Jims Exegesis Podcast - The Old Testament

Jim's Exegesis Podcast discusses biblical works, with the Old Testament being the focus of this episode. The Old Testament covers various events and periods, such as creation, Abraham's journey, the Exodus, the united monarchy, the division of tribes, defeats by Assyrians and Babylonians, the exile period in Babylon, the Persian period, and the Hellenistic period. The Old Testament draws on the culture and literature of the ancient Near East and shares similarities with other texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt. It also discusses the grouping of books in the Old Testament, which is different in the Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible. The breakdowns of the books are more for easy understanding and study, not necessarily inherent in the text itself. Welcome to Jim's Exegesis Podcast, where various biblical works are examined, interpreted and explained by James Lewis. So welcome to the podcast. Today I'm joined by my son Josh. Hello Josh. Hello. How are you going? I'm very well thanks. Today, as you know, we're going to be doing a podcast on the Old Testament. Very small subject that we can quickly get through I'm sure. Unfortunately we are limited by time and I'm sure that we could spend hours speaking about the Old Testament. But today we're going to do a very brief summary. Sounds good. Let me just set you up with a narrative involving the people of the Old Testament. Very brief. Look, creation's at the start of the story. It's set in Mesopotamia. Garden of Eden, Tigris, Euphrates River. We skip along to Abraham at that time and he was in Mesopotamia and he departed looking for new lands. Now that was all before 1500 BC. He eventually went to Canaan, found Canaan, loved it there. But he had a promise made by God to him that his descendants would inherit Canaan, would inherit that land. Well, anyhow, things changed through famine and all the rest. And his family, well, descendants, all ended up in Egypt and ended up in captivity in Egypt. And that was between 1500 and 1240 BC. Then the story jumps to the Exodus leading to Exodus out of slavery in Egypt. Moses took all the children of Israel out into the desert and eventually they conquered the land and took over the land. And that was between 1200 and 1000 BC. So it became a united monarchy, but the whole area was under the kingship of Saul and then David and Solomon between 1025 and 928. But there was a division between the tribes, the northern tribes stuck with the name Israel and in the south around Jerusalem named Judah. Between 922 to 586 that you had this separation. Israel was defeated by the Assyrians in about 721 BC and Judah ultimately defeated by Babylon in 586. Which meant that there was an exile period between 586 and 537. That exile period was where the Jewish people were in Babylon. Following on from that there was a Persian period between 539 which went to 333. Some of the exiles returned to the land and others dispersed into different lands and that was called the Diaspora. And then there was the Hellenistic period which is the period pretty much leading up to when the New Testament starts. And that Hellenistic period is beyond the scope of the Old Testament. Yes, I mean we can talk a bit about the Apocrypha. Yes, you're right. The Hellenistic period is at the end of when the Old Testament was written and sort of the in-between times. So about 300 odd years between testaments. The story goes back beyond prehistory, pre-antiquity, the creation story. But the Old Testament is set in the context of the ancient Near East. And that includes modern day countries, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and parts of Turkey and Iran. There was a lot of other entities as well as some of these. We've touched on the Egyptians and the Assyrians but others come into play. The Babylonians, Persians, the Greeks but there was also the Hittites which were located in modern Turkey. Phoenicians and much smaller ones too. I think in Joshua 12 it talks about 31 regional kings that were defeated by Moses. And of course when they did get into the Promised Land there were the Philistines that were part of that sea people group that had come in. And that actually pretty much overcome the Canaanites. It was the Philistines that they were fighting with. And we know those stories from the Goliath story, Samson and Delilah. The shifting dominance of these powers changed political and social conditions which affected the world of the Old Testament. The Old Testament draws on the culture and literature of many in the ancient Near East. Let's look at some cultural and literary parallels in the ancient Near East. Because the Old Testament does share many features with other ancient Near East texts. There are creation stories from Mesopotamia like the Enuma Elish. Parallel but definitely not the same. But there's flood narrative and that's from the Epic of Gilgamesh. And that's something which talks