The bible was written by the ancient Israelites. For writing the Hebrew bible the beliefs of the ancient Israelites survive to become Judaism, one of the world’s oldest continuously practiced religions and it is the Jews who give the world an astounding legacy, the belief in one God. And this belief becomes the foundation of two other monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam. Often called the Old Testament to distinguish it from the New Testament which describes the events of early Christianity, today the Hebrew bible and the belief in one God are woven into the very fabric of world culture. But in ancient times all people from the Egyptians to the Greeks to the Babylonians worshipped many gods often in the form of idols. How did the Israelites alone among ancient peoples discover the concept of one God? How did they come up with an idea that so profoundly changed the world? Now, archaeologists and biblical scholars are arriving at a new synthesis, that promises to reveal not only fresh historical insights, but a deeper meaning of what the authors of the bible wanted to convey.
The Hebrew bible is full of stories about Israel’s origins. The first is Abraham who leaves Mesopotamia with his family and journeys to the promised land, Canaan.
Genesis 12: Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
According to the bible this promise establishes the covenant, the sacred contract between God and Abraham. To mark the covenant, Abraham and all males are circumcised. His descendants will be GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE. They’ll be fruitful, multiply and inhabit all the land between Egypt and Mesopotamia. In return, Abraham and his people who become the Israelites, must worship a single God. God in the sense in which we understand Him, does not exist before Abraham. It is hard to appreciate today, how radical an idea this must have been in a world dominated by polytheism, the worship of many Gods and idols.
The Abraham narrative is part of the first book of the bible, Genesis, along with Adam and Eve and Noah and the flood. Although they convey a powerful message, to date, there’s no archaeology or text outside of the bible to corroborate them.
Moses and the first five books of the bible
Exodus 34: 27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
The traditional belief is that Moses wrote the first five books of the bible- Genesis, the story of creation. Exodus, which chronicles the deliverance from slavery to the promised land. Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy detailing the Laws of morality and observance. Still read to this day, together they form the Torah, often called the five books of Moses.
Torah means instruction or Law and it was the means by which God would set the Jews apart from all the other nations in the world who worshipped many Gods. More about the Torah on page five (5) to follow.
But how do we know the Bible is really the word of God?
God had to find a way to introduce Himself to the world. The brokenness of mankind as a result of the fall of Adam in the garden of Eden, produced a world in which human beings became disconnected from God, the source of all created things and the father of all spirits. Human beings are spirit beings living in an earth suit called a body. This God who is Spirit, wanted to say something to the human race. Between Adam and Abraham is about 1900 to 2000 years. So much had gone wrong in the 2000 years that human beings had become desensitized to the Spirit of the living God. Then along came Abraham who somehow had a heightened sensitivity to God’s voice and obeyed the instruction in Genesis 12:1 – 3 mentioned earlier.
In Abraham, God had found someone whose heart was in the right place, a vessel He could trust to carry His message. After the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, and Adam being banished from the garden, this is the point at which God began once again to speak with human beings and henceforth, would do it through His prophets. Deuteronomy 18 says when a Prophet of God speaks on His behalf; you shall know that he is genuine if what he prophesies comes to pass. If it doesn’t, you immediately know he is a charlatan. Anyone can claim to be a prophet but not everyone can deliver the credentials. Miracles are the means by which a prophet of God can prove that he is telling the truth of God to the people of God. Add to that the fact that there are 66 books in total that make up the bible (39 OT and 27 NT) written by about 40 authors (who never met) across 1500 years and the miracle becomes evident. Yet, what I found staggering about this ancient document is the unity within it. There is one consistent theme from Genesis through to Revelation-Jesus. He is in the Old Testament hidden and in the New Testament revealed. Consider what He said on the famous road to Emmaus in Luke’s gospel:
Luke 24: 25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
In addition to miracles, prophecy is another way in which God shows Himself to be real by using a prophet to describe in advance what will happen, how, when and where it will happen. This is also how the Hebrew bible distinguishes itself from the scriptures of other religions. The Hebrew bible claims to be the word of God and proves to be the word of God. Of all the religious books available, the Hebrew bible is the only one that carries prophecy. The Qur’an has no prophecy and when Mohammad was asked to perform a miracle he couldn’t. The Bhagavad Gita of the Hindus has no prophecy and no miracle whatsoever. What about the book of Mormon? The Mormons claim that it is the book of God. Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormons, predicted that the Jewish temple (destroyed by the Romans in 70AD) would be rebuilt in Zion Missouri and even gave the dates when it would happen. It didn’t happen- false prophet.
The Bible claims to be the word of God and proves to be the word of God
Firstly, the authors of scripture who were all Jewish, were confirmed by miracles. Moses, Elijah, Jesus and the New Testament writers such as the Apostle Paul. Second, the bible proves to be the word of God by supernatural predictions made hundreds of years beforehand. There is no other book in the world where there are literally hundreds of detailed prophecies that came true, made ahead of time even with dates that critics accept. For example, the bible predicted that Jesus would come from the seed of Abraham, Gen 12, that He would come from the tribe of Judah Gen 49, that He would come of the Dynasty of David, 2 Sam 7, that He would be born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14, that He would be born in Bethlehem in Micah 5:2, and that He would be crucified 483 years after 444 BC. The prophecy of Isaiah was astonishing because it describes the kind of death He would be subjected to, crucifixion, well before crucifixion was even invented. The crucifixion year, 33AD was predicted accurately by Daniel 483 years before the event (see Daniel chapter 9).
Watch out for Part II where the story of the Jews and their God continues to unfold...
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