* Explores and explains the approaches of a wide range of interpreters - both ancient and modern

The NIV Application Commentary Ecclesiastes/Song of Songs. Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs have always presented particular challenges to their readers, especially if those readers are seeking to understand them as part of Christian Scripture. Ecclesiastes regularly challenges the reader as to grammar and syntax. The interpretation even of words which occur frequently in the book is often unclear and a matter of dispute, partly because there is frequent word-play in the course of the argument. The argument is itself complex and sometimes puzzling and has often provoked the charge of inconsistency or outright self-contradiction. When considered in the larger context of the OT, Ecclesiastes stands out as an unusual book, whose connection with the main stream of biblical tradition seems tenuous. We find ourselves apparently reading about the meaninglessness of life and the certainty of death in a universe in which God is certainly present but is distant and somewhat uninvolved. When considered in the context of the NT, the dissonance between Ecclesiastes and its scriptural context seems even greater; for if there is one thing that we do not find in this book, it is the joy of resurrection. Perhaps this is one reason why Ecclesiastes is seldom read or preached on in modern churches. The Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon) has been read, historically, by Christians, in two primary ways---as a text which concerns the love and sexual intimacy of human beings and as a text which uses the language of human love and intimacy to speak of something else---the relationship between Christ and the church. Christians have often felt that they must choose between these options---that a text about human love and sexual intimacy could not be at the same time a spiritual text. It is one of the challenges of reading the Song to explore how far this is necessarily true and how far Christian readers have been influenced in their reading more by Platonism and Gnosticism than by biblical thinking about the nature of the human being and of human sexuality. Another challenge is to discover whether the Song is really one song at all, or simply a haphazard collection of shorter poems cast together because of their common theme of love; and still another is to gain clarity on what, precisely, is the connection between the Song and Solomon. This commentary sets out to wrestle honestly with all the challenges of reading these biblical books---the challenges of reading the texts in themselves, and the challenges of reading them as intrinsic parts of Christian Scripture. Using the standard structure of the NIVAC series, it explores their original meaning, the bridging contexts that enable their journey to the present, and their contemporary significance. In the course of the exploration, these books are seen to be deeply relevant in what they have to say both to the contemporary church and the contemporary culture."

The question of the good lifeawhat it looks like for people and societies to be well ordered and flourishingahas universal significance, but its proposed solutions are just as far reaching. At the core of this concern is the nature of the good itself: what is "right"? We must attend to this ethical dilemma before we can begin to envision a life lived to the fullest. With Seeking What Is Right , Iain Provan invites us to consider how Scriptureathe Old Testament in particularacan aid us in this quest. In rooting the definition of the good in God's special revelation, Provan moves beyond the constraints of family, tribe, culture, state, or nature. When we read ourselves into the story of Scripture, we learn a formative ethic that speaks directly to our humanity. Provan delves into Western Christian history to demonstrate the various ways this has been done: how our forebears identified with the narrative of God's people, Israel, and how they applied the Old Testament to their particular times and concerns. This serves as a foundation upon which modern Christians can assess their decisions as people who read the whole biblical story "from the beginning" in our time. Provan challenges us to grapple with ethical issues dominating our contemporary culture as a people in exile, a people formed by disciplines steeped in the patterns and teachings of Scripture. To come alongside ancient Israel in its own experiences of exile, to listen with Israel to the utterances of a holy God, is to approach a true picture of the good life that illuminates all facets of human existence. Provan helps us understand how we should and should not read Scripture in arriving at these conclusions, clarifying for the faithful Christian what the limits of the search for "what is right" look like.

In 1517, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg's castle church. Luther's seemingly inconsequential act ultimately launched the Reformation, a movement that forevertransformed both the Church and Western culture. The repositioning of the Bible as beginning, middle, and end of Christian faith was crucial to the Reformation. Two words alone captured this emphasis on the Bible's divine inspiration, its abiding authority, and its clarity, efficacy, and sufficiency: sola scriptura . In the five centuries since the Reformation, the confidence Luther and the Reformers placed in the Bible has slowly eroded. Enlightened modernity came to treat the Bible like any other text, subjecting it to a near endless array of historical-critical methods derived from the sciences and philosophy. The result is that in many quarters of Protestantism today the Bible as word has ceased to be the Word. In The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture , Iain Provan aims to restore a Reformation-like confidence in the Bible by recovering a Reformation-like reading strategy. To accomplish these aims Provan first acknowledges the value in the Church's precritical appropriation of the Bible and, then, in a chastened use of modern and postmodern critical methods. But Provan resolutely returns to the Reformers' affirmation of the centrality of the literal sense of the text, in the Bible's original languages, for a right-minded biblical interpretation. In the end the volume shows that it is possible to arrive at an approach to biblical interpretation for the twenty-first century that does not simply replicate the Protestant hermeneutics of the sixteenth, but stands in fundamental continuity with them. Such lavish attention to, and importance placed upon, a seriously literal interpretation of Scripture is appropriate to the Christian confession of the word as Wordathe one God's Word for the one world.

The Old Testament is often maligned as an outmoded and even dangerous text. Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, and Derrick Jensen are prime examples of those who find the Old Testament to be problematic to modern sensibilities. Iain Provan counters that such easy and popular readings misunderstand the Old Testament. He opposes modern misconceptions of the Old Testament by addressing ten fundamental questions that the biblical text should--and according to Provan does--answer: questions such as ""Who is God?"" and ""Why do evil and suffering mark the world?"" By focusing on Genesis and drawing on other Old Testament and extra-biblical sources, Seriously Dangerous Religion constructs a more plausible reading. As it turns out, Provan argues, the Old Testament is far more dangerous than modern critics even suppose. Its dangers are the bold claims it makes upon its readers.

The contemporary world has been shaped by two important and potent myths. Karl Jaspers' construct of the "axial age" envisions the common past (800-200 BC), the time when Western society was born and world religions spontaneously and independently appeared out of a seemingly shared value set. Conversely, the myth of the "dark green golden age," as narrated by David Suzuki and others, asserts that the axial age and the otherworldliness that accompanied the emergence of organized religion ripped society from a previously deep communion with nature. Both myths contend that to maintain balance we must return to the idealized past. In Convenient Myths , Iain Provan illuminates the influence of these two deeply entrenched and questionable myths, warns of their potential dangers, and forebodingly maps the implications of a world founded on such myths.

Concise, student-friendly introduction to Genesis Iain Provan here offers readers a compact, up-to-date, and student-friendly introduction to the book of Genesis, focusing on its structure, content, theological concerns, key interpretive debates, and historical reception. Drawing on a range of methodological approaches (author-, text-, and reader-centered) as complementary rather than mutually exclusive ways of understanding, Discovering Genesis encourages students to dig deeply into the theological and historical questions raised by the text. It provides a critical assessment of key interpreters and interpretive debates, focusing especially on the reception history of the biblical text, a subject of growing interest to students and scholars of the Bible.

For over a decade, A Biblical History of Israel has gathered praise and criticism for its unapologetic approach to reconstructing the historical landscape of ancient Israel through a biblical lens. In this much-anticipated second edition, the authors reassert that the Old Testament should be taken seriously as a historical document alongside other literary and archaeological sources. Significantly revised and updated, A Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition includes the authors' direct response to critics. In part 1, the authors review scholarly approaches to the historiography of ancient Israel and negate arguments against using the Bible as a primary source. In part 2, they outline a history of ancient Israel from 2000 to 400 BCE by integrating both biblical and extrabiblical sources. The second edition includes updated archaeological data and new references. The text also provides seven maps and fourteen tables as useful references for students.