What Is the Old Testament?

13th July Talk

What is the Old Testament?

1. Bible – Library of books – Gk: ta biblia = the books – Fr: biblioteque = library 2. Imagine – Gawain and the Green Knight Snoopy cartoons Canterbury Tales Medieval theological treatise Churchill's Memories of WW11 Elizabethan Love Lyrics Songs of the American Civil War Lord of the Rings books on Modern Theology and Science

You have representative works from past 1000 years or so, but you end up rather disorientated. The Bile can seem to be a bit like this.

(a) Bible is not a story that starts at page 1 and continues. (b) Not a set of rules and guidelines clearly set out (c) It is a collection of books through which a people gain a sense of their identity in relation to one God in whom they trust. “So The Bible is the collection of books which tells us about the covenant, the agreement, which God made with Israel through Moses (the old covenant) and which He fulfilled in Jesus (the new covenant)” Etienne Charpentierre P6

3. Language – Hebrew, with a few bits of Aramaic – (40) OT Greek – (6) OT – Deuterocanonical Greek – (27) NT

Hebrew has no vowels, have to read the sense from the consonants. Hebrew Bible translated into Greek about 3rd century BC. (Septuagint – 70 translators) Latin Vulgate (St Jerome) was translated from the Greek. (Douai and Knox versions translated from the Vulgate). Jerusalem Bible and all recent translations go back to Hebrew (where applicable). 4.Chapters and verses – Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, divided each book into chapters – 1226

Robert Estienne, printer, numbered almost every phrase – hence verses – 1551.

The divisions do not always match the meaning of the text, but make it much easier to find one's way around the Bible and to reference a text. Truth

In what way is the Bible true? - It is true in the way that a novel is true – it is a good reflection of the realities of human life – the meaning is true.

It is not exact – it is not meant to be an exact historical recording of the history of the Israelites.

It is a people's reflection of the action of God in their lives, of their relationship with this God and how, very often, they were not doing very well at keeping their side of the relationship going, but how God never lets go of His side of the relationship.

Reading and Studying

It can be helpful to put what we are reading into context

Where were the Israelites?  In the desert?  In the Promised Land?  In exile?  Back from exile?  What does the sentence say? Does it make sense? Remember, there was no punctuation.

Geography: Egypt was important from about 3000BC. The Exodus was probably about 1250BC (But other groups came out of Egypt and probably went to Canaan by more direct routes. Great civilizations were around rivers  Egypt around the Nile  Mesopotamia, area between rivers, also called the fertile crescent, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, (Persians) – Iran and Iraq today – great civilizations grew up there side by side and gave way to one another.  The Hittites to the north were mostly gone by 1500BC  The promised Land (Canaan) with its river, the Jordan – it was a narrow strip of land between the sea and the desert.

“At the return of spring when kings set out to war...” this was how things were – and where were the Israelites? Right in the way! In the narrow strip of land (between the sea and the desert) between the North and Egypt – the buffer between them.

The Israelites try to make alliances with one or the other instead of relying on God.

The Promised Land (Canaan) is a country about the size of Wales – not big in world terms (even then) – nearly always being attacked – surrounded by people who worshipped false gods. The Books of the Bible

Initially everything was handed down by word of mouth, the Oral Tradition. Gradually people started to write things down.

THE TORAH

Exodus was probably written first, but it is not all written by the same writer. The Exodus probably happened about 1250BC but about 950BC was probably the earliest that anything was written down. Genesis was probably not written until about 500BC.

Leviticus and Numbers. A good deal of history as well as laws and genealogies. The Israelites knew their history was meaningful as they saw God acting in and changing their history. They came to see all the commands and laws (600 odd) as God given. We don't follow the 600 odd, but we still follow the 10 commandments.

Deuteronomy can be read as a beautiful account of God's love forming the Hebrews into a people.

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The 'writers' of the Torah Yahwist tradition(J). About 950BC. The writer(s) is called this because he calls God Yahweh. This was in the time of Solomon. The king is important, he gives the faith unity.

The Elohist tradition(E). Probably about 750BC. Calls God Elohim. Northern kingdom, after the united knigdom of David and Solomon has split. Stamped with the message of the prophets like Elijah and Hosea.

Yahwist and Elohist traditions(JE) brought together about 700BC.

Deuteronomistic tradition(D). In the Book of Deuteronomy, but has influenced other books.

Priestly tradition(P). Came into being in the Babylonian exile, 587-538BC. The priests were concerned to keep the people together now that the focus of the temple had gone.

These four traditions were brought together as a single five volume 'book', variously referred to as the Pentateuch (five books), The Law or the Torah. This work was finished about 400BC and is attributed to Ezra.

