And here I thought you were going to stick to the Scriptures. Oh well.
Provan should have looked at THESE Scriptures that the author of this review wrote. He's pointing out the blind spots in Provan's book.
"Nowhere in the book does the writer take into account Romans 11:1: "Did God reject his people? By no means!" Nor does he engage with Old Testament verses such as Deuteronomy 4:31: "For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath." Nowhere does Charles Provan take into account Jeremiah 31:35-37:
This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD Almighty is his name: "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight," declares the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me."
This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD.
At best, the claim that the Church is Israel now demonstrates an utter disregard for the apostle's warning to the grafted-in branches of the Olive Tree not to boast themselves against the natural branches. At worst, Mr Provan's thesis is a particularly arrogant example of theological anti-Semitism. If it falls into the hands of Jews it will serve only to alienate them from the Church which has supposedly replaced them."