Survey of the Pentateuch

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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January 31, 2022

00:01: Good evening! I don't know if we have any others coming in.
00:05: We'll leave the door open for a few minutes to to have people come in as they as they arrive, but we need to get started on time so we can end on time and that's the most important thing.
00:15: I know you guys don't want to spend all of your evening here and I have a lot to say.
00:19: So the first thing we're going to do tonight is we're actually going to start with a pop quiz.
00:24: Aren't you excited? No? Don't lie now.
00:29: Now if you were not here last week, obviously you don't have to take the pop quiz because this is questions from last week.
00:37: However, if you were here last week and you took notes, everything on this quiz is in the material that I gave last week.
00:46: It's only three questions.
00:48: So come on in.
00:49: Come on in.
00:51: It is open notes.
00:52: It's open everything.
00:53: I don't care if you use your notes, but this is the deal.
00:56: When I give you a quiz, primarily what I'm trying to see if the material, if you if it either stuck here or you wrote it down and then you can reference it.
01:05: So I'm going to walk around, pass these out.
01:07: I'm also going to put the questions on the board for anybody who may be doing this at home.
01:11: I know at least one student wasn't able to come tonight.
01:14: They're doing it at home.
01:15: So the questions will be on the board and I'm going to give you about seven or eight minutes to complete the pop quiz and then we will answer the questions in the group.
01:26: So here, I'll send these down your way.
01:28: Pass it around.
01:42: All right guys, let's go over together.
01:44: I know some of you are maybe have a little bit of difficulty, but we do need to move on.
01:51: I think I think these are all from the overheads from last week.
01:59: So very quickly, let me do, let me ask this question.
02:02: Is everybody receiving the text messages? I sent a text message out today that you, Nicole, you already told me.
02:10: Okay, you're not.
02:11: How about the email? Frank, did you get the email with my, with the, uh, but did you get the email with the screens? I sent it last Sunday night.
02:23: Okay, all right.
02:27: I sent it from my email which would have been either mkfosky at yahoo or foskyjacks.
02:32: I use a email server and sometimes it picks one or the other.
02:35: So it's either mkfosky at yahoo or foskyjacks at gmail.
02:41: Okay, well, uh, I want to make sure that everybody's receiving the emails because I'm going to just go ahead and send you all the screens.
02:52: I had so many people ask for them, it's easier to just send it out.
02:56: So if you did not receive it, let me know.
03:00: Walk over to the list.
03:01: If you didn't sign in when you came in, walk over to the list and make sure I have your email right, because if I don't, that might be the problem.
03:10: Uh, and, um, also look at your phone number.
03:14: If your phone number is incorrect, let me know about that as well.
03:17: Now, keep this in mind.
03:19: The text message does come from an 800 number because it is a texting service that I use.
03:26: I use it for our church.
03:26: I send text messages to our church two or three times a week.
03:29: So it won't be a normal 904 number.
03:32: It'll be an 877 or an eight, whatever number.
03:36: So, uh, but it'll always say Sovereign Grace Academy or it'll say Sovereign Grace Church.
03:41: Cause if you're on the academy list, you're also on our church list.
03:44: I hope that's okay.
03:45: That means you're going to get updates about church events too.
03:47: I can't separate the two.
03:48: I can't take you off one, put you on the other cause it's all one list.
03:51: All I can, I can, I can separate you and send you stuff that the church don't get, but I can't send the church stuff that you don't get.
03:56: I know it's kind of, yeah.
03:59: Okay.
03:59: Okay.
03:59: Good.
04:00: Good deal.
04:01: All right.
04:01: So let's go over the answers to the pop quiz.
04:03: Approximately how much of the new Testament is made up of quotations, allusions, or citations from the old Testament? Rebecca, about 30% is right.
04:14: The actual number on the, on the screen was 33%, but if you said anywhere near 30 to 33%, that's about right.
04:21: That's, and again, some of that's a little bit of a, some of that's a little bit of a, you know, approximating, you know, cause we start talking about allusions and citations.
04:31: Sometimes that's a little, you're not exact.
04:33: It's not an exact figure.
04:34: We say right around 33, about a third of our new Testament is made up of citations from the old Testament.
04:40: So it's one of the reasons why the old Testament is so important.
04:43: If all you ever read is the new Testament, you're still reading 30% the old Testament because that's what it's made up of.
04:49: All right.
04:49: Number two, the Christian Old Testament is organized blank.
04:53: The Hebrew Tanakh is organized more blank.
04:57: What is the answer there by show of hands, Matt? That's right.
05:02: The, the Christian Old Testament, we, we organize categorically.
05:07: It is the Pentateuch.
05:08: That's the first five books, the history books, the poetic books, and the prophetic books.
05:13: And the Tanakh is organized a little differently.
05:16: Now for extra credit, which is worth nothing, for extra credit, how many books are in the Christian Old Testament? 39.
05:26: Okay.
05:26: We'll do this next one by show of hands.
05:28: How many books are in the Hebrew Old Testament? You answered last time to Corey.
05:36: Nope.
05:37: 24.
05:38: Yep.
05:39: Now it's the same books.
05:40: They just number them differently.
05:42: Like the 12 minor prophets are one book in the Hebrew Bible.
05:46: So that immediately drops the 39 down because you start like we, they don't have first and second Samuel.
05:52: They just have the book of Samuel.
05:54: So they don't have as many books, but it's the same material.
05:58: Okay.
05:59: Third and last question on your quiz.
06:01: Roman Catholics referred to the additional books in their Old Testament as deuterocanonical, but Protestants referred to them as blank, which means hidden or of doubtful authenticity.
06:17: Okay.
06:17: Frank, you're the only one who answered, so that's fine.
06:19: What's the answer, Frank? Apocrypha.
06:22: That's right.
06:23: You won't hear a Roman Catholic call those books apocrypha because apocrypha basically means they're doubtful.
06:30: They're not accepted.
06:32: So as Protestants, we do not believe those books were ever accepted by the Jews.
06:37: So we call them apocryphal or hidden, or again, it's specifically doubtful.
06:44: But they would refer to them as deuterocanonical, which means a second canon or a second portion of the canon.
06:50: The canon, of course, being the books that are in the Bible.
06:54: All right.
06:55: Well, that is week two pop quiz from week one.
06:57: Now we start on week two, lecture two, survey of the Pentateuch.
07:04: And the Pentateuch is made up of Genesis to Deuteronomy.
07:16: So tonight we are doing our survey of the Pentateuch, which is Genesis to Deuteronomy.
07:22: And our focus tonight is going to be on three parts.
07:25: We're going to focus on the authorship of the Pentateuch.
07:30: We're going to focus on important figures within the Pentateuch.
07:36: And we are going to look at some theological insights from the Pentateuch.
07:46: And we're going to do all of that in an hour and a half.
07:50: So as I said last week, this really is one, I go fast and two, it is very much a survey.
07:57: This is not intended to dig deep, but to look broadly.
08:01: That's the difference, right? It's difference between going up on a tower and looking at a big span of area or coming down with a microscope and looking at a small area.
08:09: It's we're on top of the tower looking at the big picture.
08:14: And I do think big, big picture thinking is an important part of understanding the Bible.
08:20: Most of the people that I that I deal with who are in heretical movements or false teaching movements, get caught up in their minutia on one word or one verse or one thing that they focus on, and they miss the big picture.
08:41: And so big picture is is an important part of what we do.
08:45: All right.
08:46: The first five books of the Bible are called the Pentateuch.
08:49: The Pentateuch comes from the word tukioi, which means scrolls.
08:53: And penta means five, such as in a pentagram, which is a five point star.
08:59: And so penta tukioi or pentateuch means the five books.
09:05: These five books are also called the Torah.
09:09: The Torah means law or instruction.
09:14: Griffith Thomas says this.
09:17: The five books of the Pentateuch record the instruction of the divine religion into the world.
09:22: Each book gives one phase of God's plan, and together they constitute a real unity.
09:28: Genesis speaks of the origin of the religion and of the people of God chosen as its medium.
09:33: Exodus records the formation of the people into a nation and the establishment of God's relationship with it.
09:39: Leviticus shows the various ways in which this relationship was maintained.
09:43: Numbers shows how the people were organized for the purpose of commencing the life of divine religion in the promised land.
09:49: And this book also tells of the nation's failure and consequent consequential delay and reorganization.
09:56: Then Deuteronomy shows how the people were prepared while on the border of the promised land for entry was soon to follow.
10:03: So that's just a little paragraph on the overview of the Pentateuch.
10:08: Now, I have a question.
10:09: How many of you did the required reading? Okay.
10:15: I have been asked a few times, is the book that is our textbook required in class? And the answer is basically no.
10:23: If you want to bring the book to class, you can every once in a while.
10:27: I will reference it, but the textbook is for your personal development outside of class.
