1. The world was created in 144 hours, evolution didn’t happen, and if you don’t believe that, you are stepping in deep spiritual doo-doo.

2. The world is billions of years old, evolution did happen, and if you don’t agree you must be ignorant, foolish or intellectually dishonest.

Although these two positions seem like polar opposites, their proponents did agree on one thing: the Bible and Science are at odds. If you believe one, you must discredit the other.

By the late 80’s and 90’s, I began to notice a third camp of young people who said, “It doesn’t really matter.” Perhaps they truly believed that the debate was not central to their Christian faith. (If it were, why isn’t it mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed? Why were many church fathers, including St. Augustine, willing to allow that the days in Genesis 1 might be longer than 24 hours?) Or perhaps they were just tired of anything that smelled like the conservative-versus-liberal battles that for too long had dominated politics, culture and theology, and they simply wanted to call for a time-out.

I myself joined that third camp. I didn’t want to take sides. If someone were to lock me in a bathroom and refuse to let me out until I voiced an opinion, this is what I probably would have said: “I believe that the universe and the earth are very old. I think that the creation events described in Genesis chapter 1 did not take place within six 24-hour periods. But I do not necessarily believe all the claims of evolutionary biology; theories of macroevolution are problematic, both from scientific and biblical standpoints.” However, I never needed to say that, because no one ever locked me in the bathroom.

Plenty of good people are hanging around this third camp. People who are popular and highly regarded in the evangelical world. For example, Tim Keller seems to be here. He is willing to allow that the world is very old, and he leaves the door open for some limited, theistic evolution. But his bottom line is that he really doesn’t know much about the creation process and would rather not adopt a strong stance. For this, he has received some mild criticism, especially from the young-earth creationism (YEC) crowd. But he is a without a doubt a very thoughtful, winsome, influential and devout Christian, and everyone whose opinion I respect also respects him.

More recently, I sense the emergence of a fourth camp of evangelicals who, with those in Camp 3, agree that the creation-versus-evolution thing is not one of the central issues of the Christian faith. But they have become more vocal in their opposition to YEC. They openly endorse theistic evolution and are even willing to drop the belief in Adam and Eve as historical individuals. (They do believe that humankind is in a fallen state and needs redemption; they just aren’t sure how it got to be that way.)

Members of this fourth camp include Francis Collins, Peter Enns (whom I blogged about last year) and the rest of the Biologos Foundation, along with many readers of Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog.

For these people, the argument is not really about creation versus evolution. They frame it within a larger question of how we approach and understand the Bible. These people are sincere, devout Christians who really want to take the scripture seriously and uphold its authority as the word of God. At the same time, they want to take full account of scientific evidence (e.g., the fossil record) and reconcile it with scripture in an intellectually  honest way.

These people believe that the initial chapters of Genesis teach genuine spiritual truth, but they should not be read in the same way that one would read a modern science or history textbook; to do so would actually be a misuse of the Scripture, because these chapters are part of an ancient literary genre addressed to ancient readers who make very different scientific and cultural assumptions than we do today.

By adopting this stance, members of Camp 4 have picked a fight with large segments of the evangelical world which still describe the Bible as the “inerrant and infallible” word of God, and regard any erosion of these in- words as a dangerous trend that would undermine the foundations of historic Christianity. In response, the Camp 4 people would say that the creedal statements using the in- words were a 20th century overreaction to the spread of liberal theology which began to deny the historicity of the gospel accounts and even cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They maintain that it is possible to drop the in- words while still maintaining a high view of the Bible and upholding all the key tenets of the Christian creeds.

For the record, I am not yet ready to pull up my stakes and move my tent all the way over to Camp 4. But I do like and admire these guys. I have met Pete Enns and, as far as I can tell, he is the real deal, a man of solid Christian faith. And Francis Collins seems like a jolly good fellow as well. I admire their intellectual prowess and willingness to raise the tough questions that many in Camp 3 seem afraid to voice. Perhaps I can pitch my tent somewhere in between. Maybe I can hang out at Camp 3.14159.

What about you? Do you identify yourself with any of these camps? Does it even matter to you? If you count yourself as a believer in Christ and a member of one of these camps, what do you really think of Christians who pitch their tents elsewhere?

Last month, I attended a weekend forum sponsored by ACT 3, the ministry of my friend John Armstrong.  The forum was led by Peter Enns, who spoke on topic Reading the Old Testament as Jesus Did.

