My experience is that evangelicalism has in their midst at least four kinds of scholars. First, there are those who really don\u2019t know the critical evidence (because they found a grad program in which they could avoid it) and so don\u2019t teach it or, if they do teach it, they present the criticism as a straw man that\u2019s easily bested by their fundamentalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, there are scholars who know something about the evidence and recognize that it\u2019s problematic, but their response is \u201cHey, we just don\u2019t know everything.\u201d These scholars don\u2019t give much attention to the critical issues because for any number of reasons they don\u2019t want to take the time to mess with it. I call these, the \u201cDon\u2019t worry be happy\u201d scholars. In the Enns situation, they are the scholars who think its bad business that Pete\u2019s in trouble, they realize why Pete thinks what he thinks, but they don\u2019t have the courage to say something in his support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, there are evangelicals who know the critical evidence quite well and privately recognize the serious problems that it creates for standard evangelical theology, but in actual scholarship and discourse they handle themselves pretty much like those in category 2. One only knows their real views in private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, we have what I\u2019d now call the \u201cPete Enns\u201d evangelicals. They recognize the problems and are ready to engage them for the sake of God and kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some evangelicals simply don\u2019t like dealing with these problems because they fear that it will damage \u201cthe faith.\u201d My response: if working through the evidence that\u2019s right in front of our eyes, in the Bible, is troubling for faith \u2014 then maybe the faith isn\u2019t what we think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n