Your Passport to Understanding the Bible

By Saverio Verduci

In his unique work Your Passport to Understanding the Bible, Saverio Verduci offers insights into the mysteries of this sacred book, one whose deeply coded texts have confused and perplexed academics and clerics alike. Certain events in the authors life caused him to study the Bible in depth. Over the course of many years, and after hundreds of conversations about the Bible, abstruse biblical scriptures revealed themselves to him, and he realized how properly interpreting scripture made a profound impact on his spiritual life and beliefs.

Your Passport to Understanding the Bible is designed to help readers understand some of the Bibles key mysteries, making the Bible easier to grasp and hopefully leading the reader to a more profound religious experience. Deeper understanding of Gods word offers meaningful spiritual benefits and the strengthening of ones faith.

Saverio Verduci believes that the Bible must be read as a book that interprets itself. One must understand the Bibles code, allegory, and symbolism. He has written this book to pass on what he has learned, in the hope that his personal experiences and studies of biblical scriptures will benefit others, bringing them joy and blessings through proper Biblical understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532015359

Saverio Verduci

Saverio Verduci is an avid follower of, and believer in, the Bible. He is also a writer, professional engineer, project manager, business manager, and psychotherapist. He enjoys reading, the fine arts, fitness, the culinary arts, travel, international cultures, and languages. Currently completing his doctorate in psychology, Saverio resides in Toronto, Canada.

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Copyright © 2017 SAVERIO VERDUCI.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

KJV - Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

NASB - Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1534-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1535-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Numbe: 2017900421

iUniverse rev. date: 01/13/2017

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 The Gist of the Bible Books

Chapter 3 Does God Exist?

Chapter 4 Who Is God?

Chapter 5 The Question of Science versus Religion

Chapter 6 The Truth about Hell

Chapter 7 The Truth about Heaven

Chapter 8 The Truth about the Soul

Chapter 9 The Kingdom of God Revealed

Chapter 10 The Meaning of Life

I Wish to

Dedicate this Book to the memory of My Parents

Domenico & Francesca

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Before I get into the body of my book, I’d like to begin with an introduction to an important yet mysterious book—the Bible. I call it mysterious for a very good reason. Even those who claim to be experts on the Bible do not really understand it completely.

In my lifetime, I have talked about the Bible with and to many people—family, friends, friends of friends, coworkers, and even the odd stranger here and there. I’ve probably had biblical conversations with more than two hundred people, and my experiences have been astounding.

Well over 97 percent of those I spoke to had never read the Bible cover to cover, and most had not even read one book of the Bible in its entirety. Most people were familiar with only the odd Bible verse, yet most of these people considered themselves Christians. I was also astounded to hear some people try to recite some biblical verses, but they did not have a full or proper understanding of the text, some examples of which I will review in this book.

It is also incredible how people have no clue about certain biblical stories. They are more inclined to believe inaccurate or Hollywood versions, which are rife with creative tangents. I understand that my unofficial poll of roughly two hundred people is not scientific and that I would need a bigger sample size to truly get a picture of how many Christians have actually read the entire Bible or some of its books in their entirety. However, for the purposes of my book, I’m comfortable with my conservative estimates loosely based on my unofficial poll’s sample size of two hundred people.

For a moment, I would like you to consider that today, there are approximately seven billion people on earth. Of these, approximately one and a half billion, or about 20 percent of the world’s population, belong to a Judeo-Christian denomination.

What is interesting is that of those 20 percent or so of people—based on my speaking to more than two hundred people about their experiences with the Bible and where less than 97 percent had read the entire document—perhaps a conservative general number for the entire Christian population may be in the range of approximately 15 percent (and I think I’m being generous with that number) who have read passages in the Bible, with even fewer having read it from cover to cover.

By performing a rough calculation and then extrapolating these numbers, we can see that fewer than three hundred million globally who have read either some or the entire Bible. This amounts to roughly 4 percent of the world’s population. Again, I believe this to be higher than the true percentage. Four percent is a small number, especially given that a very large majority of those who have read some of the Bible do not fully understand much, if any, of what they have read because of some of the misunderstood and misinterpreted views of biblical teachings and scriptures that are in the mainstream consciousness of contemporary Bible readers and followers. I believe this to be a disaster, and this is one of the reasons why I wrote this book—to hopefully get more people to read the Bible and more importantly, to understand it more accurately and profoundly.

