Description
Book SynopsisAims to restore a Reformation-like confidence in the Bible by recovering a Reformation-like reading strategy. To accomplish these aims Iain 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.
Trade ReviewIain Provan's new work is an impressive and timely book with an ambitious purposeânothing less than an elucidation and defence of a reformed hermeneutic of Scripture in relation to the whole history of Bible interpretation, both pre- and post-Reformation. In it he defends a literal reading of Scripture, which he defines in terms of the dynamic relation of both the letter of the text and the communicative intentions of its human (and divine) authors. -- Simon Burton -- Expository Times
In the Reformation, the inspiration and authority of the Bible-its perspicuity, efficacy, and sufficiency-came to the fore. For the present generation that has lost its confidence in the Bible, Iain Provan's book has recaptured and recovered the internal structure and logic of the Reformation hermeneutic, with its emphasis on the literal sense -- Dennis Ngien -- Renaissance and Reformation
Table of Contents1. Introduction: O Little Town of... Wittenberg Part I. Before There Were Protestants: Long-Standing Questions 2. Scripture and Canon in the Early Church: On Chickens and Their Eggs 3. The Formation of the Christian Canon: The Pressure of the Twenty-Two 4. On the Meaning of Words: The Literal, the Spiritual, and the Plain Confusing 5. The Reading of Scripture in the New Testament: All That the Prophets Have Spoken 6. Literal Reading, Typology, and Allegory in Paul: A Rose by Any Other Name 7. Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian: False Economies and Hidden Treasure 8. Origen, Theodore, and Augustine: The Fertility of Scripture 9. How Shall We Then Read?: The Church Fathers, the Reformers, and Ourselves 10. The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Itâs All Greek to Me 11. The Vulgate, the Renaissance, and the Reformation: When in Rome... Part II. Now There Are Protestants: Scripture in a Changing World 12. The Perspicuity of Scripture Alone: A Lamp unto My Feet 13. The Authority of Scripture: Thy Word Is Truth 14. The Bible, the Heavens, and the Earth: The Beginnings of an Eclipse 15. The Emergence of Secular History: The Way We (Really) Were 16. On Engaging with a Changing World: Fight, Flight, and the Fifth Way Part III. Still Protesting: Scripture in the (Post)Modern World 17. Source and Form Criticism: Behind the Text 18. Redaction and Rhetorical Criticism: The Persuasive Text 19. Structuralism and Poststructuralism: Texts and Subtexts 20. Narrative Criticism: Getting the Story Straight 21. Social-Scientific and Feminist Criticism Texts as Social Constructs 22. The Canonical Reading of Scripture: The End of Criticism 23. Postscript Appendix: Modern Developments in Our Understanding of the Biblical Text
