Editor's note: G. K. Beale wants readers to know that he was a bit reluctant to grant this interview on the topic of the authority of Scripture, since he believes that it is difficult to give a well-rounded analysis of the topic in a limited time of oral discussion. Nevertheless, he believes the topic needs to be talked about.

PreachingToday.com: Why did you write the book The Erosion of Inerrancy (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008)?

G. K. Beale: It came about as a critique of a book by Peter Enns called Inspiration and Incarnation. Essentially Enns holds that evangelicals should accept more of what are traditionally considered to be higher critical views about the Bible. He says we can accept those views and still hold to the full inspiration of Scripture.

For example, he says some of the Old Testament narratives, such as the Abraham narrative or the creation account in Genesis 1, are heavily influenced by ancient Near Eastern mythology, though there is probably a historical core of what actually happened. Enns believes this was the only way the Old Testament authors could express themselves, that is, in the way that the ancient Near East mythologies expressed themselves. He says all of the Bible is inspired, but we have to understand that the biblical writers judged truth differently than we do today. We need to be careful about imposing our modern truths on biblical authors. We need to respect what they had to say and what we might consider to be false and erroneous, because for them it was truth.

Enns also had a significant segment on the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. He basically said that the New Testament writers were influenced by the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament at that time, which tended to be dominated by a non-contextual understanding of the Old Testament. That is, Jews might allegorize the Old Testament or apply it in totally wrong ways. Enns said the New Testament writers were part of their socially constructed interpretative culture, and they approached the Old Testament the same way the Jewish hermeneutical culture in which they grew up did. After all, they're Jews, though Jewish Christians. I would put it this way: Enns thinks the New Testament writers preached the right doctrine but from the wrong texts.

So I wanted to respond to Enns's work. I wrote two articles, and then he responded. Then I responded back. The first few chapters of my book are a record of those responses (his full articles aren't there, but I try to summarize them, and then footnote where his original articles and responses can be read in full). I then offer chapters on other aspects of the problem of inerrancy among contemporary evangelicalism. For example, I have a chapter on the authorship of Isaiah, because a number of evangelicals say it doesn't matter whether or not Isaiah wrote chapters 40 to 66. Many say the prophet Isaiah did not write the entire book by that name. One problem with that is Jesus, Luke and Paul said he did. I also have a major section on the cosmology of the Old Testament, which again Enns and others say is non-scientific but was true for the people of that time. Enns claims it was based on mythology, and we certainly can't accept it today. I talk about why we can. I also offer a section on postmodernism and how that affects our interpretation of the Bible.

Give more examples of an eroding view of inerrancy among evangelicals.

Another evangelical scholar says that to understand Genesis 1-3 as talking about an individual, historical Adam is much too literalistic. The Genesis writer, he says, was influenced by ancient Near Eastern myths that talk about the origin of humanity. This scholar affirms theistic evolution and that maybe at some point in the evolutionary stage of things, God said that this being is now a human, made in the image of God, whom he named Adam. This scholar hasn't made his final decision on this and believes that Genesis 1-3 certainly doesn't demand belief in a unique, individual, historical figure called Adam. He says "Adam" in Hebrew can mean "mankind."

Enns himself has now become more explicit in saying that Adam was not a historical figure (see his various blogs about this on the Biologos website). If the historical Adam goes by the wayside, there doesn't seem to be any split between mythological narrative and historical narrative from Genesis 3 to 4 and 5. How far into the rest of the chapters of Genesis do you go until you get to historical narrative? Of course Enns, and I suspect the above mentioned scholar, see that the mythology continues. By the time you hit the historical books, Enns see those as more historical. Still, they affirm full inspiration. This is different than scholars who affirm these views but say the Bible is not inspired because it has all these myths. Nonetheless, I think this is the de facto beginning of the erosion of inerrancy.

As another example, when God says in the Ten Commandments, "You shall have no other gods besides me," and then when the Psalms later say that God is above all the gods, Peter Enns says God is acknowledging the existence of real gods besides himself and that he is the greater God. He says God had to accommodate himself to this view, because Israel lived in a polytheistic culture; they weren't ready for monotheism. God accommodates himself, just as parents tell their children they don't need to fear the boogeyman. Enns says parents know there is no boogeyman, but their children think there is. Just as we accommodate our communication to our children's beliefs, so God did with Israel.

I think that's a real problem. Certainly the ancient Near Eastern peoples believed their gods were true. And there is a reality behind the idols—a demonic reality, a supernatural reality. But these are not gods competing with Yahweh in the sense that some scholars contend. Enns and others hold to an evolutionary view of truth as it's revealed in Scripture (though Enns does not like my use of "evolutionary" as applied to his view). This is one way of viewing progressive revelation. Enns says they're progressing in the Old Testament toward monotheism, which is full-blown in the New Testament.

How would you distinguish between a wrong and a right view of accommodation?

Well, the fact that biblical authors write in Hebrew and Greek is an example of God accommodating himself. He lowers himself in order to communicate. So there's no doubt he accommodates himself in various ways, but it does not involve communicating untruth in the Scriptures.

What are some other examples of an eroding view of inerrancy?

