Survey of the Old Testament - Lecture 1 "Canon and Chronology"

Well, good evening everyone. It's good to have everyone back for our continuation of this study. And because it is a new term, I'm anxious. I'm not going to lie. I'm anxious for several reasons. My first bit of anxiety comes from the fact that this is the first time I've ever taught this particular course in this particular way.

And I'm afraid, as is so often my problem in teaching, is that I get caught up in a subject and I spend too much time and I over-talk a subject. And so I am going to have to be moving along at a brisk pace.

What did you say, brother? Yeah, exactly. The other thing that I'm concerned about, of course, is this is a different setting than what we're used to. And I'm nervous that at some point I'm going to say, where is this?

Because I've put everything differently than I normally have it. So I'm going to ask that you be a little bit gracious with me, especially that tonight is our first night. And if at a certain point I say, whoops, just pray for me.

And we'll end. But I think I've got everything as it should be. I've got the recorders recording. We have a couple of people who can't be with us. And I promised them that I would record it and that I would share it online.

This class will be posted to YouTube, but not live streamed. And as I was telling Daisy, I don't like to live stream this class for a couple of reasons, but not the least of which is I like the opportunity to be able to edit if I make a mistake.

This is supposed to be seminary level material. And if I make a mistake and you guys hear it, I can apologize. But the internet is oh, so unyielding when it comes to mistakes. There is no grace on the internet.

So I like to have the opportunity to edit these videos before I post them. What we're going to do before I even dive into my notes is I want to go ahead and ask that we pass around the name list. Please put your name and mark that you're here.

This is for our first day. And this will be our sheet all through the term. You have to be at 80 or 75 of the classes. You can miss two classes and still get the certificate. But if you miss more than that, unless it's for a complete emergency, or you've like one of the students who's having an issue at home had to could not be here is doing it by video.

Unless you've made other plans. You have to be here for six of the eight classes. So I'm gonna start over here, brother, if you would, Jamie, just start with your name, and please write legibly. That would be very helpful.

I also have copies of the the syllabus. If you don't have a copy, you don't have to necessarily have one tonight for class, but you probably will want one before you go home because this has your homework in it.

So if you didn't, if you don't have one on your computer at home, if you don't have one printed and need one, I've got about six copies here. I don't want to print a bunch of them because they're three pages stapled and everything.

But there's enough for a few of you to take if you need. Now everyone needs each of these. This is our handout for the first night. If I could have two young men or I don't care if it's men, but two, two, two scrapping lads, if you'll please pass those out, make sure everyone gets one of each.

While they're doing that, I want to make note that we have several certificates that I've already awarded from the last session, but there are a few people who did not get their certificate. And the problem is everybody that's up here is not here tonight.

And the one person that did earn a certificate, I don't, I don't have one for him, but Johnny O 'Neill did earn his certificate. So everybody give him a hand and he'll, he'll get that, he'll get that next week.

And I'll give these out to the people when I, when I see them. As they're doing that also, I hope that everyone has a copy of the Believer's Bible Commentary. This is the required text and it is a hefty book.

It's not easy to carry around. So I will tell you in class, we won't be using it as much. But you, you definitely have to have it for your at home reading. That's mainly what this is for. So if you're having trouble lugging it back and forth, I don't think you'll be needing it very much in class.

The other books that I recommended for this course was Zondervan's Old Testament Charts. I want to go ahead and tell you this is a good book, but I have found that I'm not using it as much as I thought I would.

I'm actually making much better use of Rose Charts, which I don't have. That's it. I told you something was going to happen. Is that, is that a copy? Thank you. If I could just hold it. This is, this is what I'm photocopying out of.

This is what your notes are coming out of. So if you already have this book, you won't need the handouts that I'm giving you. Except for the timeline comes from a different book. The timeline that I just gave you is different.

But this particular book, I just find it very useful, the charts in it. Not only is it nice looking and colorful, but it's just good material. And it even has the, the ability to photocopy. So if you are teacher, a teacher, you can photocopy from this book, and they give you the right to do that, where a lot of books don't.

So as long as you're not selling the photocopies, as long as you're just giving them out to classes, you can use that book for that purpose, which is a nice, a nice benefit that not a lot of booksellers will give you the opportunity to do.

The last one, I'm using another book by Rose Publishing. And it's a very small book. And it's where your tonight's timeline came out of. And it's simply called Bible Overview. That's the title of it. And it's eight by five and a half.

I think it's a very small book. And I found it quite useful. Oh, here it is. This is it literally walked right by it. This is the Bible Overview book. I think it was $10 on Amazon. It's got beautiful, colorful charts and every one of the books of the Bible.

It has an introduction and an overview and an outline. And it's very well done. So Bible Overview by Rose Publishing. It's like 10 bucks and it's it's worth the money. If you want to add one last thing, since we're talking.

This is not a book, but a PDF that you can purchase. It is from teach sunday school .com. And this is called Bible at a glance. Oh, it came open. That's not good. It's called Bible at a glance. And basically what it is, is it's a poster style of information sheet for every book of the Bible.

So like here's the book of Haggai. It just gives you the overview who wrote it when it was written where it falls and main verses that are in it and those things. So this is a really good tool, especially if you're like me and use computer all the time.

The only reason really I had this photocopied was I asked Miss Pat to photocopy and put it in here so I could show it to you. Because ordinarily when I'm using this, I'm using it on my computer. I just pull up the PDF.

I look for the book I want to study and I pull it up and I've got it. And it's right there. Teach sunday school .com is the website and the title of this particular publication is Bible at a glance. Make sure I'm saying that exactly right.

Oh, it's at the front. Yeah, books of the Bible Bible at a glance. And it's every book of the Bible in a poster style PDF. So a lot of them for I'm giving you tools, right? Remember when we did the how to study the Bible course when I taught on hermeneutics, I said, you know, like a carpenter is, is really reliant on having good tools.

Well, the same thing is the case for doing a study of the Bible, you need to have good tools. The commentary that I've given you, I think is good. It's not perfect. And I'm going to make some points about areas that I might disagree with it on, not to not to be contentious.

But there are things I could, there's not a commentary in the world that I'm sure I couldn't find something that I would disagree with. So we're going to talk about that. But these are all resources that are are fairly solid, they should give you good information.

And, and so that's why I've recommended them. All right, now, as they say, on with the show, without fear of embarrassment. I would like to ask you all some questions. And I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, because I wouldn't certainly not want to cause anyone any embarrassment.

But in your mind and in your heart, you can raise your hand. Question number one, how many of you could honestly provide a synopsis for every book in the Old Testament? From memory? Okay. Question number two, how many of you for certain could give a list of the books of the Old Testament without having to look, you know, for certain that you know, all 39 books?

That's a little easier, but still not so you'll be surprised. I go out to the fair. I ask people Bible questions all the time. How many books are there in the Bible? I don't know how many testaments? I don't know, six?

I literally that's the answer people don't know. So to say that people wouldn't know how many books there are or what the names of the books, it's not uncommon. In fact, that would be the next question.

Are you certain that you know how many books are in the Old Testament? Did we miss somebody? In fact, just set it on the back when you're done. You can just have just have them set it back there. I want to tell you a story.

And it's in this story is to my shame. So it's a story about myself. It's a little embarrassing, but I'm telling it to you to follow up the last three questions. When I was in seminary, I went in with no prior theological training.

I had only been in church my whole life. But I didn't have any theological training. I had went to Sunday school and I had heard the stories of David and Goliath and Adam and Eve and Abraham and I'd heard the stories.

But even then, I couldn't put anything into categories. And I certainly couldn't put anything into any type of really sensible timeline. And I remember one class. Now remember, I'm in seminary at this point.

Dr. Vernon Johns was teaching a class, I believe the class was on the book of Revelation, but I can't remember for certain, but I know that he was teaching. He was the president of the seminary and also a professor.

And Dr. Johns came to my desk. And he said, Brother Foskey, would you please turn to the book of, and I don't even remember what book it was, but he named a book. And I reached down to my Bible. And I started going the wrong way.

Because I didn't know where it was. And the look of disapproval that was upon his face, I will never forget. So if you can't answer those first three questions that I asked you with a yes, just know that that's okay.

That's why you're here. First of all, to ask the question, can you give a one sentence or a short synopsis of every book of the Bible? I don't know very many people that can do that from memory. To ask people to name the books of the Bible.

Usually, if they've been to Juana's or something like that, they can do that. Maybe they know how many books of the Bible there are. But at the end of this course, my goal is honestly, honestly, my goal is that every one of you will be able to give a short synopsis of all 39 books of the Old Testament.