The Bible is actually a very difficult book to read from the standpoint of comprehension and understanding. This is why I like to refer to the Bible as a mysterious book. The Bible must be read as a book that interprets itself. One must understand the Bible’s code, allegory, and symbolism. If the Bible is read in that fashion and with those caveats, the Bible interprets itself adequately enough for people to truly understand what it is trying to convey in terms of messages and teachings, again if one takes the time to study it and read it as such.

Yet many people are tempted to interpret the Bible themselves or have clergy do that for them, which can lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of biblical teachings. Most people rely on clergy to explain the Bible to them, but many of these experts on the Bible are also misinterpreting the Bible.

This is a serious problem because the main purpose of the Bible is as a human instruction manual given to us by God on how to live a holy and righteous life to be closer to God and be more like God in character so we can experience a peaceful life on earth and eventually salvation and eternal life beyond.

The conclusion of this biblical study is that with the help and guidance of the Bible, properly understood, humankind should be living in peace, joy, health, abundance, harmony, and oneness with God and each other.

That being said, if a vast majority of people, even the ones who have read the Bible, do not understand the teachings and scriptures within the Bible, including the experts, how can Christians receive all the benefits the Bible has to offer? Understanding the scriptures brings benefits, and this is another reason why I wrote this book.

I have a third and personal reason—the most important one for writing this book. I will share it with you here in the hopes that the Bible may one day bring you comfort as it did to me during two trying times in my life. The first of these trying times occurred in the mid-2000s, when my mother passed away. My mother had cancer, but was misdiagnosed several times. By the time the correct diagnosis was made, it was too late. The cancer was in its terminal stages and had metastasized to other parts of her body. Within a couple of months of a proper diagnosis, she passed away.

As you can imagine, I was devastated. I was very close to my mother and loved her dearly. Because this ordeal occurred rather suddenly, it was a shock to my system. Once she was gone from this physical world, I began truly thinking deeply about certain questions, such as what would happen next, where she went, whether I would ever see her again, and many other existential questions. These questions were not new to me, but I never really cared much about them until my mother passed away. I looked for answers, but I did not find anything satisfactory from my ample and diverse scholastic education. I found nothing valuable or that made sense in the philosophical world, and neither did I find the answers from the clergy. In addition, upon speaking with people in my circle, I would hear different and contradictory answers on topics like the afterlife. It seemed everyone had their own interpretation or philosophy that differed from everyone else’s. I could not find one congruent, satisfactory argument, so I decided to go back to basics, to the original source, and trust in God. It was time that I fully read, studied, and properly understood the Bible for myself to see if I could find solace there.

I began to see right away that the Bible had answers. The old adage is true—it is darkest (sin and tribulation) before the dawn (light and salvation). This adage is biblically based, for one may ask which came first, night or day. The adage says night or darkness just as the Bible says in Genesis 1:3, let there be light, meaning there was first darkness, and in Genesis 1:5, 1:8, 1:13, 1:19, 1:23, and 1:31 it states night came first, then the light or day. This is symbolic for how God operates and is the meaning of darkest before the dawn. When darkness falls, first God goes to work and then brings the light afterward, which is the answer to the tribulation or darkness. My mom’s passing was the darkest of times. Researching the Bible afterward brought much-needed and appreciated light.

You see, until my mom’s passing, I had not read or understood the Bible entirely. But for some reason—I’d like to think a divine one—I was directed to the Bible to find the answers, and I did, moving from darkness to light. Once I began reading the Bible and truly studying the scriptures in depth, I began to realize what an incredible book was at my disposal. It is true what they say—the best secrets are the ones kept in the open.

I began to understand and realize things I did not think were possible but somehow felt were true, so much so that I began corroborating many scriptures outside the religious realm. I began to connect many interesting facets of the Bible with secular teachings with which I found agreement and harmony. I talk about this later in the book in the chapter on science versus religion.

The Bible had done the trick. It did what no other resource could do for me, and it answered many important existential and theological questions. The Bible set me at ease about what had happened to my mother, as well as enlightening me in many other areas of life.

Eleven years or so later, my dad passed away, and I can tell you it was no less traumatic to lose him than it was my mom, but there was one very large difference. Because I had gained so much insight from the Bible during those many years between when my mom passed away and when my dad passed away, including insight into life and death as well as many other topics, I was much more comforted and at ease when I lost my father. This is another reason why I wrote this book, because I hope this story inspires you to do what I did before, during, or even after trying times in your life—to read and properly understand the Bible so it may bring you comfort in times of distress and need. It helped me in that regard, and I know it can help you as well.

Let’s examine some aspects of the Bible before I delve into the meat of this book.

