The Story Line of the Bible (part V 02-22-16)

A New Chapter: During the next 450 years, the Greek empire flourished and receded, and the Roman empire rose, subjugating the Jewish people as they did the whole Mediterranean world. The Jewish people showed inspiring courage and faithfulness to God during these times of political and religious persecution. (Stories of their courage and faith are told in several documents that are considered historically reliable by Protestants but not accepted as part of the Bible, although Catholics and Anglicans include it as a kind of third testament. These documents are known as the Apocrypha.)

Into this milieu was born Jesus, later to be called the Christ or Messiah (meaning Liberator or Savior). After thirty years of obscurity, Jesus came into the public eye, presenting Himself as an itinerant Jewish rabbi, with a difference. The religious world of his day was polarized—much as ours is—with the rigid religious conservatives on one side (the Pharisees) and the more lenient religious liberals on the other (Sadducees).

Jesus refused to be slotted anywhere on their continuum. He said that a time of change had come, a new chapter was beginning, a whole new era in the spiritual life of the human race was being launched. With the memory of the great golden age of King David far behind them (far, but not forgotten), and with the oppressive grandeur of the Roman kings around them, Jesus announced a new kingdom, the kingdom of God.

The Story Line of the Bible (part IV 02-19-16)

Conquest, Confederacy, and Kingdom: A generation later, a reinvigorated younger generation completed the conquest of their homeland. (Other tribes had moved into the land during their absence.) The extended family now consisted of twelve clans, and they formed a loose confederacy that was frequently challenged by neighboring nations, sometimes overcome, and subsequently reformed several times over the next several hundred years.

Eventually this loose confederacy evolved into a rather short-lived monarchy, a development about which later biblical writers were ambivalent. Their first king, Saul, was a disappointment. Their heroic second king, David, initiated their “golden age,” around 1000 B.C. His son Solomon was another disappointment as a king (although the famous Golden Temple was built during his reign) and Solomon’s son was such a weak and insecure ruler that civil war broke out, and the nation was divided into northern and southern kingdoms.

Deterioration, Exile, and Return: God repeatedly intervened in this deteriorating situation. Sometimes, God gave people strong dreams to get their attention. Other times, they had other spiritual experiences. Occasionally, remarkable miracles occurred. Some people had a special sensitivity to God and became spiritual leaders called prophets. Their writings in the Bible record the context and content of the messages they received from God and passed on to the people.

In this divided and weakened condition, the descendants of Israel became an easy target for rising empires to their north. Eventually, from about 700 to 550 B.C., both the northern and southern kingdoms were conquered. Many survivors from the south were deported to Assyria where they became servants in various capacities. Seventy years later, two leaders, Nehemiah and Ezra, gained permission to repopulate their homeland and led the refugees (most of whom had been born in exile) back to rebuild their capital city, Jerusalem.

Through all these hardships, these people never completely lost faith. Nor did they allow their faith to lose its distinctiveness. Of all people in the world, they alone believed in one supreme, good Creator, and they sought to remain faithful to that vision. The era of the great Hebrew prophets ends with the story at this point, about 450 B.C.

The Story Line of the Bible (part III 02-18-16)

United In Suffering: God used a famine to drive them (see previous blog) from their land to Egypt, where they would either assimilate into Egyptian culture and squander their destiny or intensify their distinct family identity as refugees, and not only as refugees, but eventually, as an oppressed, enslaved minority group as well. These shared sufferings did their work, and after about four hundred years in Egypt, their identity was strong, their spirit was still (barely) unbroken by their hardships, and their unique faith in one supreme God was embedded deeply within them. God intervened again, calling a uniquely prepared man named Moses to liberate these special people from their oppression and enslavement and return them to their homeland, which had been unseen by them for four centuries.

The return took much longer than one might expect, because God did not want the land resettled by halfhearted followers. It was essential that they maintain a vigorously distinctive identity and vibrant spiritual vitality as they reentered their homeland. During this difficult but formative time, the family wandered as nomads in the harsh wilderness between Egypt and Palestine. It was during this nomadic period (called the Exodus) that formal public worship of God began. Additionally, the moral standards of this community of faith became codified during these years, most notably in the Ten Commandments. No wonder Moses is remembered as such an important figure in the family history of the Jewish people, since he led the people through this amazing passage.

The Story Line of the Bible (part II 02-17-16)

A Family with a Destiny: Into this situation of religious pluralism, with a welter of religions mixing beauty and horror, truth and misunderstanding, God communicated with a Semitic shepherd living in modern-day Iraq, then known as Chaldea. The man’s name was Abraham. He was given a sense of destiny, that he would be the father of a great family, and that his descendants would bring spiritual blessing and enlightenment to the whole world. Key to this enlightenment was this revelation: There were not many gods, but only one. And this God could not be adequately represented by any of the standard images (idols), but was greater than the stars and the sea, more majestic than the sky and the mountains, because all things were created by this God. Not only that, but this God was deeply concerned about the ethics, morality, social justice, and personal integrity of human beings, Himself being ethical, moral, just and pure. A real contrast to the capricious god-concepts of Abraham’s neighbors, gods whose vices were as exaggerated as their powers!

These were radical ideas, though they may seem commonplace to us, which is proof of Abraham’s ultimate influence. They took generations to accept. But God was patient; these creations were made to be free, so they could not be pushed or forced. They had to learn at their own pace, so direct intervention (via some extraordinary spiritual experience such as a vision, a voice, a dream) was always delicate. Additional interventions came, though, at critical times, to Abraham’s son Isaac, Isaac’s son Jacob (who was later renamed Israel, this name becoming the “family name” of the Jewish people to this day), and Jacob’s son Joseph. The family was guided to a land of their own at the east end of the Mediterranean, where this new understanding of God could be nurtured in relative peace and stability. Eventually, the clan grew quite large, and God apparently planned a difficult experience to solidify their identity and more deeply root these new beliefs in this family of people, and through them, in the human family as a whole.

