Old Testament Canon & Chronology

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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January 23, 2022

00:01: So, I want to kind of give an introduction to the class and then we're going to look at the syllabus.
00:06: Without fear of embarrassment, I want to ask a few questions, and when I say without fear of embarrassment, I mean, you don't have to raise your hand, but I do want you to answer these questions sort of in your own mind and in your own heart.
00:19: How many of you, without having to look up or examine your Bibles, could give a simple synopsis of every book in the Old Testament, okay? How many of you know for certain that you know all the books of the Old Testament? That's maybe an easier question.
00:39: And how many of you know how many books there are? I'll let you put your hands up.
00:42: Okay, alright.
00:42: So, the reason why I ask this question to start this particular course is because when I began seminary, I was, I think, 22 years old, I had no prior theological training.
00:57: I had grown up in church, but I had really not been trained in the Bible.
01:02: I remember sitting in class with Dr.
01:04: Vernon Johns, who was one of the professors at the school, and he asking me to go to a book of the Old Testament.
01:11: He said, Foskey, would you turn to, you know, Habakkuk or something? And I had no idea where it was.
01:18: I didn't even, I turned the wrong way.
01:20: I started turning my Bible the wrong way, and the look of absolute shame on my professor's face, that I didn't know where the book of Habakkuk was, was quite embarrassing.
01:30: But the reason why I bring this up is if you answered no to any of the first three questions, then know that I understand.
01:38: That if you're coming in here green, if you don't know a lot about the Old Testament, that's what this class is for.
01:44: This class is to help you get there.
01:46: And my goal at the end of this class is just that, that you would be able to give a short synopsis of every book of the Old Testament from memory.
01:54: That you would know enough about all of the 39 books in our Protestant Old Testament canon, and that you would know enough off the top of your head to know what Habakkuk is about, or to know what any of the other Old Testament books are about.
02:05: And like I said, not the whole thing, not a scholarly outline, but to know what the book is about, where it fits in the canon, where it fits in the chronology of the Old Testament, and why we believe it is important.
02:21: So again, that's one of the goals of this course.
02:28: Understand this, this course covers 39 books of the Bible, spanning a 1,500 year period of writing, so to say that we will only scratch the surface is an understatement.
02:41: The goal of this is not exegesis of the Old Testament.
02:45: It couldn't be.
02:46: Couldn't possibly be.
02:47: I've been in the book of Genesis for going on three years, and I'm only in chapter 31.
02:53: That's exegesis.
02:54: That is not what we're doing here.
02:56: Rather, what we are doing here is providing a framework and basis from which to better understand.
03:03: Come on.
03:03: Oh, Billy Ray.
03:04: How are you? It's good to see you.
03:05: Come on in.
03:07: Tonight is about giving a framework and a foundation and a basis for the Old Testament and understanding.
03:13: So if you would take out your syllabus, and if somebody would hand Billy Ray the syllabus, he just walked in, we are going to look at this and simply talk about what our goals are for the class, what the requirements are, and if you've never taken an academy class, understand it is a little different than anything else that we do here.
03:32: It's not like Sunday school or Wednesday nights or anything like this.
03:35: This is treated like a class, and there are, as I said, requirements for the course.
03:42: So on the front of the class, it tells you the name of the class, it gives you our schedule beginning tonight, tells you my information if you need to get a hold of me.
03:50: My phone number and email address is right there.
03:55: And here is our overview and our objectives.
04:00: This course will survey the key figures, themes, and theology of the Old Testament.
04:07: 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.
04:21: The required texts that you have to have for this course are your Bible, and you can have any translation you want.
04:29: I will be using ESV when I'm doing my readings or if I have things printed on the screens behind me, but I don't care, whatever you want to use is fine, unless you bring the Message Bible, at which point it will be excommunicated.
04:44: The Believer's Bible Commentary is the same book that I use for the Old Testament survey and the New Testament survey.
04:51: So if you buy one book, it's good for this class and the next class.
04:54: I think it's $20 on Amazon.
