The Old Testament

The Old Testament, information passed down verbally for almost 3,000 years by the tent women of Hebrew nomadic tribes and then written down between 1,200 and 200 BC, forms the first of the two-part Christian Bible and corresponds to the Hebrew Bible (the Torah and Ketuvim - two parts of the Tanakh pronounced Ta·nach) with some variations and additions. There were 45 books (now 39) originally in the Old Testament, but at the time of the Protestant Reformation (1517 AD) certain Old Testament books began to be left out (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees; and sections of the books of Daniel and Esther). These books and parts were contained in the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible that Christ and his Apostles used. Even with these deletions the Old Testament comprises 76% of the current King James version of the Bible. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/summary.html
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txw/wordcros.htm
http://www.curledup.com/redtent.htm

The Old Testament gives witness to the remarkable survival and flourishing of a small band of people who believed in one God long before it was popular, who suffered persecution again and again but always emerged intact, and whose greatness was not in their numbers but in their commitment to, and faith in one true God. The story represents a unified narrative about God and His communication with the Hebrew people.
http://www.mentalfloss.com/cheatsheets/?p=39
http://www.helium.com/items/130171-how-many-books-in-the-bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament

The Story of the Hebrew People

In Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, God created a perfect world with many creatures that included His most prized one, man - made in God’s own image. But evil crept into God’s perfect world when Adam and his wife Eve were urged by the angel Satin to disobey God. God saw how easy it was for Satan to fool Adam and Eve, so He sent the two out of the perfect Garden of Eden, located at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (today’s Iraq), into a now imperfect world where they had to protect themselves against the unrestrained forces of nature. God’s direction ever since has been to let man learn on his own where good lies and evil lurks. But God has always been there to show the righteous way if only man would open his eyes. Nevertheless, man soon became more and more blind to God’s ways until finally Noah, the 9th generation from Adam (Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah - Genesis chapter 5) at the age of six hundred was the only righteous person left, so God sent a great flood to destroy all life, but saved Noah and his family along with every type of animal, one male and one female in an ark God had told Noah to build. Noah died 350 years after the flood, at the age of 950.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Adam

Two thousand years after Noah, God spoke to a Hebrew named Abraham making a covenant with him that would make him and his descendents patriarchs of a Promised Land, i.e., Canaan (today the region encompassing Israel and Lebanon). Abraham’s Egyptian servant Hagar would have his first born, Ishmael, and his wife Sarah the second, Isaac. Isaac’s children went on to become today’s Jews and Ishmael’s children went on to become today’s Muslims.

Jacob (the grandson of Abraham) and his twelve sons had to move to Egypt because of a local famine. After several hundred years the Pharaoh saw the Hebrews as a threat and put them into slavery. God chose Moses to rescue the Hebrews and to lead them back to the Promised Land. From this point on the Israelites disobeyed God time after time; losing their wealth and lands to invaders, only to be rescued by strong leaders who rebuilt the Promised Land into a stronger nation. Great leaders after Moses were Saul (first king - 1100 BC), David (establishes Jerusalem as the religious and political center of Israel - 1060 BC), and Solomon (1020 BC). After Solomon the Promised Land was split into a northern kingdom, Israel, and a southern kingdom, Judah (980 BC). Finally, after a host of evil kings, Israel fell to the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires (606 BC). Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people were sent into exile. In 536 BC the Persian King Cyrus allowed the Hebrews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their city.
http://www.john3-16.net/angels9.htm
http://www.matthewmcgee.org/ottimlin.html

Iraq and Israel are the modern-day countries where the people of the Old Testament lived. The name Iraq means country with deep roots, but also has deep roots in the Old Testament. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible, but Iraq is second under the names Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia (between the two rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates).
* Adam and Eve lived in Eden at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Iraq).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_Eden
* Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization.
* The Book of Genesis says Noah's Ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat (Iraq).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah
* The Tower of Babel was in Iraq
* Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq
* Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq
* Jacob met Rachel in Iraq
* Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq
* Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel
* Amos cried out in Iraq
* Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem
* Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq
* The three Hebrew children (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were in the fire in Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abednego
* Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the 'writing on the wall' in Iraq
* Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq
* Ezekiel preached in Iraq

