Is the biblical view of humanity dangerous, then?

CERTAINLY it is.

It is dangerous to anyone who does not wish to think of every other human being as their image bearing “neighbor” or to love him or her as such.

It is dangerous, for example, to everyone who wishes to “assimilate man without remainder to the rest of nature,” insisting that (after all) there is nothing very special about human beings as a class, and certainly not as individuals.

Biblical faith is also dangerous to those who have become confused about where the boundaries between science and philosophy lie and who think that because human beings are, in some sense, products of a great evolutionary struggle in which only the fittest survive, society itself should be organized on that same basis.

Biblical faith is dangerous, moreover, to those among the powerful who would like to be left alone to use and oppress the weak and to those among the rich who would like to be left alone to use and oppress the poor.

Such faith threatens all those for whom the current social order is everything or for whom individual human beings are merely dispensable flotsam and jetsam on the great sea of inevitable social change.

It challenges every “ends justifies the means” and every “greatest good” argument.

It confronts any idea that anyone is too young or too old, too black or too white, too sick, too different, or too foreign to have the same rights as everyone else, including the right to life.

It opposes any diminution of the importance of the individual person out of regard for the convenience of other family members, the health of the economy, the good of the state, or the well-being of the planet.

The biblical idea about the human being is, in truth, very dangerous.

~ Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters  by Iain W. Provan

“It always is bitter when the idolatry of the self, or of the state, is only lightly sprinkled by the waters of Biblical teaching rather than plunged right into them - to death.”

— Iain Provan (Seeking What is Right: The Old Testament and the Good Life)

The way of the modern world makes it easy to live as if God did not exist.

Dr. Iain Provan

On Rightly Hitching Our Wagons (A Response to Andy Stanley) by Iain Provan

On Rightly Hitching Our Wagons (A Response to Andy Stanley) by Iain Provan

It is without doubt a mixed blessing that whatever Christian leaders say in public nowadays often gets distributed immediately and very widely via social media and YouTube – and once it is “out there,” it is difficult to get it back. I wonder if Andy Stanley, senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, would like to “get back” some of the words he used in a sermon recently…

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On Rightly Hitching Our Wagons (A Response to Andy Stanley) by Iain Provan