04:56: This is required for both classes because your readings will come out of here.
05:00: It is available on Kindle.
05:01: If you're a digital reader and you want to read off of your digital medium, that's fine.
05:05: You can get the copy on your Kindle.
05:07: And the only thing that I won't be able to do is tell you your page number, because Kindles don't do it that way.
05:13: There's also two additional books for this course if you want them.
05:19: These are not have-tos, these are want-tos.
05:22: First one, the Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Timelines.
05:29: Funny enough, this is available at Walmart.
05:31: I bought this for my wife a couple of years ago at Walmart, and I use it all the time.
05:36: And it actually says inside that it is free to reproduce anything in this book.
05:42: So I do have handouts for you that I'll be handing you from this book, because I'm allowed to do that.
05:47: Not every book allows for that.
05:49: I'll be handing you handouts.
05:50: But if you get the book, they're full color.
05:53: It's like $15 at Walmart, and it's a nice book to have.
05:56: And it's got all kinds of stuff in here with the tabernacle and timelines and stuff like that.
06:01: So this book is a great little resource.
06:03: Rose has been putting out pamphlets and stuff for the better part of my life, I'm sure.
06:08: The other book is Zondervan Charts.
06:12: This is Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament by John Walton.
06:16: Now this one you'll probably have to go to Amazon to find.
06:18: That's where I got my copy.
06:20: But this has, everything's in black and white.
06:22: I will be making a few photocopies out of this, but not as much as what I'm going to use out of Rose.
06:26: But if you want all of these charts, this is the other recommended book.
06:30: None of these are have-tos.
06:31: The only one you have to have is the Believer's Bible Commentary.
06:34: Any questions? Great.
06:38: Okay, moving down the syllabus, the requirements, attendance, class attendance as required will be checked at each session starting next week because you signed in tonight.
06:47: Starting next week, there's actually going to be a roster that we check off.
06:50: A student who misses more than 25% of the classes will forfeit credit for the class and receive a failing grade unless an arrangement has been made.
06:57: Which means you come to me, hey, I got COVID, I can't be there for three weeks or whatever.
07:01: If that happens, you have to do the classes online and you have to show me your notes that you actually did the classes at home and wrote the notes.
07:09: Okay? So it's not just, hey, I did the classes online, maybe.
07:12: No.
07:12: I want to know.
07:13: I want to see your notebook.
07:15: Academic character.
07:16: Using someone else's work without proper citation, handing in another's work is plagiarism.
07:21: That is lying and stealing.
07:24: And please don't do that.
07:26: If I find that you're cheating on something, you may be asked to discontinue this program.
07:33: Okay.
07:34: Reading assignments.
07:36: These are 25% of your grade and this is on the honor system basically because the only way I'll know that you're reading is if I ask you a question and you can't answer it.
07:44: But even if you can't answer it, it doesn't mean you didn't read it, it just means you don't remember.
07:48: But ultimately, the reading assignment is 25% of your grade.
07:50: If it's obvious that you're not doing the reading, then I'll have a conversation with you.
07:56: And again, this is only for people who want the certificate.
07:59: If you're here auditing, I don't care.
08:01: But if you want the certificate, these are things that are required.
08:04: Notebook assignment.
08:07: I'm going to ask you to keep a notebook devoted to this course.
08:10: And let me tell you something.
08:10: When I was in seminary, this was one of the best things my professors always made me do.
08:14: New notebook for every class.
08:16: And every class, I wrote down the name of the class on the notebook.
08:19: And the notes in that book were only for that class.
08:22: And I still have, I can go out in my shed today, pull out old boxes, and I still got notebooks of my handwritten notes from my classes.
08:29: So if you would do that for this class, at the end of the class, if you want credit, part of your credit is going to be showing me what notebook, showing me your notebook.
08:36: Everybody understand? Okay.
08:39: Research project.
08:40: This is the biggest part of your grade.
08:42: And this is where a lot of people fall off, because a lot of people let it go and don't do it, because it requires your own independent work.