about a great flood and a survivor who builds a boat and saves it with animals. So there's a lot of similarities there. There's also law codes too that are very similar. There's the Code of Hammurabi shows similarities with laws found in the Pentateuch such as retribution. Biblical wisdom literature also has features that are identified with Egyptian texts such as the instruction of Amenemope of around 1200 BC. One of the things that the really great translators, they don't just look at the Jewish text. They also look at the texts of Akkadian and Ugaritic culturally relevant because they're Semitic languages. So there are obviously similarities. But they look into it and they can see it's really important that we do acknowledge that there was a big influence on the Old Testament by these earlier civilizations. A bit like how you could compare Old English with Old German and these sort of languages and the texts that were written in that time. That's right. Exactly. There were unique aspects about Israelite culture and religion. But the difference is that there were many deities involved in those cultural and literary parallels. Whereas Judaism ultimately became monotheistic, a personal god, and it punished those who worshipped or wanted to worship other gods. Not that the Jews were the only ones that had a personal god. In Persia they had Zoroastrianism, which is a monotheistic theme. For a time in Egypt, they worshipped the sun god. Monotheism wasn't a unique thing to the Jews, of course. I think one of them as well is all these other cultures, they deify the leader as a god. So the king takes on this god space. Whereas in ancient Israel and throughout the Old Testament, you see the king seen through a very human lens. Yes. And even as not being God's best plan as sort of given to the Israelites because that's what they were desiring. That's right. God's plan was always that he was to be king. And he knew the troubles that making a king would bring, for sure. Okay. Let's talk a bit about the content and maybe the grouping of the books in the Old Testament. Those books, the number of books, they're pretty much put together in probably the second temple period as a collection. I mean, it's written down. There'd be a tradition where a lot of those stories would have been orally passed down. And there would have been maybe some written stuff. But to bring it all together as the Bible, I think it was the end result of a long process. And it's obviously the Jewish Bible to start with, Tanakh. And it's broken down. They break their books down into pretty much three different areas. They have the Torah, the law, the Nevi'im, prophets, and the Ketim, the writings. The Torah is what we call the Pentateuch. It's the first five books of the Bible. And that's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And that is the first five books of the Christian Bible. In fact, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, they have that same five books like that. Brett Straughan, who's a theologian, he said a simple way to break things down is to say that the Jewish Bible, the Torah, is talking about the divine creation and commands of God. And then the prophets talk about God's judgment. And the writings is basically life with God. So it's just a very simplistic way of putting it. The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, contains 39 books. I learned early on that it's not a linear book. It's not like it starts with creation and then we sort of went a bit through the history early. Tanakh doesn't follow that theme. The books do jump from different times and they leave out big slaves of time. Look, for just an example, and we'll probably get to a bit later on, the Jewish Bible has all the same books but in a different order. And like, for example, the Old Testament, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, is sort of in the middle of being in the promised land, whereas the Jewish Bible has it right at the very end. Yeah, I know that's something that, as you read, say, through 1st and 2nd Kings, and then, as you're saying, 1st and 2nd Chronicles comes straight after it in the Christian Bible. It sort of repeats all this stuff and you think, why haven't we just read this? But in the Hebrew, in the Tanakh, you have the 1st and 2nd Kings very early on, and then you have 1st and 2nd Chronicles at the very end, and so it's sort of like a bookmark. It's sort of bookends, sorry, not bookmark, bookends, a big section of the Tanakh. So you're reminded once again of the reign. Yeah, that's true too. I mean, Chronicles is very much like Kings. However, Kings is in the Prophets, whereas Chronicles is part of the writings. The Old Testament does have the same books as the Jewish Bible. It breaks things down into a perpetitude, the historical books, wisdom literature, and prophets. Just a question. Yeah. So for Christians, those breakdowns, they're not really baked into the Bible. They're sort of how theologians and