Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012

I'm really excited about starting this Bible backgrounds class. We had Bible backgrounds about eight years ago, and there have been some things that have developed since that time. As a matter of fact, let me touch on some of them. One of them, since we initially met, There was an archaeological discovery in a place called Tellzeit, and this Professor Ron Tappe here found, this is a 38-pound piece of stone here. On one side is a bowl, kind of a bowl-type shape. On the bottom side is an alphabet from around the time of David. And real interesting, it's like, okay, if you're going to have some kid, you know, here's his bowl on the backside, you give him, here's his alphabet. I don't know why you'd give him a 38-pound bowl, but nonetheless, that was quite a find, a real interesting thing.

One of the claims that's been made is, well, you know, there couldn't possibly be any, you know, written Bible around during that time because, you know, David and all those guys were just completely ignorant. And, of course, one of the things this shows is, no, they weren't. If people were practicing their alphabet in a rather out-of-the-way kind of place, what does that say about other places? There have been additional fines regarding writing from prior to and subsequent to this time. since we last taught the class.

Here's another one. Let's see if this thing, it's not cooking. All right. Here is, since we last met, this is called an ostraca. It's a piece of just ceramic material, and on it is written the name Goliath. And guess where it was found? There's Valley of Elah, which is where David fought Goliath. Isn't that interesting? And it dates from, guess when? About the time of David and Goliath. Isn't that very interesting?

So the name is fitting, and it fits the time, and it fits the place. Jeremiah was captured. This is Jeremiah 38, verse 1, about to verse 6, describes Jeremiah's capture. And real interesting is several years ago, a seal impression. In other words, they would take like a ring or they would sometimes have a seal that they would carry maybe on a leather strap around their neck or something of that sort and they would have a personal mark and they would mark letters, they would mark pottery with those markings. And the mark that they made was called a bole or seal impression. This is a seal impression from one of Jeremiah's captors by name.

That's the guy. One of the guys that captured Jeremiah. And just a few years later, guess what? They found another one. So his captors, my recollection is there were like three of them. Two of the three, just in the last few years, the seal impressions have been found for those particular guys. which is really quite remarkable because they're not named anywhere else. So, that's extraordinary. Oh, by the way, they're also found in the right place, right around Jerusalem. So, real interesting to have found those since we last taught the class.

This is the ossuary which had been found when we last taught the class, but discussions and investigations of it were early. This is sometimes called the James Ossuary, and right on the side of this, what they would do is after someone would die, this was in New Testament times, not too much before and not after. When someone would die, they would first bury them in the customary fashion, just like Jesus was buried, where they'd wrap them up and lay them on a kind of a stone table and then put a a large stone over the opening in order to avoid like animals getting in, things like that. Well, and after the flesh would decay, then they'd go back and take the bones and put them in a bone box called an ossuary box.

There are thousands of them in the area around Jerusalem, particularly on the Mount of Olives. Why? Because the Jews who believed in the Messiah believed that the Messiah would come back to the Mount of Olives. And of course they wanted to be there when the Messiah resurrected people, right? So, here is this bone box and on the side of it something very extraordinary. It's written in Aramaic which reads right to left. So that's why you see that arrow there.

It says, Son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Now, at the time, the fellow who had this, they actually put him on trial for fraud. But it didn't stick. As a matter of fact, the more they investigated it, it looks real. When you say James son of Joseph and have the name Jesus on there, those names were common enough that the combination of those names, there probably were around 20 different possibilities for that combination of names to take place. Is this absolutely, certainly, because of those names, the ones of the Bible?

The answer is no. But there's something extraordinary, and that is brother of Jesus. Very rare to say who the brother was. Son of, real common. To say who's the brother, very rare. So it is not absolutely certain, but highly likely that this is the bone box of James, author of the book of James, James the brother of Jesus.

So this was one, it was discovered last time we taught this class eight years ago. However, it had not been investigated thoroughly. And now having gone through a court case that's rolled on for years, it has been investigated quite thoroughly. So anyway, those are just some examples and there are other things that have been discovered since then.

You have on the front part of your handout, and hopefully you've got one, anybody need one? Anybody else? You're covered, all right. In the front part of your handout, we have kind of the outline, we have the first quarter January, February, March, we'll be going through this sequence.

Today, just introducing it. And we'll go through that sequence. This week and next week, the introduction and the big picture of Bible history and geography. And then we'll go through Old Testament and New Testament history. So we'll step our way through those in the coming weeks.

And then finally, pre-flood culture. and post-flood and patriarchal cultures in Egyptian culture. And then in the next quarter, April, May, June, we'll look at the different Old Testament into New Testament cultures from the Assyrians on into the Jewish culture of the New Testament era. Plus, there are other miscellaneous cultures, like the barbarians. Who are they? The Scythians.

So miscellaneous ones that we'll take a look at then. Then we'll do some case studies on certain aspects of how things were done. We'll go from family traditions on to the seven churches in Revelation. And the findings are fascinating. Really amazing. Okay, so we'll go through that.

You have, and this is starting on page two, here's our page number here at the bottom, you have the first part, history, the history of the cities, peoples, nations, and empires, and key individuals or related to those in the Bible. Why do I say related? Let's take it for instance.

How many of you have heard of the Essenes? Ever heard that name? The Essenes was a group that's not named in the New Testament, but they were around during New Testament times. None of the New Testament authors, Jesus himself, never wrote or spoke about the Essenes directly.

What Jesus did do was make reference to what they taught. And the Sermon on the Mount, there's one place in chapter 5 where Jesus talks about hating your enemy. And the Essenes taught, guess what? You're supposed to hate your enemy. So that's the only reference to the Essenes. So not by name, but by teaching.

Okay, you have a timeline here, and this is, I think, a good thing for us to take a look at. We'll keep referring back to this. The contents of both the Old and New Testaments refer back to historical events beginning at the creation up to the time of their writing. And this is true of most of the books of the Bible. There's some kind of reference oftentimes to things earlier.

You have, for example, Moses wrote about events and people that existed from the time of creation in the first seven days up to his own time. The time of the exodus dates from 446 to 406 BC, a 40 years out in the desert, right? But he wrote about the creation, wrote about Adam and Eve, right?

And then about, hmm, I'm trying to figure out if there's some way to shut down those lights. He wrote about Noah and that time of Noah, and then about Abraham, and then he wrote about his own time as well. Can everybody see okay? I think it helps a little bit to cut down that. Yeah, that's right. Let's switch back there and get that off.

Paul wrote about events and people that existed from the time of creation up to his own time. Paul wrote about Adam, right? So, oftentimes the authors of the Bible would write about things earlier than their own time, as well as their own time. So he wrote about Adam. He wrote about Abraham. He wrote about Moses. So he wrote about times before his time. He even talked about Christ's birth in Galatians where he said, at the right time, God sent His Son.

You have then the New Testament and the Old Testament. Now, what we have here is the time when Moses began writing. Even though he wrote about things that were centuries, before his time, Moses wrote from about 1400 BC, and then the Old Testament was completed around 400 BC, so about a thousand years.

The book of Psalms was being collected all during that time. It's Israel's national hymn book. So it was a book that was being collected all during that time. So they'd get some of the Psalms, and then some more, and some more, and they'd continue to collect them.

So from about 1400 B.C. to 400 B.C., a thousand years, was the duration of the writing of the Old Testament. Yeah? Yeah, here you have no prophets, ending basically around 400 B.C., right? So you had Malachi writing the last book of the Old Testament, and then no prophets after that. Who was the next prophet? John the Baptist, that's correct.

Okay? And then, so you have this gap, and we will talk about what happened during that gap between the Old Testament and New Testament times. The gap, even though it's not included in scripture, is very important. What would be some of the reasons why understanding the gap is important? Yeah? Okay. Yeah, what happened? Why all of a sudden is everybody writing and talking in Greek? So, you've got that kind of a question. What's interesting is Moses had seven feasts that he had the Jews carry out, but the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament is when Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, Gospel of John chapter 10 verse 23, that's Hanukkah. that took place between the Old and New Testaments.

So you find it observed, mentioned in John 10.23, and the reason for it is not from anything in the Old Testament, but from the events between. So we'll talk about that. And here is, you notice, here's the Old Testament taking a thousand years to write and get collected.

And in some cases, evidence being that is being collected from earlier writings, for example, the evidence is there, and we'll go through it, that Moses wrote not just from something God told him or out of his head, but he wrote from earlier documents when he wrote the book of Genesis. He was not alive during any of the events of Genesis. But the evidence is that he wrote from earlier documents where things have been written down. Possibly even documents written down during the lifetime of Adam.

Okay. In the New Testament, a very short little time period, probably from about 40 A.D., the earliest books being like James, possibly one of the Gospels, by about 49 A.D., Paul's writing Galatians, up to the last book written, the book of Revelation by the Apostle John. So far as we know, the last living apostle. So this is the time frame that we have for the writing of the Old and New Testaments.

So we have history and then we have culture. Various cultures behind the biblical text, either referenced directly in the text or as indicated by study of the text. Now, what's the value in studying culture? Any ideas? Yeah. how people live out their spiritual beliefs and their relationship with their God. Okay. How people live out in the cultural context. Okay.

How about Abraham? Did you ever notice reading through it, Abraham is really intense about wanting a male heir. I mean, he's like scrambling. You can read in there, he's getting like desperate. And what's this thing about him, you know, marrying his half-sister? You know, what's going on there?

What you find is, in the culture of the time, there was actually a sister wife was actually prized. And it was considered like the ultimate responsibility for a man to have a male heir. And not having one was looked upon as a disgusting negligence. So when you start looking at the culture, when you start seeing how Abraham is acting, this all begins to make some good sense. Even though to us it's a little strange. So it fits the culture of the time and the places that he was, right?

If we look at culture, even like figures of speech, one of them, we were covering figures of speech in a study years ago when Heidi and Helmut were here, and I said, you know, if we're joking with somebody in our language, we might say, well, you're pulling my leg, right? In Spanish, they say you're pulling my hair. In German, they say, you're carrying me on your arm. So the figures of speech change. And there are figures of speech, manners of speaking, that are used throughout the Bible, and they change over time. So culture. Culture includes patterns of learned human belief, values, communication, and behavior.

When Abraham's wife Sarah dies, you see there's a whole chapter of Abraham negotiating to get a cave to bury Sarah. And the guy who has a cave says, Hey, I'll give it to you. He says, Nope, nothing doing. He says, I want to pay full price. Why? If a cave was given to you, they could take it back anytime they wanted. But if you paid full price, then it was yours for keeps. So understanding the culture then makes sense. So the whole chapter is this haggling back and forth, and he uses the negotiating language of the day to get this cave that is still there and still has the remains of the patriarchs. Yes.

Yeah, if we don't understand the culture, we will interpret it from our own, and oftentimes we won't understand it. One of the points we made studying through Philippians, and they're beginning it in there, is during New Testament times, in the Greek and Roman cultures, it was considered beyond rude to thank somebody for something. I mean, we think, oh, I've got to teach my kids to say thank you. No, in that culture, it was beyond rude.

It was actually life-threatening. If I went to somebody and said thank you, they might get furious. Why? It's because if you thank a person directly and gave them credit, the gods might be jealous and therefore carry out a judgment on the person that you thank. And so it was considered fine to thank God or the gods, but not fine to thank someone directly.

So here's Paul, he writes four chapters in the book of Philippians, all to say thank you without saying thank you. Right? I thank my God for you. Right? See that? But you look throughout the New Testament, you know, we would say, well, it's good to train people to say thank you. Well, not in the New Testament times. That was considered, I always say, it's beyond rude. It's like you're inviting a death sentence on me to say thank you directly. And so Paul doesn't. But he thanks God for them.

Right? Because that's okay. Okay, cultures vary as to time and location, so are specific to a span of time and geography. What Abraham did multiple times over, and Isaac and Jacob, what they did multiple times over by the time of Moses was against the law. You want an offspring and you just kind of take your servant and say, here. You don't do that, right? So one of the things we find is culture changes over time and place. Different cultures, different times, different places. For the Jews, having multiple wives, even under the law of Moses, was allowed. But for the Greeks and the Romans, they thought that was bad. So here's an interesting thing. The Jews are allowed to do something that the Greeks and Romans were not.

Okay. Cultural insights are both provided in the text of scripture as well as derived from outside of scripture. One of the things is, here's something I found and I've never seen it anywhere other than just to observe it in scripture. And that's this. From the Old Testament into the New Testament, If something is done with God's hands, it's done in the physical realm. God made the world with his hands. This is the figure of speech.

If the Bible says, and this is true of the Old Testament and the New, if the Bible says God does something without hands, it means he does it in the spiritual realm. So when he placed you into Christ, did he do it with hands or without hands? He did it without hands, right? So you can check that out. When the New Testament or the Old Testament talks about God doing something with hands, it's physical.

It's things He makes, right? If it's in the spiritual realm, He does it without hands. So a real interesting pattern. And it's a Hebrew manner of speaking. And then outside of scripture, sometimes we look at things and it's from other studies. Yes? How does that relate to that? Like in Genesis where it doesn't really say that he made, it says that he commanded.

If God makes something or makes something happen in the physical realm, it does not always say that he does it with hands. But where it says that he does it with hands, that's referring to the physical realm. God does not have to do things with hands in the physical realm, but when it does, it's in reference to the physical realm, if it says specifically without hands, then it's in the spiritual realm. So he placed you into Christ without hands. He made the world with hands.

And it's just a figure of speech, right? So that's the interesting pattern there. So we have history, culture, and then geography. Geography is an interesting connecting point. Here you have this land called Israel, and when Abraham first goes there, who's inhabiting the land when Abraham first goes there? The Canaanites are there, and they've got their own culture, right? In fact, there's different cultures, but in general, the Canaanite culture is there. So here's Abraham goes in. Centuries later, here's Joshua goes into the land of Israel. And what are they doing? They're wiping out who? The Canaanites. They go in and God says, wipe them out, drive them out. If we get time, we'll take a look at that. So here you have the same land, but over time, things change. Other times, other lands farther away become relevant. While the first books of the New Testament were being written, the Romans were busy invading Britain. Just within a couple of decades after the New Testament was finished, the Romans were invading what is now Kuwait.

So they went into places far away from where you and I would suspect that they would go. You imagine, they had basically the southern part of Britain and Kuwait. I mean, that's a good, huge chunk of land, and a lot of the land in between, all in the one empire. Obviously, they didn't hold it.

Here is Roman Empire in 54 AD. See southern Britain? They built a wall, and the story of how they went in there is another account. They also went down into Egypt and several other countries there, into North Africa. They went up into Southern Europe, and a fair stretch in there.

Here is by 117, down by Kuwait, going through what is now Iraq, going to Kuwait, and notice they take over more land up in Britain. Now one other thing is here in this last one is the modern nation lines superimposed on top of that. So you get to see here, for example, Libya that just went through a turnover of leadership, and Egypt. So here's a little Israel here. Oh, by the way, geography.

If you're an Assyrian and you want to attack the Egyptians, which land are you going to go through? Israel, right? If you're an Egyptian and you want to take on the Babylonians, who are you going to go through? Israel yeah, so that's one of the things is Israel was between these major empires Israel was right in the middle of it.

