Student Guide and Activity Pages provides historically accurate coloring pages, learning projects, and group activities to fill out an entire week of home, school, or Sunday School study.

'Seldom will you encounter such a fine combination of historical scholarship, interesting reading, and clever humour in one Biblical study. And then filled with faith and hope besides! Peter Enns does it again!' Richard Rohr, author of Falling Upward For many Christians, the Bible is a how-to manual filled with literal truths about belief that must be strictly followed. But the Bible is not an instruction manual or rule book but a powerful learning tool that nurtures our spiritual growth, argues Bible scholar Peter Enns. It does not hold easy answers to the perplexing questions and issues that confront us in our daily lives. Rather, the Bible is a dynamic instrument for study that not only offers an abundance of insights but provokes us to find our own answers to spiritual questions, cultivating God's wisdom within us. 'The Bible becomes a confusing mess when we expect it to function as a rulebook for faith. But when we allow the Bible to determine our expectations, we see that Wisdom, not answers, is the Bible's true subject matter', writes Enns. This distinction, he points out, is important because when we come to the Bible expecting it to be a textbook intended by God to give us unwavering certainty about our faith, we are actually creating problems for ourselves. The Bible, in other words, really isn't the problem; having the wrong expectation is what interferes with our reading. Rather than considering the Bible as an ancient book weighed down with problems, flaws, and contradictions that must be defended by modern readers, Enns offers a vision of the holy scriptures as an inspired and empowering resource to help us better understand how to live as a person of faith today. How the Bible Actually Works makes clear that there is no one right way to read the Bible. Moving us beyond the damaging idea that 'being right' is the most important measure of faith, Enns's freeing approach to Bible study helps us to instead focus on pursuing enlightenment and building our relationship with God - which is exactly what the Bible was designed to do.

Peter Enns recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God's Word. Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community. Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to 'protect' the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God's plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job - but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow. The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns' spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God's Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider - the essence of our spiritual study.

Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So Peter Enns explains how Christians mistake 'certainty' and 'correct belief' for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy. With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of "once for all delivered to the saints." Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide. Combining Enns' reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.

The Old Testament books of wisdom and poetry carry themselves differently from those of the Pentateuch, the histories or the prophets. The divine voice does not peal from Sinai, there are no narratives carried along by prophetic interpretation nor are oracles declaimed by a prophet. Here Scripture often speaks in the words of human response to God and God's world. The hymns, laments and thanksgivings of Israel, the dirge of Lamentations, the questionings of Qohelet, the love poetry of the Song of Songs, the bold drama of Job and the proverbial wisdom of Israel all offer their textures to this great body of biblical literature. Then too there are the finely crafted stories of Ruth and Esther that narrate the silent providence of God in the course of Israelite and Jewish lives. This third Old Testament volume in IVP's celebrated "Black Dictionary" series offers nearly 150 articles covering all the important aspects of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther. Over 90 contributors, many of them experts in this literature, have contributed to the 'Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings'. This volume maintains the quality of scholarship that students, scholars and pastors have come to expect from this series. Coverage of each biblical book includes an introduction to the book itself as well as separate articles on their ancient Near Eastern background and their history of interpretation. Additional articles amply explore the literary dimensions of Hebrew poetry and prose, including acrostic, ellipsis, inclusio, intertextuality, parallelism and rhyme. And there are well-rounded treatments of Israelite wisdom and wisdom literature, including wisdom poems, sources and theology. In addition, a wide range of interpretive approaches is canvassed in articles on hermeneutics, feminist interpretation, form criticism, historical criticism, rhetorical criticism and social-scientific approaches. The 'Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings' is sure to command shelf space within arm's reach of any student, teacher or preacher working in this portion of biblical literature.