HISTORICAL BOOKS (More properly called the Former Prophets.)

As mentioned before, these are not history in the strict sense and consist Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. As I said these are not history as we understand it today. They record the experience of the Israelites of God's action in their life, reflected on and written down hundreds of years later. They elaborate, as people do when writing religious epics, but do not lie – there is no reason to. They often put themselves down, describe themselves as two-faced and unfaithful to God. The purpose of these books is not accurate history but to glorify God who freed them from slavery and led them to a new land. Joshua and Judges recount how God helped the Israelites to conquer the promised land. We have to remember that they were at an earlier level of moral development. (see GToS, RR p40) In Samuel and Kings and also in Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Maccabees we find stories of releigious heroes – no doubt glamourized – but each one making a point. God is working with them and for them. (In Ruth, Tobias, Judith and Esther we find additional heroes and heroines, all showing trust in God who is faithful to them.)

THE PROPHETS

The prophets did not foretell the future, they spoke the truth into the situation in which they were living in order to call the people back to God. They spoke as someone who has been enabled to see things as God see them. This is the call of the prophet today. As church it is our call. The church is called to be prophetic.

There were prophets in the Northern kingdom (Israel) 935BC - 721BC and in the southern kingdom (Judah) 933BC - 587BC.

Northern prophets. Elijah, Amos, Hosea.

Southern Kingdom. Nathan, Isaiah, Micah. Isaiah preached between 744BC and 700BC and he wrote part of Isaiah 1 – 39. Parts of it were written about 200 years later by disciples who were inspired by his writing. Chapters 40 – 55 were written by a prophet during the exile (possibly a woman) and chapters 56 – 66 by a disciple after the exile. Nathan left no writings but he played an important role alongside David - (2 Samuel 7: 1-17).

….and many other prophets, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekial, Daniel, Joel, Obediah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.

Each of the prophets was sent at a certain time to speak to Israel and call the people back to a right relationship with God.

Jonah and Daniel may not have existed as actual persons – but Israel heard the Lord speaking through these people when they recalled their stories.

WISDOM LITERATURE

Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, Koheleth (or Ecclesiastes), Song of Songs, Tobit and Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus). This is a collection of writings which people over the years decided would help people to lead a good life and so were included in the Bible.

______SUMMARY

The foundational part of the Bible is the Torah it shows us -

A people – with – One God – who – believe that God will save them.

Central focus – The Exodus

We begin to see the whole book from Genesis to Revelation is communicating a single basic call for our lives – 'Know that you are saved, you are loved, you are unique, you are free. And know that you are on the way, you are going somewhere, your life does have meaning.'

Christian and free (from Ettiene Charpentier: “How to Read the Old Testament” p113)

Too often the Christian seems rather alienated, hemmed in by beliefs and prohibitions as by a barbed wire fence. However one conviction stands out from all the Bible: God wants men and women to be free and responsible. But it is true that the way in which we approach the Bible is not completely open. A story may make the point as well as anything. I was studying a teaching problem with students from many different countries: in what order should the texts of the Old Testament be presented to people coming to them for the first time? Various possibilities were mentioned: to follow the pattern of 'sacred history' (creation – fall – Abraham – Moses), or to follow the pattern now adopted in catechetics (Abraham – Moses – the creation stories), or again, to begin with the Exodus as we have done here. A nun from Latin America said to us: 'At home the Bible is part of the teaching given in schools. So there are recognised text books and they follow the pattern of sacred history. We've formed a catechetical Centre where we train teachers who want to begin with Abraham and deal with the creation stories later.' She added: 'So far the government haven't noticed. But when it does notice, there will be trouble....' On reflection, that's obvious. The pattern of 'sacred history' is essentially conservative: it gives pride of place to an all-powerful God, absolute master, creator of mankind which has only to obey him. Granted, mankind rebelled through sin, but God remains master because he punishes and forgives....And we can understand how an authoritarian government will find such a pattern congenial: it can make an unconscious assimilation between this God and the masters of the country. By contrast, the other pattern – the one which God made his people follow – is subversive: it brings to light that God above all is a God who liberates, who wants man, all men, to be free and responsible. Thus the way in which we begin the Bible can have a great influence on our religious mentality, and also on our human attitude: it can also contribute to the formation of docile citizens or responsible human beings. (Ettiene Charpentier: “How to Read the Old Testament” p113) Genesis 6 – 8

Chapter 6 (normal = Yahwist, italic = Priestly)

1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. 5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-- for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. Chapter 7

1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.

7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.

Then the LORD shut him in. 17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.

18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.

22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. Chapter 8

24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. 1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.

2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.

3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf ! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds-- everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. 22 "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."