10:34: I'm not going to be doing the same thing that's in the book in the class every time because that would be redundant.
10:39: The class, the book is to give you an additional bit of information as to what we do in class.
10:45: Now there will be, certainly will be overlap, but if obviously it's a big book and you're bringing it to class every time there's a burden, you don't always have to have it, but you do need to do your readings.
10:59: So doing your readings prepares you for class.
11:04: All right.
11:05: Since the whole Bible is reliant upon these five books, and I would argue that it is, I would argue if you don't have Genesis, the Deuteronomy, you don't have a foundation for the rest of the Bible, including the New Testament.
11:20: Since the whole Bible is reliant upon these five books, it stands to reason why they are so often attacked.
11:27: If faith and the integrity and authenticity of these books could be undermined, the foundations of Christianity would be shaken, for it is dependent upon the truth of what these books proclaim.
11:38: Let me say that again a little more simply.
11:40: Christianity depends on these five books.
11:47: I believe that.
11:48: I believe that Christianity depends on the whole Bible, but specifically these five books produce the foundation that the entire faith rests upon.
12:00: In fact, I'll quote Dr.
12:02: Merrill Unger.
12:04: Dr.
12:04: Merrill Unger says this, the foundation of all revealed truth and of God's redemptive plan is based on the Pentateuch.
12:13: If this foundation is unreliable, the whole Bible is unreliable.
12:21: Now I'm going to show you a video why am I stressing this? I'm going to show you a video of what? There are teachers, Bible teachers that we should avoid.
12:34: And how do we know we should avoid them? Well, the Bible says you will know them by their fruits.
12:40: And did you know that that particular passage is referring to false teachers? If you read the specific context of that phrase, it's in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is specifically talking about false teachers.
12:53: And he says, you shall know them by their fruits.
12:57: The first fruit of the false teacher is what he teaches.
13:00: So I'm going to show you a video of a pastor.
13:03: This man commands the attention of thousands of people, both in his church and online.
13:08: And this is what he has to say about the Old Testament.
13:11: Just listen.
13:12: It's liberating.
13:18: One close friend of mine said in her 60s, she said, I finally understand.
13:23: And it's disturbing, perhaps for people like me, like you who received our first Bible.
13:29: No instructions.
13:31: But the thing that it's liberating for, it's liberating for men and women who are drawn to the simple message that God loves you so much.
13:40: He sent his son to pave the way to a relationship with you.
13:45: It's appealing, it's liberating for people who need and understand grace, who need and understand forgiveness.
13:53: And it's liberating for people who find it virtually impossible to embrace, to embrace the dynamic, the worldview and the value system depicted in the story of ancient Israel.
14:08: And Peter, who was on both sides, James, who was on both sides, the apostle Paul, oh my gosh, he was killing Christians before he became one.
14:17: These men are right at the epicenter.
14:19: They were on both sides of the equation.
14:22: Here's what they say to you and to me as a Christian.
14:25: Peter, James, Paul elected to unhinge the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures.
14:32: The word false was not on his screen, it was on ours.
14:35: We must as well.
14:36: Hear what he said.
14:37: Many have lost faith because of something about the Bible or in the Bible, the Old Testament in particular.
14:42: Once they can no longer accept all the historicity of the Old Testament, once they couldn't go along with all the miracles, once somebody poked a hole in the Genesis creation, you know, myth.
14:53: That's what he said.
14:55: He said, we have to be able to unhinge the Christian faith from the Old Testament because that's what Peter and Paul and James did.
15:08: There's a Greek word for that.
15:10: Baloney.
15:11: It's absolute baloney.
15:12: That is false.
15:13: That is terribly false.
15:16: And this man is trying to build his house upon the sand because he is saying that you can have Jesus and the resurrection and the gospel, but you can do it independently of God's word in the Old Testament.
15:34: That is not just one man's opinion.
15:38: That is a dangerous heresy.
15:40: That is Marcionism.
15:42: By the way, when you take and I hope you do when you take church history from me, one of the first major heretics of the church was a man named Marcion.
15:56: And what Marcion did was he eliminated most of the words of the Old Testament.
16:02: I'm sorry, all of the Old Testament and some of the new because he eliminated all the New Testament references to the Old Testament.
16:10: And you know what he's referred to now in church history, the arch heretic Marcion, because he was he was a dangerous man because he taught God in the Old Testament was a.
16:25: Evil Demiurge and Jesus represented the true loving God.
16:32: It is such a false view, which I meant exactly, it's all a it's just a bunch of baloney.
16:42: But that is that's again, this man has a church that commands thousands on Sunday and the attention of even many more thousands on the Internet.
16:53: It's dangerous, it's sad, but that's why I make the stress we need to stand for the Old Testament.
17:01: One of the most famous attacks against the Pentateuch.
17:05: It's called the documentary hypothesis.
17:07: How many of you who read the reading understood the documentary hypothesis? OK, how many of you? OK, you did quite good.
17:15: How many of you did the reading remember the documentary hypothesis was mentioned? OK, all right.
17:21: The documentary hypothesis, I'll read to you what's on the screen.
17:24: In biblical scholarship, the documentary hypothesis proposes that the Pentateuch was not literally revealed by God to Moses, but rather it represents a composite account from several later documents.
17:34: Four basic sources are identified in theory, designated as the J, which is the Yahwist, the E, which is the Elohist, the P or the Priestly and the D, which is the Deuteronomic.
17:48: And usually they are dated from the ninth or 10th through the fifth century BCE.
17:53: Now, I never use BCE.
17:55: I always use BC because that is a modern, I think, perversion of what we did for hundreds of years, which was BC.
18:06: Only in the last generation have we used BC.
18:10: And if you don't know what the difference is, BC met before Christ.
18:13: BCE is the new way that it's used and it's before the common era.
18:18: Well, it's just ridiculous.
18:20: Anyway, the only reason why I quoted it that way on there is because this is actually from the New World Encyclopedia and I wanted to quote it as written, but I normally would not use BCE.
18:30: Didn't mean to take that little excursus there, but just wanted to mention why.
18:33: So when we talk about the documentary hypothesis, the documentary hypothesis is basically this.
18:39: Moses did not write Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, but rather a group of writings from four different sources was collected and compiled and became the Pentateuch after Israel had already been a nation.
19:02: So it was a documentary collection of books, not a revealed collection of books.
19:10: So here's one of the arguments.
19:12: They will say this.
19:14: They will say that in the Old Testament, the Bible calls God Elohim, but the Bible also calls God Yahweh.
19:28: And in other places, God is referred to as Adonai.
19:34: And so the argument from the, what is called the documentary hypothesis, but it's also sometimes referred to as the JEDP position, which stands for Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomic and Priestly.
19:49: I got that backwards.
19:50: Should be Priestly and Deuteronomic.
19:51: So it's the JEDP position.
19:54: As they say, you have some of Genesis was written by this group.
19:58: Some of Genesis was written by this group.
20:00: How would we know the difference? Well, what they call God.
20:02: If you see God called Elohim, that would be the Elohist.
20:05: If you see God called Yahweh, like I talked about this morning in my sermon, Jacob referred to God as Yahweh.
20:11: And they would say, well, that portion was from the Yahwists.
20:15: And you see what they're arguing.
20:17: They're arguing it didn't come from Moses.
20:18: It was a collection.
20:20: And we know it was a collection because they use different names for God.
20:24: Now, again, you know, I don't believe this.
20:25: I'm not arguing this.
20:26: I'm just telling you what their position is.
20:29: Here's the thing to understand, though.
20:32: The documentary hypothesis basically says that the Pentateuch was a patchwork not divine revelation.
20:44: And it becomes very attractive to unbelievers because it removes the supernatural element of the books.
20:51: It encourages an evolutionary mindset that scripture came together over time, not direct revelation from God, but essentially was collected over time, like like sort of evolving ideas.
21:02: And it allows one to cherry pick the parts they believe.
21:05: And they said, well, this is true and this is not true.
21:07: This is right.
21:07: This is not right.
21:10: And I like what Dr.
21:11: Unger says about this.
21:12: I'll refer to him again.
21:13: He says if the documentary hypothesis were true, the Pentateuch would be an unauthentic, unhistorical and unreliable.
21:25: It would be a fabrication of men, not the work of God.
21:29: So why do you think it is pushed so much in the academy? Because of this, because they know that the documentary hypothesis, if you ever take a secular class, in fact, I have my my bachelor's degree is in social science.
21:47: If you ever take a secular class on religion or social studies that refer to the history of Israel, they will accept the documentary hypothesis without any question.
21:59: In fact, how many of you are familiar with the man? Oh, what's his name? Jordan, Jordan, Jordan Peters, Jordan Peterson.
22:08: Thank you.
22:09: Jordan Peterson wrote a book called Twelve Rules for Life.
22:13: He's very popular on college campuses.