It's just like you're gonna. You're gonna get you know in conflict with these big empires It's going to happen why? Geography is going to press the point You got the Mediterranean out on one side come out here. You got some wild desert lands Okay, and then a lot of this is just sand and Nobody fought over it. It wasn't worth fighting for, right? Okay, so why study Bible backgrounds? One of the things that Bible backgrounds does is it complements language study to help us do what Steve was pointing out, and that is to see things from the viewpoint of the original readers. When the original readers were reading this, what were they thinking? What was their perspective on these words? Here's Paul.

He wrote to three churches about, you have the adoption of sons. Now we think of adoption, we think of some cute little baby like Stella or something like that. But adoption to them was only done with adults. And it was to have an heir, right? And the adopted son had all crimes, if there were any, and all debts, however many and however large, completely wiped out. Completely forgiven of all debts and crimes.

And it was voted on at a high level. Several of the New Testament era emperors got there by adoption of sons. It was voted on by the Roman Senate, and there had to be at least seven witnesses. So this was big. Adoption of sons. I'm completely forgiven. I am phenomenally wealthy, and I've been given a high position, and I have the highest levels of approval of this adoption. So when Paul said, we have the adoption of sons, the guys are going, whoa, wait a minute. That's emperor stuff. This is really big. I'm phenomenally wealthy, and I'm given great privilege, and everything I've ever done, debts and crimes, has all been wiped off.

And so what did he do? He didn't write that to every church. He wrote it to Rome. He wrote it to Ephesus, which had a territorial governor and 3,000 Roman soldiers. And he wrote it to Galatia, that out of five cities had two that were Roman colonies. He wrote those words not just to all the churches, but to those to whom that term would have big significance because of the Roman influence.

So it fits, it fits. Secondarily, an understanding of Bible background supports the defense of the faith. Why? Because what it says is that the things that are being discovered, archaeological findings, documents, those things match up with scripture.

Just like we pointed out with that big bowl, 38-pound bowl, the backside of which is the alphabet. You know, the old idea was that, you know, no way this guy David wrote a bunch of the Psalms because all the people were ignorant back in those days. Well, then they found writing from his time, and as a matter of fact, several centuries before, even in Jerusalem. And so the idea that he was an illiterate chieftain, at best, no longer stands up. there is a great deal of confirmation of what's in Scripture.

Sometimes people use the word proof. I'll make something available to you that has proof on it. I don't care for that term because probably the word confirmation is better. Like with this ossuary that has James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. Is that really good confirmation? Yeah. Is it absolute proof? No, it's not.

It is possible that it's not the James brother of Jesus in the Bible. However, it's highly likely that that's the James, the one who wrote the book of James, the one who was the brother of Jesus that Jesus appeared to when he was resurrected, who only believed after Jesus appeared to him resurrected.

So that's one of the other things we're going to find is there's great support for what's in Scripture. In my own case, I had somebody close to me from starting in my early teen years who strongly challenged and repeatedly challenged my faith in God's Word. And so that was over 40 years ago. I spent 40 years checking and rechecking looking this stuff up and keeping up with the latest findings, and the Bible is well-confirmed. You can stand on it. You can trust it.

Okay, understanding scripture is observe, interpret, and apply. One of the things that I will say is the observing part is the one that needs to be focused on more among Christians in general. What does the Bible say? What are the things about the Bible that we can find from other sources? And let's get our full observation of everything before we draw our conclusions. Observe, interpret, apply.

We observe elements of language. In the Old Testament, it is largely Hebrew. There's also Aramaic and other languages that have an influence. In the New Testament, it is largely New Testament Greek, although occasionally other languages come into play. Here's a for instance.

Three times in the New Testament, the word paradise shows up. Jesus said what to the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise, right? Paul says when he's writing to the Corinthians, I was taken up to paradise. And John writes about it. in the book of Revelation. So those three times.