Old Testament Prophecies

The Old Testament contains numerous prophecies of global politics, natural disasters, the future of Israel, the ultimate destiny of humankind, and the coming of a Messiah and a Messianic Kingdom. Passages are widely distributed throughout the Old Testament, but those most often cited are from Ezekiel and Daniel. Ezekiel spoke about the restoration of Israel and the destruction of Hebrew’s enemies, and Daniel described the "end of history," judgment, and the resurrection of the dead into either heaven or hell. http://www.greatcom.org/resources/areadydefense/ch06/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_prophecy
http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/ezekiel.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/daniel.htm

There are more than 300 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament that refer to the Messiah (Christ). Among them the more significant are as follows:
* Jeremiah (23:5) prophesied 1,000 years before the birth of Christ that the lineage of the Messiah would be a descendant of King David.
* Isaiah (9:6-7) prophesied 800 years before the birth of Christ that a Messiah would come who would be called "Mighty God" (49:6) who would have a worldwide impact by bringing salvation to people throughout the world.
* Micah (5:2) prophesied 700 years before the birth of Christ that the Messiah would be born into the clan of Ephratah of Judah, i.e., "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel." (from the New American Standard Bible). But the New Testament (Luke 2:1-7) possibly got the part about the birth location wrong by construing that Micah was talking about a town rather than a clan. By mistaking the birth place the writer(s) of Luke created a big problem for themselves. How could they explain a trip of 90 miles for an eight month pregnant woman? Their rationale was considered totally absurd by some contemporary biblical scholars because only Joseph was required for either a census or tax which was always taken where people lived, and they both lived in Nazareth. In either case Mary would not have had to make the trip.
* Daniel 9:24-26 prophesied 600 years before the birth of Christ that the Messiah would be rejected before the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem. In fact the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 AD, about 40 years after Christ was crucified. The Temple has never been rebuilt.
http://bible.cc/micah/5-2.htm
http://www.konig.org/messianic.htm
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2002-October/014229.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmaswwjb.htm

Satan and God Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Man

While the other people living around the Hebrews had various Gods to carry out cosmic duties, the sole Hebrew God had at his command a kingdom of angels (called "messengers," "powers," "princes," "sons of God," and "heavenly host") (Job 38:6,7) employed them to watch over His chosen Hebrew people, to serve as messengers to them, and to act as instruments of His judgment (Psalms 34:7, 35:4-5, 91:11-12, 103:20, & 148:2,5; Ezekiel 28:15; Jude 6; Job 38:4-7; 2 Kings 19:35; Hebrews 1:14; and Daniel.6:20,23). Angels were regimented into levels, archangels being most high (Jude 9 and Daniel 10:13). Other rankings included seraphim (Isaih.6:1-3) and cherubim (Genesis 3:22-24). The archangel Gabriel was an angel of high importance who appeared in order to reveal God's will. (Daniel 8:15-26 & 9:21-27). Another archangel of high stature was Michael who was viewed as the field commander of the Army of God (Daniel 10:13). Like man, angels were not all good, and God had to banish about a third of them for rebelling against Him. These were the fallen angels; the best-known being Satan (the Hebrew word for "adversary") or the Devil. Isaiah 1 - 4:3-20 called him the "Morning Star," or in Latin “Lucifer.” Satan transformed the fallen angels into demons and evil spirits and organized them into his evil kingdom (Ezekiel 24:18 & 28:12-14; Job 1:12; and Daniel 10:10-20). Satan also employed unearthly beings called "nephilim" (Genesis 6:4). The Old Testament described Satan as man’s adversary who prayed on Hebrew weaknesses and desires (Isaiah 14:12). Not until the New Testament would Satan become God’s adversary, his forces of evil angels engaging God’s kingdom in a never ending cosmic battle (Ephesians 6:12). But in the Old Testament, the battle is grounded in a struggle for power over the hearts and minds of man in that God had turned man loose at the gates of the Garden of Eden with a free will to choose between Him (good) and Satan (evil). God had seen how easy it was for Satan to fool Adam and Eve into disobeying Him under the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God’s direction ever since has been to let man learn on his own where good lies and evil lurks. (Job 1:1-12 and Judges 9:23-24) in that God had turned man loose at the gates of the Garden of Eden with a free will to choose between Him (good) and Satan (evil) (1 Samuel. 29:4, 2 Samuel. 19:22, Genesis 3, 1 Chronicles 21:1, 2 Samuel 24:1, Zechariah 3:1-5, Isaiah 14:12-15, and Ezekiel 28:11-19).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Knowledge_of_Good_and_Evil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim
http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=388
http://www.zianet.com/maxey/reflx312.htm
http://www.emsweb.org/bulletins/hiebert.htm
http://tgcm.org/anglessatan.html
http://www.wcg.org/lit/spiritual/trials/satan.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_angel
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/gabriel.htm