The Story Line of the Bible (02-16-16 pt I)

Before the beginning of everything we think of as “the universe,” there was God, a creative, intelligent, conscious, communicating, dynamic, caring entity whose magnitude goes beyond our limits of perception and imagination. God created the universe, using time, space, matter, energy … and something more. When God created our planet and populated it with life, God chose to insert something of His own self into the mix: into human beings, God breathed His own “breath of life,” His own “image.”

This mysterious endowment brought with it a unique ennoblement and a unique responsibility unlike that given to any other animal or organic or inanimate matter: human beings were made capable of freedom, consciousness of being conscious, with conscience, wisdom, creativity, love, communication, civilization, virtue. But this endowment also made them vulnerable to rebellion, pride, foolishness, destructiveness, hatred, division, and self-centeredness. They were given choice and choice has an “up” side and a “down” side; there is “Column A” and “Column B,” there is that which is good and there is the other choice.

So, being neither robots nor prisoners, these free human beings early on failed to fulfill the full promise of their primal innocence and natural nobility, and with the development of the first civilizations it was clear that human beings had a self-destructive bent. One feature of their self-destructiveness was their tendency to lose contact with God, to live life without reference to God, to throw away their spiritual compass and get lost. That didn’t mean they became irreligious; in fact, they seemed incurably religious, incapable of numbing or obliterating their spiritual faculties, at least not for very long. Rather, their estrangement from their Creator meant that they innovated as best they could, developing religions as varied as their cultures and their landscapes. In fact, by 2000 B.C., each social entity on earth had developed its own religion to explain its mysteries, solve its problems, bolster its power, vilify its enemies, and so on. The assumption on planet earth was that there were many gods, each having power over certain territories or certain natural phenomena (the sun, the moon, fertility). Some of their forms of worship were beautiful and honorable, but many became base and degrading, including horrific human sacrifice, sexual exploitation, and the like. (continued…..)

General Outline of the Bible (02-15-16)

The Bible as we have it today is divided into two sections, the Old Testament which has 39 different documents and the New Testament with 27.These 66 documents are traditionally called “books” even though they are almost never published as separately bound volumes. This canon of Scripture has been generally accepted by Christians as the inspired Word of God since the 3rd century.

The 39 documents that comprise the Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew from about 2000 B.C. until about 450 B.C. Jews also accept this collection as Scripture and Muslims accept the first five books.

The 27 documents of the New Testament written in ancient Greek are seen as additional Scriptures by Christians. They were written from about 45 to 70 C.E. with perhaps one or two being written as late as 90 C.E.

These documents are not uniform in character. The shortest is only one page while the longest is more than 100 pages. They are of various literary types, including history, narrative, poetry, prophecy and personal letters. Within these genres, there are numerous clear examples of fiction; parables, dreams, and so forth. Sometimes, it is not easy to know exactly what a passage is intended to be; history, poetry, fiction, nonfiction.

These 66 books of the Bible were originally written in three different languages: Hebrew (most of the Old Testament), Aramaic (a sister language to Hebrew used in parts of two Old Testament books), and Greek (all of the New Testament). These documents were authored and compiled by very diverse individuals—poets, kings, prophets, priests, shepherds, farmers, fishermen, a tax collector, a physician, scribes—from the very common to the elite, the intellectual to the uneducated. These very different people wrote over the course of 1,000 years and came from different nations and cultures.

In spite of this amazing diversity, there are common themes that run through seemingly disparate documents; stories about God and God’s dealing with people, haunting stories, unbelievable stories of success and failure, passion and persistence. And not only stories about God but also about humanity—the formation of human civilization, a movement, a heritage—stories with our own fingerprints all over them, showing us not only God but also ourselves in relationship with God and one another.

These stories are not delivered in a linear logic. They do not constitute a textbook or manual or encyclopedia of philosophy, theology or morality. They are all over the board, messy, chaotic, jumping back and forth with imagination, passion, fury, and hope. They’re about encountering God in the middle of feast and famine, good and bad governments, changing economies, disappointing marriages and dysfunctional families, poignant moments and exhilarating victories, deep friendships and bitter betrayals. Let’s take a closer look at the story line of Scripture.

Another thing that may seem strange to someone first reading the Bible. It uses an ancient system for finding things instead of the page numbers that are so familiar to us in books today. This is because the Bible existed as a written document long before the invention of the printing press and with the hand-copied versions there was no way to make sure that every page was precisely the same. So chapters and verses have been added to the Bible over the centuries. They are not part of the original text, but they provide a common system for finding a particular sentence or paragraph. They continue to be used because there are so many different translations of the Bible into many modern languages and various printings and editions. Page numbers are impossible to keep uniform.

Introduction to the Bible (02-12-16)

A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was.

The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.”

The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”

Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”

Oh the confidence of childhood! It never even occurred to this little girl that someone wouldn’t believe her or that she didn’t know what she was doing. She simply assumed that she had what it took to picture God and that people would appreciate the finished product. After all, it’s her experience of God so who can argue with that?

It’s this same sense of personal authority that exudes from the book called The Holy Bible. This most widely read book in the history of the world continues to inspire millions of people as they look for a picture of God to include within the portrait of their lives. And the fact that there are so many differing pictures might say something about the differing authors included in this Book.