08:48: It's four weeks after this class is over.
08:50: Your final grade is assessed based on your turning in your research project.
08:56: The research project will be assigned during the final class.
08:58: Each student will be assigned one book from the Old Testament.
09:01: You will write a synopsis of that book, including the authorship, purpose, and theme, theological insights, and Christological significance.
09:09: The research project will be submitted in the following format, and it's basically, you can choose either APA or MLA format, depending on what your particular druthers are.
09:18: I don't care as long as it's done.
09:21: Keep a consistent format.
09:22: Don't switch between APA and MLA, back and forth.
09:25: That is very annoying.
09:27: Make it one way.
09:29: All right.
09:29: Grading scale is the standard A, B, C, D, F grading scale.
09:36: And on the back, you have your course schedule.
09:39: Each week there will be a lecture.
09:41: And each week there will be a reading assignment that is due, except for, of course, tonight.
09:45: There was no prior reading assignment before tonight.
09:48: But by next week, you should have read Introduction to the Old Testament and Introduction to the Pentateuch.
09:53: Those are both in the Believer's Bible Commentary.
09:57: And each week, your outline of what you're to do before class is there.
10:01: Everybody understand? Does it make sense? Any questions? Yes, sir.
10:08: I think they bought some copies for set free, so if you want to ask Bobby.
10:16: Yeah, so there should be some there.
10:20: Yes, sir.
10:21: Yes, sir.
10:23: All right.
10:24: Perfect.
10:25: So, are we ready? Good.
10:28: Now the class will officially begin.
10:30: All that was just prelim.
10:32: All right.
10:33: By the way, if you can't see the board, I'm doing my very best.
10:36: I dimmed the lights.
10:38: I closed the curtains.
10:39: In fact, let's go ahead and close that door.
10:40: I don't think anybody else is coming up now.
10:42: And try to get it as dark in here as we can so you can actually see.
10:46: And this will help you in taking notes.
10:48: Each one of the weeks, I will have a presentation.
10:51: And each week so far, I've done the presentations for most of the classes.
10:55: Each week has a little video that accompanies it.
10:58: Is it not closed? There you go.
11:06: Yeah, that's the trick.
11:07: Put a little elbow grease on it.
11:11: All right.
11:12: Tonight's lesson is Introduction to the Old Testament Canon.
11:16: And here are the three things that we are going to discuss in tonight's lesson.
11:20: And by the way, the goal of every class is that it lasts an hour and a half.
11:23: But we do take about a five-minute break at the midpoint.
11:27: And most people enjoy that.
11:29: Stretch your legs, go get some water, come back.
11:31: So, sometimes that five-minute break ends up being ten minutes.
11:34: And then we end up going a little late because I've got to have my time.
11:37: So, try to keep our breaks to five to seven minutes.
11:39: And we'll try to keep ourselves within our hour and a half framework.
11:43: Tonight's outline is Introduction to the Old Testament Canon by show of hands.
11:47: What is the canon? What does that mean? The canon is scripture.
11:53: That's right, Brian.
11:53: But what does the word canon mean? Anybody know? Okay.
11:58: The word canon means a standard, a rule, or a measuring rod.
12:03: And when we refer to the Old Testament or the New Testament canon, we're referring to the books that make up that particular grouping of books.
12:11: So, the Old Testament canon for the Protestant would be Genesis through Malachi.
12:15: The New Testament canon for the Protestant would be Matthew through Revelation.
12:20: Now, we're going to talk in a little while about how that differs, if you're a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, because they do have a different canon.
12:28: And we're going to talk about why that is.
12:29: But the canon is going to be the subject of tonight's class.
12:33: We're going to talk about the chronology of the canon, chronology meaning when it was written.
12:39: And, obviously, that's the dating, chronology and dating.
12:43: We're going to talk about apocryphal writings, apocryphal meaning of human origin or, basically, it means doubtful origin.
12:51: It has to do with their not being accepted as being legitimate or part of the legitimate canon.
12:58: Okay.
