Abstract
Iain Provan’s new work is an impressive and timely book with an ambitious purpose—nothing 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. Contrasting this with literalistic and spiritualised readings, which he rejects, he significantly includes within its scope a typological sense understood in canonical terms.
Provan argues in parts one and two that the literal, typological and canonical approach of the Old and New Testament authors was gradually displaced by Platonic patterns of allegorising. The resulting medieval ‘eclipse’ of biblical narrative, was only ended in the Renaissance and Reformation with the turn ad fontes and the restoration of apostolic exegesis. Yet the Reformation ascendancy of the literal sense proved all too brief, and the later evangelical turn to literalism, opened the way both for Enlightenment and modern attacks on Scripture and the advent of biblical criticism. Crucially, Provan sees both movements as a retreat from the true literal sense and a betrayal of the Reformation.
Provan’s solution to this problem, outlined in part three, is a return to the Reformation championing of an accommodated literal sense, attentive to the perspicuity and authority of Scripture. He has little time for strict (Chicago) readings of inerrancy, which he suggests lose sight of the human nature of Scripture, but has considerable time for other currents of modern biblical scholarship. These he suggests—apart from the extremes of form criticism and deconstructionism—have been remarkably valuable in reminding scholars of the human dimension of Scripture. Nevertheless, he argues, they have all too often lost sight of the communicative intention of the biblical authors and canonical compilers—leading them to pursue their own ‘spiritualised’ readings divorced from any concern with the actual sense of Scripture.
Many of Provan’s arguments are powerful and insightful, and his subtle contrasting of the Reformers’ accommodated literal reading of Scripture with both what preceded and what succeeded is fascinating. Likewise, his careful definition of the literal sense, examined exhaustively in dialogue with historical developments and modern critical scholarship deserves to be heard on a wider stage. Fellow evangelicals and champions of ‘deep’ exegesis alike may feel that Provan could do more to articulate his own understanding of divine and human intentions in Scripture. Medieval scholars will also likely feel short-changed by the way he glosses over the complex, scripturally-grounded, dynamics of the ‘fourfold sense’. Overall, however, Provan has done a highly effective job of throwing down the gauntlet all round, and it is up to his opponents to respond.