In saying this, Peter is respecting the Bible’s ancient voice. The Israelites believed that God told them to kill the Canaanites. God never told the Israelites to kill the Canaanites. I think all of us have cringed in reading about God’s orders for Israel to viciously exterminate the Canaanites-man, woman, infant, and beast-even if we conclude, ‘Well God is God, and he can certainly do what he darn well pleases! And the Canaanites were, after all, the Worst Sinners Ever!’Īfter careful consideration, Peter concludes differently (as I, myself, did many years ago): He begins to explain what he means by using the continuing story of the Israelites and the Canaanites in the Old Testament. Peter, himself, had these sorts of expectations and tells us how, by actually reading the Bible, he came to discard those expectations and take the Bible as it is. The problem is coming to the Bible with expectations it’s not set up to bear…Sweating bullets to line up the Bible with our exhausting expectations, to make the Bible something it’s not meant to be, isn’t a pious act of faith.

But the Bible isn’t the problem, Peter says. This is indeed the view of many believers, and when it is questioned the knee-jerk reaction is often to ‘Defend the Bible!’ against these horrid attacks. Many Christians have been taught that the Bible is Truth downloaded from heaven, God’s rulebook, a heavenly instructional manual-follow the directions and out pops a true believer deviate from the script and God will come crashing down on you with full force. He begins with the ‘Problem’ and defines it on the first page: But the sections are not disjointed each section leads naturally into the next. Even if you have only a few minutes to read you can cover a complete section in that time. The seven chapters are divided into short sections averaging a few pages each.

The format of the book is interesting and makes it even easier to whip through the 250 pages in fact it is a page-turner. Peter the scholar writes for normal people-he writes for us.

The style of The Bible Tells Me So is easy to read-and that Peter is a funny guy! He doesn’t tell us jokes, but his humor is pervasive this is no dry, erudite tome for advanced theological students (Peter would never use the word ‘erudite’ in this book probably would not use ‘tome’ either).

The back cover lists endorsement statements by well-known authors Tony Campolo, Rachel Held Evans, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and others. And I believe Peter makes an excellent contribution on the side of understanding the Bible in light of its ancient origins. The subtitle… Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It is very appropriate in regard to this continuing debate.

The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns