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Bible Study Numbers

Numbers | Introduction

The English title of this book, Numbers, is translated from the Greek title “Arithmoi”, meaning, you know, numbers (we obviously see this same root word in our modern “arithmetic”.) This is certainly titled as such in reference to the multiple censuses that occur, including at the very beginning of the book. The Hebrew title, “bemidbar”, however, is a better broad title as it translates from the fifth word in the book meaning “in the wilderness”. This narrative focuses on God’s people over the 40 years travelling in the wilderness between Mt. Sinai, through the Wilderness of Paran to Kadesh, and ultimately to the promised land of Canaan (or in this case, just outside in the plains of Moab). 

To that point, like the books that come before and after it, Numbers is the continued story of God keeping his promises to Abraham, through His people and His faithfulness. As could likely be expected, however, all of this also reveals the tendency of man to rebel against God’s good intention for them, curse the means through which His mercy comes, and react with skepticism and disbelief even after being personal witness to God’s faithfulness many, many times at this point. Every point of this journey is met with some form of protest, a subsequent combination of judgment and mercy (restoration), and additional provision of law to meet the needs of new situations that are arising for His people. 

Numbers moves the reminders of God’s holiness and provision of the laws that reflect both it and the role of Israel as God’s people (to be holy as He is holy and to act as the kingdom of priests) from Leviticus and puts them into a live environment, transitioning knowledge to opportunity for faith and obedience. Like many of the New Testament writers did, we should see ourselves in this transition as well and likely subject to the same fickle and non-sensical reactions. Also like Leviticus, there are periods of additional law-giving and descriptions of rituals. We need to be careful not to move too quickly past these things as they are not only a central means through which the Israelites deal with living with the holy presence of YHWH in their midst, but are also the means through which they remain faithful to His character in their day to day lives. For us, who live on the other side of the sacrifice of Jesus, it is the undergirding reasons for these laws, less so than the exact expression of them, that continues to influence our lives and relationship with YHWH. 

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Bible Study Exodus

Exodus | Introduction

Entry two of the 5-part narrative that kicks off the Old Testament, Exodus is a continuation of the story that began in Genesis. This is no surprise, as we saw predictions and promises made by God to families in Genesis that have yet to come to complete fruition (a return to the land of Canaan as promised to Abraham being chief among them.) The opening of the book certainly focuses on tying things together, with the first six Hebrew words being exactly the same as those in Genesis 46:8, a reiteration of the family last in focus for these promises, the man Israel and his sons.

Our English title of the book is actually a Latin word that comes from the Greek word Exodos, the title given to it when it was first translated from Hebrew into Greek (that translation is called the Septuagint). The word “exodos” means “exit” or “departure”. Interestingly, this isn’t the Hebrew title of the book, which is simply titled “These are the Names”.

Although exactly what to call the two sections is a matter of some debate or preference, it’s generally safe to see Exodus as having two parts that split at chapter 20. The initial setting is Egypt, where we last left Joseph and the gang after the death of his father Israel. Since that time (around 400 years), that original group of 70 “…were fruitful and increased greatly, they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” That language sounds like blessing if you’re an Israelite, it kinda sniffs like an invasion if you’re an Egyptian.

This wasn’t an issue for the pharaoh who brought Joseph on board as his right hand man. But as new leadership takes over, they scan the land the notice a wild group of shepherds likely a million strong just lingering around Goshen. In fear, they decide to capture them as slaves. When this slavery includes restricting the ability of the nation to properly worship Yahweh their God, the trouble begins. Ultimately, God dominates, the people are set free, and they set out to Mt. Sinai, eventually en route to the land God promised (they won’t make it there in Exodus. This book remains just a part of a grander narrative that encompasses the entire first 5 books of the Bible.)

This leads us to the second half of the book, the year at Mt. Sinai. There is a transition here that this nation must go through. They are not just moving out of Egypt and away from servitude of Pharaoh, they are moving into their rightful place as covenant members of God’s kingdom, recipients of God’s provision, His law, and most significantly, His presence (albeit limited). How then shall they live? What are they to do with their freedom? What does God expect from them and how would they know it? God will give this to them.

