A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Bible

Introduction to the Bible: Importance and Impact

• The Bible’s Dual Nature: It is the most commonly purchased, widely read, and deeply cherished book in Western civilization, yet it is simultaneously the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misused.
• Reasons for Mandatory Study:
  • Religious Reasons:
    • Revered as the word of God by many to determine belief and lifestyle.
    • Vast influence on social good (e.g., “love your neighbor as yourself” and the Golden Rule).
    • Used historically for harmful purposes: justifying Crusades, Inquisitions, American slavery, white supremacy, and the oppression of women and gays.
    • The text contains inherent violence, such as the slaughter of Canaanites in Joshua and the destruction of humanity in Revelation.
  • Historical Reasons:
    • Christianity (which grew out of Judaism) has had the single greatest impact on Western civilization culturally, socially, politically, and economically.
    • No institution matches the organized Christian church in wide-ranging impact.
  • Literary Reasons:
    • Essential for understanding Western literature (Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot).
    • Contains literary masterpieces: Genesis (origins), Psalms (poetry), Job (suffering), Isaiah (prophecy), John (divine portrayal of Jesus), Romans (theology of Paul), and Revelation (apocalypse).

Statistics on Bible Ownership and Readership

• Sales Data: The Bible is the bestselling book annually ($25$ million copies sold in the United States in $2005$).
• Ownership: $9$ out of $10$ American households own at least one copy; the average household owns $4$.
• Readership (Gallup Poll $2000$):
  • $16 \%$ read the Bible every day.
  • $21 \%$ read it at least once a week.
  • $12 \%$ read it at least once a month.
  • Result: Fully half ($50 \%$) of the United States population reads the Bible monthly.
• Belief (Recent Gallup Data):
  • $3$ in $10$ ($30 \%$) believe the Bible is the absolute word of God to be interpreted literally.
  • $5$ in $10$ ($50 \%$) believe it is the word of God but not to be taken literally.
  • Total: $80 \%$ of Americans believe the Bible is the inspired word of God.

Defining and Structuring the Bible

• Definition: A collection of $66$ separate books (in the standard Protestant canon) dealing with ancient Israel and early Christianity.
• The Concept of Canon: Derived from the Greek word for ‐ruler‐ or ‐measuring rod‐; it refers to a recognized, authoritative body of literature.
• The Two Main Canons:
  1. Hebrew Bible (Jewish Scriptures/Old Testament): $39$ books originally written in Hebrew.
  2. New Testament: $27$ books originally written in Greek.

Structure of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)

• The English Bible Organization ($39$ books total):
  • Historical Books ($17$ books):
    • Pentateuch/Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deals with creation, the founding of Israel, and the Law of Moses.
    • Other History ($12$ books): Joshua through Esther. Covers the Promised Land, the United/Divided Monarchy (Israel in the North, Judah in the South), the Assyrian/Babylonian conquests, and the return from exile.
  • Poetic Books ($5$ books): Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs.
  • Prophetic Books ($17$ books):
    • Major Prophets ($5$ books): Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel (classified by length, not importance).
    • Minor Prophets ($12$ books): Hosea through Malachi.
• The Hebrew Bible Organization (Tanakh) ($24$ books total):
  • Torah: Law.
  • Nevi’im (Prophets): Includes Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) and Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and ‐The Twelve‐).
  • Kethuvim (Writings): Includes the remaining $11$ books.
• The Apocrypha/Deuterocanon: Additional books (e.g., Tobit, Judith, $1$ and $2$ Maccabees) included in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles but excluded from Protestant and Jewish canons.

Structure of the New Testament

• The Gospels ($4$ books): Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Describe the beginnings of Christianity (Life of Jesus).
• Acts ($1$ book): Acts of the Apostles. Describes the spread of Christianity.
• The Epistles ($21$ books): Personal letters regarding beliefs and ethics.
  • Pauline Epistles: $13$ letters attributed to the Apostle Paul.
  • General Epistles: $8$ letters by other apostolic figures.
• Revelation ($1$ book): The Apocalypse of John. Describes the culmination of Christianity.

