Seriously Dangerous Religion<\/a>. The book presents the Bible\u2019s answers to a set of ten perennial questions about the world, God, sexes, evil, creation, society, hope. He compares the biblical answers to the answers of other religions and worldviews, including Western modernity. Though daunting in size, the book is highly readable. A skilled exegete, Provan\u2019s readings of particular texts are frequently insightful, sometimes arresting.<\/p>\nThe book has a practical, pastoral, apologetic turn that makes it immediately useful in churches. For instance, Provan writes, \u201cBy \u2018love,\u2019 I mean \u2018keeping\u2019 other persons. I am to look after them actively and to look out for their interests, as best I can and as often as the opportunity presents itself. I am to do this in line with God\u2019s own character and actions in the world, and in the light of God\u2019s own specific commands about what love entails, rather than making the mistake of thinking that I can myself, without God\u2019s help, \u2018know good and evil.\u2019 I am to imitate and obey God, rather than falling for the heroic myth that we human beings ourselves, as individuals and groups, are the measure of what \u2018right\u2019 means\u201d (212). As can be seen from this quotation, Provan believes in the goodness of God\u2019s law, and believes that the Bible has normative force.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a number of points, I disagreed with his interpretations. He argues that the garden of Eden was in no particular place, but rather was a picture of the world as a cosmic, sacred temple. The garden is not a place but a \u201cstate of being in the world\u201d (32-40).\u00a0With the temple-creation analogy I have no quarrel, but it seems crucial in Genesis 1-2 to distinguish the \u201choly space\u201d of the garden from the rest of the world. Adam is placed in a world that is already mapped, with a bounded garden-space within the land of Eden and a world outside. Those zones of creation become crucial for grasping the theology of both Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch \u2013 indeed, of the entire Old Testament. The future of the world is to become a garden-city-temple, but that\u2019s not where the world starts. \u00a0(Besides, naming <\/i>the rivers that flow from the garden is a strange way to communicate that it\u2019s not<\/i> locatable on a map.)<\/p>\n
My other specific disagreements assemble into a general complaint about the book. At many points, Provan tilts his explanation of the biblical view of X ever-so-slightly toward the prevailing outlook of contemporary culture. He rightly <\/em>contrasts the biblical portrait of sexual difference to that of Athens and Islam. But he also says that \u201csome readers have simply failed\u201d to see that the order of the creation of Adam and Eve \u201cdoes not indicate any kind of hierarchical relationship between them\u201d (91). I wonder if Paul is one of the readers he has in mind (1 Timothy 2:13). Phrases like \u201cthe ape . . . my brother\u201d (239) blur the differences between biblical views of the care of animals and modern environmentalism.<\/p>\nThe result is that \u201cseriously dangerous religion\u201d loses some of its danger. Provan is perfectly willing to say that the Bible is a danger, for example, to proponents of the \u201cnaked public square\u201d (401). But the final chapter is mostly reassuring: The Bible is not nearly as scary as many think. That\u2019s an important thing to say, so long as we haven\u2019t trimmed some of the Bible\u2019s sharper edges along the way.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s much to like in Iain Provan\u2019s\u00a0Seriously Dangerous Religion. The book presents the Bible\u2019s answers to a set of ten perennial questions about the world, God, sexes, evil, creation, society, hope. He compares the biblical answers to the answers of other religions and worldviews, including Western modernity. Though daunting in size, the book is highly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[730,732],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iain-provan","category-old-testament"],"yoast_head":"\n
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