Understanding the Bible: Old and New Testaments

By Wayne Douglas Smith, Ph.D.

Written in Hebrew by ancient Israelites over the course of many centuries, the Bible is a collection of literature of multiple genres: narrative, poetry, history, and prophecy. Its books reveal a historic people and have served as a basis for literature, law, and belief in Western society to this day. "Understanding the Bible: Old and New Testaments" considers the Bible as a work of literature that has the capacity to transcend time. Although the origin and development of biblical books are discussed, the primary focus is on providing a coherent reading of the text that has been handed down to us. The history of that transmission, which includes centuries of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic commentary, will be charted. That interpretive heritage is presented to shed light on how it has shaped the intellectual and artistic heritage we have today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667809014

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Understanding the Bible: Old and New Testaments

Copyright © 2021, Wayne Douglas Smith, Ph.D.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

Cover painting from the San Marco Altarpiece (1490-92) by Sandro Botticelli.

ISBN: 978-1-66780-9-014 (eBook)

For my wife, Kale

Contents

Foreword

The Old Testament

Chapter 1: Book of Genesis

Chapter 2: Book of Exodus

Chapter 3: Leviticus and Judges

Chapter 4: David and Solomon

Chapter 5: Biblical Stories

Chapter 6: Psalms and Proverbs

Appendix: Old Testament Books

Bibliography (Old Testament)

The New Testament

Chapter 7: The Paradox

Chapter 8: Jewish Origins

Chapter 9: Paul’s Ministry

Chapter 10: Paul’s Influence

Chapter 11: Mark and Matthew

Chapter 12: Gospel of Luke

Chapter 13: Gospel of John

Chapter 14: The Historic Jesus

Chapter 15: Revelation to John

Chapter 16: Gospel Harmony

Appendix: New Testament Books

Bibliography (New Testament)

About the Author

Foreword

Written in Hebrew by ancient Israelites over the course of many centuries, the Bible is a collection of literature of multiple genres: narrative, poetry, history, and prophecy. The Bible starts with what the Jews call the Tanakh and the Christians call the Old Testament. Its books reveal a historic people and have served as a basis for literature, law, and belief in Western society to this day.

This book considers the Bible as a work of literature that has the capacity to transcend time and place. Although the origin and development of biblical books are discussed, the primary focus is on providing a coherent reading of the text that has been handed down to us. The history of that transmission, which includes centuries of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic commentary, will be charted. That interpretive heritage is presented to shed light on how it has shaped the intellectual and artistic heritage we have today.

Beginning with the Old Testament, there’ll be an exploration of the biblical books that provide the basic story of ancient Israel: Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. This will lead from Abraham’s migration to Canaan, Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and the history of Israel and Judah through to the Babylonian exile.

The Old

Testament

Chapter 1:

Book of Genesis

The Bible starts off with the story of creation: In the beginning. There is a creation story in the Qur’an, the sacred book of Islam; but it’s not in the opening chapters. There is a creation story in Hinduism’s holy scriptures, the Rigveda; but it’s late in the text. The Bible’s point of putting the creation story first is a way of stating that Israel’s God didn’t need to be produced before the creation itself.

An immediate question upon hearing of God’s creating the world would be, Where did God come from? All accounts of the ancient Near East told how the gods came to be. That’s called theogony, but Genesis does not have one. There is no story of the origin of the Israelite God, named Yahweh. This is the first of many ways Israel broke with the mythology of their neighbors.

Creation

There are seven days of creation. Each of the first six days has God participating in a creative act. The first three days give form to the formless, while the second three days fill the void. Everything leads up to the creation of mankind. When humanity is in the world, God judges it to be very good. The elaborate structure indicates that the universe is orderly, and it all leads to us.

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is another term for what Christians call the Old Testament. Jews simply call it the Bible, since they have no New Testament. The Old Testament is a collection of books from many centuries. The opening chapters have had a great importance for philosophers over the centuries, and the story of Abraham is fundamental for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Exodus and Leviticus are important for historical purposes, and the major prophets include Isaiah and Jeremiah. Poetry comes from the book of Psalms, and wisdom from Proverbs and Job.

Genesis

All creation accounts before Judaism told you how the gods came to be. This is called theogony. But Genesis doesn’t have one. There’s no story of the origin of God, called Yahweh. And that absence of a theogony is a theological point. Not only is there no story of God’s creation, there’s no way to penetrate the time before God created the world. One of the points of this text is that the universe is not a chaos of mutually opposing forces, and the sky is not full of divinities. All of the cosmos comes from one God.

