Does Enns hold a view like this? If this is Enns’s incarnational model—and we have to make our best speculation, since he does not tell us—then its success depends on, among other things, the problematic presupposition that cognitive information not dealing with issues of morality and salvation (historical facts, scientific facts, etc.) can, indeed, be neatly separated from morality and salvific issues.²¹

But whatever Enns’s precise view of Jesus’ incarnation is, his very attempt to compare Jesus’ incarnation with revelation in God’s Word may not work as a good analogy. Some evangelical scholars affirm that New Testament Scripture is the result of the exercise of Christ’s prophetic office through prophetic and apostolic writers and that this is the best framework through which to understand the nature of Scripture. An incarnational model may not be the best because, whereas with Christ’s incarnation there is one person with two natures, with Scripture there are two persons—God and the human prophet—and one nature, i.e., the one scriptural speech act.²²

Thus, to try to make the analogy may be like comparing apples to oranges. At the very least, the analogy must be carefully qualified, since it cannot “walk on all fours.”²³ Unfortunately Enns not only does not qualify his view of the incarnation, but he never tells us what it is.

Enns and Biblical Diversity: The Apparent Use of the Term “Diversity” in Place of “Error”

Enns sees that “diversity” is part of the warp and woof of Scripture: “Diversity is such a prevalent phenomenon in the Old Testament” (p. 107; likewise p. 108). His definition of diversity is not clear: does it refer to various but complementary viewpoints or to irreconcilable perspectives on a given topic? At the least, it would appear to mean that it is difficult to harmonize what different biblical writers say who speak to the same issue. It would appear that he has turned the Reformer’s notion of the perspicuity of Scripture on its head and affirmed that there is so much diversity in the Old Testament that our view of inspiration must be reassessed.

Furthermore, he says, if we were to use our modern definition of error, apparently we would judge that there are errors in the Bible. But Enns says that we cannot use modern definitions of error to judge biblical literature and that the best term to use is diversity:

“For modern evangelicalism the tendency is to move toward a defensive or apologetic handling of the biblical evidence, to protect the Bible against the modernist charge that diversity is evidence of errors in the Bible and, consequently, that the Bible is not inspired by God. Unfortunately, this legacy accepts the worldview offered by modernity and defends the Bible by a rational standard that the Bible itself challenges rather than acknowledges.” (p. 108)

“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.