It's a Persian word. It means pleasure garden. Carried over into Greek. So it's written in Greek, but the origin of the word is Persian. Elements of history. Here is an aerial view of Philippi. The place where Paul and Silas were beaten, right here. That's the place. And the prison was over in this area. That's the spot, and again, you're looking for confirmation. There's the place. That's where he was brought before the judges and the Roman lictors came in and gave him a licking. By the way, that's where we get the term. Okay, the next one is culture. What does Paul do when he writes to the Ephesians and talks to them about spiritual warfare? The Ephesians have 3,000 Roman soldiers running around the city, right? People see him all the time. They give battle demonstrations at the theater.

So what does he do? He says, I know what I'll do. I'll write him an illustration that they'll understand well. And I'll talk about the helmet of salvation, and the belt of truth, and the sword of the spirit. Because they will have that well in their mind. That'll communicate to them.

Language, history, and culture. History and culture, of course, are what we're mostly going to focus on in our Bible background selective here. So this critical first step we call observing means looking at language and literary context. What does the language say? What does the context say? What's the background to the language? So we're going to investigate grammar and sentence structure. We're going to seek to understand the original meaning of the words in context. Context means a lot. If I spell out the word to you, B-O-W, what is that? Bow, bow, which bow? Which bow? Is it bow like bow or is it bow like bow wow?

Right? We don't know until we have what? Context. And matter of fact, I can add one word to the context and all of a sudden you'll know what I mean. If I say B-O-W and arrow, all of a sudden, ding, that's all the context you need to know which one I'm probably talking about, right? If I talk about this, if I say bow wow, Okay, he's talking about a sound a dog makes. So a lot of times the context, it may take only one word for us to figure out which definition are we talking about here. Sometimes it takes more though. Okay, we'll read the verses before and after the verse we're studying, so the immediate context, and we'll read the larger context of Scripture beyond the immediate book.

Example, Paul writes in Romans about Abraham. Who's Abraham? Where do I go to find out about that guy? I go back to Genesis, right? So the larger context of Scripture also matters, doesn't it? The next, historical and sequential context. Does it matter whether Adam or Abraham is first? Does it matter if I get those in sequence? Why does it matter? Adam sinned, right? And so if Adam comes later and Abraham is first, then Abraham is sinless, right?

Then you've got the other question of how did Abraham come to exist, right? What's interesting is the Bible describes four ways that people come into existence. Can you think of the four? Think of how was Adam created? Out of what? Out of the dust of the ground. And was anybody else created that way? Only Adam. So he's singular. How was Eve created? From Adam's ribs. And was anybody else created that way? No. So Eve is unique. How was Jesus brought into existence? Physically. by the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary, was anybody else born that way?

No. So you have three singular unique instances, and then everyone else is born the usual way. So you have that, but sequence matters. Sequence matters. Essentially you look at it, Adam first, and then Eve, then the normal way, and then the unique way that Christ came into existence. But the sequence makes a difference. How about this? You're identified with Christ and there's death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Can we scramble the sequence? Yeah, that would be bad. Here's Jesus. He's already dead. He's in the ground. We don't know why. He comes out and He's raised, and then we crucify Him.

No. The sequence matters, right? And so that's something about scripture. The sequence matters, which is one of the reasons we go through these timelines. And it does matter. So we'll look at the historical sequence of events. We'll look at the key events in scripture that change things that follow after cause and effect. Here's Adam, sins. I'm sorry you're out of the garden, right? Okay. Cause and effect. The next one, because history matters, God is the God of the past, the present, and the future. God's purpose is being fulfilled in time and space.

Ephesians 1.10 says that God is managing history.

He's managing history on this planet towards the ultimate end that everything is summed up in Christ. He's saying, oh man, we've got these crazy politicians and they're doing crazy stuff. And then we think of the Middle East and it's just mayhem here and nonsense there. And you think, oh, this place is just bananas. But God is managing everything. He is the God of the past, the present, and the future. He's managing everything so that everything will be summed up in Christ.