It is without doubt a mixed blessing that whatever Christian leaders say in public nowadays often gets distributed immediately and very widely via social media and YouTube – and once it is "out there," it is difficult to get it back. I wonder if Andy Stanley, senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, would like to "get back" some of the words he used in a sermon recently concerning the Old Testament.1 If this had been a sermon about the need for Christians to read Old Testament Scripture well rather than badly, and even about the necessity of churches devoting far more resources than they currently do to helping their members to achieve this, I'm sure that many people would have applauded; certainly I would have done so. But what Andy actually urged Christians to do was to "unhitch" the Old Testament from their Christian faith. He acknowledged that these "Jewish scriptures," as he called them, are certainly an important "back story" for "the main story" of Christian Scripture – they represent a divinely inspired description of "God on the move through an ancient, ancient time." However, the Old Testament – "or the Law and the Prophets as they called it" – was not regarded in the early Church as "the go-to source regarding any [his emphasis] behavior in the church." Those early Church leaders "unhitched the church from the worldview, the value system, and the regulations of the Jewish Scriptures," including the Ten Commandments; "they unhitched the church from the entire thing ... everything's different, everything's new." And we should follow their example: "Jesus' new covenant, His covenant with the nations, His covenant with you, His covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures." Andy acknowledged in this sermon that his comments might be considered "a little disturbing" by some listeners, and judging by the reaction on social media, he was quite right. Significant numbers did not applaud. In many ways, however, it is a mistake to focus simply on this sermon, for in doing so we run the risk of getting distracted from a larger and more important reality: that the kind of position Andy has articulated is not unusual in the contemporary church worldwide. And it is this fact, rather than the words of one preacher in one sermon, that we ought to find truly disturbing. For to regard the Old Testament (OT) as anything less than actively relevant Christian Scripture, in precisely the same sense that the New Testament (NT) is Christian Scripture, is to step outside the bounds of historic, orthodox Christian faith. It is to step aside from following Christ. And many Christians appear not to realise that this is so. Jesus and the Old Testament Long before there was a Church, there was already a Scripture.2 Its prior existence is indicated in the Gospels in what Jesus himself names on a number of occasions as "the Law and the Prophets" (e.g., Luke 16:16) or close variants (like "Moses and the prophets") – selected human words recognized as representing at the same time the word of God, and as such preserved for posterity. That is to say, they were recognized as prophetic, in the broad sense; they were recognized as "inspired." It is this canonical collection of Law and Prophets that in Jesus' own lifetime and in the history of the earliest Church "was viewed as a privileged, stable witness against which the claims of the gospel were tested and shown to have been established from of old"3 – was understood, indeed, as "the very words of God" (Rom. 3:2). In Matthew 5:17-20, for example, Jesus tells his hearers: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. In line with this, we find Jesus again and again in the Gospels basing his teaching or arguments on the OT, sometimes prefacing what he is about to say with phrases like "it is written that" (e.g., Mk. 14:27; Mt. 11:10) and thereby drawing people's attention to the authority upon which he rests his case. After the resurrection, Jesus rebukes two of his confused and downhearted disciples precisely for failing to take these same Scriptures sufficiently seriously when trying to understand their present experience: How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christhave to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:25-27). The central importance of the OT Scriptures is emphasized again shortly afterwards, in Luke 24:44, when Jesus advises all the core disciples and others that "[e]verything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms." If the disciples, after the resurrection, want to understand what is going on in the world and in their lives, they must attend to these OT Scriptures. Jesus himself sends them there. The Apostles and the Old Testament The remainder of the NT reveals that the earliest Church took this advice very seriously; we would of course expect this of disciples of Jesus. This comes to expression clearly in the famous words of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV): "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." The primary reference here is of course to the OT, since the NT does not yet exist; and we notice immediately how impossible is any idea that these "Jewish scriptures" are merely "divinely inspired backstory" but not at the same time a "go-to source regarding ... behavior in the church." The OT is inspired Scripture designed precisely so that it is useful to the Church in "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." It is the very canon (or measuring-stick) of Christian faith and practice in the first century AD. We see this played out in the book of Acts, where Christians are described as sharing with Jews a commitment to hearing what "the Law and the Prophets" have to say (Acts 13:15) and to believing it: "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets," affirms the Apostle Paul to Felix in Acts 24:14. Various of his letters to the Christian churches of the first-century Roman world illustrate the seriousness with which he took this idea. Everywhere in this correspondence he grounds his teaching in the pre-existing Scriptures. For example (and this is important especially in the light of Andy Stanley's advice that Christians should not obey the Ten Commandments), Paul applies the Ten Commandments to the various ethical situations with which he is confronted in the emerging churches (Rom. 7:7, 13:9, Eph. 6:2-3). For Paul and the other apostles, it was impossible to speak of Christ without speaking of him 'in accordance with the Scriptures' of Israel that already existed – Scriptures that "men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:20-21) – which the Church at its origin received ... as the sole authoritative witness ... These Scriptures taught the church what to believe about God: who God was; how to understand God's relationship to creation, Israel, and the nations; how to worship God; and what manner of life was enjoined in grace and in judgment.4 Indeed, the apostles largely spoke of Christ only in relation to the OT, as Martin Luther once astutely observed, noting "how little Paul and Peter report the individual acts of Jesus in their letters: Paul wrote gospel by making mighty sermons out of a very few passages of the Old Testament."5 Click here to read more. Source: Christian Post

Jim Clark Rally deaths 'could have been avoided'

Jim Clark Rally deaths ‘could have been avoided’

Image caption Elizabeth Allan, Len Stern and Iain Provan died at the Jim Clark Rally in 2014, while Joy Robson, right, died at the Snowman Rally in 2013 Three deaths at a rally in the Scottish Borders could have been avoided if people had been clearly banned from standing in the area where the crash took place, a sheriff has ruled. A fatal accident inquiry was held into the deaths at the Jim…

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This fine exposition of Zechariah represents a most welcome addition to commentary on this book. Mark Boda has a great eye both for the detail of the text and for its intertextuality.