Enns is the author of a popular but controversial book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (2005, Baker Academic).  In this book he addresses the difficult question of what Christians mean when they claim that the Bible, a book whose words were written by men, is also the inspired word of God.  Enns presents an incarnational model that upholds divine inspiration while acknowledging the contextual and cultural influences of the human writers.

Throughout the forum, Enns suggested that we approach the Old Testament as the writers of the New Testament did.  How did Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Peter handle the OT?  Not very well, if they are judged by standards of modern evangelical scholarship.  Suppose one of these NT authors was enrolled in a modern seminary that holds to the inerrancy of Scripture. And suppose he applied verses from the OT to Jesus  in the manner found throughout the NT.  What kind of grade would he receive?  He would fail.

Yet that same seminary would consider the NT author to be inspired by God. 

At the very least, this should make us wonder whether our methods for approaching the Scripture are reasonable.

Here is a simple example.  Matthew 2:14-15 describes how Joseph took Mary and the baby Jesus and fled to Egypt to protect them from King Herod.

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

Matthew is referring to Hosea 11:1:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

When we examine this passage from Hosea, we are faced with two undeniable facts.  First, that passage is not prophetic.  Hosea is writing about the past sins of his people, not making predictions about future events.  Second, that passage is about Israel, not about a coming Messiah.  To use that verse as Matthew did is to ignore Hosea’s original intent and to apparemtly take it out of context.  This is exactly what seminarians are taught not to do.  Poor Matthew flunks out.

But poor Matthew isn’t stupid.  He knows the OT very well, even better than we do, and, from the earliest days his writings were considered authoritative.   So how do we reconcile these facts?  To do so, we need to understand that the NT is not simply a continuation of the OT.  The NT is truly “New.” The NT presents a radical reinterpretation of Israel’s history in light of the death and resurrection of Christ, which were not on the OT writers’ radar screen. (Yes, the death of Jesus is foreshadowed in the OT, but the OT authors didn’t realize it.  And we search the OT in vain to find any clear description of the resurrection.)  The death and resurrection of the Messiah were God’s best-kept secrets, truly startling and revolutionary.

So what is Matthew really saying?  By applying Hosea 11:1 to Jesus, he appears to be saying that Jesus Christ is the new Israel.   Some passages in the OT (for example, Exodus 4:22) portray Israel as God’s firstborn son.  Matthew takes this privileged position of Israel and applies it now to Jesus.  The juxtaposition of Israel and Jesus is found in other places in the NT as well (Gal 3:16). So Matthew knows what he is doing.  He is not simply looking at Hosea 11:1 and asking, “What is the contextual meaning of this verse?”  He is scanning across the panorama of OT history and reinterpreting it in light of God’s new revelation of his kingdom.

In discussing how the NT writers approached the OT, Enns suggests that we look to the Talmud.  The Talmud is a rabbinical discussion of Jewish law and history that was written shortly after the NT.  Talmudic scholars also took verses out of immediate context.  They were, in a sense, trying to accomplish the same thing that the NT writers had done.  They were reinterpreting the history of Israel in light of the terrible recent events, including the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.  They were trying to understand whether the Jews were still God’s chosen people, whether God still had a plan for them, and what that plan might be.  But because they had rejected the resurrection of Christ, they ended up with a very different perspective.

For scholars who want to address the difficult questions that modern people are posing about the Bible, conservative doctrines of scriptural inerrancy are a virtual minefield.  Enns frequently ventures into this minefield.  He acknowledges that the Bible was not written as a modern history book.  The order of presentation is not necessarily chronological. Events are described multiple times from different points of view, and the details in various accounts do not always agree.  One of the best known examples is when Jesus drove moneychangers out of the temple.  Matthew, Mark and Luke place this event during Passion week, just after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  But John places it at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, just after the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:12-22).  Some have tried to resolve this dilemma by supposing that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, once at the beginning of his ministry and once at the end.  Enns does not support that view.  He believes that the literary forms used by the NT authors did not presume that every detail of every story would be a precise, factual record as might be obtained if the events had been captured by a video camera.  Small discrepancies were an acceptable part of oral history and did not cast doubt on the truthfulness of the story or the spiritual messages it was intended to convey.  For his willingness to voice these opinions, Dr. Enns has been sharply criticized by some former students and colleagues at Westminster Theological Seminary.  I am not familiar with the specific charges and issues of this controversy, so I will not say anything more about it.  I will say, however, that after listening to this man lecture for approximately six hours, I was impressed by his thoughtfulness and sincerity, his deep respect for the Scripture, and his refreshingly winsome approach to the Bible.

