How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers—and Why That's Great News

by Peter Enns

It’s also, as we’ll see, what the life of ...

And I’ll bet some of you might have thought “contradictions” in the Bible were “bad.” They’re not. They’re revealing.

we see that wealth is both a blessing and a curse, a security and a danger. It all depends. Compare two more verses from Proverbs:

The wealth of the rich is their fortress; the poverty of the poor is their ruin. (10:15) The wealth of the rich is their strong city; in their imagination it is like a high wall. (18:11)

11)

these two proverbs force us to ponder what a proper attitude toward wealth looks like, especially since, like the “fools” proverbs above, they begin with exactly the same words,* but then go in opposite directions. That...

razor-thin line exists between genuine thankfulness to God for the protection wealth can provide and arrogance about one’s wealth. The book of Proverbs challenges us to get used to patrolling that line, so we can learn when we cross it.

Neither the TV preacher who thinks God told him to definitely get a third Learjet nor extremists who think that having a savings account is sinful is exercising wisdom.

Proverbs drives us toward that insight by being steeped in those three characteristics we glimpsed earlier: antiquity, ambiguity, and diversity.

The methods of disciplining children we’ve seen most certainly reflect the rather harsh climate of Iron Age tribal culture (1200–500 BCE), where physical violence among peoples and nations is a ho-hum matter-of-fact reality.

Long before Christianity came to be, Proverbs was already “democratized,” that is, transformed from a book for some to a book for everyone.

the simple fact that Proverbs later came to be included in the for-everyone book we call the Bible speaks volumes—it means that those ancient Jews who made that decision saw in it value beyond the reason for which it was originally written.

We do not share the ancient setting of the original audience of Proverbs. When we read it, we have to transpose it into another key if we hope to connect with it. In fact, the book’s very inclusion in the collection of for-everyone books is already a significant transposition. Otherwise this ancient book would forever remain ...

Proverbs models for us how the Bible as a whole works. The entire Bible, like Proverbs, is ancient, ambiguous, and diverse. The Bible as a whole demands the same wisdom approach as Proverbs.

Proverbs does this by tying wisdom to creation itself.

Proverbs puts wisdom in the Garden of Eden. Wisdom, we are told, is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her* (3:18).

Wisdom as a “tree of life” in Proverbs is the solution to this problem of “death,” of alienation from God. Wisdom opens up the gates of Paradise and gives us back access to life that was lost. Not life literally, but symbolically—a quality of life, a life in harmony with God and creation.

the New Testament ties Jesus to wisdom,

The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he* established the heavens (3:19).

responsibility.” It is a responsibility because God is not a helicopter parent. And it is sacred because all of our efforts, big and small, to live wisely are sacred acts of bowing to and seeking alignment with the Wise Creator.

we do the kinds of things Proverbs goes on and on about, like holding our tongue, refusing to answer back, being patient, speaking tenderly, putting the needs of others before our own, doing a thoughtful and kind deed, we are aligning with the life force that echoes back to the foundation of all there

is.

Wisdom seems not to have been created by God, like everything else, but “acquired” by God and “born” of God before the act of creation (see verses 22–24).*

Wisdom of Solomon, took this idea to its logical conclusion.*

Times had changed for this author. The days of old, when prophets and inspired writers walked among them, was over. But wisdom was still there as she always was, even from the very beginning of creation. And the Wisdom of Solomon goes on to say that wisdom enters human souls and makes them friends of God, . . . for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom (7:27–28).

to know God is to live with wisdom, who is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars (Wisd. of Sol. 7:29).

Living in harmony with God and others amid the complex and changing circumstances of history and how we live in our time and place simply don’t happen according to a script. When we seek to live by wisdom, we will quickly see the need to move beyond the words on the page in order to make them

our own. And when we do that, we embrace the mystery of faith by tapping into the life force of creation itself.

Wisdom is about being trained to be ready for the little and hidden things, the unscripted day-to-day moments that sneak up on us, like dealing with a fool, struggling with wealth, or disciplining a child.

