Bible Think

The Bible

The Bible is a collection of 66 separate books written over a period of some 1400 years. The earlier section of the Bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic from about 1400 BC to about 400 BC. This is called the “Old Testament” and is mainly concerned with God’s interactions with mankind through the history of one nation, the nation of Israel. The second part of the Bible was written in Greek in the first century AD. This is called the “New Testament” and is mainly concerned with the teaching and actions of Jesus Christ, and of the disciples and Apostles who followed him.

The sections of the Old Testament are:-

• The Law of Moses: The first five books of the Bible, sometimes called the Pentateuch and sometimes called Torah. These books describe the very earliest history of Israel from the creation to the entering of the land of Canaan. They also contain the law by which Israel was to live for millenia.
• The Historical Books:  These begin with the entry into the land of Canaan in about 1400 BC and continue until the Persian period. God’s interactions with Israel show how he deals with Mankind.
• Poetry and Wisdom:  These books contain a miscellany of  ideas from the book of Job which shows responses to suffering to proverbs which contains a body of short principles for living. The biggest book is Psalms which contains 150 poems.
• The Prophets:  These books contain messages from God which tell Israel about God’s view of the nation’s behaviour. Frequently there are predictions of future history.

The Old Testament contains frequent and consistent predictions of the life and work of the Messiah, the man anointed by God to rule the world and lead his people. The New Testament identifies this figure with Jesus of Nazareth. (The word Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messiah).

The New Testament divides into two main sections:-

• The Gospels: These are the record of the life, works and teaching of Jesus Christ from his birth to his ascension to heaven, concentrating mainly on the three year period before his crucifixion and resurrection when he travelled and taught.
• Acts and the Epistles:  Acts gives a history of the doings of the Apostles, people chosen by Jesus to spread his message, from the resurrection to 62AD. The account mainly follows the doings of Peter and Paul. The Epistles that follow this are letters by the Apostles to various congregations and people explaining the detail of life in the Gospel. This section ends with the Revelation, a book which predicts future events in a coded form.

Each part of the Bible has its own set of  evidence. The archaeology that supports the Gospels has little bearing on the Old Testament and much of the action of Acts is in Greece and Turkey, outside the area of  the rest of the Bible.

Basics - An outline of the Bible

The Gospels

The Gospels are the account of the life, work and teaching of Jesus before his ascension to heaven. They form an excellent introduction to the Bible.

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Acts and the Epistles

After the resurrection of Jesus the News of Jesus’ teaching was taken to the world by followers chosen by him and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Their words appear in a set of letters and the history of the period is described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

The Old Testament

This is the history of Mankind, and especially of the Descendents of Israel, from the earliest times to a period about 400 years before the time of Jesus. The Old Testament provides a framework which allows us to understand the work of Jesus.