Historically, we must note that there is very little that exists to either corroborate or deny the historicity of the Exodus narrative. Many things are not clear, including the name of the pharaoh who was reigning and interacting with Moses and the actual date of when the Israelites left Egypt. The exact route of the journey and the location of Mt. Sinai are also debatable. For our purposes, we’re working off a timeline that has the exodus happening in the 15th century BC, with part of the purpose of the narrative being Moses’ intention to provide an adequate history to those about to enter Canaan, an event that will occur after his death.

This lack of “evidence”, if you will, is not particularly concerning. The age of the narrative  makes it difficult to imagine a substantive amount of corroborating documentation (certainly not from the Egyptians, who would not be keen to record for posterity the absolute domination of their leader and their gods at the hands of Yahweh, the God of the shepherd slave people whose women give birth too fast.) Additionally, although much is made by surface-level rejectors of the Bible about there being a lack of physical evidence for the exodus, the 3,000+ year gap between the event and when they decided to Google it makes it about as likely for there to be extant physical evidence as there is to find a copy of That Time We Got Owned by Yahweh: A Biography of Egyptian “gods” lying around in the ruins of Alexandria.

That said, although there is not much ground to invalidate the historicity of the events, there is just as little to straight out confirm it. The text itself is well-preserved, likely brought back from Babylon to Jerusalem in the mid-5th century BC. The NT treats it as a real event. And, if we are honest, if someone was looking to fabricate the story of how the Israelites came into existence, they would not likely have produced the text we have today (Stuart 26). We don’t have a smoothed out, fictionalized account. This is clearly written as a history, warts and all. The foolishness of God’s people in the face of His faithfulness is almost comedic at times. Certainly a nation that has someone available to craft a gold cow in a moment’s notice could have found at least one person capable of writing a fictionalized biography that didn’t make them look so ridiculous. Or, we can take it for what it is meant to be, a valid historical account.

Although we touched on this slightly already, Moses is most likely the author. Evidence points to this, not the least of which are the statements in the text that say as much and the New Testament references that affirm it. The in-text references are actually unique, often ancient writers would not have written themselves into the narrative as the author. Given Moses’ role with the people, it is perhaps a necessary inclusion to ensure that the authority that comes with the recorded information is well-preserved.

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Bible Study Genesis

Genesis | Introduction

The word Genesis comes from the first word of the book. The Hebrew word is translated as “In the beginning”, the companion Greek word is genesis (guh-nessiss), meaning “origins”. (That Greek word is transliterated to our English “Genesis”. Transliteration just means to take a word from another language and treat it like it’s a legit word in your language. It’s word theft, really. Phil Collins didn’t even know he was a criminal.)

The authorship is debatable. Up until the 18th century it was pretty much acknowledged that Moses was the author of Genesis as well as the 4 books that follow, known as the Pentateuch) and that for the most part the modern version we have was sourced from documentation sometime between the 10th and 9th century, BC. There are problems with this, however. For example, Moses’ death is recorded in these first 5 books, some locations are referred to using names that are believed to have not been around until the 8/7th century BC, and there are references to a king being in Israel (Genesis 36), which happened beyond Moses’ time.

There are a number of proposed solutions which contain various puzzle pieces like multiple documents, multiple authors, various motivations for writing, intertwined source material and so on. Some perhaps retain Moses as the author with suggestions of minor editing to include his death and location correction so folks know which location is being referred to after a name change. Smart people who love Jesus haven’t come to anything resembling an agreement or particularly a way forward to what an agreement would look like in this area. So, we’re left with the text itself which does not bear the name of an author. So, we will proceed without knowing.