Some scholars suggest that New Testament writers did not have a correct understanding of the Old Testament. That's an erosion. And this erosion has come about because the notion of postmodernism—that truth is relative—is being baptized into evangelicalism. An example of this notion of relative truth is when Enns essentially says we should not impose our modern standards of truth and error on the ancient authors.

I know a scholar who says the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were not written to be compared. He said if you do compare them and find differences historically that seem contradictory, then you have thwarted their purpose. They were not written to be put side by side. He says if you try to compare them in a strict, modern, historical way, yes, there are errors, but he doesn't read them that way. He just reads each Gospel as it is in itself. Each Gospel represents the author's view, and we shouldn't try to impose our view, where we compare them too rigorously or historically.

I also think it's wrong to say on the one hand that there's a complete disjunction between the ancient world and us; but it's wrong as well to say they're just like us. There's an overlap. There is a lot of correspondence between how we view events and how they viewed events—even in technical, scientific things. Some would say, "We think of history today more chronologically, and they didn't." Well, that's not true. We think of history topically. For example, when I narrate my experience of going overseas for doctoral work, sometimes I do it chronologically; sometimes I do it topically. Sometimes I begin with the end, which was the most significant event—my doctoral examination—and then I work back, go to the middle, and so forth and so on. So I don't think there's a distinction between modern and ancient history with regard to chronological versus non-chronological presentation.

Some say our presuppositions are different from ancient people's presuppositions. Well, we have modern people today who differ in their presuppositions, and we can still communicate with one another in the public domain, acknowledging our presuppositions. Likewise, we can still understand ancient peoples, even if our presuppositions are different. To think otherwise can lead to serious erosion, too.

Is there any difference between how we view truth and error today versus then?

In terms of history, I don't think there is any difference. That's one of the overlapping areas. Of course, today and in the ancient world, historians did not give purely objective descriptions of history but they give to varying degrees their interpretations of history. Some may be good interpretations and others may be distortions of what really happened.I believe historical accounts in Scripture are, indeed, interpreted history and that the interpretation of such history is true because it was done under divine inspiration. So, yes, there are differences sometimes in the way we think and the way ancient peoples thought. For example, ancient, Semitic peoples might have thought a bit more symbolically, while we might think a bit more propositionally, because there's more of a Greek influence in our culture. But I don't think that really has to do with truth and error.

Now, if you are just comparing cultures in general and not talking about Scripture, then of course the ancient peoples believed their myths were true. But that doesn't mean that they took them literally. They may have seen the writings of their mythologies as being figurative depictions of what their gods were doing. Many people assume these are literal and therefore scientifically naïve. There's no doubt that Scripture has been written in the midst of a mythological environment, but the Israelites say not only that their God is different, but that their history is different!

What views on Scripture sooner or later lead to an erosion in our view of the authority of Scripture?

When someone says that there are myths in Scripture, but they are inspired, that the biblical writers didn't know they were myths and they believed them—it is just a matter of time if you keep saying that about one portion of Scripture after another that the notion of inerrancy dies the death of a million qualifications. What does truth mean at that point? Some of the authors I'm interacting with will say, "The point is, the God of Israel is true even if the history they're recording isn't." It's not going to be long before the scholars who follow that kind of thinking, and most people in the pews, will say, "Why are we holding to inerrancy?"

Kenton Sparks has written a book (God's Word in Human Words) in which he takes Peter Enns's work a step further. He affirms all the higher critical views. He says there is inerrancy in the Bible, but not everything in the Bible is inerrant. Andrew McGowan wrote a book titled The Divine Authenticity of Scripture in which he says that all of the Bible is inspired, but there are still errors in it. People are now coming out more clearly in not using the language of inerrancy for all of Scripture. This is where this issue is headed. It's just a matter of time. People are not stupid; they will just think, Why continue to hold the view of inerrancy? Let's just call it for what it is: in the Bible there's truth, but not all of it is true.

You don't have to hold to inerrancy to be a Christian. On the other hand, if one doesn't hold to inerrancy, then who is the arbiter of what's true in the Scripture and what isn't? And then, to what degree is the Bible an authoritative book, hence God's Word for us? Many say today that to hold to inerrancy is fundamentalism.

Is there a tipping point in this issue?

The more you affirm that the Bible has myths, but the biblical writers thought they were true—that's going to lead to the erosion of the authority of Scripture. When that begins to occur, and the more it happens, the more the authority of the Scriptures is being eroded.

Where does the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy now stand among evangelicals?

The Chicago Statement was composed in 1978 by representatives of all the major sectors of evangelicalism—Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, independent churches, Bible churches—and all the schools that represent those denominational or nondenominational groups. It was pretty much the consensus at that point. In essence the Statement said that since God is true, and unswervingly true, in himself and in his spoken oral Word, if Scripture is his written Word, then that is unswervingly true. "Unswervingly true," I think, is synonymous with "inerrant." Whatever Scripture touches on, whatever its intent—primary, secondary, tertiary intent—is true, whether that is science, economics, history, whatever it may be. Christ says in John 10 that "the Scripture cannot be broken."