people who study it break it down for easy understanding of studying. I think so. Probably more so than the Jewish Tanakh whose books are grouped specifically, whereas... Yes, the Christians, we don't have that. Because the Tanakh spells out the... That's true. That's true. I've heard some different things for wisdom literature. Do you put Psalms in there, or is that a separate... Is that like a poetic one? I've seen... Yeah. A lot more. Yeah. Well, certainly in the Jewish Bible, where do Psalms sit? Psalms sit in the... In the writings? Yes, they are. Of course. They're part of the writings. Whereas in the Christian breakdown, if you like, they're in the wisdom literature. Which, to me, it's funny, things like Psalms and Lamentations, to me, are sort of similar. There's like a third of the Psalms are laments, and there's all this. And I thought, well, yeah, surely they're in the same genre. But the Tanakh puts Lamentations in the writings, where the Christian Bible has Psalms in wisdom, Lamentations in prophets. And from a Jewish context, Lamentations is part of what's called the Megalof, which is in the writings, which is Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes. And I guess they're all pretty much related to Jewish festivals. So there's those books, and that's pretty much it. And look, Lamentations, there's actually a pretty good reference. If you look at 2 Chronicles 35-25, I might get you to read it out, Josh. Sure. New American Standard Bible. Okay. This is what it says, 2 Chronicles 35-25. Then Jeremiah chanted a song of mourning for Josiah, and all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their songs of mourning to this day, and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are also written in the Lamentations. So you can see that Lamentations, you know, they really do relate to that time that Josiah was defeated and which led to the exile. And so when theologians are trying to work out when these things were written, they pretty much say, well, the Book of Lamentations, it really does relate to that exile, exilic period. Okay. The Psalms are different. They have many authors over a large time period. Some of the Psalms can be attributed to David himself, or they can be – Moses. Yeah, there's a lot of different – but Lamentations is pretty much, yes, an exilic sort of thing. The Catholic Bible and the Orthodox Church, pretty much the same as the Protestant Bible. A few ex books in it that Protestants do not have, which are not included in the Tanakh. These are the apocryphal writings that relate to the Hellenistic period. We'll return to the podcast after this short break. But look, within the Bible, there are a number of genres. Among them, there is a poetic genre. Because let's look at poetry in the Bible, different than modern poetry. Modern poetry really much depends on rhyme and rhythm. Whereas the biblical poetry, it relies on parallelism, terseness, word pairs, analogy. It is different than the poetry that we're sort of used to in our society. You see poetry in the Psalms. There is actually 150 Psalms in the Bible. And as I mentioned a bit earlier, about a third of them are laments. But it's interesting to note that there is an apocryphal Psalm 151, which is basically attributed to a young David, just after he's defeated Goliath. So it's a good story, and it's very parallel to the actual... Is that in any of the Catholic or the Orthodox? I'm pretty sure it's in the Orthodox Church. They have a Psalm 151, which is interesting. Other sub-genres include songs, curses, blessings, prayers, and parables. But this poetry, it's found in wisdom literature. So it's in Proverbs. It's found in Job, Ecclesiastes. It's also found in prophetic books like Zion, Jeremiah, Jonah. So there's a lot of poetry going through the Bible. We've also got a prose genre, which is more the narrative. But it covers so many different sorts of sub-genres, like the law, legend, sagas, romances, satire, myth, folk ties, etiology, genealogy, historical Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. And there's the legal texts, the law and Leviticus, Deuteronomy, parts of Exodus and Numbers. And then there's prophetic narratives. So there's stories about prophets like Elijah and Elisha and kings. And then there's also apocalyptic literature. There are different theological perspectives in the Old Testament. Things that affirm foundations within it, like belief in one God. That's central. Things that I've always found interesting is that there are a number of names for God. It's not just, you know, there's Elohim and there's Yahweh, there's Adon, there's El Hashem, and they're all written. But you can sort of say that that reflects a bit like you and me. You know, if we're talking about God, I'm talking about God. But if I'm talking to God, I might call him Father or I might call him Lord. So a bit like the difference between a name and a title? Yeah, there is name and title. And I think it also reflects your