22:15: And he is a he is relatively conservative.
22:18: And he even does say nice things about Jesus.
22:21: He says good things about the Bible.
22:23: He says good things about Jesus, whether or not he's a genuine Christian.
22:27: I have a lot of questions about but for the positive, I would say he at least is a conservative.
22:34: So.
22:35: So, yeah.
22:37: Well, I mean, I'm just saying he says some positive things that are right.
22:42: But here's the other part.
22:43: If you read the book, and I did Twelve Rules for Life, I read his book, because I wanted to see what he had.
22:48: He was influencing a lot of people.
22:49: I want to see what he had to say.
22:50: And in his book, he accepts without question the documentary hypothesis and uses it in his book to argue, well, this is where the Yaoist says this.
23:00: And this is where the the Deuteronomic says this, or this is where the priestly says this.
23:04: He just assumes because that is what he was taught without criticism.
23:10: And therefore he accepts it without criticism.
23:18: Now, I want to give you a few arguments against it.
23:22: Because even though it is popular among nonbelievers, it should not move you.
23:27: And here's why.
23:28: Number one, there is no manuscript evidence to support any type of editorial work that is suggested by the documentary hypothesis, no manuscript evidence for it at all.
23:39: There is no manuscript evidence that Genesis through Deuteronomy was ever piecemealed together.
23:44: Number two, there is wide disagreement among those who support it about where the divisions are.
23:52: They don't all agree where the divisions are.
23:54: They just assume there are divisions and they stand on that, but they can't prove where the divisions are.
24:00: Number three, there is archaeological support for the writings, customs, religious knowledge, and history of Israel as ancient, predating when the documentary hypothesis supposes these books were brought together.
24:18: And number four, there is an internal unity and coherence which does not support a cut and paste methodology in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
24:31: There is no reason whatsoever to support the documentary hypothesis.
24:38: Believers, my friends, you have no reason to accept this.
24:43: However, I want to give you two, what? Number three is there is archaeological support for the writings, customs, and religious knowledge of Israel as being ancient, predating when the documentary hypothesis supposedly came.
24:58: I know that's a long, basically there's evidence to show otherwise.
25:03: Number two was there is wide disagreement about where the divisions are.
25:07: They say these pieces are patchwork, but they can't tell you when and how.
25:13: Where did I put my eraser? This one might work.
25:21: Okay.
25:23: Now, everyone in this class has, well, let me say this.
25:32: I know some of you are new.
25:33: To join Sovereign Grace Academy, there is a, you're supposed to make a confession of faith.
25:39: At least you're supposed to be a believer.
25:40: This class is supposed to be.
25:41: So everybody in here should be able to at least say that you have affirmed belief in Jesus Christ.
25:46: Now, whether or not you're a true Christian is between you and the Lord, but here's what I, the reason why I say this is because the next part is important.
25:53: Believers in Jesus Christ have every reason to believe two things.
25:57: Number one, Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and number two, the Pentateuch is true history.
26:01: Why do believers in Jesus Christ have every reason to believe those two things? Number one, we have every reason to believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch because Jesus said he did.
26:13: John 5, 45 to 47.
26:16: I mean, Jesus said it right.
26:18: He says, do not think that I will accuse you to the father.
26:21: There is one who accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
26:24: For if you believe Moses, you would believe me.
26:26: For he wrote of me.
26:28: But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? Jesus very specifically says Moses wrote and he wrote about me.
26:35: And what would Jesus have been referring to there? He would have been referring to the Pentateuch.
26:40: And he said it came from the hand of Moses.
26:42: So that's John chapter five, verses 45 to 47.
26:48: The second thing, we have every reason to believe the Pentateuch is history because Genesis alone is quoted 35 times in the New Testament as history.
27:01: And Jesus Christ quotes from Genesis as absolute fact in Matthew chapter 19, when he is asked about the question of divorce.
27:14: Jesus is asked about divorce and he answers the question by saying, have you not read about Moses? And he talked about Adam and Eve and he quoted it as direct history.
27:31: So if you believe in Jesus and there's the thing, this is what I want to go back to the video for a minute and I might get a little excited.
27:37: I don't want to get too excited.
27:40: This guy is telling you, believe in Jesus, believe he rose from the dead, but don't believe what he said, because he told you to believe in Moses.
27:50: You see where the wheels fall off of that kind of cart and where that kind of thinking leads.
27:57: That is one step away from denying Jesus, because if you deny all the foundations that bring us Christ, what's the next step except for denying Christ? And what's interesting about that man's church is they even they have a membership at that church, and this is from his own mouth.
28:11: I've listened to him say this.
28:12: They have a membership of that church where they will allow even atheists to join.
28:17: You do not have to make a profession of faith to be a member of their church because, yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
28:30: So sitting at the beginning of the Pentateuch is the book of Genesis, as I mentioned a few times already.
28:39: So we're going to start with it.
28:40: We're going to look at the five books.
28:42: We're going to do a quick survey of each book, talking a little bit about it and what we learn from it.
28:50: So let's look first at Genesis.
28:51: The word, the name Genesis is Greek and it is most of our most of our names in the of our Bible come out of the Old Testament actually come from the Septuagint.
29:04: The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
29:07: It was translated about 200 years before Christ.
29:09: And so the word Genesis is the Greek word for beginnings.
29:14: Now, the Hebrew people call their books by their own names.
29:19: And so in Hebrew, Genesis would be called Barashit and means in the beginning.
29:26: It's the first word in Genesis.
29:28: So the title of Genesis in Hebrew is the first word, Barashit, in the beginning.
29:37: Now, quick question.
29:39: What type of literature is Genesis? Last week, we talked about looking at different types of literature.
29:44: We said there's narrative.
29:46: We said there's didactic.
29:48: We said there was poetic and prophetic.
29:52: So what type of literature would you put Genesis in? Historical narrative.
30:01: Okay.
30:03: Corey says historical narrative.
30:05: Anybody want to challenge Corey? Not that you deserve to be challenged.
30:08: I'm just saying anybody have another idea? Okay.
30:14: What form of literature is the book of Genesis written? Historical narrative, poetic, prophetic, didactic.
30:23: We talked about this a little bit last week about different types of literature, genres of literature.
30:27: So you're saying historical narrative.
30:31: Prophetic.
30:31: Okay.
30:32: Well, that's what I was going to, you kind of got me there because I was going to say it actually contains all of those things.
30:38: Genesis is 50 chapters.
30:40: So it is not one single type of literature.
30:44: It is made up primarily of historical narrative.
30:49: It is made up primarily of historical narrative.
30:52: So Corey, in that sense, you would be correct.
30:54: But there are portions of it which are poetic.
30:57: There are portions of it that are prophetic, meaning specifically they speak prophetic language.
31:06: And there are portions which are somewhat didactic.
31:11: Didactic means teaching.
31:12: Most of Paul's epistles are didactic.
31:14: They tell you about something and what to do about that thing.
31:18: It's like a lesson.
31:21: Okay.
31:22: So in Genesis, we have several different types of literature, but the primary is historical narrative.
31:31: Some people would say Genesis falls into the category of mythology.
31:37: Did you not hear him say that at the very end? He said the creation myth, didn't he? Makes me want to, well, never mind.
31:48: I lose sanctification for a moment when I hear that.
31:51: It just, it really drives me up the wall to hear that out of the mouth of somebody who's supposed to be teaching the Word of God, to say Genesis teaches a myth in regard to creation.
32:02: However, I will readily admit the Pentateuch, that is Genesis through Deuteronomy, or Genesis, only Genesis.
32:10: We'll just say only Genesis.
32:11: There are things in Genesis that certainly do present themselves as somewhat mythological.
32:19: Not that they are, I'm not saying they're not true, but they present themselves as, maybe the word might be fantastic, like fire falling from heaven and consuming an entire city because of sin.
32:31: It's a fantastic picture, isn't it? I mean, when I say, I don't mean good fantastic.
32:35: I just mean, it's an amazing thing to consider that an entire city was consumed by fire and one of the citizens of that city turned to salt.
32:46: That's pretty fantastic, right? So at least we can say that there are things in Genesis that are difficult to process, especially in a modern context.
33:04: When we think about someone literally turning to salt, it's hard to grasp, right? But it doesn't mean it's not true.
33:10: And the story doesn't present itself as mythology.
33:13: It presents itself as historical narrative.
33:16: And therefore, when we interpret it, we interpret it, as I said last week, based upon the genre of literature in which it comes.
33:25: So when we talk about Genesis, I would say it is primarily historical narrative, though it is mixed with other things.
33:35: And there are two divisions in Genesis.
33:38: Make this in your notes, or at least keep your mind in this way.
33:43: There are two primary divisions in Genesis.
33:45: The first is Genesis 1 through 11 is primitive history.
