& make it worthwhile

How to Read the Bible

Old Testament: A story of what God can do with an ent ire race of people

New Testament: A story of what God can do on His own and stories that fo l low of another race of people

A Look at two authors & the fi rst 2 steps of Bib le Reading

Tonight

A nifty tool to make your reading exciting. Isaiah 60, Ephesians 5 & Mark 12

Week 2

The big NOW WHAT?!

Week 3

A Story of What God Can Do with a Particular Group of People within their Culture & Ethnicity

Old Testament

66 Books = 39 Books in the Old Testament & 27 Books in the New Testament

~39 authors spanning ~1500 years

Many middle eastern cultures, ethnic interactions and overlap (borrowing)

Lots of changes both socially and anthropoligically

“God inspired”

Before We Begin – Some Premises

Bible

Tradition

Existing Texts &

Resources

Reason

Experience

Genesis - Creation Stories Pre-existed

Humans were not created to be slaves for gods but caretakers & dominion over creation, creating order and beauty out of chaos

Humans and all of creation were created intentionally and not by accident

All of creation is good

Humans and God were in tight friendship not a master & slave relationship

Humans’ pursuit of autonomy led to the fall

God created the world, the story was Israel’s best “guess” based on what they knew but also because of their experience of God’s goodness and love, they made modifications and compiled their own creation story that reflects God’s goodness and love, humans’ self centred behavior and the consequences of their behavior.

Differences

When Reading Old Testament, first, Google the author. – Good Ol’ Mo • Born in the Land of Goshen

• Raised and educated as an Egyptian royalty

• Spouse Zipporah of Midian

• Parents Jochebed and Amram

• Siblings: Aaron and Miriam

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Children of Israel, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might help Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed, and the child was adopted as a foundling by the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered the God of Israel in the form of a "burning bush".

God sent Moses back to Egypt to request the release of the Israelites. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land.

Let’s Analyze Moses

Genesis, Exodus,

Leviticus, Numbers &

Deut

Tradition – Egyptian,

Goshen, Wife & Surrounding

Land

Literature: Egyptian,

Ancient Near East, Meso, Wife’s folk

religion

Reason: Theocracy,

Education, & Folk Religion

Experience: Exodus, Egyptian Culture,

Royalty, High Education, Folk Religion, sheep

and Meso Climates

Among the early followers and apostles of Jesus, Matthew is mentioned in Mt 9:9 and Mt 10:3 as a former tax collector from Capernaum who was called into the circle of the Twelve by Jesus. He is also named among the number of the Twelve, but without identification of his background, in Mk 3:18, Lk 6:15 and Acts 1:13. He is called Levi, son of Alpheus, in Mk 2:14 and Lk 5:27. He may have collected taxes from the Hebrew people for Herod Antipas.[1][2][3] Matthew was called by Jesus of Nazareth to be one of the Twelve Disciples.[2][4][5][6][7]According to the New Testament he was one of the witnesses of the Resurrection and the Ascension

Matthew was a 1st-century Galilean (presumably born in Galilee, which was not part of Judea or the Roman Iudaea province) and the son of Alpheus.[4] During the Roman occupation (which began in 63 BC with the conquest of Pompey), Matthew collected taxes from the Hebrew people for Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee. His tax office was located in Capernaum. Jews who became rich in such a fashion were despised and considered outcasts. However, as a tax collector he would have been literate in Aramaic and Greek.[1][8][9][10][11]

Although the first of the Synoptic Gospels is technically anonymous,[17]

 traditionally the Gospel of Matthew was held to be written by the apostle. [18] As a government official in Capernaum, in "Galilee of the Gentiles", a tax-collector would probably have been literate in both Greek and Aramaic. [19] Greek was the language used in the market-place.[20] Some early church fathers recorded that Matthew originally wrote in "Hebrew", but still regarded the Greek text as canonical.[21]

When Reading New Testament Google the Author – Good Ol’ Matt

Let’s Analyze Matt

Gospel of

Matthew

Tradition – Capernaum, 1st Century Jewish Tradition and 1st Century

Greek Tradition

Literature: Old Testament in both Hebrew and Greek, Apocrypha, Septuagint, Dead Sea

Scrolls

Reason: Plato, Aristotle, Greek

Philosophy, Theocracy,

Jesus, Education, & Folk Religion

Experience: followed Jesus, witnessed the crucifixion and resurrection, wars, Roman

authority, educated

1. Read the entire book

2. Mapping: segment the passages, come up with a one-two word theme, write a 1 sentence summary, pose a question that the author is trying to answer.

3. Highlight any repeated themes. Repeated themes are to be read together

Step 1: Get to know the forest

1. Google the author (yes, it’s okay to Google)

2. Take note of everything that affects tradition, experience, reason and resources

3. Go back to map and add additional column: what part may play a role in this passage (tradition? Prior experience? Scripture? Reason? Or All of the above?)

Step 2: Get to know the author