The Bible consists of sixty-six books—thirty-nine Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books, although some versions, such as the Ethiopian Bible, have more than eighty books. When people order the Bible in a certain way, the sixty-six books can become forty-nine since some of the Old Testament books may be conjoined together in certain denominations.

The Bible was written over a fifteen hundred–year span from the time of Moses or about fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ to about one hundred years after the death and resurrection of Christ. During those fifteen hundred years, forty authors with various backgrounds wrote and compiled the books of the Bible. Despite the number of years it took to compile the books of the Bible and the many authors involved, the Bible is a unique book in that regard since all its writings have one unified flow and support each other, with no contradictions. It’s an incredible feat if you think about it. This may be credited to supernatural inspiration of God Himself. The word Bible in fact means the books.

The Bible comes in many versions: NIV, or New International Version; KJV, or King James Version; NLT, or New Living Translation; ESV, or English Standard Version; NASB, or New American Standard Bible; OJB, or Orthodox Jewish Bible; and so on.

What the word version actually means is how that particular Bible version was translated. Primarily two languages were translated: Hebrew from the Old Testament and Greek from the New Testament. I say primarily because some Aramaic (a precursor to Hebrew) and some Latin words were included the Bible and hence in those translations or versions. This is where some of the confusion and mystery arises because so many scholars took part in translating each version, and at different times in history some words were lost in translation, some examples of which we will see in my chapters on heaven and hell.

Again, the Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, with some Aramaic, a precursor to Hebrew. The New Testament was written mostly in Greek, and today, the Bible is published in some two thousand languages. As an aside, I would like the reader to keep in mind that Hebrew is not the language of the Jews in that they created it. It is in actuality the language of God Himself, and God gave it to the Jewish people. I am not going to get into too much detail here about the Hebrew letters and language, as this is a topic for an entire other book, other than to say that the Hebrew letters are what God used to create the universe.

God spoke the universe into being using the Hebrew language, and hence the Hebrew language is the DNA of the universe (Psalm 33:6). I would urge readers to acquaint themselves with the Hebrew Alef-Bet or alphabet to understand the remarkable and tremendous power this gift of a language wields. Hebrew therefore existed long before the Jewish people knew about the language. Remember, famously, that God wrote the Ten Commandments in Hebrew. It is His language.

The Old Testament is basically the Jewish Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and primarily contains what is known as the books of Moses or Torah or the Law or Teachings. The Torah comprises the first five books of the Tanakh, which talk about God’s covenants with Israel as well as the famous Ten Commandments, or more exactly the 613 mitzvahs (commandments). The books of Moses or the Torah contain the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The remainder of the Old Testament contains what are known as the writings, poems, and wisdom books, such as Psalms and Proverbs, and the books of the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi), which are primarily focused on the history of the Israelites, their victories and defeats, as well as prophecy and punishment when they turned away from God.

In keeping with the perfect number seven or the number of creation since God created the universe in seven days, so it is the conjoined version of the Bible in seven segments.

Here is what the forty-nine books look like. The Old Testament is in three sections, and the New Testament is in four sections.

Old Testament

First Section—the Law

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Second Section—the Prophets

Joshua/Judges

Samuel/Kings

Minor Prophets

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Daniel

Third Section—the Writings

Psalms

Proverbs

Job

Song of Songs

Ruth

Lamentations

Ecclesiastes

Esther

Erza/Nehemiah

Chronicles

New Testament

Fourth Section—Gospels

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Fifth Section—Acts

Acts

Sixth Section—Epistles (Letters)

Romans

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

Galatians

Ephesians

Philippians

Colossians

1 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians

1 Timothy

2 Timothy

Titus

Philemon

Hebrews

James

1 Peter

2 Peter

1 John

2 John

3 John

Jude

Seventh Section—Revelation

Revelation

If you happen to own a Catholic Bible, your version may contain seventy-three books in total, forty-six from the Old Testament and twenty-seven from the New Testament.

Old Testament—Catholic Bible Books

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

New Testament—Catholic Bible Books

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.

Statistics on the sales of the Bible vary, however some show that Bible has sold an estimated six billion copies (Retrived December 28 2016 from http://www.statisticbrain.com/bibles-printed/), with annual sales or free hand outs of over a hundred million copies (Retrieved December 28, 2016 from http://www.economist.com/node/10311317). It is the world’s most popular and best-selling book. The Bible was also the very first book ever printed on a mechanical printing press.

The Bible is an instruction manual for holy and righteous living because its etiology comes from God, it is the word of God, and as such it reveals His mind and what He wants for us,