12:58: So, the word apocryphal there, we're going to see that the Roman Catholics don't use that word.
13:01: They use the word deuterocanonical, meaning secondary canon.
13:05: But they don't call it apocryphal because they believe it's scripture.
13:08: And then we're going to, after our break, look at understanding interpretive methods.
13:20: Now, before we go into all of this, I do have another question.
13:24: I have already asked one question.
13:25: I'm going to ask another question.
13:26: Why is it valuable to study the Old Testament? Well, we are New Testament Christians.
13:33: And because of that, some people never really spend any time in the Old Testament.
13:38: In fact, for many Christians, the Old Testament remains a mystery.
13:42: We're going to see next week a video of a pastor, a very famous pastor, who says really what Christians ought to do is just jettison the Old Testament.
13:49: Or his term actually was unhitch the Old Testament from the New Testament.
13:54: And we'll see the video and we'll see the context of that next week.
13:58: But the Old Testament is vital to Christians because, apart from it, we will not truly understand the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
14:07: The New Testament relies heavily on the Old Testament for its understanding of the nature of God, the nature of man, concepts such as the priesthood, sacrifice, atonement, sin, all of those things find their definitions and foundations in the Old Testament.
14:25: The Old Testament is the Word of God.
14:28: It is the Word of God as much as the New Testament is.
14:31: In fact, in 2 Timothy 3.16, when Paul says, which means God breathed, when Paul says all Scripture is God breathed, the Scripture he was referring to was the Old Testament Scripture because the New Testament Scripture wasn't written at that point.
14:46: That doesn't mean the New Testament isn't God breathed, it is, but the Scripture he was referring to specifically when he said all Scripture is given by inspiration of God or is breathed out by God, he was referring to the Old Testament.
15:00: The Old Testament makes up over three quarters of our entire Bible and the New Testament is made up of over 30% of its content is quotations of the Old Testament.
15:15: I want to show you this.
15:16: This might be a little hard for some of you to see.
15:18: It's hard for me to see and I'm close.
15:21: And I'm happy to send you, by the way, another thing that I do for this class is I do provide these screens in a PDF, but you've got to email me.
15:29: If you email me, I'll send you the PDF, and that way you can have some of these pictures.
15:35: But what this is is this is a percentage of the Old Testament that's found in the New Testament.
15:40: And if you go down the list, I'll see if I can get over here and see it a little better, you'll see that like in 1,071 verses of the book of Matthew, 310 of those verses reference Old Testament verses.
15:52: That's over 30% of the book of Matthew is a reference to the Old Testament.
15:56: What's interesting is when you get down here to the book of Hebrews, you find that 69% of the book of Hebrews, 210 verses out of 303 verses are references to the Old Testament.
16:07: That's almost 70% of the book of Hebrews is an Old Testament reference.
16:11: What's really interesting is Revelation.
16:14: It's 150%.
16:15: You say, how could that be? Because in 404 verses, there are 605 references to the Old Testament.
16:23: So when somebody says, why is the Old Testament important? Well, it makes up 30% of your New Testament.
16:28: In quotations and allusions.
16:35: So now let's look at chronology and dating.
16:41: In our English Bible, and by the way, when I keep saying our English Bible, our Protestant Bible, the Old Testament is set up basically categorically.
16:56: And in the Hebrew Bible, and by the way, if you don't know this, the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, do not have the Old Testament.
17:06: Because they wouldn't call it that.
17:09: Don't go to a Jewish bookstore and ask for their copy of the Old Testament.
17:12: They will get highly offended.
17:14: They don't call it the Old Testament.
17:17: Anybody have any idea what they do call it? Well, the Only Testament.
17:21: Good one, Michael.
17:23: The Tanakh, that is right.
17:25: That is what I was just fixing to mention.
17:27: The Protestant Bible puts the Old Testament into the categories of Pentateuch, which is, that means the five scrolls, and the Penta being five, and Tukoi meaning the scrolls or the books.
17:42: So the Pentateuch is the five scrolls.