Synopsis: The notion that the Bible is inerrant in everything it teaches is something those with conservative upbringings are conditioned to take for granted. However, after being exposed to scholarship in biblical studies and other disciplines, some draw the unexpected conclusion that inerrancy as a doctrine is in dire need of serious revamping. Unfortunately, inerrantist politics and culture are making the constructive, restorative process impossible to intitiate. In Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear, Carlos Bovell offers a synoptic overview of the issues to be addressed if inerrancy is to survive as a viable bibliological option. Endorsements: "Bovell unveils his positive agenda: rehabilitating a robust doctrine of Scripture in a context marked by suspicion and fear. By exposing hidden assumptions, unclear concepts, and sloppy reasoning, Bovell sketches out some of the necessary conditions for this rebuilding task. You need not agree with all of his prescriptions to benefit immensely from his perceptive diagnoses. The last chapter on Old Princeton alone is worth the price of the book " --Stephen Taylor Associate Professor of New Testament Biblical Seminary (Pennsylvania) "Bovell argues compellingly that commitment to the authority of Scripture does not require that one affirm the doctrine of biblical inerrancy . . . I was particularly impressed with his argument that the employment of speech act theory, to understand the relation between what the human writers of Scripture say and what God says by way of those writers, undermines rather than supports inerrancy as a way of understanding the Bible as God's word." --Nicholas Wolterstorff Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia "In order to rehabilitate inerrancy, Bovell makes a bold and thoughtful plea for evangelicals to realize the important hermeneutical issues of culture, history, and tradition within the biblical texts themselves. Books like this one tend to engender a reactionary response within evangelicalism. My hope is that a consideration of the themes herein will occur so that a responsible dialogue can occur for the good of the Church." --Craig D. Allert Chair of Religious Studies Trinity Western University "Inerrancy has been at the center of a long-standing controversy within evangelical Christianity that shows no signs of settling down. In this volume Carlos Bovell continues to raise important questions about the concept that cannot be ignored as the debate over inerrancy heats up again. In so doing, Bovell has made a significant contribution that must be reckoned with by those who are concerned about the nature and authority of the Bible in evangelicalism." --John R. Franke Theologian in Residence, First Presbyterian Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania General Coordinator, The Gospel and Our Culture Network "In more cases than not, it is fear--not a pursuit of the truth--that stands behind evangelical debates about the Bible and inerrancy. Bovell elucidates this problem and, by laboring to address it, helps us move forward in our quest to carry on a civil, informed theological discussion about God's written word." --Kenton L. Sparks Professor of Biblical Studies Eastern University Author Biography: Carlos R. Bovell is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. His other books include Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals, By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism, and (editor) Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture.

Theological answers to a biblical book riddled with questions
Ecclesiastes is an Old Testament book with a long history of diverse and contradictory interpretations. Even basic questions who wrote the book, when, and for what purpose perennially plague scholars. The book?'s theological message is likewise elusive, hidden in riddles and convoluted trains of thought that twist and turn back upon themselves.
In this expert commentary on Ecclesiastes, Peter Enns neither disregards nor attempts to resolve the book?'s many theological tensions and ambiguities. Rather, he shows how these form the backdrop against which the author struggles to show readers the proper path forward in their journeys of faith remaining true to the tradition to fear God and keep the commands despite the apparent futility of human existence.

Peter Enns recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God's Word. Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community. Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to 'protect' the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God's plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job - but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow. The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns' spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God's Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider - the essence of our spiritual study.

Can the Bible be approached both as sacred scripture and as a historical and literary text? For many people, it must be one or the other. How can we read the Bible both ways? The Bible and the Believer brings together three distinguished biblical scholars-one Jewish, one Catholic, and one Protestant-to illustrate how to read the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament critically and religiously. Marc Zvi Brettler, Peter Enns, and Daniel J. Harrington tackle a dilemma that not only haunts biblical scholarship today, but also disturbs students and others exposed to biblical criticism for the first time, either in university courses or through their own reading. Failure to resolve these conflicting interpretive strategies often results in rejection of either the critical approach or the religious approach-or both. But the authors demonstrate how biblical criticism-the process of establishing the original contextual meaning of biblical texts with the tools of literary and historical analysis-need not undermine religious interpretations of the Bible, but can in fact enhance them. They show how awareness of new archeological evidence, cultural context, literary form, and other tools of historical criticism can provide the necessary preparation for a sound religious reading. And they argue that the challenges such study raises for religious belief should be brought into conversation with religious tradition rather than deemed grounds for dismissing either that tradition or biblical criticism. Guiding readers through the history of biblical exegesis within the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant faith traditions, The Bible and the Believer bridges an age-old gap between critical and religious approaches to the Old Testament.

The second in a twelve-year series designed to take young students from elementary through high school, Telling God s Story, Year Two provides scripted weekly lessons for second graders and the adults who teach them. Each weekly lesson provides pithy, content-filled background information for the teacher, a biblical passage from one of the four Gospels to read aloud, and a scripted explanation of the passage designed especially for children to grasp with ease.

The first level in a twelve-level series designed to take young students from elementary through high school, Telling God's Story: Year One provides weekly lessons for elementary-grade students, based on the parables and the Gospels. The Instructor Text and Teaching Guide contains pithy, content-filled background information for the teacher, a biblical passage to read aloud, and a scripted explanation of the passage designed especially for young children to grasp with ease. This Year One curriculum provides a full year of religious instruction.

In this accessible and engaging book, Peter Enns (author of the controversial and best-selling Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament) provides parents and teachers with a straightforward and intelligent twelve-year plan for teaching the Bible. Written for lay readers but incorporating the best scholarly insights, Telling God's Story avoids sectarian agendas. Instead, Enns suggests beginning with the parables of the Gospels for the youngest students; continuing on with the more complex stories of the Old and New Testaments for middle grade students; and guiding high school students into an understanding of the history and culture of biblical times.