33:50: Genesis 13, I'm sorry, 12 through 50 is patriarchal history.
33:56: You got to be careful with that patriarchy, it gets you in trouble.
34:00: Nobody even laughed at my good joke.
34:05: The first one is primitive history, chapter 1 through 11.
34:09: The second is patriarchal history, or the history of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
34:19: But the most important thing to consider is in that I'm giving you that both are history.
34:28: Notice it doesn't say primitive mythology and patriarchal history.
34:32: No, it's primitive history in the sense that Genesis 1 through 11 tells us everything that happened up until the call of Abraham.
34:44: And what happens in Genesis is we have the focus goes from the wide to the narrow.
34:50: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
34:52: The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the That's pretty wide.
35:00: And then he begins to create.
35:02: And on day one, and day two, and day three, he forms the earth.
35:05: And on day four, five, and six, he fills the earth that he's formed.
35:07: And on day seven, he rests.
35:09: And then we have Adam and Eve who go and sin against God.
35:13: And when they sin against God, they're cast out of God's good garden into an unforgiving world, which is now under the curse of sin and death, disease and destruction now wage war against man and against all of creation, creating corruption.
35:29: And we say, thanks.
35:32: And we see over the next several chapters, the expansion of mankind and a focal point on the larger picture.
35:41: We have all of the evil in Noah's day and then the destruction.
35:44: And then we have the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
35:49: And you're one of those.
35:50: You're either a Shemite, a Hamite, or a Japhethite, because those are the three men who gave birth to all of the world.
35:58: And so after that, we see this large expansion of men.
36:03: And then God focuses on one family.
36:06: Of course, I bypassed the Tower of Babel, but you understand there's major events.
36:11: And then there's this focus, laser focused in on one family.
36:16: So chapters 1 through 11 is the primitive history of all men.
36:22: Chapters 12 and beyond is the focal history of the patriarchs of Israel, Abram, who becomes Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
36:35: Genesis begins with the grand narrative, which encapsulates creation, the fall and the promise of redemption.
36:52: Now, give you a couple of thoughts.
36:55: Number one, if you are studying the book of Genesis, it is we have 50 chapters, but that is a construction that is much later.
37:05: The Bible wasn't as if Abraham or Moses sat down and said, OK, Genesis, chapter one, verse one, in the beginning, he didn't do it that way.
37:16: Chapter markings did not come until well after the New Testament period, and the verse markings did not come until hundreds of years after that.
37:24: So Jesus wouldn't have said, open your Bibles to John 3, 16.
37:28: That's not how it would have worked.
37:31: But there were marking posts in books that helped the reader to know where he was.
37:38: And in the book of Genesis, what we have are what are called the Toledot.
37:47: Toledot, that is a Hebrew word which means in the generation of, or rather, let me let me change that.
37:58: It's it's these are the generations of.
38:01: These are the generations of.
38:05: And then it would say, like in chapter three of Genesis, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth.
38:11: And then it goes later.
38:12: These are the generations of Adam and Eve.
38:15: These are the generations up.
38:17: And there's 10 of those statements in Genesis, each one which is followed by some form of a genealogy, except for the first one.
38:26: The first one doesn't give a genealogy because there's no people, right? Just Adam and Eve.
38:30: But after that, it's this is the genealogy of Adam.
38:33: This is the genealogy of King.
38:35: And it gives you those.
38:36: And so those those create sort of a primitive form of chapters.
38:41: So the primitive form of chapters in Genesis would be these marking posts back to what? Yeah, yeah.
38:50: Or a lot of people just call them the Toledots, the markings of the generations.
38:55: We're coming up on one in our study.
38:56: We're in Genesis 32.
38:58: And in a couple of chapters, we're going to be, it's going to say these are the generations of Esau.
39:04: And even though Esau is not the promised child, he is still giving a marking, given a marking post in the book of Genesis.
39:11: A few chapters ago, we looked at these are the generations of Ishmael, who is the son of the handmaiden, Abraham's member, and he had his own marking post.
39:22: So this is sort of how Genesis is broken down prior to, of course, chapters and verses, which would come later.
39:29: Yes, sir.
39:30: So that's just that's just establishing Genesis establishes the middle man.
39:38: Yeah, it's giving it's it's giving them marking posts to go to go to and find, you know, it's establishing the you have the metanarrative and then it's establishing the parts.
39:53: Oh, this.
39:56: I'm sorry.
39:56: I thought you're talking about this.
39:57: Yeah.
39:57: Yeah.
39:58: No.
40:00: If you think of the metanarrative of Scripture, which metanarrative just means the overall picture, the grand narrative means we have the creation, fall, redemption and restoration.
40:12: Right.
40:12: And so what we have in Genesis is creation, fall and the promise of redemption, because the redemption, of course, is through Jesus Christ.
40:20: But how is it promised in Genesis? To Abraham.
40:26: Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
40:30: God says that in Genesis chapter 12.
40:33: He says that to Abraham through you, all the nations will be blessed.
40:36: If you go to the book of Galatians, Paul says, that's the gospel.
40:43: He says, God preached the gospel to Abraham when he said to him through you, all the nations will be blessed.
40:50: So, yes.
40:50: So the promise of redemption is in fact, I think the promise of redemption is actually in Genesis 315.
40:56: The first time we have any promise where it says God says to the serpent that the seed of the woman will crush your head, though you will bruise his heel.
41:06: So we have the earliest promises of redemption immediately following the fall.
41:12: OK, so let's quickly move to the other four books, and I want to give you a handout.
41:19: I tell you what, I'm gonna hold these until the break because I'm not going to go over these handouts.
41:23: These are for your notebooks I have here.
41:27: This is actually a map of the Exodus with the major events of Exodus.
41:32: This is a timeline of those events.
41:35: Both of those, both of these are in the rose book that I told you about last week.
41:39: If you've got your own book, you don't need these, but make a note of the page number.
41:42: It's pages 88 and 89.
41:45: But if you want one at the break, they'll both be sitting up here.
41:48: Please get you one.
41:49: You really, you should have one.
41:51: If you don't have the rose book, take one to put in your notebook.
41:53: All right, so let's look quickly at Exodus.
41:57: The book of Exodus is God leading his people out of slavery and giving them his law.
42:04: Now, to understand that, you have to understand that at the end of Genesis, God's people had left the promised land to go to Egypt because of the famine.
42:14: You remember, Joseph was there.
42:16: The Bible says God sent Joseph there.
42:19: Joseph said that to his brothers in Genesis 50, 20, one of the most important verses in the whole Bible.
42:24: When he says to his brothers, what you did for evil, God did for good to save this day, many people alive.
42:30: That is a hugely important verse because that's expressing what we call in theological terms, compatibilism.
42:36: That the evil intentions of men are compatible in one sense with the ultimate sovereign power of God, because God's working through those to bring about his good purposes.
42:46: And so he says what you meant for evil, God meant same paper word, same verb, what you did, God did.
42:55: You did it for evil.
42:56: God did it for good to save this day, many people alive.
43:00: So at the end of Genesis, the people of Israel are there in Egypt.
43:04: And then we have a 400 year separation.
43:09: And that 400 year separation, they begin to become the slaves of the people of Egypt.
43:16: And Exodus means Exodus means to go out.
43:24: Exodus means to go out.
43:26: And it is, of course, the story of God calling a man to be the leader of the Exodus.
43:34: His name was Moses.
43:37: The theme of Exodus is redemption and salvation.
43:42: What's the definition of redemption? To buy back.
43:49: Would you say anything else, Mike? To purchase or to buy back.
43:56: We think of redemption of Christ dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.
44:01: Well, God redeems Israel out there, slaves, and he draws them out.
44:05: He brings them out.
44:07: In fact, we know that the story of Moses begins with him being born, put into a basket and floated down the river.
44:16: And he is drawn out.
44:17: Moses means to draw out.
44:19: And so he's drawn out of the water.
44:21: And then he will be used by God to draw the people of Israel out of slavery and lead them out of Egypt.
44:31: And there's a picture of salvation.
44:34: The picture of salvation in many ways, but not the least of which is we are all in the slave market of sin.
44:40: Christ comes and redeems us from sin and he draws us out and he leads us to redemption, to salvation.
44:51: Key events in the book of Exodus are the 10 plagues.
44:55: Each one of those plagues, if you decide to do your paper on the book of Exodus, because remember, if you're going to do a paper, you get to choose a book to study and to write about.
45:08: If you decide to do a study on the book of Exodus, one interesting study is to look at the 10 plagues and how they represented the gods of Egypt, because all of the 10 plagues point to one of the gods that's worshipped in Egypt.
45:25: And so that's just a little thought if you want to do that.
45:29: The Passover crossing of the Red Sea, the giving of the Decalogue, the Decalogue is the 10 commandments, the forming of the golden calf and the creation of the Ark and the tabernacle all happen in the book of Exodus.