Cold as Hell. Satan may not live down under as some scripture seems to indicate. In Jeremiah Chapter 6:1: we get a hint of the location of hell, i.e., “evil looketh forth from the north,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrYV0LKlEdw; and in Isaiah (14:13) Satan vows to set up his throne in a remote niche in the north, perhaps northern Alaska, Greenland, or some other desolate and frozen place, i.e., “I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north.” http://www.crivoice.org/lucifer.html

Fact or Allegory?

Historians laud the Old Testament as being a great book of history of the Hebrew people, but question various stories as being either allegorical or taken from prevailing fables.

Fact or Allegory #1 - Adam and Eve - The Epic of Gilgamesh is a series of Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh and is considered the oldest written story in the world, a Babylonian epic inscribed on clay tablets in Mesopotamia (Iraq) about 5,000 years ago. In the Gilgamesh Epic, Anu, the sky god, creates Enkidu, a naked wild man of the forest. Enkidu is tempted by Shamhat, the temple prostitute, and loses his strength but in its place gains knowledge. Could the Adam and Eve biblical account be based on Babylonian material?
http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/Appx08.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve

Fact or Allegory #2 - Noah and the Ark. By the 19th century, the discoveries by geologists, archaeologists, and biblical scholars led many Christians to abandon a literal interpretation of the Ark story, but Biblical literalists today continue to take the Ark as test-case for their understanding of the Bible, and continue to explore the region of the mountains of Ararat, where Genesis says Noah's Ark came to rest. Comparing the flood stories between the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis, one is impressed with the numerous similarities between the two accounts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/flood/introduction.asp
http://cms13ca.blogspot.com/2006/03/noahs-ark-fact-or-fiction.html

Fact or Allegory #3 – Moses and the Exodus. The best records keepers of the Biblical times were the Romans and the Egyptians who said nothing about Moses. History records show that Hebrews were never held in bondage in Egypt, but were there of their own free will. There is no mention of any great exodus of a great number of people, namely the Hebrews. The story could have been taken from a Sumerian fable dated 2,750 BC which in turn was taken from a Greek fable. The Sumerian fable concerns a character named Mises. Similarities with the Moses story are as follows:
* Mises was found in a box floating on the waters.
* Mises’ laws were written on two slabs of stone.
* Mises had a rod that he worked miracles with and which turn itself into a serpent.
* Mises uses his rod to divide the rivers Orontes and Hydastus
* Mises uses his rod to strike a rock to provide water for his thirsty army.
http://www.thejesusmyth.com/toolbox/archaeology
http://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-mythological-origins-of-christianity-pt-1-of-3/

Questions:

1. Was the Old Testament written as literal fact by the hand of man as directed by God, or were some parts enhancements to actual events, or were some parts purely allegorical (tales told by the Hebrew story tellers)?

2. In studying the Old Testament Biblical scholars have revealed new meanings and implications of the written word. For example, from an Old Testament prophesy the writers of Luke in the New Testament thought they had found the birth place of Jesus Christ. Should we even consider this as a misinterpretation if the New Testament, like the Old, was written by man as directed by God?

3. Do you think the New Testament authors shaped their stories to fit Old Testament prophecies or that the prophecies actually came to pass as prophesized?

4. When historians discovered lost parts of the Old Testament, do you think efforts should have been undertaken to amend the Bible for a better understanding to be true to the word of God?