That you'll know who wrote it, that you'll know when it was written, and why it was written, and to whom it was written. That in and of itself is enough information to get you started in a study. So you can see where my focus is.

My focus in this class is not to dig into the theological minutia of the Old Testament. We don't have time for that. But my goal is to ensure that when this class is over, you feel confident to turn to any book in the Old Testament and know where you are and why you're there.

Because that's the goal of this class. Everybody understand? That's what a survey does. And this is a survey of the Old Testament. Prior to tonight, you should have read Introduction to the Old Testament, which is page 17 to page 24 in the Believer's Bible Commentary.

Now, if you have not read that assignment, hopefully you have. But again, I'm not going to ask you to raise hands because it's the first night of a new term. I know there are some of you who are coming in and say, oh, there was a reading assignment I didn't notice.

Okay, if you came in tonight and didn't know there was a reading assignment, add it to next week. The reading assignments for this class are not long. In fact, the longest one you're going to have is when you get to the Minor Prophets because you have to read the Introduction to all the Minor Prophets.

That's 12 introductions. They're all fairly short. But that's the longest reading that you're going to have. So if you didn't read the Introduction to the Old Testament before you came tonight, make that part of next week's homework.

Another good thing about this course is you're not going to have writing things to do. Some of the courses you've done in the past, there have been written requirements you had to write. Something like when we did the Al Mohler's briefing, you had to write a synopsis of that or something.

You don't have to do that this time. Your reading is your, that's your homework. So as long as you're in class and you're listening and you're taking notes and you're doing the reading and you, at the end of the course, if you decide you want the certificate, you turn in the paper, then you're golden.

Okay. I didn't, I didn't want to, I didn't want to add in a bunch of additional duties. All right. Keep in mind, as I just said, this course covers 39 books and 1500 years of history. So to say that we're only going to scratch the surface is an understatement to say the least.

The goal of this class is not exegesis. The goal of this class is framework. There is a difference. If you have a framework, you have better exegesis. You have to have a foundation. You have to build your framework.

You have to have an understanding of who and what and where, and then you can begin to particularize the individual passages and the stories. Very quickly, I'd like for you to, if you do have your syllabus with you, to take it out.

If you don't have a copy with you tonight, you don't have to have it, but I just very, very quickly, I want to give you how this class is going to break down. If you look at the first page, yep, there's a couple, there's right there.

That's fine. Anybody else want one since, while they're up here? James, you can grab one. So the course overview, this course will survey the key figures, themes, and theology of the Old Testament. Students will be introduced to pattern, progression, and unity of the Old Testament text and see how they find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

We're going to learn the categories and chronology of the Old Testament canon. We're going to summarize the purpose and theology of individual Old Testament books. We're going to recognize the historical contribution of key Old Testament figures, and we're going to examine typological and prophetic passages regarding Jesus Christ.

The things that you need are a Bible and the commentary, but as I said, we're not going to be using the commentary much in class, so if you don't have the capacity to lug it back and forth, that's okay.

Recommended text, we've already talked about that. We know what the course requirements are. We've discussed these in previous terms. Attendance is important. Reading assignments are important. Your notebook is your notes.

What you take notes in class, that's your notebook. At a certain point in the class, I may say, hey, notebook check, I want to see what you've done. You just open it up and I come around and look. I think I did that once or twice in the last term.

Academic character, don't cheat, of course, and if there's something in your paper that looks, if it's plagiarized, but it's not your whole paper, then it can count against 10 of your grade, but if your whole paper is plagiarized, the whole thing is going in the trash, so just understand that 10 is for minor mistakes, not you went to termpaper .com and downloaded a paper.

That whole thing is going in the trash, and there are ways to find that out, by the way, and the last thing is your research project. The research project will be assigned during the final class. Each student will be assigned one book from the Old Testament.

The student will write a synopsis of the book, including authorship, purpose and theme, theological insights, and Christological significance. That means how Christ is in the book. This analysis will be submitted in the following format, a title page, which will include the course title, number, along with the student name and professor name.

The body of the project should be well organized and be no less than three pages and no more than five pages, and a properly cited bibliography page. If you need help with that, see me and I will help you make sure that that is correct.

Last is the course schedule. If you have the old syllabus, you have the old dates, but if you got one from tonight, I did take the time to go change the dates, so tonight we're going to be looking at an introduction to the Old Testament canon.