45:46: Let me tell you something.
45:47: It is not a boring book.
45:49: People say the Bible is boring.
45:51: Either they can't read or they're lying or they just don't get it.
45:59: It really is.
46:00: It is extraordinarily interesting.
46:04: But then we come to Leviticus.
46:08: Leviticus is not as easy to read.
46:10: And I will grant Leviticus is a little different because Leviticus comes from the Levites, the Levites and the tribes.
46:19: The Levites were the ones who were the priestly tribe.
46:23: And so the Levitical book or the book of Leviticus is given to regulate the holiness of God's people.
46:31: And the theme of Leviticus is holiness.
46:35: What separates the people of God from the nations around them? Interesting little side note.
46:47: It's often the book of Leviticus that people will cite in regard to the subject of homosexuality because Leviticus 18.22 very specifically talks about homosexuality as an abomination before God.
47:00: And so people often reference it.
47:02: But it also references a whole lot of other abominations.
47:05: Not that homosexuality is not a sin.
47:06: It certainly is.
47:07: But there's a lot of other sins which are included because the people of God were separated and were called to be holy.
47:15: And guess what? We are not called to be any less holy.
47:18: Now, we do have a different covenant.
47:20: We are we are not under the same ceremonial law as Israel was.
47:25: But we are still what did Jesus say to us? Be holy as I am holy.
47:30: Right.
47:31: We're that same that same call is a New Testament call.
47:38: Key events in Leviticus.
47:40: The death of Nadab and Abihu.
47:43: And I wish I had time to share more about that.
47:46: But those were the sons of Aaron who thought it would be a good idea to offer up unauthorized or what the King James Bible says, strange fire before the Lord.
47:55: And because they offered up a fire which was not authorized by the Lord, the Lord killed them before the tabernacle by fire.
48:06: And then Moses said to Aaron, basically don't say anything, even though you just watch both of your sons burn to death for their foolish blasphemy.
48:19: God has said anyone who approaches me must consider me holy.
48:27: And Aaron held his peace.
48:31: We have the regulations for the feasts, things like the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Weeks, Passover, those different feasts are all contained in Leviticus.
48:41: The demands for worship, sacrifice, atonement and priesthood are all found in the Book of Leviticus.
48:49: All right.
48:50: The Book of Numbers.
48:53: This is the one that I was told as a kid was the most boring.
48:59: I'm not going to say who told me that it wasn't my parents, but it was somebody in the church.
49:02: Oh, Numbers is so boring.
49:07: And then when I entered seminary, my very first class was with Dr.
49:14: Jerry Powers on the Book of Numbers.
49:17: And I was scared to death that I was going to be bored to tears.
49:21: And it was the most exciting class I ever took.
49:26: I would come home every week to Jennifer.
49:28: And let me tell you what I learned today.
49:31: The Book of Numbers is not boring.
49:34: Now, it does have some parts that are very repetitious when it talks about how the people of Israel were counted and the numbers began to be counted out and you get to that 603,550, that first number that was counted.
49:46: There are some times where there's some repetition, but it is not at all boring because what it is about is about the rebellion and judgment of the first generation of Israelites to come out of Egypt.
50:04: And if you don't know this, I want to share this with you.
50:07: The first generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt was not the same people that made it into the promised land.
50:15: The Bible tells us everyone that was 20 years old or older perished in the wilderness.
50:22: In fact, the Book of Jude, which I'll be preaching this Wednesday night in verse five, says this.
50:28: It says that the Lord saved the people out of Egypt, but afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
50:39: And he's referring to this very instance.
50:41: Isn't it weird that that Jude would use that? But what he's using that for is he's using that for people who have a false faith.
50:49: He's using that as an example of false faith.
50:51: He says, here's people who went out of Egypt following God, and yet they still did not believe.
50:59: What it says, what Jude says, they fell in the wilderness because of a lack of faith.
51:09: I mean, I don't, yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't want to say that I'm taking a hard stand that every one of them lacked faith, but they were, they, they died in the wilderness because of unbelief.
51:22: That doesn't mean they never came to faith.
51:24: I want to be clear about that.
51:25: But they, but they certainly were punished, not because of faith, but because of lack of faith.
51:32: Right? So that's, that's the point Jude is making.
51:35: And so even though they came out of Egypt, they didn't make it to the promised land because of a lack of faith.
51:42: All right.
51:42: Now, again, I know there's a, there's nuances we could take and arguments we could make, but at the end of the day, the whole book is about that journey.
51:52: In fact, uh, it really, and truly that the majority of the 40 years is found in the book of numbers because Leviticus is about regulations for holiness.
52:02: Exodus takes us really through the first portion.
52:05: Deuteronomy is right on the banks of the Jordan, just about to go into the promised land.
52:10: So the vast majority of historical information that pertains to that 40 year period is found in numbers.
52:17: Numbers gives us the first census that was taken, tells us about the spies who went into Canaan, tells us about God's judgment on generation.
52:25: And I don't, I don't have it on here, but it also has a second, a second census, which is done at the end, which shows the difference between the first generation and second generation.
52:35: And everybody, 20 years old and older, except Joshua and Caleb died in the wilderness, including Moses.
52:44: Moses did not go into the promised land.
52:47: He died looking at the promised land, 20 years old and older.
52:52: So it's a general, it's a generational thing.
52:54: The older generation died.
52:56: And by the way, I don't believe in an age of accountability in the sense that, you know, a lot of people say age of accountability is 12 and age of accountability is this.
53:05: I don't believe in a specific age of accountability, but if there's any place in the Bible that gives us an age of accountability, it'd be 20, because that's, that was the age where the ones who were above that age were judged and the ones who were below that age weren't.
53:16: Again, I'm not, I don't think that's how you should interpret that, but I am saying if there was ever a passage that gave us an age, it was that one.
53:23: But I've heard a lot of people argue that it's 12, because that's when the bar mitzvah occurs.
53:28: And that's when a person becomes a son of the law.
53:31: That's what bar mitzvah means, a son of the mitzvah or a son of the law.
53:35: They're responsible to it.
53:37: Anyway, off the subject, sorry.
53:39: Okay, so last book, Deuteronomy.
53:41: Deuteronomy gives the law through Moses a second time to a new generation.
53:48: Deuteronomy is essentially sermons that Moses preached to the people of Israel, preparing them for the promised land.
53:58: The theme of Deuteronomy is reflection and preparation.
54:03: And the key events are the repeating of the Ten Commandments and the giving of the Shema.
54:10: What is the Shema? It means, yeah, that's right, it means hear, O Israel, and that is the prayer of Israel.
54:16: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.
54:24: Deuteronomy chapter six, beginning in verse five.
54:27: Yeah.
54:28: All right.
54:31: Now, within these books, we have a list of important figures.
54:36: Now, I told you I was going to send you this, so I don't recommend trying to write all of these down.
54:41: You'll get a copy of this in your email, but these are the important figures, minimum, not maximum, because there's a ton more.
54:49: But these are some very important figures, and if you can give at least a short sentence about each one of these people, you'll be doing well in regard to understanding the overview of the big picture, right? You see what I'm saying? So like Adam and Eve, obviously the first two created persons.
55:08: Noah was the one who God used in the time of the flood.
55:12: Abraham was God's elect man out of whom an entire nation would be promised a seed and a lamb.
55:24: Melchizedek was a priest.
55:27: A lot of people believe he was a pre-incarnate Christ.
55:30: I have a little different nuance on that, but there are people who believe Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate visitation of Jesus.
55:36: I don't think that's a necessary belief, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong either.
55:41: I would say I just don't think it's a necessary thing.
55:44: But Melchizedek does provide for us the priesthood from which Christ would establish his own priesthood, because Christ is not a Levite.
55:54: Christ is from the tribe of Judah, and the Judahites were not the priestly class.
55:58: It was the Levites.
55:59: So when Jesus is a priest, he is a priest ordained directly by God, as Melchizedek was.
56:06: He was not a priest by birth.
56:08: He was a priest by God's direct ordination.
56:11: So Melchizedek provides the Melchizedekian priesthood.
56:16: Sarah, wife of Abraham, Hagar, the handmaiden through which Ishmael would come.
56:22: Lot is the nephew of Abraham, the one who went to Sodom.
56:26: He was actually, he was captured and all kinds of things happened.
56:30: Isaac is the son of Sarah through Abraham or Abraham through Sarah.
56:35: Rebecca is the wife of Isaac.
56:36: Jacob and Esau are their twin sons.
56:38: Jacob was the second born, but was given preeminence by God.
56:42: God said when he is born, the younger will be the preeminent one, or the older will serve the younger, was actually the phrase God used.
56:50: The sons of Jacob, there are 12 sons of Jacob, which would ultimately become the 12 tribes.