17:44: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
17:47: After that, we have the historical books.
17:50: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
17:55: Those make up the history books.
18:00: After that, we have it broken into the poetic books.
18:03: Poetic books are Job 2, the Song of Solomon.
18:11: After that, we have the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
18:19: And then we have the minor prophets, which begin with Hosea, and there are 12 of them going all the way to Malachi.
18:28: And I say it's categorical because really that's the way our Protestant Bible is set up, and it is a categorical arrangement.
18:37: If you were to hold a Jewish Bible, a Tanakh, one of the things that you would notice right away is that it is not in the same order.
18:49: The order of the Jewish Bible is somewhat more chronological than categorical.
18:58: Now, it's not completely chronological.
19:00: That's why I say it's more.
19:02: I put on the sheet more chronological, not absolutely chronological.
19:09: It's more chronological in that it does end with the book of the Chronicles because the Chronicles take you to the end of Old Testament history, which begins right before the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew.
19:28: And so the last book of the Hebrew Tanakh is the book of Chronicles.
19:36: Understand this also.
19:37: How many books are in the Old Testament? Thirty-nine.
19:42: How many books are in the Hebrew Old Testament? Twenty-four.
19:45: That's right.
19:46: It's not the same.
19:48: It is the same books, but they are numbered differently.
19:53: And so what I want to show you very quickly...
19:55: Oh wait, the answer's right there.
19:57: Maybe you already knew, but I did happen to have the answer up there.
20:02: This is the Tanakh, or the books of the Tanakh, and the word Tanakh comes from the Torah, which means the law, the Nevi'im, which means the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which means the writings.
20:19: This is a common threefold distinction used among the Jewish people to describe their scriptures.
20:27: The Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim.
20:31: And what's interesting is Jesus makes reference to this in the Gospel of Luke when He says, All that was written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms.
20:41: Now you might say, wait a minute.
20:42: He said the Psalms.
20:43: Why does He say the Psalms? Because Psalms is the first book of what's known as the Ketuvim, or the writings.
20:49: So it was sometimes referred to as the Psalms because it included all of those books of writings.
20:54: And you can see what they are.
20:56: The Torah is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
20:59: The Nevi'im, the prophets, are not the same as what we would call the prophets because we would say the prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Leviticus, you know, those.
21:07: But for them, it was Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
21:11: Notice it's not 1 Samuel, because they didn't have them broken up first and second.
21:15: It was Samuel and Kings.
21:17: And these are considered prophetic history.
21:20: We would say history books, but they would say these are part of the former prophets and then the latter prophets.
21:29: And the latter prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then what are known as the 12.
21:35: The 12 would be the 12 minor prophets.
21:37: So you have the Nevi'im is the prophets.
21:41: And then under the Ketuvim, or the writings, it's Psalms, Proverbs, and the book of Job, which is interesting because together, if you take the first letter, by the way, the way you get Tanakh is Torah, Nevi'im, Ketuvim, it's the first letter Tanakh.
21:55: And if you take the first letters of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job in the Hebrew Bible, it actually is the word for truth, emet.
22:03: And that's how it's arranged.
22:06: So you have Psalms, Proverbs, and Job.
22:09: Then you have Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther.
22:15: And you'll notice over here, it says, these are the scrolls that are used for celebrations.
22:20: They're used for festivals.
22:22: Like for instance, the book of Esther, the Feast of Purim is found in the book of Esther, and that's the book that's read during that feast.
22:32: And so these five books here make up the feast readings.
22:36: And then of course you have Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, because these all make up the latter history of the people after the exile.
22:45: Actually Daniel during the exile, and then of course Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther when they're coming back out of exile.
22:51: And that's why I say it's more chronological as it is outlined.
22:55: Is that helpful? Okay, now, you'll notice down here it says, this is taken from somewhere.
23:01: I didn't write this.
23:02: This is actually taken from the overviewbible.com.
23:05: That is a very good website that gives, there's a gentleman there who teaches on that website, and he does whiteboard teaching.