relationship too. The Old Testament includes the name which should not be spoken, Yahweh, which is usually read as Elohim or Lord. Hashem. Yeah, or Hashem, the name, that's right. But that is a deeply personal covenant name of God. It's just interesting that even though there is one God there, you can see a number of these names of God. Covenant theology within the Old Testament is that special relationship we've got between God and Israel, as we spoke about, you know, his promises to Abraham. But he also had covenants with Noah, you know. I think it was the first covenant, God made this covenant. The rainbow. Yeah, that's right. And when you look to the rainbow, you'll remember, and I'll never destroy mankind. Yes. By flight. Yes. Again. And then David as well, there's a covenant made with David. Yes. For his family. Yeah. And someone from the line of David would always be on the throne. That's right. Yeah, exactly. And there was a covenant with Moses made at Mount Sinai. But God has made covenants. And once a covenant is made, God makes a covenant. He's not going to break it. It's firm. You know, there's no question about it because God is, you know, it's just not in his nature whatsoever. Whereas probably in humanity, we have got that in our nature. We've got a sinful nature. So if any covenant is going to be broken, it's not going to be by God. It's going to be by us. Again, getting back onto the different perspectives, there's wisdom theology. So reflections on life and suffering, nature of God. We find that in Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There's a prophetic there that emphasizes a lot of different things, social justice, repentance, coming to God's kingdom, the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophets. Yeah, there's just so many theological perspectives. The Old Testament sounds like a very Jewish book. That reminds me a little bit about something I read in the old Chambers Encyclopedia I have from the middle 1800s, which basically said that the first duty of an impartial critic of this question is to lay aside both of the extreme and untenable opinions regarding the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. So first, that is, that it's come down to us in an absolutely faultless condition by miraculous preservation. Or that it has been willfully and unscrupulously falsified by the Jews. So what's the relevant answer to that? Well, it certainly leads to the New Testament. The funny thing is, a lot of Christians you speak to and they say, the Old Testament is irrelevant, it's a Jewish, it was written for the Jewish people. We all know that Jesus came and it's a new covenant for everyone, not just for the Jews. So the Old Testament is irrelevant. It's a heresy. But the thing is, people do sort of say that. It's the New Testament. Why would I read Leviticus? Why would I do that? But you've got to step back and say, what was Jesus reading? What was Jesus' testament? He was along the Tanakh. Jesus affirms the whole of the Old Testament as scripture, doesn't he? Oh, for sure. And the early church too. You know, like reading the Old Testament. There was no New Testament. The New Testament came in its form much later on. But within the Book of Acts, we see a reflection of Old Testament themes. They were all gathered together in one place for the Pentecost. You know, this is an Old Testament feast. They're not just gathered there because, I mean, Jesus had told them, I want you to wait until I see my helper. However, it was part of the Pentecost. Sure. And look, you know, there are things like the tongues of fire. Well, you can think of a lot of things. You can think of Mount Sinai when Moses, you know, the top of it is ablaze. And a mighty rushing wind allude to wind or the breath of creation. And they all started speaking in other tongues. That's the reverse of Babel, you know. So the whole thing is, it's the Old Testament coming to life in the New Testament. So we can understand the New Testament. Is the Bible of the Old Testament, is it man's effort to find God or is it God's effort to reveal himself? So we could find God or is it written, you know, God's inspired all these different writers to write, so he's revealing himself. And I go with the latter. I think God is just so desperate to get back into a relationship with us that he ensured that the scriptures were written. The Old Testament reveals our origins, provides numerous perspectives to help us lead a fulfilling life. Look, rather than being a dead Jewish fork, it's a reminder that God has a path for us as humans and that he constantly guides us back to it when we stray. Thanks, Josh, for coming. It's been a pleasure. I'm pretty sure we've covered everything. Do you think there's even anything we haven't covered? Like I said, it's the Old Testament. I thought this was part one of verses. Yeah, well it sort of, it could be just like an introduction. We could start, let's start next week. Next week we start with creation.