56:58: But it's sort of interesting how that works out, because the 12 sons of Jacob aren't the 12 tribes of Israel, because one of them is the Levites.
57:09: And even though the Levites are a tribe, they don't receive their own plot of land.
57:13: And Joseph's two sons take that place.
57:16: Ephraim and Manasseh are called the half tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and both of them are given land in the promised land.
57:21: So when we talk about the sons of Jacob, it's actually sons and grandsons that would address the sons.
57:27: Joseph is the one son who went to Egypt and was used by God to save the people.
57:34: We talked about him earlier.
57:35: Moses, of course, was the one who led the people out of Egypt to the promised land.
57:41: Pharaoh is the one who combated with Moses.
57:45: And there are various pharaohs, but the specific pharaoh in this list is referring to the one who dealt with Moses.
57:50: Aaron is Moses' brother.
57:52: Miriam is Moses' sister.
57:55: Joshua and Caleb were the only two that were over 20 who made it to the promised land.
58:00: Korah was the one who rebelled against Moses' authority.
58:03: He's also referenced in the book of Jude.
58:05: I'm going to talk about him in a couple weeks.
58:07: And Negab and Abihu are the sons of Aaron.
58:11: Are there more? Absolutely.
58:13: But if you know these people and who they are and they're about, you know the basic parts of the story.
58:19: And that's why I think this list is important.
58:23: All right.
58:24: We're about to take a break.
58:27: Actually, we're going to take a break.
58:28: Let's take our five minute, seven minute break, whatever.
58:31: Come back and we'll do our final 20 minutes or so.
58:38: And we are continuing on.
58:43: So for the last few minutes of class tonight, we're going to address theological insights and interpretive challenges.
58:54: Now, I want to tell you, my goal is not to necessarily give you all the answers to the interpretive challenges.
59:05: I just want to make you aware that they exist.
59:10: I may address a few.
59:12: I may share my opinion, but I am not, we don't have the time to dive in too deeply.
59:22: So let's look first at a few theological insights.
59:26: Now, these are things that we learn from Genesis through Deuteronomy.
59:33: Number one, we learn that God is one in essence.
59:37: Now, the theological term for that is monotheism.
59:46: I want to make a point about that very quickly.
59:49: I said I wasn't going to stop on each one, but I can't help it.
59:54: Monotheism, mono being the prefix meaning one, theism meaning God.
01:00:00: So monotheism is one God.
01:00:02: What is the distinction? What other kinds of systems are there? Polytheism, poly means many.
01:00:12: So polytheism.
01:00:14: There is also something called henotheism.
01:00:18: Henotheism.
01:00:19: Henotheism refers to a belief in one God without the exclusion of other gods.
01:00:29: You say, well, how is that not polytheism? Well, henotheism is the belief that there's one God who is the ruler, but there are other gods who are also in existence, but they are not the most powerful.
01:00:45: So it's for, yeah, you could say some of the mythical religions would talk about the one God who's sort of the God of all gods.
01:00:56: But in this sense, this is more what I would say, this is more what we find in like tribalism.
01:01:00: We do see henotheism expressed to us in the Old Testament, where they would say like Baal is greater than Yahweh.
01:01:08: The Baalites would say, or the ones who believed in Baal would say that Baal was greater than Yahweh.
01:01:13: They're not saying Yahweh doesn't exist, but they're saying Baal is greater.
01:01:17: We see this in the story of Laban.
01:01:19: Laban is the father of Rachel and Leah, the wives of Jacob.
01:01:26: And Laban knew that Yahweh existed, and he didn't deny his existence, but he had his own family gods, his own household gods, they were called the Teraphim, and those were the gods that he worshipped.
01:01:38: And so his gods were his gods, and Yahweh was Jacob's God, and my God's, you know, sort of like a my God is better than yours kind of situation.
01:01:47: Well, the Bible presents to us that there is one God, and there are no others.
01:01:55: It's not just that Israel has the best, they have the only God.
01:02:01: That is a hugely important theological position.
01:02:06: Some people don't think that that's true.
01:02:07: Some people believe that the Pentateuch presents a henotheistic perspective, that the Jews accepted the gods of other religions, and they just believed that Jehovah was greater than the other gods.
01:02:19: That is not what the Bible teaches, and that is not what the Jews believed.
01:02:23: They believed in one God to the exclusion of other gods.
01:02:29: And you say, well, wait a minute, don't they have a commandment that says, have no other gods before me? Doesn't that assume they believe in other gods? Not in the same, not in the way that they would believe other gods existed in the same way that Yahweh exists.
01:02:41: And Paul talks about this in the New Testament.
01:02:43: In the book of 1st Corinthians, he says this, when meat is offered to an idol, it's actually offered to nothing, because there's no such thing as idols.
01:02:51: An idol is a no-thing.
01:02:54: Zeus and Thor, and all of these false gods are just that.
01:02:58: They are false gods.
01:02:59: They don't exist.
01:03:01: So when Moses gives the commandments, and the commandment is, have no other gods before the Lord, that's not assuming other gods exist.
01:03:08: That is assuming that men create gods in their own minds and in their own lives, and they do create things that they worship, and God is telling them not to do that.
01:03:17: Okay, so God is one.
01:03:21: Monotheism is clearly taught in the Pentateuch.
01:03:24: Number two, God is the creator of all things, and that references his omnipotence.
01:03:30: What is omnipotence? The word potence means power, so to be impotent means to be without power, and to be omnipotent means to be with all power.
01:03:41: Omni is the word for all.
01:03:48: Number three, God is righteous, and I'll simply say this.
01:03:54: We see God's righteousness juxtaposed with man's sinfulness.
01:04:00: God is righteous, and man is sinful.
01:04:03: One of my favorite verses of the Bible, and I will tell you this, it is one of my favorite go-to verses when people ask me a hard question.
01:04:12: It is in Genesis chapter 18, when Abraham is negotiating with God regarding the people of Sodom.
01:04:21: If you find 50 righteous, will you destroy 45, 40? You know, you remember that.
01:04:27: At a point in that conversation, Abraham says to God, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right? And the answer is implied in the question.
01:04:41: It's saying the judge of all the earth will do what is right.
01:04:46: So when somebody comes and asks me a difficult question about, you know, maybe a child dying or something that's really hard, and it's not always easy to answer, the one thing I can always rest my conscience on is that the God who made us and judges the whole world will always do what is right in the end.
01:05:05: No, he's saying you are going to do what is right because you are righteous.
01:05:11: He's expressing the righteousness of God in that, yeah.
01:05:16: And even though it comes in the form of a question, it's assumed the answer.
01:05:19: The answer is, you are the judge of all the earth.
01:05:22: You will do what is right.
01:05:23: And it would be wrong if God judged the, if God judged the righteous with the wicked, that would be wrong.
01:05:31: And you might say, well, doesn't God judge the righteous all the time? No, there's none righteous.
01:05:37: No, not one.
01:05:37: There's none who understands.
01:05:38: There's none who seeks after God.
01:05:39: Nobody righteous goes to hell.
01:05:41: This is why I do not like the phrase when people say good people go to hell.
01:05:43: No, they don't.
01:05:46: Because Bible says there's none good.
01:05:47: No, not one.
01:05:48: Now you might think a person is a good old boy.
01:05:50: That doesn't make him righteous in God's eyes.
01:05:53: There are no righteous people in hell.
01:05:56: There's only ever been one righteous person.
01:05:58: That was Jesus Christ.
01:05:59: And if you go to heaven, it will be because of his righteousness, not your own.
01:06:03: The Bible tells us in the book of Galatians that we have, or excuse me, not Galatians, but it is in the writings of Paul that we have a righteousness which comes from the outside, not from the inside.
01:06:12: Paul says, I have a righteousness, not of my own, that comes from the law, but a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
01:06:21: So the help, the help.
01:06:22: Okay.
01:06:23: It's just the way it sounds.
01:06:25: They sound like each other.
01:06:26: Well, Abraham did have a relationship with God where he was able to speak to God in a way that was a very profound, because I think of just saying to God, if you find 40, if you find 45, you know, it's an interesting conversation.
01:06:42: And yet we know the Bible tells us Abraham was the friend of God.
01:06:45: An interesting interaction based on that.
01:06:50: There was a conversation on the mountain when they were referring to God was going to destroy all the Israelites for creating the golden calf.
01:06:56: And Moses says, you know, he, Moses intercedes.
01:07:01: And that's what we're seeing Abraham doing.
01:07:02: Abraham's interceding for Sodom and Moses intercedes for Israel.
01:07:07: This is a picture of the great intercessor Christ.
01:07:09: The Bible says there's one God and one intercessor between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
01:07:12: Right.
01:07:12: So they're picturing what Christ would ultimately do in his intercession.
01:07:19: Yeah, I was begging.
01:07:21: Yeah, don't do that.
01:07:22: Yeah.
