What is the Bible?
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Last week we briefly covered the makeup of the Bible and discussed how we got the English translation. This week we’ll dig a little deeper into What the Bible actually is.
We know its a collection of books and letters combined in the old and new testament. It was written by over 40 authors from all walks of life. It is inspired by God. And, although the old and new testaments were written over 1,500 years, it still has a unified story with a common thread of thought.
There are two guys in Portland that started a ministry called The Bible Project. They produce animated videos about the Bible; I think they’re amazing.
They have created a series called How to Read The Bible, and I’ll use some of their videos and study throughout our series; The Bible.
Let’s watch episode one now.
H2R01 Episode 1 video
I know, a lot of information in a short amount of time. I think that’s why I enjoy these videos so much.
The guy with the funny-sounding voice it Tim Mackey, he was a teaching pastor in Portland before he co-founded this ministry. He has a podcast of some of his past sermons called, “Exploring My Strange Bible” if you’re interested.
Quick question. Don’t raise your hand, though.
Do you get the majority of your spiritual influence/direction/teaching from a weekly church service?
Don’t raise your hand.
If you do, if you rely on a Sunday morning service to get you through the week, you’re not going to mature spiritually they way you should.
If they only time you read the Bible or hear teaching about the Bible is from a 25-35 minute weekly message, you’ll become malnourished and ineffective.
Think about the images you’ve seen of starving kids in a war-ravaged 3rd world country. You’ll be a spiritual version of that.
As we’re taking a journey through the Bible this year, my prayer is that you’ll find a new love for God’s word. And start to read it with enjoyment while letting God direct your steps of life.
Okay, let’s recap what we learned from the video.
TaNaK is an acronym for the Jewish Bible representing the three major divisions. Christians know this section as the Old Testament.
Jewish Bible image
Torah = The Law - also know as Pentateuch, which means “five books.” This is the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Nevi’im = The Prophets - Historical books that tell Israel’s story from a Prophets point of view. Then the poetic texts from the Prophets. Then we have “The Twelve,” which are the minor prophets, Hosea through Malachi.
Ketuvim = The Writings - a collection of poetic books, wisdom books, and more narrative.
The Tanak is an epic story of how God is using these people to bring order and beauty out of the chaos of our world.
As we’ll see, God creates Adam and Eve to his image-bearers, to rule and manage the world in peace and harmony. They mess it up majorly.
God calls a man named Noah and his family to be the next image-bearers. Instead of spreading across the earth, his descendant’s decision to build a great name for themselves. So, God confuses their language and spreads them out across the earth himself.
He calls another man and his wife to be his image-bearers, Abram and Sarai and promises to make a great nation from their descendants. This nation becomes known as Israel; Gods chosen people, to be His image-bearers. They fail miserably.
This is the story of the Tanak, the Old Testament. Throughout the old testament, God begins to offer hope of a coming image-bearer that will be successful in leading the world in peace and harmony. And then God is silent for 400 years. No one has come.
That’s when we get introduced to a poor and humble man from Nazareth, a small, poor village in northern Israel. He seems to be this promised image-bearer.
He does some pretty amazing things and makes some incredible proclamations. He is ultimately claiming to be God. This gets him tortured and executed by means of a criminals death.
But his followers claim he rose from the dead and begin documenting this movement that he started. Ultimately, ending with the vision of his return as chef image-bearer, reclaiming the disinherited nations, and recreating the perfect world that has been broken for so many years.
While the Bible is one unified story, it cannot all be read in the same way.
While the Bible is one unified story, it cannot all be read in the same way.
As we’ll see, the Bible is one unified story, but it cannot all be read in the same way.
This is where paying attention is school comes in handy.
One story, many styles.
One story, many styles.
43% of the Bible is made up of narrative
The Bible can be broken into several categories of writing. Approximately 43% of the Bible is made up of narrative, from historical narrative to parables.
33% of the Bible is poetry
Roughly 33% of the Bible is poetry, including songs; reflective poetry; and passionate, politically resistant poetry of the prophets.
24% of the Bible is prose discourse
The remaining 24% of the Bible is prose discourse, including laws, sermons, letters, and even an essay.
Prose discourse is essays and articles, it's purpose is to get you to do something, to persuade you that you need to make certain kinds of choices.
The Bible is an ancient Jewish collection of sacred literature made up of many different literary styles. Each biblical book uses a combination of all the literary techniques to make its unique contribution to the story of the Bible.
But that is for another day.
Let’s pray.