Iain Provan on The Book of Zechariah (NICOT) by Mark Boda

We have a responsibility to tell the truth about the past, so far as we are able to do so. We have a responsibility not to do violence to it, just as we have a responsibility not to do violence in the present […] Mythmaking does not just distort the past in general. It also distorts the past in its particulars […]

What we believe about the past is [also] inevitably bound up with our understanding of the present and our vision for the future. Our understanding of the past profoundly influences our decisions about the present and the future— just as our understanding of the present helps to shape our view of the past. This makes false notions of the past not just regrettable but dangerous; as Bobbi Low puts it […] ‘Romantic misconceptions [about the past] might not matter, except that the conventional wisdoms arising from them generate normative prescriptions’ […]

In the end we contribute neither to world peace nor to saving the planet by romanticizing the past. We must ensure that our story about the past is not at odds with the evidence, precisely so that we do not end up harming the very people— the very planet— that we are so intent, in our well-meaning way, on trying to save.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)

Understanding the Old Testament Story

Understanding the Old Testament Story

Iain Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014.

The Old Testament is a much maligned book. Atheists and secular people despise the Old Testament because of what they perceive to be its violence, its intolerance, and its antiquated laws. In addition, they do not like the God of the Old Testament since they…

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Seeking What Is Right (The Old Testament and the Good Life) by Iain Provan

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Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter (April 25, 2013)

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies

Victor H. Matthews, The Hebrew Prophets and Their Social World: An Introduction, reviewed by Aren M. Maeir and by Stewart Moore

Jonathan T.…

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We have a responsibility to tell the truth about the past, so far as we are able to do so. We have a responsibility not to do violence to it, just as we have a responsibility not to do violence in the present […] In the end we contribute neither to world peace nor to saving the planet by romanticizing the past. We must ensure that our story about the past is not at odds with the evidence, precisely so that we do not end up harming the very people- the very planet- that we are so intent, in our well-meaning way, on trying to save.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)

In volume 4 of Order and History, Voegelin then reflects more generally on the tendency of scholars, even while claiming objectivity with respect to empirical data, to fashion the past in a way that is to their own liking- to submit to a ‘monomaniacal desire to force the operations of the spirit in history on the one line that will unequivocally lead into the speculator’s present.” In so doing they deploy considerable ingenuity in dealing with “obstreperous facts” that will not fit the agenda being pursued.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)

Here [speaking on Karen Armstrong’s work] I begin to anticipate more obviously a discussion [...] of the way in which the mythmakers who are the focus of this book distort the content of ancient traditions, and particularly the biblical tradition, in their pursuit of (what turns out to be) a fictional past.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)

Since we have already established that there is no reason to think that these ancient peoples did display notable ecological wisdom, peaceableness, and equality, there is of course also no reason to think that their religions particularly helped them toward these goals […] There is no inevitable correlation between religion and ecological wisdom in particular […] Indeed, religion may well play in the opposite direction.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)

The conflict and the competition are indeed connected. There has been warfare from the beginning, because there has been from the beginning no world peopled by inherent conservationists […] We have never lived in a world in which people manage and take care of their environments [to the level proposed by the dark green myth], making sure that they never misuse or overexploit anything and consequently enjoying a world in which there is [always] plenty for everyone. The myth of the ecologically wise ancestor is deeply bound up with the myth of the peaceable ancestor. Both are aspects of what [archaeologist Steven] LeBlanc refers to [in his book ‘Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful Noble Savage’] as the romantic myth of the noble savage. The reality is that it is not just our present time that is marked by 'constant battles and heedless gobbling up of the nearest natural resources’. This was also true of the distant past. Moreover, lack of peace is not just a feature of intertribal relations in ancient societies; it is a feature of intratribal relations as well […] There are, in sum, no good reasons to consider the Paleolithic Age in human history to be an age of peace.

From Convenient Myths: The ‘Axial Age’, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was, published 2013; Prof. Iain Provan (My Review Here) (My Ko-Fi Here)