The 50 most meaningful moments in the Bible, each explained in half a minute
Editor
Russell Re Manning
Contributors
Stefan Bosman
Liz Gulliford
Tim Muldoon
Russell Re Manning
Andrew D. Swafford
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Ivy Press
210 High Street, Lewes,
East Sussex BN7 2NS, U.K.
www.ivypress.co.uk
Copyright © The Ivy Press Limited 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage-and-retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Anglicized edition copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78240-025-7
Ivy Press
This book was conceived, designed and produced by Ivy Press
Creative Director Peter Bridgewater
Publisher Jason Hook
Editorial Director Caroline Earle
Art Director Michael Whitehead
Designer Ginny Zeal
Illustrator Ivan Hissey
Profiles Text Russell Re Manning
Glossaries Text Nick Fawcett
Project Editor Jamie Pumfrey
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Introduction
In the Beginning
GLOSSARY & LISTS
The Creation
The Garden of Eden
Forbidden Fruit
Profile: Satan
Cain & Abel
The Flood
Noah’s Curse
The Tower of Babel
The Promised Land
GLOSSARY & LISTS
God’s Promise
Sodom & Gomorrah
Abraham & Isaac
Jacob & Esau
The Pharoah’s Dreams
The Burning Bush
Profile: Moses
The Exodus
The Ten Commandments
Biblical History
GLOSSARY & LISTS
The Walls of Jericho
Samson & Delilah
Ruth & Boaz
David & Goliath
David & Bathsheba
Solomon’s Wisdom
Profile: Elijah
Elijah Taken Up to Heaven
Words of Wisdom
GLOSSARY & LISTS
The Trials of Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Profile: Isaiah
The Song of Solomon
Daniel & the Lions’ Den
Jonah & the Whale
The Apocrypha
A New Testament
GLOSSARY & LISTS
The Annunciation
The Nativity
Profile: Mary
Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan
The Sermon on the Mount
Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem
The Last Supper
Trial & Crucifixion
The Son of God
GLOSSARY & LISTS
The Good Samaritan
The Prodigal Son
The Wedding at Cana
Loaves & Fishes
Profile: John the Baptist
Healing the Sick
The Raising of Lazarus
The Transfiguration
The Birth of Christianity
GLOSSARY & LISTS
Resurrection Appearances
Pentecost
The Martyrdom of Stephen
The Conversion of Paul
Paul’s Letter to the Romans
Profile: Paul
The Book of Revelation
The Apocryphal Gospels
Notes on Contributors
Resources
Index
Acknowledgements
The best-selling book of all time, no single work has had more impact on world culture than the Bible. It is ubiquitous and familiar, with its stories retold in some of the greatest artwork in history, its law-codes influencing legal systems around the world, and its verses informing the languages we speak – not to mention its pivotal role in Judaism and Christianity. And yet, the Bible is also something of a mystery to many people, full of half-remembered stories, strange characters, and endless off-putting lists of so-and-so begetting so-and-so. Misconceptions abound about when the Bible was written, by whom and for what purpose. Controversies are rife over how to translate and interpret the Bible, and there is not even consensus among Christians about which books are in and which are out. In a sense, this is hardly surprising for a work written and compiled over many centuries and held by two of the world’s great religions to be divinely inspired, but it certainly can be confusing. Fortunately, this book can help.
In the pages that follow, fifty key biblical passages are explained in plain English, without jargon or religious bias. In each case, the story and its significance are set out accessibly and engagingly in less time than it takes to spell Nebuchadnezzar. Each 30-second explanation is presented alongside a 3-second sermon summing up the take-home message in a single sentence, and a 3-minute meditation for those with more time to reflect upon the meaning of the ‘Good Book’. There is also a key quotation from the relevant passage and references to related stories.
The entries are organized into seven chapters. We begin In the Beginning, with the opening narratives of the Bible, from Creation itself through Adam and Eve and the stories of the earliest biblical characters up to Noah and his sons. In The Promised Land, we trace the story of God’s covenant with His chosen people, from Abram (Abraham) to Moses. Biblical History tells the history of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah and of the prophets with their repeated calls for ethical and religious righteousness. In Words of Wisdom, we turn to some of the most poetic and philosophical writings in the Old Testament, from the Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Solomon to the haunting story of the trials of Job. The final three chapters deal with the New Testament. In A New Testament, the key moments in Jesus’ life are covered, from the Annunciation and nativity to the Last Supper, trial and the Crucifixion. The Son of God takes us through a selection of Jesus’ parables and miracles. The final chapter, The Birth of Christianity, explores the beginnings of Christianity as a religion and moves from the Gospels to the book of Acts, the Epistles and the last book of the Bible, the apocalyptic book of Revelation. Along the way, we meet seven key biblical figures, including Satan and St. Paul. Seven chapters, then, that take us from the beginning to the end of the world in under half an hour.