Things to watch for in Genesis:
– It is not a book in a traditional sense in that there isn’t a single, consistent plot that winds throughout the book. However, all of the stories are moving in the same direction, contributing to progression of our understanding of God and His relationship to his creation.
– That said, there is a clear focus change from chapters 1-11, which are universal, to the rest of the book, which focuses on a single family line.
– The stories weren’t written in a vacuum, they had relevance to those reading or hearing of them in those days (they certainly weren’t written just for a 21st century audience). In general, Israel’s history has been a troubled one, they very rarely saw sustained periods of peace. As such, Genesis doesn’t shy away from hard questions of people of faith. It was likely formally written down to attempt to serve that very thing.
– They also lived in the context of competing gods and idols. As such, the text interacts with that. We see a fiercely monotheistic God who controls/creates everything with ease, compared to other creation accounts filled with strife and gods fighting with each other.
– Watch for consistent themes of land, blessing (and curses), and offspring. They have relevance in every major story.
– Watch for contrasting characters. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Judah and Joseph. Many of the stories put two characters up against each other for evaluation. Some are obvious, some less so (like Sarah and Hagar, where Hagar is understood in a much better light upon the comparison.)

As to how to read Genesis appropriately, much of the complication comes from expectations we have of the stories. If we expect it to speak as a science journal, we will evaluate the veracity and truth of the book based upon those expectations. If we expect it to be a history book, we will evaluate it the same way. We will do our best to not bring more to the text than it allows us while also remaining firm in the belief that it is, in whichever case, a true and reliable narrative. Smart people who love Jesus will react to Genesis differently, I encourage you to remain open on how to read the book and gracious with those who read it differently.

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Bible Study Lamentations

Lamentations | Introduction

Lamentations was written after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and exile of its people, so would put it after 587 BC. Because it doesn’t say anything about being restored and the temple being rebuilt (which happened around 520) it was most likely written in those exile years. We can’t miss the writing style, this is poetry; in fact, it’s dirge poetry (funeral poetry), which shouldn’t be a surprise given a name like Lamentations. If you’re not used to reading poetry, I’d recommended reading it out loud, it’ll flow better and you’ll get more out of it. You can do it quietly if you wish, but if you just read it straight as if it is prose (story telling) you miss some of the lyricism in the art form. (If the Lord didn’t feel it necessary to take it in as poetry, the Holy Spirit would have inspired it differently. Engage in it correctly.)

In some way or another, each chapter is an acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet, with each line or set of lines starting with the next letter in the alphabet. That’s why they are all 22 lines (there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet) except for chapter 3, which has 66 lines as there are 3 lines per alphabet letter). It’s a bit of a high art form, this acrostic funeral poetry, but it’s certainly intentional.

We don’t know for sure who the author is. It could be Jeremiah, because once you get tagged as the guy who weeps and laments, they are going to start framing you for other lamentations that are out there that are unsolved. Or, could be someone else or a group of people. Not sure it particularly matters, the book itself doesn’t seem to care so perhaps we shouldn’t either.

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Malachi

Malachi | Introduction

Although the thoughts on this aren’t completely settled, it’s likely Malachi was written in the middle of the 5th century BC. Since we last met Israel/Judah in the time of Amos, Israel was exiled by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. Although Judah was ransacked, they weren’t exiled. Subsequently, though, Judah is attacked by Babylon in the late 7th century BC and fails to keep their agreement to pay Babylon to keep them at bay. Ultimately, Babylon attacks and exiles Judah in the early 6th century BC (between 597 and 560). Eventually, the exiles from Judah (and probably some of the remnants of the tribes of Israel) are allowed to return in 537 BC, although they are reduced people coming home (not all of them decide to come back) to a smaller amount of land.

This time is the start of Second Temple Judaism, in case you’ve heard that phrase. It indicates the use of a second temple after the first one , built by Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians. This temple is the one that will be in use between 517 BC all the way through 70 AD.

