July 23, 2014 (Wednesday)
If I were a total stranger to the Bible, what would be the best method to follow in discovering what the Bible teaches?
First of all, I would need to find a resource that can give me, in simple language, an overview of Bible history. There are many Bible helps available in books, many of them reproduced on the internet, like Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias as well as many other helps. Such a resource might provide a list of Bible books, Genesis through Revelation, and show how the message of each book relates to the overall story. We have tried to do some of that through the series of blogs that concluded yesterday.
[Genesis 1-11]
The Bible helps will probably tell me that Genesis 1-11 gives me the history of humankind from the creation to the destruction of the world by flood and the survival of only one family, Noah’s.
[Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy]
The next big event was the call of a man named Abram (later called Abraham) to father a race of people that would be especially precious to God. Abraham went to Canaan because God sent him there, and had a son, Isaac, who had a son, Jacob, who had twelve sons. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, was sold as a slave by his jealous brothers, and was taken to Egypt, where he grew up and eventually became prime minister, second only to Pharaoh. He was put in charge of Egypt’s stored grain, and created a system of distribution to people affected by a severe famine. Jacob and his family went to Egypt for food, and eventually moved to Egypt at the invitation of Joseph and the Pharaoh. After about 400 years they grew into huge tribes of people, and new Egyptian leaders feared them so much they enslaved them. The people cried out to God for a deliverer, and God sent them Moses, who led them out of Egypt. On the way to the promised land, God gave them many instructions for lawful living and proper worship. The plan was to enter Canaan and possess the land that had been promised them hundreds of years before when God called Abraham as his special servant. The people were terrified and refused to enter the promised land, and so were compelled to wander in the wilderness for forty years until a new generation took their place. Moses died and Joshua became their guide, leading them to take Canaan as their home.
[Joshua, Judges, Ruth]
After settling the land and assigning tribal portions, the people followed Joshua as their leader, but when he and his contemporaries died, many turned to idolatry. For 300 years, people called “Judges” led the loose federation of tribes who, generally speaking, gave lip service to God but heartfelt devotion to pagan idols, with their attendant immoral acts.
[1 Samuel through Malachi (31 books of history, poetry and prophecy)]
The tribes decided to unite under a king like other nations, and the first king was Saul. Then came David, and, finally, David’s son, Solomon. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into a northern kingdom, Israel, and a southern kingdom, Judah. Both kingdoms loved idolatry and sin, although some of Judah’s kings tried to get them to repent and serve God. Finally the Assyrians conquered Israel, destroying their capital, Samaria, and took the people captive. They never returned. Later the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed Judah’s capital city, Jerusalem, and took the people captive to Babylon. After about 70 years, Persia became the dominant kingdom and their king allowed the people to return. Those who returned rebuilt the temple and the walls of Jerusalem.
[Interbiblical Period]
The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, describes a people back in their own land of Judah, seeking to rebuild their nation and their personal lives. The next book of the Bible, Matthew, is in the New Testament and is written in a world quite different from that of Malachi. We call that 400-year gap “The Interbiblical Period,” the period of history between the Old Testament and the New Testament. We must rely on sources other than our Bible to learn what happened after Malachi and before Matthew. From those sources we discover that Israel was a province of Persia at the close of the Old Testament. In the years after that, the Greeks took over the world, and Israel was still a vassal state. The Romans later became the dominant empire, and when the New Testament opens Rome is the ultimate power. The Greek dynasties had weakened into factions and that weakness made it possible for Israel to revolt and establish itself as its own master. This was the period of the Maccabees (a ruling family), when Israel was relatively independent. But the Romans put an end to that, and the political map of Israel in New Testament days finds Judea in the south and Galilee in the north, with Samaria in between. Jesus is born at just the right time of history, because the Greeks had given the world a common language, the Romans had provided good roads to principal cities, the Old Testament had been translated into Greek that people all over the world could understand, no nation would risk war against its neighbors because the Romans enforced the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). Jews and synagogues existed in most cities, giving missionaries opportunities to speak. Once the gospel had been established, it could be proclaimed throughout the world, and that’s the story of the Book of Acts, reinforced by the many letters of the New Testament.
[The New Testament (27 books): 4 Gospels, 1 History, 13 Letters of Paul, 1 Anonymous book, 2 Letters from Peter, 3 Letters from John, 1 Apocalyptic book of John]
The New Testament brings me face to face with Jesus Christ. The central event of human history is His death, burial and resurrection. The New Testament answers many questions: Why was Jesus born? Why did He die on the cross? Why did He rise from the dead? Did He promise to come again? What does the Bible say about the future? We will find answers to all these questions about our Savior as we systematically study the Bible, book by book.
Now, armed with this limited knowledge of Bible history, I’m ready to begin studying the books of the Bible. The history outlined above is only a skeleton; it needs much more if it
is to come to life for us. I need to study the Bible books one at a time, understanding where they fit in the history of God’s people. I’ll need to learn everything there is to know about the circumstances of their writing and seek to know the contents of each book. As I study them, I will learn about the history of the times, the people, the traditions, the teachings, and so much more.