Revelation
THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT1
The Pentateuch
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
The Poetical and Wisdom Books
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
The Historical Books
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
The Prophetic Books
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT1
The Gospels
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
The Acts of the Apostles
The Epistles2
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
Just as the Bible can be read in many different ways, so, too, can this book. If you read it cover to cover, you’ll get an overview of the amazing range and diversity of the Bible, and of some of the often-surprising interconnections between passages. Read more selectively, it will help you to explore individual stories and characters. Sometimes this will be like a walk down memory lane, rediscovering half-remembered nuggets from Sunday school; other stories will be new discoveries or provide fresh details finally filling a gap in your knowledge – for example, why Jonah was eaten by a whale (or was it really a whale?) and where the idea of ‘speaking in tongues’ comes from.
But before we take up the Bible and read, we need to step back and return to the most basic question: What is the Bible? The most useful approach is to define it as the collection of primary texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no single agreed common version – accepted Christian Bibles range from sixty-six to eighty-one books. That said, all Christian Bibles are divided into Old and New Testaments, with some including the Apocrypha, or ‘intertestamental’ writings, between the two. For Jews, only thirty books of the Christian Old Testament are canonical (that is, accepted as Scripture).
The Tanakh – as the Old Testament is called in Hebrew – is divided into three parts: the Torah (meaning ‘Teaching’), the Nevi’im (meaning ‘Prophets’) and Ketuvim (meaning ‘Writings’). The Torah comprises the first five books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, known as the Pentateuch and traditionally held to have been written by Moses. These books contain the dramatic accounts of the prehistory of the Jews up to the covenant of God with His chosen people, and details of the Law, as given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Nevi’im tells the history of the Jewish monarchy up until the exile in Babylon and the destruction of the Temple, interspersing battles and politics with constant reminders from the prophets of God’s will. The books that make up the Ketuvim include poetic and philosophical writings, probably composed during or after the Babylonian exile. A rich mixture of genres and styles, the writings of the Tanakh combine ancient mythology with legal codes, national history, poetry, prophesy and theology, all united by the common thread of Jewish ethical monotheism.
Written in Hebrew (with some short portions in Aramaic), the Tanakh was given a prominent place in Christianity from the outset and is quoted in the New Testament in the third-century-bce Greek translation known as the Septuagint (the name is derived from the seventy scholars said to have produced it). The New Testament, written in Greek between 50 and 150 ce, is no more homogeneous than the Old. Containing twenty-seven books, it is divided into the four Gospels, the book of Acts, twenty-one Epistles and the book of Revelation.
The Gospels (from the Old English god-spell, meaning ‘good news’, itself a translation of the Greek euangelion – eu- ‘good’ and -angelion ‘message’), are a unique genre; both historical biography and theological commentary, they recount the life, teaching and miracles of Jesus, from the announcement of his birth to his Resurrection appearances, and were probably written for particular communities of Christians associated with different apostles in the years following Jesus’ death. The New Testament contains four canonical Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – but there are many similar texts, known as the ‘apocryphal Gospels’. The idea of four canonical Gospels was first championed by the second-century theologian Irenaeus of Lyons, and confirmed in the fifth century. Strikingly, there are many parallels between the four canonical Gospels, including word-for-word overlaps. The similarities are greatest between Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are referred to as the ‘Synoptic Gospels’, indicating that they can be read together. Mark is thought to be the earliest and overlaps extensively with Matthew and Luke. Some scholars have speculated about a further text, now lost, that was a common source for these two (they term it Q, an abbreviation of the German Quelle, meaning ‘source’), but its existence is hotly disputed. John’s Gospel, also known as ‘the Fourth Gospel’, stands apart from the others, having a distinctive theological approach, encapsulated by its poetic ‘prologue’: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1.1).