Next week we're going to study the Pentateuch, which is the writings of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. Then we're going to study the history books, which is Joshua through Esther. Week four, we will study the poetic literature, which is Job through the Song of Solomon.

Week five, we're going to study the major prophets, which is Isaiah to Daniel. Week six, we're going to survey the minor prophets, which is Hosea to Malachi. Week seven, we are going to devote an entire class to looking at Christ in the Old Testament, and I think that that is not only important, but it will help you tie the whole Old Testament together if you can see Christ and where he is most clearly typified, and so week seven you do not want to miss.

Week eight is a survey of the intertestamental period. That is the period between Malachi and Matthew. We are going to have one week looking at the history. I always mention when I tell people I'm going to teach on the intertestamental period, I say, don't you find it interesting that nowhere in the Old Testament do you see the word Pharisee?

Don't you find it interesting that nowhere in the Old Testament do you see the word Sadducee? Yeah. Why? Because these are developments that happened in the 400-year period between Malachi and Matthew, and therefore as a student of New Testament theology, we should understand the history between the Testaments.

So that is what we are going to do in week eight. All right. Well, tonight's lesson is going to be broken down into three parts. This is now moving to the lesson. If you want to switch to your notebook in case you want to take some notes.

Tonight's lesson is entitled Intro or Introduction to the Old Testament Canon. Now, very quickly, and I'm sure many of you know this, but just in case you don't, because if I say canon, I don't want there to be any confusion, what does the word canon mean?

The word canon is speaking about the actual books that are in the Old Testament. The word canon comes from the word which means a standard or a rule or a measuring rod, something against you, something against which you would measure something.

So we say, what is the canon? Well, we're talking about the books that are in the Old Testament, the list. When you open up your Bible and you begin at Genesis 1 .1, it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

It doesn't come with a table of contents. Now, you say, wait a minute, my Bible has a table of content, but the Bible as it was written didn't have that. That was added much later. So you say, well, how do we know what books are supposed to be in there and what books aren't and what about the disagreements?

And that's sort of what we're going to discuss tonight, because we're going to discuss three things about the Old Testament canon tonight. First, we're going to talk about the chronology and the dating of the canon.

When were the books written and in what order were they written? Number two, we're going to talk about the books that we do not believe belong, also known as the apocryphal writings. And number three, we're going to talk about different ways that people interpret the Old Testament and what method we are going to employ, because there are a lot of different ways that people try.

In fact, right now I'm reading a book. It is called Dark Agenda by David Horowitz. It is about the leftward trajectory in American politics that has happened over the last half century. It's a very interesting book.

But one of the things that I have noted from Mr. Horowitz as I have been reading this book is that from the very beginning of the book, he states unequivocally that the early passages of the Bible are mythological.

He calls himself a Christian, and I'm not going to necessarily question his fidelity to Christ, but I will say this. I have a hard time when I begin to talk to someone about the Bible and they automatically write off the first several chapters of the Bible as purely mythological.

And so, how should we interpret the Bible? That's one of the questions we're going to answer tonight. And we're going to do this as we always have. It's an hour and a half class. We'll take a 10-minute break at a certain point, but we're going to try to stick to our timeline.

Before we get into the chronology and dating, I do want to ask one question. Why study the Old Testament? Why should we study the Old Testament? Well, we are New Testament believers, and therefore, why do we need the Old Testament?

Some people don't really consider it valuable or necessary to study the Old Testament outside of maybe some of the stories, and often they get the stories so mixed up because they don't seek to study anything more than the stories.

And then David and Goliath becomes, you know, all about how you can have courage in the face of adversity, and Adam and Eve becomes all about how we shouldn't run around naked. I don't know, it's all kinds of silly stuff.

We don't get any real theology out of it because we don't study it. And I will say this, if you do not understand the Old Testament, then much of the New Testament will remain a mystery to you because so much of the New Testament is steeped, I would say the whole New Testament is steeped in the theology of the Old Testament.

Recently, I watched a debate on the subject of penal substitutionary atonement. Now, I don't want to get into that subject because that would take me on a whole other direction, but here's one of the things that I was so happy with.

The guy who was defending penal substitutionary atonement was doing so from the Old Testament. And the guy who was opposing penal substitutionary atonement was saying, oh, God would never require sacrifice to satisfy His wrath.