God’s perfect will seems to be for us to seek and follow wisdom. This path is a serious one; it requires determination, discipline, humility, and vigilance and is hardly the comfortable and predictable way we might choose for ourselves.

But it is not overbearing or burdensome. Wisdom, like a good parent, is patient and supportive, gives us freedom, and encourages and empowers us to work things out as best as we can.

But here’s the thing. Although we might not see the point of all these laws, God seems awfully intent on making sure the Israelites obey each and every one of them. Regardless of how we might scratch our heads about whether God

actually cares about not using a chisel when building a stone altar or decoding exactly which four-legged insects we may eat, these commands aren’t optional—which is what makes them commands.

But readers from ancient times have always understood that keeping a law means more than “doing what it says”; it means deliberating over what the command actually requires here and now.

Discerning how a law is to be obeyed, in other words, is an act of wisdom. Wisdom and Law,* as we will see, go hand in glove.

So maybe for Christians sabbath keeping isn’t a thing at all. It’s really not clear either way, though that hardly keeps some Christians from almost coming to blows over it—and Calvinists know I’m only slightly kidding. I’m not belittling sabbath keeping. I actually think the practice is spiritually and emotionally healthy, and I try to keep at least a different pace on Sunday, though I respect those who are more intense about it than I am. I’m only pointing out that how (or whether) to keep the command isn’t clear.

“Okay, Lord, no other gods before you. Got it. But can I have one or two Canaanite gods

alongside or perhaps tagging along behind you? You’d still be at the head of the line, of course.” On that last point, archaeologists have dug up hundreds of little clay figurines in the southern kingdom, Judah, dating to the seventh century BCE (the decades before the Babylonian exile). These figurines probably represent the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah and were found in people’s homes. Maybe they kept them on the mantle or nightstand.

But more likely the official view of Israel’s religious leaders, which is what we read about in the Bible, didn’t match the on-the-ground religious practices of the blue collar class. Judahite families of farmers and sheepherders might have thought, “Dang it all. My neighbor’s crops are doing great, and they chalk it all up to Asherah, so maybe I should get on board. What’s the harm? Yahweh is still first. He might even appreciate the company.”*

Can you steal to save your child from starving? Someone else’s child? And where is the line between coveting and admiration?

Biblical laws shout to us something about the Bible’s purpose.

Parents who tell their twelve-year-old, “Clean your room, or no internet for a week,” are just asking for a debate. Maybe God is too.

The Mishnah, the first major work of Jewish legal reflection (compiled around 200 CE), lists thirty-nine activities forbidden on the sabbath, including planting, plowing, cooking, sewing, slaughtering animals, and writing. This list may look like legalistic hand-wringing for some Christians, but it is actually an exercise in wisdom about discerning what work is in order to obey God.

Amendments are called amendments for a reason. Times change, and laws that made sense at one point in time don’t necessarily make sense in another, and so they need to be amended.

And that’s one big reason why we see our third biblical characteristic, diversity, in the Old Testament laws—later biblical writers made adjustments to earlier laws, and both were kept in the Bible.

This law is much nicer—let’s call it more humane—and the motivation given for such treatment is Israel’s own experience of being mistreated as slaves in Egypt (15:15). Sure, six years is still a long time, but that might have been the only way for some to get out of debt and survive.

these two slave laws of Exodus and Deuteronomy don’t match up, even though they are both said to come from the same divine source: God revealing his will to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

The book of Leviticus adds a third voice (25:39–47): no Hebrew is a slave, but a hired hand. In the “year of Jubilee” they all go free,

Deuteronomy also includes a somewhat stunning detail. Exodus is clear that the lamb is to be roasted over fire and not to be boiled. Deuteronomy, according to English translations, only says that the lamb is to be cooked (verse 7). So what’s stunning about that? That word cook in Deuteronomy is the same Hebrew root word for boil in Exodus. In other words, the very thing not to be done in Exodus is commanded to be done in Deuteronomy without breaking stride.

the choice to translate the same Hebrew root word as boil in Exodus and cook in Deuteronomy is aimed at avoiding this contradiction. This isn’t the only place this sort of thing tends to happen in modern translations of the Bible, though the better ones will provide helpful