Even if it looks crazy until then. Okay. The final thing is the cultural context. If I talk to you and I say, you know, when I was a kid, I used to call up George Washington on my cell phone all the time. You're going to go, hmm. How many screws does that guy have loose, right? Because there's a bunch of things that don't make sense about that.

The cultural context, we want to put the thing together so that it does make sense. And we read between language, history, and culture. We read the letters the way they were read and the way they were intended to be understood at the time and to the people to whom they were written. We understand it the way they read it. Here's the Apostle John. He's writing the seven messages to the churches. The seventh one is to Laodicea.

Laodicea got its water from across this valley through a pipe that went underground. And across the valley, it was really hot, Hierapolis. By the time it got over to them, it was lukewarm. Oh, they also, because of the water and the minerals in the water, had a clay that they would mix up with olive oil and it was used for an eye salve. Oh, one other thing. They had wool that was a very special wool that was highly regarded. Highly regarded wool. It was like the gold standard for the best wool that there ever was.

So what does Jesus talk to them about when John writes that message to the church at Laodicea? He talks about, you know, I will spew you out of my mouth because you're lukewarm. He says, you think that you're rich and you think you're doing fine and you see, but you're blind and naked. Famous for your eye salve?

Yeah. Do you see spiritually? No. Everything that's referenced fits the time and history and culture. No exceptions. Every single thing. It hits them right between the eyes. Because they're thinking, oh boy, we're rich. We are well off. We've got all the right stuff. We've got all the answers for everybody. And he says, you guys have nothing. Everything that was written in that message fits the people, and the time, and the culture.

So we examine the culture of the nations, regions, and communities in the Bible. We look for cultural insights into the meaning and significance of the words, and we check to see if there are applications to our own lives and churches because of the cultural context of the words in each Bible passage. So we look at language and literary contexts, historical and sequential contexts, and the cultural context. And again, the last two will be the ones we primarily focus on.

Together, these allow us to arrive at the true meaning of the text. Can people have all kinds of opinions? Yeah. But really, this process is a matter of being thorough. It's a matter, again, what's the point? We want to place ourselves into the same understanding that the original authors and readers of those passages have. I will say here, does it help to know that?

For example, Genesis 5-1 says this is the book of the generations of Adam. Then there's this little tiny, less than a chapter. You say, what? That's not much of a book, right? The only thing is, when we talk about book, we usually think of this, right? They're using the word book to translate anything that's in writing. And remember that little piece of pottery that had Goliath's name scratched on it? That would be called a book. So when we see book in the English, well, let's put it this way.

There's almost certain that no author of any book of the Bible ever saw something like this. These were invented where you have a, you know, coming on one side, you know, together and open otherwise. These were invented right after the Bible was finished. So when they say book, they almost certainly never saw anything like this.

So when they say book, it's not implying that it's a book like we have here in the pews. Our English Bibles use the word book for almost any written document. So that's, again, part of the cultural understanding. We get bound on one edge. Bible books included clay tablets, scrolls, and sealed papyri. You know, throw the book at you means something weighing about 30 pounds might be coming at you, right, and made out of clay or rock. So a whole different idea. We have culturally the idea of a book like this.

They never saw that. The Canaanites were spiritually and morally corrupt in the extreme. In fact, people have screamed and hollered and yelled, genocide! The Jews went in there and just killed off the Canaanites. They were just terrible. It needs to be understood here. They had spiritually corrupt practices targeted, and I give some references there.

Here's Deuteronomy 12.31 that warns them, don't do this. The Canaanite religious rituals included child sacrifice, some of it in fire. They would take their firstborn child and bring it to the god Molech, which is a large, usually metal god with a fire in it, and you burn the baby. Disgusting, isn't it?

That's what they did regularly. Incest was also common, and bestiality. Well, one record of a fellow who said he interrupted a business meeting, he says, excuse me, I need to go have sex with my bull. Yeah. Homosexuality, and then male and female cultic prostitution. We have this, you know, temple or whatever you got there, and then both males and females. Here, for example, is a painting depiction of parents bringing their baby to be burned to the god Molech.