And the other guy's like, have you read the Old Testament? I mean, it was literally, that was the end of the debate. The guy was like, you're talking about Yahweh, right? You're talking about the guy who literally, the guy, the God who literally created the sacrificial system, that God.

So why study the Old Testament? The New Testament depends on it. Understanding who Christ is, understanding what atonement is, understanding, in fact, the word atonement doesn't even come up in the New Testament.

Like, it's only in there like twice and it depends on how you even interpret it. The whole concept of atonement is found in the Old Testament. And it's fulfilled in Christ, but the foundation of our entire system of salvation is found in the Old Covenant text.

It is the Word of God as much as the New Testament is. In fact, I want to point this out. You've probably all at some point either quoted or heard someone else quote 2 Timothy 3 .16, which says what? All scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and training and righteousness so that the man of God be equipped for every good work.

You realize when Paul wrote that, there wasn't a New Testament yet. Paul was in the middle of writing a portion of the New Testament that had not yet been brought together as one whole unit and put together.

And so when Paul's writing that, he says all scripture is profitable and sufficient so that the man of God is able to do all that he needs to do. And he's talking about the Old Testament. So let us never doubt why we should study the Old Testament.

Alright, moving on to chronology and dating. In our English Bible, the Old Testament is not set up chronologically. In our English Bible, the Old Testament is set up categorically. The Old Testament is set up categorically.

So we have in the Old Testament, we have a category of one, which is the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is Genesis through Deuteronomy. The second is history books. The third is poetic literature. The fourth is major prophets.

And the fifth is minor prophets. Now when we get to the major and the minor prophets in this study, you'll learn that major and minor does not mean levels of importance, but rather the girth of the writing or the breadth of how much they wrote.

So just keep that in mind. Looking at this, however, it's important to realize when we talk about this, we are talking about the way that we categorize our Old Testament and how many books are in our Old Testament.

39. There are 39 books that make up five categories in our Old Testament. By the way, something I did learn in Sunday school many, many years ago, which I always thought was helpful, and maybe it'll help you.

If you remember, three times nine equals 27. So 39 books in the Old Testament, three times nine, there are 27 books in the New Testament. That's just a nice little memory thing. There's nothing about numerology in it.

There's nothing special about it. It just so happened to be that three times nine equals 27. 39 in the Old is 27 in the New, which adds up to 66 books in the Bible. Now, in the Hebrew Bible, we have a different organization of books.

In the Hebrew Bible, we have something called the Tanakh. The Tanakh is an acronym. I'll write it down. It is K-H, always Tanakh. And the Tanakh is the Torah, which is what? The word Torah means law.

The next is known as the Nevi 'im, and the Nevi 'im is the prophets. And we have the Ketuvim, which means the writings. So Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim. This is how the Hebrew books would be identified.

It would not be identified as the Pentateuch, and the history books, and the poetry books, and the major prophets, and the minor prophets. It would be known. In fact, when you read the New Testament, how is the Old Testament often described?

The law and the prophets, or the law, and the prophets, and the writings. Because this is the way that the Jewish people would identify their Bible. They would identify it as the Tanakh, the Torah, or the law, the Nevi 'im, which is the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which is the writings, which basically would be the history books, and the poetic books.

Now, here's the really weird part. How many books do you have in your English Bible? 39. How many books do you have in the Jewish Bible? You would hope to have 39, but you don't. There are 24 books in the Jewish Bible, and that causes a lot of people a great amount of consternation, because they say, oh no, that means we have, I'm really bad at math, it means 15 more books.

Thank you. It means we have a whole other library of books that should not be there. But that is not the case. The reason why the Tanakh has 24 books is because the books are numbered differently. For instance, all 12 minor prophets make up one book.

Well, there you have a major dropping off of the amount of books that you're going to number. 1 and 2 Kings is not 1 and 2 Kings, it's just Kings. 1 and 2 Chronicles is not that, it's just Chronicles.

So, you have to understand that when we talk about 39 and 24, the key thing to remember is that the books that make up the Protestant canon are the same books that make up the Hebrew canon. That is essential to understand, because even though the numbering system is different, and the order is different, it is not a different library.

It's just a differently ordered library. However, when you consider the Roman Catholic canon, they do have a different list than the Hebrew or the Protestant canon. If you look at your handout, you will see, this is, if you have the Rose book, I believe this is page 25, but you notice the Hebrew and Protestant Bibles both take up the same amount of space.