23:12: I don't know if you know what that is, where they draw really neat pictures up on the whiteboard.
23:15: This is one of his whiteboards.
23:18: He makes it available for teachers to use.
23:19: But if you want to go and watch his whole video on the Tanakh, you can.
23:23: It'll give you a little bit more information than what I was able to give you tonight.
23:28: So does that kind of explain the difference between the Christian Protestant Old Testament and the Hebrew 24 books of the Old Testament? Okay, now we're going to get into a little deeper look.
23:42: I want to pass these around.
23:44: This is a copy of the Hebrew Bible.
23:49: The Protestant Bible.
23:51: These are Old Testament.
23:52: I'm sorry, Hebrew Old Testament, Protestant Old Testament.
23:55: The Roman Catholic, which you'll notice is longer.
23:58: And the Eastern or Greek Orthodox, which is even longer.
24:03: So we'll talk in a little while about why that is.
24:06: But if you'll pass those down.
24:08: And Caleb, I'll give this to you.
24:10: You'll pass yours that way.
24:11: I made only 20 copies, so if I don't have enough, I'll get your copy after class.
24:19: Or you can buy the rose book and you'll have it.
24:44: Alright, so if you look at this comparison of the Old Testament canon, you'll notice that it gives you the Hebrew Bible.
24:51: It gives you the order that we just referred to.
24:55: This one does include the first and seconds, though.
24:58: This particular chart saying 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings.
25:01: They wouldn't do that, but that is listed here so that you can see the comparison to the Protestant Bible.
25:06: Is there anything that you notice about the Hebrew Bible and the Protestant Bible that's different than the Roman Catholic or the Greek Orthodox? Anybody notice? That's right.
25:21: But what is the thing that you notice about the Hebrew and Protestant Bible? No, no, no, not the Protestant.
25:32: What I'm trying to get you to notice is that they're the same.
25:35: Even though they're ordered differently.
25:37: They're ordered differently, but the same books that are in the Protestant Old Testament canon are in the Hebrew Old Testament or what they would call simply the Tanakh.
25:50: The Roman Catholic Bible does include books that the Jewish people do not recognize as being part of the legitimate canon given to them by God.
26:04: This is the same for the Greek Orthodox.
26:07: And you'll notice that they have even more.
26:09: Where the Roman Catholics have 1st and 2nd Maccabees, the Greek Orthodox have 3rd and 4th Maccabees.
26:14: Now, understand this.
26:16: The books of Maccabees are wonderful history and they are important.
26:19: When we get to the end of this course, our last class is actually on the intertestamental period, the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew and what happened in that time.
26:28: And we're going to understand the Maccabees are an important historical source.
26:33: But they were never recognized by the Jewish people to be part of God's Word.
26:39: And that's the most important thing is understanding what actually makes up God's Word.
26:47: So in a moment we're going to get to the apocryphal writings and talk about why we don't accept them.
26:52: But I have jumped a little bit ahead so I need to take a step back for just a second and I want to look at, very quickly, one more thing on chronology and dating.
27:03: When we look at the chronology of the Old Testament, I really need to put this over here because I'm much better with my right arm.
27:14: When we look at the chronology and dating of the Old Testament, we begin at an unknown time because none of us knows when God created the heavens and the earth.
27:27: But that's when Genesis brings us back to.
27:30: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
27:33: Now we could argue that it was possibly 6,000 or 7,000 years ago.
27:37: You maybe could even argue that it could extend out to 10,000 or 15,000 years.
27:41: Maybe even 20,000 years if you begin to get really creative with the distances between the genealogical gaps because there are noticeable gaps in some of the genealogies.
27:53: Some people would say, those gaps represent a very long time.
27:57: But when you start getting to 7, 10, 15, 20,000 years, that's a heck of a gap.
28:02: Excuse the expression, but that's a long time to be gapped.
28:06: What we don't find, though, is we don't find anything that would represent a 4.5 billion year gap.
28:14: It's nowhere near that.