Yes. No. Esau, those were the Edomites and, pardon? Let's see, if you look at Canaan, you know, you look at the genealogies coming from Noah and Canaan's like the, you know, two generations after Noah. And that's the source. Yes. Yeah. OK. So anyway, there's there's a great deal there that is that is described. Don't copy their practices. Don't allow them to perpetuate this. Don't adopt it or adapt it or accommodate it in any way. We have the Lord's Prayer. I'm kind of giving you samplings here.

The Lord's Prayer. And of course, today, boy, that's said in so many churches of all kinds. You sit there and you say the Lord's Prayer. Well, one thing, It is basically a reproduction of two Jewish prayers that were combined. prayers that were said among the Jews in Israel during New Testament times. One of them is, it goes like this, this was said in the synagogue.

Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world which he created according to his will. May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon. Praise be his great name from eternity to eternity and to this say amen. Here is another one, the morning and evening prayer.

Bring me not into the power of sin, and not into the power of guilt, and not into the power of temptation, and not into the power of anything shameful." Essentially, the Lord's Prayer is a combination of two Jewish prayers for the day. But, we examine the context.

The Jews are addressed as a group quite apart from the Gentiles as we go through the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, don't do like the Gentiles do, right? When you go and make your offering, what do they mean? You make your offering in Jerusalem, right? So it's specific to the Jews.

The Gentiles are a group apart. The Mosaic Law is a major subject in the Sermon on the Mount, where the Lord's Prayer is found, versus Romans 6, 14, 15, which says twice, we're under grace, not under law. After the context of the Lord's Prayer of the Twelve, then Christ himself is said to be sent to the lost sheep of Israel, explicitly not to the Gentiles. Very interesting.

So what do the Gentiles do? They sit there and repeat the Lord's Prayer Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, right? Okay, here's the book of Revelation. What you have is the book of Revelation, people read through it, and they look at the descriptions, and they say, oh, what is this?

Here's Jesus, and his hair is all white like wool, and his eyes are bright like the sun, and you start to put, what does that look like together? And he says, well, he looks like a freak. So I tell you, he's got a five-foot-long barbarian sword hanging out of his mouth. That looks freaky.

Well, here's the deal. We, having more of a Greek tradition, we say, what does that look like? That's our thought. And so we look at that and say, well, this is really weird. There's this guy that has a five foot long barbarian sword hanging out of his mouth. His eyes are bright like the sun. His hair looks like he's plugged into a wall socket, right?

So we say that looks weird, but the Jewish tradition is what does it mean, not what does it look like. What does it mean, not what does it look like. So there would be a tendency then to look at what is the meaning of each one of those things and put that together, not when I put the composite of the description together, what does it look like. So that's a matter of observing culturally, not according to our own culture, which tends to follow in the Greek pattern. So we sing a song this morning, what are we going to do? We're going to make the words rhyme. In the Hebrew songs, what happens? They don't make the words rhyme, they make the meanings of the words rhyme, not the sounds. Next week, the big picture in Bible history and geography. I'm going to do one more thing, and that is to have you pass along, if any of you would like to have Bible backgrounds fully loaded, I'm going to give you all kinds of things, extra things.

If you're interested, please sign up for it and leave me your email address if you possibly have one. If you're not interested, that's fine. If you don't want to sign up for me, because I'll email you things and give you things. And the first thing I'm going to give you is, so feel free to take one.

This is a nice color pamphlet shows archaeological findings of the Old Testament. So, anyway, yes. Did they find some kind of tablets or some kind of writing all the way back to the throne presence or like a time paper? Oh, yeah. Yes, there are writings from a thousand years before David. But in earlier decades, a lot of those were not known yet or well understood.

Take care of that and just go ahead and pass that around so everybody has one. Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the things that you've provided for us and given to us to understand your word and we just give you thanks for that. We entrust the rest of our study and our time into your hands. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.