Geographical and Historical Context

• Geography: Primarily modern-day Israel and Palestine, located in the Ancient Near East/Middle East, involving Egypt, Mesopotamia (Assyria, Babylonia), Greece, and Rome.
• Citing Conventions: Book name followed by chapter and verse (e.g., Joshua $1:8$). Chapter/verse divisions are not original; chapters were added in the Middle Ages, and verses followed after the invention of printing.
• Terminology: B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) are used as inclusive alternatives to B.C. and A.D.
• Major Historical Steps:
  • Primeval History: Creation, Garden of Eden, the Flood (Noah), and the Tower of Babel.
  • Patriarchs (c. 18th Century B.C.E.): Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), and Joseph.
  • Exodus and Law (c. 13th Century B.C.E.): Moses, the deliverance from Egypt (Sea of Reeds), and the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai.
  • United Monarchy (c. 10th Century B.C.E.): Kings Saul, David, and Solomon.
  • Divided Kingdoms: Israel (North) destroyed by Assyria in $722$ B.C.E.; Judah (South) destroyed by Babylon in $586$ B.C.E.
  • Exile and Return: Persians (led by Cyrus) allow the return in $538$ B.C.E. under Ezra and Nehemiah.
  • The Messiah (c. 30 C.E.): Life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
  • Early Church (c. 60 C.E.): Missionary spread to Gentiles; imprisonment of Paul.

Political and Religious Context of Antiquity

• Political Dominance: Israel was historically weak compared to Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece (Alexander the Great, d. $323$ B.C.E.), and Rome (conquered Palestine in $63$ B.C.E.).
• General Pagan Religion Characteristics:
  • Polytheism: Worship of many gods with specific functions; tolerance for other deities.
  • Present Life Focus: Gods provided rain, crops, and health; little concern for afterlife.
  • Cultic Acts: Worship performed through sacrifice and prayer (care of the gods).
  • Missing Features: No fixed doctrines, no scripture-based ethics, and no separation of church and state.
• Distinctiveness of Israelite/Jewish Religion:
  • Monotheism: Belief in one God ($Yahweh$); early stages admitted other gods existed but forbade their worship.
  • Covenant: A unique political pact/treaty between God and Israel.
  • The Law ($Torah$): Seen as a joyous gift and directive for communal life, not a burden.
  • The Temple: Centralized worship in Jerusalem; the ‐Holy of Holies‐ was the physical dwelling of God on Earth.
  • Synagogues: Prayer gatherings that emerged after the first Temple's destruction.

Challenges to Understanding the Bible

• The Corpus: A massive collection written over a span of approximately $800$ to $900$ years.
• Original Languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Translations often lose nuance (e.g., the Hebrew ‐almah‐ meaning ‐young woman‐ vs. the Greek translation implying ‐virgin‐).
• Authorship: Many books are anonymous or potentially pseudonymous. Scholars question traditional claims that Moses wrote the Torah or that the Apostles wrote the Gospels.
• Genres: Interpreting the Bible requires recognizing forms: Myths, Legends, Epistles, Apocalypses, Gospels, Annals, and Poetry.
• Internal Tensions: Discrepancies and contradictions indicate that different authors had different purposes and viewpoints.
• Archaeology and Verification: Frequent contradictions between biblical narratives (exodus, conquest) and archaeological findings.
• Lexical Context: Phrases like ‐Son of God‐ had different meanings in Jewish (human king) vs. Pagan (demi-god) vs. later Christian (Trinity) contexts.

Textual Transmission and Accuracy

• The Problem: No original manuscripts (autographs) survive. Copies of copies contain accumulated errors.
• Hebrew Bible Manuscripts:
  • Major translations often rely on a manuscript from $1000$ C.E.
  • Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovered by a Bedouin boy; date back roughly $1000$ years earlier than previous manuscripts, showing both high accuracy and some deviations in copying.
• New Testament Manuscripts:
  • Over $5600$ partial or complete Greek manuscripts exist.
  • Significant differences exist between them; scholars must reconstruct the originals.

Academic Approaches vs. Confessional Approaches

• Historical-Literary Approach: (The focus of this study)
  • Treats the Bible as ancient literature.
  • Situates texts in their original historical/political settings.
  • Examines genre rules to determine meaning.
  • Analyzes the ‐public record‐ based on probability and examination, not supernatural appeals.
• Confessional/Devotional Approach:
  • Treats the Bible as the inspired, inerrant word of God.
  • Focuses on faith, theology, and personal guidance.
  • Accepts biblical accounts at face value.
• The Historian's Role: Historians cannot prove God's presence or the theological ‐meaning‐ of events (e.g., Jesus died for sins); they can only reconstruct what probably happened in the natural world.