The forum was attended by approximately thirty Christian leaders from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds.  About one-third of the time was devoted to discussion among Dr. Enns and members of the audience.  Despite varied backgrounds, we were kindred spirits and learned a great deal from one another.  One lesson that emerged again and again was this:  Much of the Bible remains a mystery to us.  The Bible is a rather messy book, and we don’t need to be embarassed by its messiness. God could have given us a book of rules and doctrines with apparently perfect internal and external consistency.  But he didn’t.  He gave us a sprawling narrative written by real people over long periods of history.  History is filled with difficulties, and these show up everywhere on the pages of Scripture.  Yet we also believe the Bible to be God’s word, written exactly as he wanted it to be. 

Today’s young Christians – the next generation of spiritual leaders – are not afraid to ask the tough questions that some of their immediate predecessors have been dodging.  Too often, my generation haa responded to tough questions with pat answers, disapproving glances and exhortations to “just believe.”  Yes, God wants us to believe.  And he also wants us to be brutally honest.  He gave us a Bible that is brutally honest.  He respected us enough to give us a messy book, trusting that we have the maturity to handle it as creatures of reason and good sense.  For that, we should be thankful.

Christians of different denominations read different Bibles.  The collection of texts known as the Bible has changed over time.  The earliest Christians had the Old Testament, some letters from the apostles and oral tradition. A list of 22 books of the New Testament appeared in the Muratorian Canon around AD 180. In AD 365, Athanasius of Alexandria listed 27 books. A Latin edition of the Bible called the Vulgate appeared in AD 383 and became the standard for the Western world. In addition to the 66 books found in the current Protestant Bible, the Vulgate also had the so-called deuterocanonical books and apocrypha. Some differences persist today. For instance, the Ethiopian “narrow” canon includes 81 books.

When Christians say that the Bible is the Word of God, which Bible do they mean? Which books do they include? And in which languages? Hebrew? Greek?  English?  For example, it is well known that in the final chapter of the gospel of John, in which Jesus repeatedly asks Peter, “Do you love me?” there are multiple Greek words used for love. This subtle wordplay is absent from English translations.  So how precisely is the Word of God conveyed?

And what about the earliest Christians who did not have the Bible? Were they non-Bible-believing? Were they any less Christian than the believers of today?  Or were they more Christian than modern believers, because they participated in composing and compiling the Bible?  Recognizing the necessity of a biblical canon, they identified the four gospels that we now accept and separated them from the apocrypha. Although they did not have our Bible, they seem to have been guided by the Word of God. Where was this Word found?   In oral tradition?  If so, is this tradition still available today?

My purpose in raising these questions is not to diminish the Bible’s credibility. I am only pointing out that, when someone claims to believe in the Bible, issues of truth and authority are not automatically resolved.  Saying “I believe” is not always enough; sometimes this must be made more precise. Instead of dodging these difficult questions, we ought to be willing to face them and, in doing so, admit that our best answers might not be completely satisfactory.

The Bible is understood differently within different traditions and cultures. In some Protestant traditions, for example, it is believed that Joseph, Mary’s husband, was a young man. Some Catholics believe that Joseph was an older man and that Mary was his second wife. This latter view reconciles the Catholic tradition of Mary’s perpetual virginity with the existence of Jesus’ brothers who are named in Matthew 13:55.

Some Christians may think that Jesus is unknown to Muslims. But the Koran describes more miracles performed by Jesus than the New Testament does. Before attempting to “enlighten” Muslims with our Christian interpretations of Scripture, perhaps it would be useful to first learn something about what they believe.

Tragically, the question “Which tradition is the best one?” has provoked arguments and religious wars.  Coming back to our simple example, one may ask: Which Christian is correct?  The one who believes in young Joseph, or the one who believes in old Joseph?

It seems to me that, regardless of what one believes about Joseph, the one who is correct is the one who takes up his cross and follows Jesus (Matthew 16:24).  It is important to study the Bible.  It is even more important to obey its teachings.  Biblical knowledge does not change a person’s soul until it is actually put into practice.  In Matthew 19:21, Jesus said to a rich young man: “… go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  I know exactly what Jesus said. Yet for some strange reason, I am in no great hurry to start doing it.

What is a Bible-believing Christian?  In my humble opinion, it is one who actually obeys the Bible and one who actively follows Christ.