The book of Acts, also known as the Acts of the Apostles, tells the story of the early Christians. Probably written by the same author who wrote Luke’s Gospel, Acts recounts the missionary activity of the twelve apostles and of Paul of Tarsus, whose conversion experience is also included. Paul dominates the Epistles (from the Greek meaning ‘letter’), which comprise the bulk of the New Testament books. Written to newly established Christian communities around the Mediterranean, these letters contain a mixture of practical and pastoral advice, and they have been fundamental to the development of Christian theology. The final book of the New Testament is Revelation (not Revelations), an apocalyptic vision of the end of the world (it takes its title from its first word, apokalypsis, meaning ‘unveiling’ or ‘revelation’). This dramatic work, full of elaborate symbolism and intricate predictions, is described as written on the island of Patmos by ‘John’, who is traditionally identified with the author of John’s Gospel.
Since their composition, the books of the Bible have been translated into virtually every language of the world, but three translations have had a particular significance. The fourth-century-ce translation into Latin by St. Jerome, known as the Vulgate, is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, and for centuries before the Reformation, it was the only widely available form of the Bible in Western Europe. That changed, however, with Luther’s German translation. While Luther was not the first to translate the Bible into the vernacular, his was the most important such translation, and subsequent Protestant Bibles followed his lead in excluding the intertestamental Apocrypha. In the English-speaking world, the greatest impact was made by the so-called King James or Authorized Version (AV), produced between 1604 and 1611 by a team of forty-seven scholars. Probably the most influential version of the most influential book in history, the AV has profoundly affected the English language, contributing over 250 idioms – more even than Shakespeare. In this book, we have used the New Revised Standard Version, first released in 1989 by an ecumenical group of Christian churches in the United States, one of their aims being to produce a modern English translation free from particular theological slants.
For Jews and Christians, the Bible is considered to be divinely inspired. How this is understood varies, but it is by no means universally accepted by believers that the Bible is the ‘literal word of God’. Indeed, the question of how to interpret the Bible is a central one for much Jewish and Christian theology. Traditionally, Christian theologians have understood there to be four senses to biblical writings – historical, allegorical, moral and anagogical (or spiritual) – referring to different layers of meaning. Modern biblical criticism uses historical, textual and archaeological tools and techniques of research, but most scholars also insist on the importance of literary and religious interpretations to unlock the full meaning of these rich texts.
For millions of Jews and Christians, the Bible is a constant presence, its teachings guiding their daily lives. For others, it is more remote – like the best china, used infrequently but highly cherished. It goes without saying that the importance of the Bible extends beyond those for whom it is a sacred text. It has influenced art and culture across the world and has enriched all our cultural imaginations. From great paintings and sculpture to our language itself, the Bible has shaped our lives to a significant extent; some scholars even argue that it was principles of biblical interpretation that led to the development of the methods of modern science.
The Bible is a rich treasure-house of stories and teaching that can inspire, intrigue and offend in equal measure. For an ancient text, it has certainly lost none of its power to shock, and in this book we invite you to enter into what the great theologian Karl Barth called ‘the strange new world of the Bible’. Bon voyage!
1 Listed according to the New Revised Standard Version
2 Romans to Philemon are all attributed to Paul; Hebrews is anonymous.
covenant The Hebrew word berith, translated as ‘covenant’ in the Old Testament, is generally understood by scholars to mean ‘bond’, from the root bara, ‘to bind’. In the Bible, covenant refers to a binding agreement between God and his people, his blessing being promised in return for obedience. God is depicted in the Old Testament as making various such covenants, including those made with Noah (Genesis 6.11–22; 9.9–17), Abraham (Genesis 12.1–17.27; 22.15–18) and Jacob (Genesis 28.12–15), but the central covenant is that made with Moses (Exodus 19.1–24.18), the key terms of which are set out in the Ten Commandments.
Jahwist The unidentified author of various passages in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) in which God is referred to as Yahweh instead of Elohim, the name used by the Elohist (another unidentified author of parts of the Torah).
Land of Nod All we are told of the land of Nod is that it was east of Eden. It derives from the Hebrew word meaning ‘to wander’, and may indicate the nomadic lifestyle Cain was condemned to live as a fugitive.
New Testament Comprising the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, various Epistles and the book of Revelation – twenty-seven books in all, written originally in Greek – this anthology was produced in the early years of the Christian Church and is seen by Christians as the new covenant made between God and humankind through Jesus Christ.
Old Testament The first part of the Bible, this was written originally in Hebrew and comprises thirty-nine books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Malachi. Jews consider it the complete Bible, but Christians believe the New Testament is an essential second part.
Sabbath In traditional Judaism, this is the seventh day of the week, observed as a day of rest and worship to mark God’s resting on the final day of creation.
tree of the knowledge of good and evil