At some of our major Christian seminaries and institutions, the Chicago Statement is now seen as a relic of the evangelical past, pretty close to fundamentalism. That's a new move (within the last ten or twenty years or so). It's some of the postmodern evangelical theologians who are arguing this. It's part of the infiltration of postmodernism into evangelicalism. They say that all truth is not propositional. They argue it's also—for lack of a better word—experiential. They say that in Scripture we find propositions, yes, but evangelicalism in the past has stressed only the truthfulness of the propositions, not the living God who is speaking through those propositions. In Scripture we confront the living God. This is why Karl Barth has become a darling boy for many significant evangelical theologians. Barth's point is that Scripture is not itself the Word of God, but God meets you, and you confront God, through the Scriptures. Some would say that's a reductionistic view of Barth, but I don't think so.

At any rate, I don't think it is correct to say that traditional evangelicalism has downplayed the living voice of God in Scripture. In fact, if you look closely at the Chicago Statement, it says we should bow to the voice of God in Scripture and glorify him for his word. However, it is true that evangelicalism has emphasized the inerrancy of Scriptural propositions, and the reason for that is that traditional higher criticism has doubted the propositions. The situation called for an apologetic, so evangelical scholars spent more time defending the truth of the propositions. But I don't think there's ever been a de-emphasis on the living voice of God in Scripture. There is a de-emphasis now on propositions and with that a de-emphasis on the Chicago Statement. It is true that Scripture communicates truth in propositional form and that together with this the very presence of God meets us in Scripture, so that Scripture is not some mere dry set of propositions.

Some believe that in the thirty years since the Statement was written, we've made such progress in scientific historical criticism that we can no longer hold that Isaiah wrote all of Isaiah, that Daniel wrote Daniel, that Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch. The Chicago Statement affirms that when Scripture makes a historical claim about authorship, it should be accepted. That's part of the divine intent.

Many today want to qualify that, and that's why I have a chapter in my book on Isaiah. It looks at the evidence of the New Testament to see what Jesus claims and what Paul claims concerning authorship of the book. Again and again they say, "Isaiah cries out," and "Isaiah says." One has to conclude that either Jesus knew Isaiah didn't write it, and Jesus accommodated himself to the tradition of Judaism—which would be weird, because he doesn't mind totally disrupting the tradition of Judaism—or Jesus accommodated himself to the extent that he did not know who actually wrote it (that he really thought Isaiah wrote it when he didn't). At that point I think we have a huge Christological problem.

By the way, the short doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Theological Society has a one sentence statement saying the Scripture is inerrant. Because there are debates on inerrancy within the Society, a few years ago we put the Chicago Statement as an appendix in a bylaw to explain what is meant by the one sentence statement on inerrancy. In other words, the ETS understands inerrancy in the light of the Chicago Statement.

You mentioned that the Chicago Statement was born in a certain context. In light of our current context, could the Statement be updated and improved?

Maybe. You can always update things and add clarifications and tweak points here and there. At the end of the Statement it says they were open to further comments. I suppose in the light of today's context it would be good to emphasize more the living voice of God in Scripture. Again, everything is written in a context, but in terms of what it says, I cannot think of anything significant that needs revisionary denial.

How should people go about this conversation?

If you read Peter Enns's articles responding to me and mine responding to him, I think we've done it in a polite way. One reviewer said I was too polemical, but I don't think Peter Enns has said that (though perhaps he may think that). We have tried the best we can not to have ad hominem argumentation, not to be emotional.[1] But we certainly have opened the conversation about these things. There's a great debate about inerrancy right now, so there needs to be discussion, and it needs to be collegial.

One good thing about postmodernism is that too often in the past evangelicals have identified their interpretations of Scripture with God's inerrant authority, and we have to remember our interpretations are not equal to Scripture. We need to have humility. I think postmodern evangelicals have carried that too far, to where we are to be humble and uncertain about things that we should have conviction about. The apostle Paul was a very confident person, but he wasn't proud; he was humble. Confidence shouldn't be equated with pride as long as it's squarely based in the Word of God. If we're unsure about something in the Scriptures, then we need to express that.

There needs to be discussion. Where it gets difficult is when denominations are ordaining pastors, and those on the ordination committees are disagreeing about this. After all, you are determining the future of your denomination. The same is true with academic faculties. In a formal meeting, open discussion gets tough, so we need to have a lot of informal, collegial discussion.

And as I said already, we need to talk lovingly. This is an ethical matter. What I mean by that is—and it really comes to the fore when you're writing a book or you're in a debate—we need to really listen to what our conversation partner is saying. We have to correctly represent what they are saying. I bent over backwards to quote Peter Enns fully and contextually. At points when summarizing him, I say that I'm not sure if I'm right about what Enns believes, but if I am, then here are the implications. We need to represent other people as carefully as we can and not set up straw men. So there's an ethical nature to the discussion, and a need for humility.

1. Though unfortunately, after this interview, Peter Enns did engage in ad hominem argumentation in reviewing my book The Erosion of Inerrancy, in the Bulletin for Biblical Research (Vol. 19 No. 4, 2009, pp. 628-631).