28:16: The idea that the earth was 4.5 billion years ago created is something that is foreign to the Bible.
28:22: Now there are Christians who hold to an old age perspective of the earth.
28:27: I do not hold to that.
28:29: Our church does not teach that.
28:31: We don't necessarily think that those people are heretics, but we do think they're playing with fire.
28:36: And it's a dangerous road to go down.
28:39: Yes? There are people like Hugh Ross, who is a Christian astrophysicist, who would argue that Genesis is not giving us a timeline for the age of the earth.
28:58: Yes, he would agree with the current scientific assessment that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that the universe itself is somewhere in the 20-something billion years.
29:09: So we're looking at a...
29:11: He would affirm that as being accurate.
29:15: And we would disagree vehemently.
29:18: Hmm? No, he believes in God.
29:23: Yeah, absolutely.
29:24: So from a biblical perspective, biblical history, this is the chronology of the Old Testament.
29:30: Primitive history is what we find in Genesis chapter 1 to Genesis 11.
29:35: That takes us up to about 2100 B.C.
29:41: Around 2100 B.C.
29:44: we begin the age of the patriarchs.
29:46: The patriarchs takes us from Genesis chapter 12 to Genesis chapter 50.
29:54: And then we begin a 400-plus year time of slavery in Egypt.
30:02: And after that, we have the period of Moses.
30:05: The Exodus and the wilderness wanderings, which takes us through the book of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
30:14: After that, we have the period known as the Conquest, which was under Joshua, obviously in the book of Joshua.
30:22: And then we have the era of the judges.
30:25: The judges are Judges Ruth and the beginning portions of 1 Samuel.
30:31: This would take us around the year 1350.
30:34: Now, don't let your eyes glaze over, guys.
30:36: I know this is a lot to take in, but understand.
30:38: I'm trying to show you that this is the amount of time we're looking at in our Old Testament.
30:43: You understand the New Testament covers 70 years.
30:47: The Old Testament covers 1,500 years of writing.
30:51: But over 2,000 years of history.
30:55: Or even more.
30:56: I'm sorry, more than 2,000 years of history.
31:00: So we have the era of the judges, and then we have the time of the United Kingdom.
31:04: That is not the United Kingdom of today.
31:06: That's not the U.K.
31:07: That is the kingdom that was united under Solomon, which takes us from 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles.
31:16: And then we have the period of the divided kingdom, which is 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and the prophets.
31:24: And then we have the period of the exile.
31:27: And then we have the period of the restoration of Jerusalem, which began in 536 B.C.
31:34: So all of this is our timeline that we look at when we're looking through our Old Testament.
31:40: And our Old Testament prophets fall into three categories.
31:57: Pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic.
32:00: And that simply means that the prophets either prophesied before the Babylonian exile, they prophesied during the Babylonian exile, or they prophesied after the Babylonian exile.
32:16: And so here, it's actually on this, but I don't know how many of you can see it.
32:20: It's easier for me to tell you who was on the bottom two, because the exilic prophets are Daniel and Ezekiel.
32:28: These are the two prophets that prophesied during the exile, Daniel and Ezekiel.
32:31: The post-exilic prophets are Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
32:37: So the last three in your canon.
32:39: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
32:40: The last three of your Old Testament, they are post-exilic prophets.
32:44: Everyone else, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, all of those prophesied prior to the exile.
32:54: So the vast majority of your major and minor prophets prophesy in this period about the coming exile and what's going to happen and what the people need to do.
33:05: Then you have the two that prophesy during the exile and the three that prophesy after the exile.
33:13: So that is our overview of the dating and the chronology of the Old Testament.
33:20: If you get, I didn't make a copy of this for you, but if you do get a copy of the Rose Book of Charts, where is it? Oh, here.
33:38: The opening page, well, it's stuck.
33:45: I'm sorry.
33:46: I don't know what happened.
33:48: Oh, it's tearing.
33:50: That's not good.
33:51: I'm gonna stop.
33:52: I don't wanna make it worse.
33:53: But it opens up to a big timeline.