You see that on the left and the right, the Hebrew Bible on the left, the Protestant Bible on the right. But notice this in the Hebrew Bible, notice the order that it ends with 2 Chronicles, rather than ending with Malachi.

Notice that the prophets are mingled in differently in different locations, because it's ordered, this is ordered categorically, but the Hebrew Bible is ordered chronologically. You see the difference?

See, the English Bible takes it by category, but the Hebrew Bible takes it by chronology, which it ends with where you think it would end, the end of the Chronicles, the history books, it ends at that ending point.

But notice the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Bibles. They go on to include several books, Greek Orthodox even more so than the Roman Catholics. Understand this about that. The Roman Catholic Church is including history books that would fall into the intertestamental period, meaning the time between Malachi and Matthew, which were never accepted as part of the Jewish canon.

They were never accepted as part of the Hebrew Bible. And that is why the Protestants have mainly and generally, and by and large, not completely, because you can't, almost can't do anything universal when you talk about Protestants, because there's such a diversity.

But in general, the Protestants have all said, we do not accept those books because they were not accepted by the Hebrews and the Hebrew canon. And where are we getting our main source of foundational information about the Old Testament from the Hebrew people?

These books that we have, these 39 books, 24 if you count them as the Jews do, is the same books Jesus had. You say, well why did the Roman Catholic Church choose to include these? They are historical, and in that sense they are valuable.

But even the Roman Catholic Church identifies those books as what is known as Deutero-canonical. Deutero-canonical means secondary canon. Deutero, just like the word Deuteronomy, means second. And canon, of course, this.

They say it's a secondary canon. It's not part of the primary. Yes, sir. Deutero-canonical? I believe that's it. It's spelled like Deuteronomy and then add canonical on it. I don't know if y 'all can see that over there.

It's one kind of difficult. Yeah, so the Roman Catholic Church would identify those books as Deutero-canonical. We would not accept them. And one of the interesting historical notes on that is Jerome.

You familiar with Jerome? Jerome was the one who was responsible for translating the Bible into Latin. And the Latin Bible became the Bible of the Christian Church for over a thousand years. When Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he read Greek and Hebrew.

He was a scholar. And he had studied in Jerusalem. And he knew that the Jewish people did not accept the Deutero-canonical books, or whatever you want to call them, the apocryphal He knew they did not accept them as God's inspired word, as the written word of God.

And so he did not want to include them. However, at that time period in the church, and we're looking at about the fifth century at that point, there was acceptance within the church and therefore there was pressure to include them.

One of the issues that was brought up during the Reformation and why Protestants have generally rejected them was because they were not accepted in the Hebrew community. So when somebody says, well, why don't you accept the apocrypha?

I say, because I don't think Jesus accepted the apocrypha. I mean, I don't. Because Jesus would have been a Palestinian Jew, he would have been living in Israel, and he would have understood what books were and what books weren't part of the canon.

I don't think Jesus accepted them as part of the canon. And there are some things that are in there that seem to go in opposition to what we know is accepted truth. And that's a whole other kind of, because you have the issue of what we call external evidence and internal evidence.

And the internal evidence also would lend towards their rejection, some of what they say. Now I want to take a step back, because I've gone a little ahead of myself. I want to take a step back and talk about this difference between the English way of ordering the books and the Jewish way of ordering their books.

Because Jewish readers today have argued that the way that they order their books is better than the way we do, not just because it's chronological and therefore more easy to know where people are falling into the story.

And I think that that would help to know, you know, the fact that you get the minor prophets way at the end when the action has happened way up in the history, I can understand that argument. They say, but no, it's better because of this.

Remember, a modern Jew would not accept Jesus as the Messiah. And so what they say is if you take it and you order it our way, you'll see the whole story wraps up at the end. And we don't end looking forward to something.

Because to the Jewish person, the Bible of the Old Testament ends with the coming back to Jerusalem after the exile and the restoration of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple. And they say, that's what the hope of the prophets was.

That was the promise. That was what we had to look forward to. And that's where their book ends. But you see, if you read the Old Testament in the categorical way that we would, the English speaking world, it ends with expectation, doesn't it?

Because you have the prophets at the end looking for something else. And what do we say that is? It's Jesus. I'll read you this paragraph. Jewish readers today have argued that their ordering allows the book to stand on its own, having prophetic, or excuse me, having prophecy and fulfillment in the nation of Israel being put into exile and then returning and being delivered from bondage.