"The messiness of the Old Testament, which is a source of embarrassment for some, is actually a positive. On one level it may not help with a certain brand of apologetics, where we use the so-called perfection of the Bible to prove to nonbelievers that Christianity is true. But this method is as wrongheaded as it is to argue that Christianity is true by downplaying the humanness of Christ." (p. 109)

This is another example of his using his view of Christ's incarnation without defining the view. His implied definition indicates that Christ made mistakes of, for example, a mathematical or historical nature, but that he was reliable in his moral and theological statements, though I may well be wrong about his implication. He does appear implicitly to draw the analogy, which he thinks to be fallacious and the opposite of his comparison, of the "wrongheaded" view of "the so-called perfection of the Bible" with "downplaying the humanness [imperfection?] of Christ" and highlighting his divine perfection.

But is there another logical fallacy in Enns's attempt to affirm that the Old Testament cannot be judged by modern standards of "error" (e.g., pp. 80, 108)? Enns's view appears to be non-falsifiable: if a liberal scholar finds a mistake anywhere in Scripture, Enns would say that the biblical writers operated with a different view of error than our modern conception. So, what would count for a biblical writer being in error according to their own ancient standards? Enns never formulates an ancient conception of error, and until he does, his position must remain more speculative than the so-called modernist with which he disagrees. It is likely for this reason that Enns does not use the word inerrancy to describe his own view. As far as I can tell, he only uses it once (p. 168) as a word others may use to describe their view.

It is important to recall that the doctrine of inerrancy was espoused as an orthodox notion long before the Enlightenment and modernism, from the time of the early fathers up through the Reformers and until the end of the twentieth century.²⁴ Enns's claim is that new ANE discoveries and certain aspects of postmodern thought now make inerrancy an anachronistic idea. The reader will have to determine whether Enns has succeeded in overturning in a groundbreaking manner this long-held notion in order to think of scriptural truth through different lenses.

Epistemology and the Relation of Historical to Mythological Genre

These issues that Enns discusses touch on epistemology. I cannot enter into a full-orbed view of epistemology to which I ascribe and how this relates to logic and the modernist-postmodernist debates. Suffice it to say that the laws of contradiction, or non-contradiction, and identity would seem to be part of the faculties of all human beings as a result of their creation by God in his image. Without these abilities humans would not be able to communicate with one another or perceive correctly—not exhaustively but definitely in part—the created world.

Enns seems to have confused the use of reason, which is an aspect of general revelation, with certain kinds of purported modern history writing and precise kinds of modern scientific knowledge. But these most basic laws of logical thought are quite operable for both modern and premodern people. Indeed, people could not communicate without assuming the truth of these foundational notions of logic. If I say something is red, it means that it is red and not green; or if I say the Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005, I mean they won it, not the New York Yankees. When people do not presuppose these most basic laws of thinking, then they have difficulty communicating and living in the world. The same is true with ancient communication.