Everything in the creation story is leading up to the mankind. Only when humanity is in the cosmos does it become very good. The purpose of the creation myth is not so much to tell Israelites how the world came to be as it is to tell them what the world is. It’s not about what happened at the dawn of time; it’s about the nature of the world as it is now. Genesis 1:26 reads: God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. It’s about something that the human being possesses.

Under one biblical line of thinking, people were made in the likeness of God in that man possesses reason. God has a rational mind, and a human being has a rational mind. Another perspective could be his immortality: God is immortal. A human is immortal given Jewish and Christian belief in eternal life; and this is a way that the human is like God. A third view is more spiritual: In addition to being an animal, a human being is like God in that he has a spirit as well as a body.

More content about the image of God appears in Genesis 1:27: And God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. To say the image of God equals male and female is not a straightforward philosophical statement. One reading of this line is that a roomful of men does not give you an image of God. A roomful of women does not give you an image of God either. If you want to know the image of God, you will need men and women both.

Seventh Day

For six days, God created in three dimensions. On the seventh day, He created in the dimension of time. And Judaism came to think of the Sabbath as a location in time. On Friday evening, as the Sabbath begins, a worshiper prepares to enter the day. Twenty-four hours later, the worshiper leaves it.

Authorship of Genesis

The authorship of Genesis is a question of who wrote the Pentateuch, which are the first five books of the Bible that Judaism calls the Torah. It is sometimes called the five books of Moses, because many Jews and Christians today espouse the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

But there are other opinions. Biblical scholars are now suggest-ing that ancient historians engaged in compositionally interweaving oral and written sources. They may have combined the sources of one story with those of another story, based on perceived similar-ities. In the end, the ancient historians themselves were responsible for the wording of the biblical text. The composition of the Pentateuch became more complex as it progressed, but more coherent in its final message.

Adam and Eve

The Old Testament was not written to discuss philosophical treatises about the nature of the universe. It was written to articulate the myths that explained the meaning of life in the ancient world. Genesis 2 and 3 do that with a story. These two chapters are meant to be read together as one creation myth.

Genesis 2 reveals a recipe for creating people: Form man from the dust of the earth and then breathe life into him. A human being is material, but he also has a divine element. It is God breathing into man that makes him special.

God gives man the assignment to go and tend the garden in Eden in Genesis 2:16. In verse 18, it is revealed, The Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him. In verse 19, God formed out of the soil all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each creature, that would be its name.

Naming was very important in ancient Israel. Decreeing the name of something was giving it a purpose and destiny. The divine role of naming was given to humanity, which is a way of saying that human beings have authority over the natural world.

In Genesis 2:20, it is written, So the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon the man; and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at the spot. And the Lord God fashioned the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman; and he brought her to the man. Verse 23 goes on, Then the man said, this one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman, for from man she was taken.

Verse 24 continues, Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so they become one flesh. The image here is of monogamy, even though polygamy was legal in ancient Israel. Regardless, the author of Genesis 2 holds that monogamy is the best relationship.

Verse 25 is interesting: The two of them were naked, the man and his wife, yet they felt no shame. But nakedness in Israelite culture always meant shame. The fact that they should have been ashamed underscores a philosophical argument: The nature of the universe as it has been described in Genesis 2 is what ought to be, not what actually is. Every other ancient Near East creation myth explains that the world is the way it was intended to be. But, Genesis 2 is saying that the way things are now is not the way God would really have wanted it to be, and it’s our fault that it’s not.

God’s Verdict

In Genesis 3, things go wrong in the Garden of Eden. Verse 1 describes a serpent (not a snake) that stands for illicit knowledge. Israel uses a serpent to symbolize evil. Eve tells the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the other trees of the garden. It is only the fruit of this tree that God said you shall not eat or touch, lest you die. The serpent pushed Eve against the tree, and she ate the apple. Yet Eve didn’t die, calling into question everything God had said.

Verse 4 continues, The serpent said to the woman, you are not going to die. God knows that as soon as you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. Everything the serpent has said is technically true, but it is also a lie. Their eyes are opened. They do know good and evil, but this is not as good as it sounded. God will say they have become like gods, but it doesn’t mean they will have