In the second half of Chapter 6 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel, Provan addresses the issue of the Exodus. Before I get into what Provan addresses in this chapter, though, I want to lay out what I feel is the two most fundamental problems when it comes to finding…
Chapter 6 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel is entitled “Before the Land” and it covers both the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph) and the events of the Exodus. Now, truth be told, when it comes to strict archeological evidence, there really isn’t a whole lot….
In this post, I am going to cover chapters 4-5 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel. Chapter 4 is entitled “Narrative and History—Stories About the Past” and Chapter 5, which concludes the opening section of the book, is entitled, “A Biblical History of Israel.” Literary Reading and Historical StudyAt the…
Chapter 3 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel, is entitled “Knowing about the History of Israel.” In this chapter, Provan focuses on four reasons why some modern biblical scholars reject the notion that the Old Testament is actually conveying real history at all. He begins by reemphasizing from chapter 2…
Chapter 2 of Provan, Long, and Longman’s book, A Biblical History of Israel, is entitled “Knowing and Believing—Faith in the Past.” As the title suggests, it focuses on the question of just how do we really know anything about past history? He begins the chapter with a quote from minimalist scholar Thomas Thompson: “There is…
Over the next few weeks, I am going to write an extended book analysis of A Biblical History of Israel by Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman. I’ve used this book in my Biblical History course for the past few years and I feel that it gives a challenging and fascinating overview of…
In this last installment of my brief overview of some of Michael Heiser’s arguments in his book, The Unseen Realm, I am going to focus on what he says about the apostle Paul’s supernatural worldview in regard to the Gospel. First, though, there is the matter of the transition from Jesus in the Gospels to…
We now come to my brief overview of what I feel are some of Michael Heiser’s more significant arguments in his book, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. To make sure everything stays in its larger context, these are the main points discussed in the previous posts: The serpent in Genesis…
In my previous post, Part 2 of my brief book review series of Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm, I looked at Heiser’s take on how the concept of YHWH and His divine council plays out in regard to Genesis 2-3. In short, Heiser gives some substance to the traditional notion that Satan is a fallen…
If you’ve grown up in church, or even if you haven’t, chances are you have a basic understanding of God, man, and everything in between, that goes something like this: (1) There’s God, (2) He created everything in the universe, as well as human beings, (3) There are also good angels (we imagine them in…