So why the Bible?
Series Deep Dive.
The purpose of the Bible is to encourage all of humanity to have a right relationship with God and one another. The writing of Bible was inspired by God to inform us of the need for repentance and redemption. God wants us to be justified to be in close relationships with him.
The need for redemption, saving from sin is an interesting topic and a good place to start with an understanding of scripture. Prior to the writing of the Bible there was a fair amount of history that had occurred. If we are to look at Biblical timelines and the writing of the first books, we will see that Job and Genesis were likely written at a similar period of history. Sometime around 1400 BC, these are ancient books. The other thing to remember is that oral history recording has an important place in many cultures prior to the written word.
For instance; Jane McRae of The Auckland University Press tells us: Maori oral tradition is the rich, poetic record of the past handed down by voice over generations through whakapapa, whakatauki, korero and waiata. In genealogies and sayings, histories, stories and songs, Maori tell of ‘te ao tawhito’ or the old world: the gods, the migration of the Polynesian ancestors from Hawaiki and life here in Aotearoa.
A voice from the past, today this remarkable record underpins the speeches, songs and prayers performed on marae and the teaching of tribal genealogies and histories. Indeed, the oral tradition underpins Maori culture itself. (Maori Oral Tradition: He Korero no te Ao Tawhito by Jane McRae- Auckland University Press)
The Hebrew people also had a verbal record of their history.
In the Jewish tradition, students training to be Rabbi’s learn scriptures by heart and only those who memorised them, went on to be Rabbi’s. These are not just a few key verses but boys undergoing the training had to memorise the first five books of the Torah, the same first five books of as our Bible by the age of thirteen and be tested on their memorisation of these five books prior to training.
After that wee aside back to Job. Job’s account is that of a righteous man who suffered. It is a record for all of humanity that points us to an understanding of a few different things. One being that in life there is a certain inevitability that there will be some degree of suffering, even in the lives of righteous people.
Another that there is a spiritual domain that we don’t see, and that there is a being, Satan, who meant to do Job harm with the evil scheme that when loss and suffering occurred to Job, Job would then turn his back on his relationship with God. Another point I often think of in relation to the story of Job, is that his friends, while they were there for him, gave bad advice that probably added to his suffering, but Job being the righteous man that he was, continued to have faith in God. The main point is that God was aware of Job and cared for Job and eventually gave him more than he had lost. Think of this in regard to eternal life. The book of Job book is classified as poetic writing, it is an historical writing and part of the wider sacred text that is the Holy Bible. Being part of the Bible it also is a sacred text. There ends Andrew’s short synopsis of the book of Job.
So why the Bible, and why is it a sacred text? Excellent question, I’m getting to it. The book of Genesis, that is recorded as being written by Moses starts with an insight into creation, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
So, looking at Genesis we can gain an understanding for the need for the events of Biblical history and all other Biblical teaching. Why? Well, the simple answer to that question is the fall of humanity. A simple run down on the first two chapters, well let’s start with those first two verses of chapter one. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Already we see two things about God, that He is the Creator and that He is Spirit. Verse three “and God said, ‘Let there be light’.” Another aspect of God as creator is that he speaks all we know into being. As the Apostle John says about Jesus, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 Race to the end of chapter 1, verse 31, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
Chapter two is about Adam and Eve, the Biblical record of our first ancestors. Key things in the chapter are that Adam was placed in the garden, and told by God, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” After this a woman was made from Adam’s rib, he was happy, he was not alone. If we read verse twenty-five we see that Adam and Eve felt no shame in being naked as they were yet to eat the fruit.
Chapter three is where it all goes to custard, not just for the man and the woman, in the garden, but for all known time for all of humanity and the rest of creation also. God had told the man that he was not to eat the fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Let’s see what happens in Chapter three. Read all of chapter three. Some key points to note here are: There was a serpent in the Garden of Eden who was a deceiver, metaphorical depiction of Satan. It appears God was in the habit of walking in the garden in the cool of the day, Adam and Eve were aware after eating the fruit that they were naked.
As an aside, fruit in scripture is not always literally fruit. The fruit of The Holy Spirit are what? These things are attributes that are bestowed on people with The Holy Spirit. The outcome or attributes Adam and Eve gained and suffered ‘eating’ from the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil was initially ‘fear’ of God’s presence because of their nakedness, procreation, hard work to produce crops, eventually physical death and banishment from the garden of Eden. The serpent was cursed and there was an establishment of conflict between humanity and the serpent. In addition, if we look at Adam’s response to God when the question was asked in Genesis 3:11,“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adams answer was to blame God and Eve. “The woman you put here with me. She gave me the fruit and I ate.” (3:12). The establishment of animosity between women and men and also mankind and God.
Over to chapter four, this deep dive also requires a bit of fast swimming.
Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s first two boys. The interesting thing here is that Cain and Abel gave offerings to God. The offering that Cain gave was not looked on with as much favour as Abel’s. The outcome was that due to his jealousy Cain killed Abel. The interesting thing here is that God had warned Cain, prior to his killing of Abel that, take a look at chapter 4 verse 7; “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” We could all learn from that sentence. As a result, Cain ended up in a nomadic existence. The rest of the chapter involves some family lines and a character called Lamech who had two wives and who killed a young man for injuring him. There is an interesting thing with this chapter in that God avenged to death of Abel, not with more death, but with making Cain a wanderer. It is a point that can be displayed in history that often those who give a better offering to God than others are persecuted by those who are jealous of them, and that those who do the persecuting often lose out because of their actions. Jealousy over offerings to God is usually a reflection of wrong intent of a givers heart.
Chapter 5 is an account of the descendants of Adam. People of that time lived a remarkably long time. For instance, Adam lived to be 930 years old, Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old and he had other sons and daughters after that time. There is an interesting note at the end of chapter 5 that “after Noah was 500 years old he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth. Noah was the son of Lamech.
Note this at the start of Chapter 6:1 “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,...” So, prior to that time was God still providing women via the rib method for men? My best guess and remember that the scriptures do contain a few mysteries! Also, the days of men were limited to one hundred and twenty years. 6:2.
Then we hear a lot about Noah, son of Lamech, the next four chapters are devoted to Noah and the great flood. In Chapter 6, we read that the earth is full of wickedness, for the young people here that is not the ‘whoa that is so wicked,’ it means really bad stuff that people do. The Lord saw that there was plenty of evil everywhere in everyone, God was grieved by the badness of mankind, to the point where he regretted making mankind. He decided to rid the earth of humanity. but Noah found favour in God’s eyes. There is a key learning here that one person can make a difference in a situation because they have a right blameless walk with God, for that is what righteous means. In the account of scripture, none of us would be here if it was not for that one-man Noah. The earth would have been one great nature park, and all the events of human history post the flood would not have happened. Some might say but isn’t the Flood and the Ark a myth. It should be noted that most ancient history has a great flood depiction.
Emperor Yao of China recorded around 2200 BC: “Like endless boiling water, the flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it overtops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens. How the people must be groaning and suffering!” (Great Flood (China) - Wikipedia)
The Babylonians and Sumerians also have flood stories in their history's, as do North American Indian tribes.(Gilgamesh flood myth - Wikipedia) As do the Myan’s and the Inca’s. (Story of the Flood | Chickasaw Nation). As do others.
So God commanded Noah, build a boat, a very large boat, and the animals went in two by two hoorah, hoorah. Noah and his immediate family were saved. It rained forty days and forty nights, Noah turned six-hundred, the flood lasted a long time. There was a time when the rain stopped, the floods receded. You can read all this in Genesis, I understand the movie is not really an accurate account, Noah got onto dry land and build an alter to the Lord. God declared that he would never again destroy, all living creatures as he had done. Verse 22 of chapter 8 is a real blessing.
Chapter 9 is about a covenant that God makes with Noah. He establishes a set of rules around, eating of meat and that animals will fear men because of this, that there will be an account given for the taking of life. That there will be the taking of life of a person who takes another's life. Why because God created man in his own image. Then God promises all of creation, “never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” As a sign of this covenant God hangs the rainbow in the sky.
The last part of chapter nine is interesting in that Noah, grows grapes, makes wine, gets drunk and lies in his tent naked. Ham spots him and tells his brothers who enter the tent backwards and cloth their Dad. When Noah finds out about the events he curses Ham’s son Cannan to be a slave to his Uncles. Not a good outcome at all and it also is a good pointer to the danger of drinking alcohol.
Chapter eleven is an account of the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth. Chapter eleven finishes with this note: “From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.”
Chapter eleven, well half of it is dedicated to the next thing humanity did. Remember that all though the previous chapters we have seen God wanting to have a relationship with his human creations and humans doing dumb stuff that interfered with those relationships. There was; friction between Man and God, Man and Woman, brother and brother and due to Noah’s cursing of Cannan, Nation and Nation. Hey but that was then, this is now, we don’t have those problems, do we?
At this time all of humanity was speaking the same language.
People settled in a place called Shinar, aka Babylonia, and said, “Let’s build a big city, with a huge tower that reaches the heavens, so that we will look really powerful and not be scattered.” (A. W. Moffatt paraphrase). So, God seeing what they were up to, made an observation, that if people could do what they were doing then nothing would be impossible for them. So he said, “Come let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Which he did, note also that God addresses himself in the plural, “us.”
At the end of chapter eleven after we read of Shem, Noah's son, line of descendants down to a man called Abram who married a woman called Sarai. A woman who could not have children but from whom would come a great nation.
If you could take your Bibles and open them to Genesis eleven, if they are not already there. Take a look at the first eleven chapters which contain the creation and the fall, the history of the flood and people to the time of Abram.
From that point in history, is God’s plan through the line of Abram, to bring a blessing to all the people of the earth. Holding the Bible from chapter eleven of Genesis. This, the rest, contains God’s rescue plan for humanity, and that is why the Bible is a sacred text and is important to all of humanity.