If you’ve read any of the prophets that were talking during the exile periods, coming back home and rebuilding the temple seemed to be a time when God’s people would see prosperity and blessing and the return of God’s presence (in the rebuilt temple, yes, but as a force in their lives in general also.) However, that doesn’t really appear to be the case. In fact, the argument for this kind of under-girds the premise of Malachi, which presents a fake conversation between God and the Jewish people, who are not satisfied with their lives after returning home. It’s interesting, the exiled Jews in Babylon weren’t treated particularly poorly and most chose to stay there rather than return to Judah. In fact, Judah is the smallest contingent of Jews compared to those who stayed in Babylon (conquered by Cyrus of Persia, the dude who let them go back) and those in Samaria who were left behind from the exile and who ultimately build a temple on Mount Gerizim and claim that is the true place God said for it to be constructed.

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Hebrews

Hebrews | Introduction

A couple major things on this one. First, we’re not sure on the author. Could be Paul, but Hebrews man argues a bit differently than Paul (although he’s verbose and knows his OT, so I ain’t saying it ain’t Paul either.) Other thoughts are guys like Barnabas or some such similar dude or potentially even Priscilla (of Priscilla and Aquila fame).

Although generally titled as a letter to the Hebrews, a letter usually has a greeting with the name of the author, which would’ve cleared up the matter. That said, like a letter, there is exhortation and encouragement towards the end as well as parting thoughts that end in a personal appeal, greetings from other folks, and the extension of grace. It’s a weird combination.

For timing, it was most likely written prior to AD 70 given the references to the sacrificial system with no reference to the fall of the Temple (if you’re trying to dissuade someone from going back to a no longer needed atonement system, mentioning that you can’t even do it anymore because the Temple is destroyed would seem like a must-use argument. The absence of it is telling.) So, think 60-70 AD for context.

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Bible Study 1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians | Introduction

This is a letter to the church at Thessalonica, located in Macedonia (north of Athens, Greece, west of modern day Turkey). The letter was probably written in the early AD 50’s on Paul’s second missionary journey (he did 3 total).

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Bible Study 1 Timothy

1 Timothy | Introduction

This an epistle (a letter) written from Paul to Timothy, one of his constant companions. The letter was likely written in between Paul’s two prison experiences in Rome (the last of which ends in his death). Timothy is in Ephesus where he has been left to continue the work of planting churches and protecting those that already exist (the threats will be evident within the first chapter).

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2 Timothy

2 Timothy | Introduction

This final letter to Timothy (and Paul’s final published letter ever) was most likely written during his second imprisonment in Rome, the one that will culminate in his death. He’s not writing to address a specific concern, it’s more of a farewell. In fact, keep this perspective in mind as you read. Timothy means quite a bit to Paul, not only as a co-laborer in difficult and often antagonistic work, but also as a supporter, a mentee, and, in Paul’s words, a son. In essence, Paul is saying good-bye to a man who was like a son to him, and greater still, encouraging a man who is to continue the work that Paul himself is dying for. This is a deeply emotional letter and should be read as such.

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Bible Study Jonah

Jonah | Introduction

Jonah was a prophet of God who was working the beat in the mid 8th century BC. Unlike some of the other prophets at the tail end of the Old Testament, Jonah is speaking during a time of relative peace in Israel as the Assyrian empire hit a conquering lull and the kings of Israel, Jeroboam II and his father Jehoash before him, had reclaimed most of the land they lost to the Assyrians in the century prior.

To the question of whether we should consider this story, and some of its more fantastic events, as literal history, we should note that in Matthew 12 Jesus seems to consider the contents of the story as actual history. Thus, with little further consideration outside of this fact, we should treat it as something that really occurred while understanding that it is written to include things like metaphor, such as Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 where he claims to be rescued from Sheol. He wasn’t literally in the “belly of Sheol”, it’s an image that speaks accurately to his circumstances without being a literal description of them.

In general, Jonah is a pretty quick and relatively easy read. However, slow down and keep an eye out for details as the story is well constructed and specifically worded. Watch for repeated phrases and who they come from as well as comparisons between different people or groups of people within the story.