01:07:22: All right.
01:07:23: So number four, God chooses to enter into covenants with men.
01:07:28: And I put the word elects here because the word choice simply means to elect or the word elect simply means make a choice.
01:07:34: God chooses to enter into covenants with men.
01:07:37: God does not have to do that.
01:07:38: But that's how he relates to us.
01:07:41: God relates to men through covenant.
01:07:43: And we see the first written covenant in scripture is actually between God and Noah, but it's really not.
01:07:50: It's between God and the world.
01:07:51: And he makes the covenant with Noah, but it's on behalf of the whole world.
01:07:54: I will not destroy the world through water.
01:07:57: Now, there's conjecture that can be argued that God had had a covenant with Adam, the Adamic covenant.
01:08:03: But that's the word covenants never used there.
01:08:06: The first time the word covenant is used in relation to God's relationship to Noah and then Abraham and then Moses and then David and then Christ.
01:08:15: So we go through the major named covenants in scripture is the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic and the new covenant.
01:08:22: So those are the major covenants between God and man in scripture.
01:08:27: And by the way, when we look at the history books next week, I'm going to show you how you can learn all almost not all you can learn.
01:08:35: The big picture is Hebrew history through that that short list of men.
01:08:43: From from from from Adam to Abram to Noah.
01:08:48: I'm sorry, from Adam to Noah, to Abram, to Moses, to David, to Christ.
01:08:54: And that's the that's the big picture.
01:08:56: That's the big story.
01:08:57: All right.
01:08:58: Last one on this one, theological insights.
01:09:01: God provides his covenant people with laws of holiness and sacrifice.
01:09:07: And you could I put next to sacrifice atonement, the word atonement, the word the word atonement in Hebrew is the word for covering.
01:09:19: When the Bible talks about covering sin, that's a make an atonement.
01:09:24: Christ died and his blood covers our sin.
01:09:27: The word the first time that word comes up in the Bible, interestingly enough, is when Noah was commanded.
01:09:35: To cover the ark with pitch.
01:09:38: And what does the pitch do, but it seals in the people of God and seals out the judgment of God and creates a covering for the people inside the ark.
01:09:48: And it's a I'd say it's a picture of of that covering because what was happening outside the ark, God's judgment is destroying the world.
01:09:56: What's happening inside the ark, the protection and grace of God for his elect.
01:10:03: But she told me, yep, yeah.
01:10:09: And the word propitiation means to satisfy or to to to appease.
01:10:16: Yeah.
01:10:17: All right.
01:10:17: So those are just a few theological insights.
01:10:20: Anybody have any extra, any any additional thoughts? And I'm only giving you six.
01:10:24: So I know there's a thousand more.
01:10:26: But you may right off the top of your head.
01:10:27: Any other theology that you can think of that found in the Pentateuch? It's OK if you don't.
01:10:38: I just.
01:10:39: These are theological insights that we learn from the Pentateuch.
01:10:43: What's what are some others? Well, theological things.
01:10:53: But yeah, well, you know, I think that when you when you don't remember the fact that that a wilderness is pretty much described as a barren stretch of land is incapable of sustaining life.
01:11:12: Yet God allowed them to live in it for 40 years.
01:11:17: And he provided for me.
01:11:18: So we could talk.
01:11:20: We could say there is a picture of God's providence.
01:11:24: So there's a theological insight.
01:11:26: God provides for his people.
01:11:27: Very good, Jennifer.
01:11:30: Right.
01:11:30: His holiness.
01:11:31: And I would say that under his righteousness, his righteousness is an aspect.
01:11:35: In fact, I would say his holiness is all encompassing.
01:11:38: And so, yeah, absolutely.
01:11:39: His holiness and the whole book of Leviticus is about that.
01:11:43: I always think it's interesting in these two because it gives God human characteristics.
01:11:50: He smelled the sacrifice and things like that.
01:11:55: Anthropomorphism.
01:11:55: That's right.
01:11:56: Anytime we see.
01:11:57: And that's a big 50 cent word.
01:11:59: But all it means is when when a characteristic that is a human characteristic is applied to God.
01:12:05: And so when we talk about God's hands or God's eyes or God's ears in relation to us, God holds us up by his mighty hand.
01:12:13: He hears us with his ears.
01:12:14: He sees us with his eyes.
01:12:16: God is spirit.
01:12:17: So he doesn't have those things.
01:12:18: But the Bible uses those as a way for God to, in a sense, give an analogy.
01:12:22: We call that analogical language that God can give us an analogy that we can understand.
01:12:29: And so that is a that's that's actually a very good interpretive connection, because how do we interpret the nature of God? Well, first and foremost, he is spirit.
01:12:41: So we have to interpret him analogically through this.
01:12:45: These analogies, there's things called anthropopathic isms and anthropomorphic isms.
01:12:49: Anthropomorphic isms is when God's form is described as a man like form, hands, feet, things like that.
01:12:54: Anthropopathic isms is when his emotions are described like man's emotions.
01:12:59: God has God has love and anger and hate and all those things, but not in the same way we do.
01:13:07: And so when he said God regretted.
01:13:11: Yeah, exactly.
01:13:12: In Genesis six, where it talks about God regretting, that's not in the same way that we regret as if we don't know what's going to happen.
01:13:18: Right.
01:13:18: And so we do have to address this analogical language and say, OK, how what is this telling us about the nature of God? Yeah, so good.
01:13:29: We had one more.
01:13:30: I'm sorry, Corey, go ahead.
01:13:33: Absolutely.
01:13:34: High five to the man in the chair.
01:13:36: Yes.
01:13:37: God's sovereignty is all over it, but very specifically in the passage where he says that he's going to choose the younger rather than the older.
01:13:45: And later, Paul will use that very example as God's elective purpose in sovereignly choosing whom he will.
01:13:54: One more.
01:13:55: All right.
01:13:55: You know, you're talking about the different forms of literary forms that are in this.
01:14:04: And we know that in the Gospels that Jesus often used parables in the Pentateuch.
01:14:12: Is there an allegory part of that? Is that used, you know, like he used parables? Is there an allegory or part or, you know, part of the Pentateuch? I would I'm very careful.
01:14:30: And that's a good question.
01:14:31: I'm very careful with allegorical interpretation.
01:14:35: I do believe that there are times where the will give us pictures because the New Testament writers do this.
01:14:41: They'll talk about, like, the people of Israel going through the Red Sea.
01:14:45: And they say that through that they were baptized into Moses.
01:14:47: And so it compares the going through the Red Sea to baptism.
01:14:51: And so there is an allegorical way to understand that.
01:14:55: But we have I think we have to be careful.
01:14:57: Some of the ancient writers, Christian, if you take church history with me, we talk about how some of the early Christian writers really sort of went overboard with the allegories, almost to the point where they stopped believing the Old Testament was literal and they saw it all as allegorical.
01:15:14: And that's where I think the danger lies, is when we start to see it as all allegorical, that it loses its historical significance.
01:15:20: And so can we see some allegories? Absolutely.
01:15:22: I think the Ark is an allegory to salvation.
01:15:26: God saves his people through the Ark and the Ark is a picture of Christ.
01:15:29: All that is true.
01:15:30: And the New Testament tells us there are symbols and shadows that all point to Christ.
01:15:35: Jesus said he is in all the Old Testament, and a lot of those are in pictures and types and shadows.
01:15:39: So all that's true.
01:15:40: But I think we have to be careful not to allow, make it all allegory or to allow that to cause us to diminish the historical validity of the actual account.
01:15:53: Go ahead.
01:15:53: So I just got a question.
01:15:55: I mean, I know that I actually see the church beginning, but can you point to the penitentiary to see the church beginning there where there's a lot? Yes.
01:16:06: That takes us in a little different direction, because depending on where you stand on how you define the church, classical reformed theology would say Israel and the church are the same.
01:16:20: So therefore, when Israel began, the church began.
01:16:23: Dispensationalism would say the church began at Acts and that the Israel and the church are to be distinguished.
01:16:28: I think that there is a medium point that you can come to there where there are distinguishing marks between ethnic Israel and the church.
01:16:38: But we are all one.
01:16:40: We are all one in Christ.
01:16:42: Ethnic Israel and the church are all one body in Christ.
01:16:45: And so can we say that every person who's ever been saved, Old Testament, New Testament, were saved by the blood of Christ? Yes.
01:16:53: And in that sense, it's all one.
01:16:55: Yeah.
01:16:56: OK, I got to move.
01:16:57: Last thing we got, I'm going to ask for five extra minutes because we started a few minutes late.
01:17:02: All right.
01:17:04: Interpretive challenges.
01:17:04: Now, I I'm just going to give these to you again.
01:17:07: You'll get the email.
01:17:08: Let me just quickly mention these are some things that when you are interpreting the books of the Pentateuch that you're going to face as challenges.
01:17:17: And it does it again.
01:17:18: I'm not I can't answer the challenges.
01:17:20: I'm just presenting them to you.
01:17:21: And if you do have a question or if you're writing about, let's say you decide you're going to write your paper on Genesis.
01:17:26: I would not want you to write your paper and not address at least some of this.
01:17:31: If you're going to write about a book, you need to address some of the difficulties of that book.
01:17:36: It ain't all rainbows and sunshine and puppy dog tales.
01:17:38: You got to deal with some of the hard stuff, too.
01:17:40: All right.
01:17:42: The length of the creation days, that is a difficult thing because it is not universally understood.
01:17:48: Now, I think that they're 24 hour days.
01:17:51: And I argue that and I teach that that the 24 hour that the days of creation were six literal days.
01:17:58: But that is an interpretive challenge because there are those who challenge that using the word young, which is the Hebrew word for day.
01:18:05: But it's also the Hebrew word for a period of time.
01:18:07: So young is argued to not mean a 24 hour day.
01:18:11: Again, I've told you where I stand.
01:18:14: Don't want to debate it.
01:18:15: Just telling you that's an interpretive challenge.
01:18:17: The scope of Noah's flood.
01:18:19: There are those who believe Noah's flood was universal.
01:18:22: I do.
01:18:23: Meaning every inch of this earth was covered in water.
01:18:27: There are those who believe the only thing that was flooded during Moses or during Noah's flood was the Mesopotamian Valley.
01:18:33: And that was the only place that human beings had spread to at that time.
01:18:37: So it did kill every human being, but it did not encompass the whole world.
01:18:41: So that would be a different perspective on the Noahic flood.
01:18:45: I don't think it holds water, but that is the Noahic flood debate.
01:18:55: The identity of the sons of God in Genesis.
01:18:57: The identity of the sons of God.
01:18:59: I'm going to talk about this on Wednesday night if you want to come because I'm going to be teaching in Jude.
01:19:05: Jude references this.
01:19:07: There's a portion in Genesis chapter 6 where it says the sons of God intermarried with the daughters of men.
01:19:11: Some people interpret that to be angels.
01:19:13: Other people interpret that to be the line of Cain and the line of Seth intermarrying with one another.
01:19:19: I'm going to talk about that on Wednesday.
01:19:20: But that is a, I would just say, a difficult passage because this is where you get that stuff about the Nephilim and all that.
01:19:26: That's all here in Genesis chapter 6.
01:19:29: All right.
01:19:30: The identity of Melchizedek.
01:19:31: Was Melchizedek Jesus or was Melchizedek just a priest who represented the coming of Christ? We talked about that in our break.
01:19:41: Who is it, Hope? Jesus.
01:19:43: Oh, that's okay.
01:19:45: Well, we'll disagree in our house.
01:19:51: I don't know.
01:19:53: That's my answer.
01:19:53: I don't know.
01:19:55: The appearance of Theophanies and Christophanies.
01:19:58: A Theophany would be an appearance of God or God's manifest presence.
01:20:05: So, for instance, we have the Shekinah or the Shekinah, the glory of God, which is in the, people saw the flaming fire by night and the smoke by, or the cloud by day and the fire by night.
01:20:17: That was the glory of God on display.
01:20:19: That would be a Theophany, right? A Christophany is more specifically something we would relate to the person of Jesus Christ, such as when God ate with Abraham, Genesis 18.
01:20:33: Yes.
01:20:39: Melchizedek.
01:20:40: Yes.
01:20:40: Yes.
01:20:40: Because some people would say Melchizedek is a Christophany.
01:20:43: Okay.
01:20:44: The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is a difficult thing to interpret because the argument is, well, why would God harden the heart of someone? Why would God do that? And it comes to the question of, of, of when we, when we deal with Christian ethics and apologetics, we deal with the issue of God's righteousness and how he deals with people.
01:21:04: And if God makes someone evil, how is it their fault? Well, that's not what hardening is, but that is, that's where the debate comes into.
01:21:12: It's called theodicy.
01:21:13: Theodicy is the word for God's righteousness.
01:21:16: How does God remain righteous in, in, in his actions with men? Okay.
01:21:22: So that would be the hardening of Pharaoh's heart would be a conversation about theodicy.
01:21:27: The plagues of Egypt, Nahab and Abihu and the judgment in the wilderness.
01:21:31: I say that interpretive challenges only because there's a lot going on that is difficult to understand.
01:21:37: I mean, Nahab and Abihu were burned to death for essentially worshiping the wrong way.
01:21:42: Why aren't churches burning down today? They said, well, God don't work that way anymore.
01:21:48: God's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
01:21:51: But there is, there must be an extension of grace because there's a lot of strange fire out there.
01:21:56: So anyway, but that's where I would say these are just interpretive.
01:21:59: It raises, and this is how I study, by the way, I've explained this before.
01:22:04: When I'm reading a text, when I'm talking about this in hermeneutics, when I'm reading a text, the first thing I do is ask a thousand questions.
01:22:11: Who's being talked to? What are they being talked about? What's the situation? What context is this? All of those I write down.
01:22:16: I can show you my notes where I just, I used, I used to use pen and paper.
01:22:19: Now I use my digital pen, but I write all these notes out.
01:22:22: It's all questions.
01:22:23: And these are, this is the kind of questions that we would want to address.
01:22:28: Application of the wilderness wanderings.
01:22:30: There are some people who believe the wilderness wanderings are a picture of the Christian life.
01:22:35: There are some people who believe the entrance into Canaan is a picture of going to heaven.
01:22:39: And a lot of people sing about that, right? Canaan land is heaven.
01:22:44: There are other people who interpret the wilderness as the, the, the wilderness and Canaan land as victorious Christian, Christian living versus defeated Christian living.
01:22:54: And so this comes back to that allegorical thing.
01:22:56: What is it meant to picture? Right? And it becomes a question of interpretation.
01:23:00: All right.
01:23:01: The application of the laws given to Israel in the church age.
01:23:05: How do we apply the laws that we talked about earlier, eating a cheeseburger or having clothes that were mixed fibers? I'm wearing a 50 50 shirt right now.
01:23:13: Yeah.
01:23:14: So, so all of those are, how do we apply in my ethics class? We have something called the West wing question.
01:23:21: I have a video that I show from the television show, the West wing, where the subject of homosexuality comes up and the president who was played by the Martin Sheen.
01:23:30: And he, he just blasts the, the woman who represents the Christian in the, in the story by saying, well, you don't believe that, that, that, that, that, uh, you should eat mixed foods and have mixed.
01:23:41: He goes through all these old Testament laws and he goes, so homosexuality shouldn't matter either, essentially.
01:23:47: And so in our ethics class, we deal with how do we address the subject of God's law from an old covenant, new covenant perspective.
01:23:53: This is important things.
01:23:54: This is why you need to do all two years, not just eight weeks as we get to all this.
01:23:58: All right.
01:23:59: Last one, the death of Moses.
01:24:00: I say the death of Moses is an interpretive issue.
01:24:03: One, because it has a really weird story mentioned in the book of Jude about the devil and Michael fighting over his body.
01:24:10: But also more specifically, if Moses died before Deuteronomy ended, who wrote Deuteronomy? Well, I would say the last portion was written by Joshua, but I believe the other port, I believe up until his death, it was written by Moses and Josh and Joshua finished it.
01:24:23: But again, that's an interpretive thing, right? That's what we have to address.
01:24:26: Obviously he didn't write about his own death unless God gave him prophetic insight.
01:24:31: And there are some people who believe that, that he wrote it all and God gave him prophetic insight into his own death.
01:24:37: But I don't think that's a necessary conclusion.
01:24:39: I think Joshua certainly is used to write the book of Joshua.
01:24:42: Why? What would be wrong with him completing Deuteronomy? But that doesn't give over to the documentary hypothesis because we're not saying that a group of people did it.
01:24:50: We're simply saying that Joshua finished what Moses began.
01:24:52: And that is the story of Joshua.
01:24:54: Anyway, he finishes what Moses began.
01:24:56: All right.
01:24:57: So that ends.
01:24:59: Last thing, the conclusion, the Pentateuch is filled with rich historical and theological truth.
01:25:06: It lays many of the foundation stones of the New Testament.
01:25:10: This is why Jesus began with Moses when he was explaining himself from the Old Testament to the two on the road to Emmaus.
01:25:16: In the book of Luke chapter 24, it says Jesus began with Moses and explained to them himself from the Old Testament.
01:25:25: All right.
01:25:25: Hopefully this was helpful.
01:25:26: Let's end with a word of prayer.
01:25:28: Father, I thank you for your word, for your truth, and I pray that it will be used to draw us closer to you.
01:25:35: And Lord, ultimately, that we would be better Bible students for this time spent together in Jesus name.
01:25:42: Amen.