33:57: And what's great about it is it shows the major figures as well as the prophets who prophesied during that time and the events that are happening.
34:04: And it even shows other things that are happening in the world, like what's going on, like the Ming Dynasty of China and things are happening at the same time.
34:11: It's a nice overview of the history of the Old Testament and other things that are happening in other parts of the world.
34:17: So, again, recommendation to get that book if you're able.
34:25: All right.
34:26: Any questions on the chronology or the dating? Yes, sir, Mr.
34:31: Frank.
34:33: Ezekiel.
34:34: Yes, sir.
34:38: And by the way, if you notice one thing here, the exile, you'll notice the dates over here is 722 and 586.
34:46: Anybody know why there's two dates? There are two different exiles.
34:53: But what does that mean? Remember what came before it was a divided kingdom.
35:03: You had the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom.
35:08: The Northern Kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 B.C.
35:13: But the Southern Kingdom fell in 586 to the Babylonians.
35:22: And one of the things that's interesting when you look at a history of the kings, which are given to us in Kings and Chronicles, you find that there was not a righteous king in the Northern Kingdom, not one.
35:37: And it's interesting they fell 150 years before the Southern Kingdom.
35:42: So the Southern Kingdom essentially existed 150 years longer because there were times where a few righteous kings were risen in Israel, in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, rather.
35:58: So it's just an interesting reality that there were actually two exiles.
36:02: And the other thing we have to understand, too, is the Northern Kingdom never really came back together.
36:08: The Northern Kingdom is dispersed after the Assyrian exile.
36:12: It's the Southern Kingdom that makes its way back to Jerusalem during the period of Ezra and Nehemiah.
36:18: And the Northern Kingdom never really comes back to its former position.
36:24: So it's just an interesting thing that in 722, Assyria basically destroyed the Northern Kingdom and it never really came back.
36:33: So I just wanted to point that out as far as chronology is concerned.
36:44: Sorry.
36:45: All right.
36:46: If there are no questions, we're going to move on to our conversation about the Apocrypha.
36:51: I feel like I'm trying to help you back and forth.
36:55: I need a higher board.
36:57: Okay.
36:58: So we're going to talk now.
37:00: The last one is when they returned.
37:04: The restoration of Jerusalem began in 536 B.C.
37:09: All right.
37:09: So let's talk a little bit about the Apocrypha.
37:14: There are two ways or two phrases that are used to describe the extra books in the Old Testament.
37:20: And when I say the extra books, maybe that's a bad way of saying it, but I'm just trying to be clear.
37:24: The books that we do not have are called by us the Apocrypha, which means hidden or of doubtful authenticity, of human origin.
37:34: There's all kinds of ways to translate the idea of Apocrypha.
37:39: Things that didn't really happen.
37:41: That's another way of saying it.
37:43: But even that's a little unfair because I wouldn't say the Maccabees didn't happen.
37:47: I would just say it's not from the hand of God.
37:50: It's a historical book, but not an inspired historical book.
37:56: Well, the way that the Roman Catholic Church describes those books is deuterocanonical.
38:01: The word deutero, in the same way deuteronomy, means secondary or second.
38:06: Anybody know what deuteronomy means? You're allowed to answer.
38:12: Thank you.
38:13: Second giving of the law.
38:15: Deuteronomy, namos, means law.
38:17: Deuteronomos means second law or second giving of the law.
38:20: So deuteronomy is the second giving of the law because Moses gave the people the law and the first generation died in the wilderness.
38:27: And before his death, he gives what is essentially a sermon.
38:31: Deuteronomy is basically a sermon.
38:33: And it's a re-giving of the law of God.
38:36: So the deuterocanonical books are the books that the Roman Catholic Church would say, yes, they are given by God, and yes, they are inspired, theatnustos, God-breathed, but they are still not the same.
38:52: Even the Roman Catholic Church would say these books are not the same as the books that are recognized by us as being part of the canon.
39:04: I'll read you a quick quote.
39:07: The Jewish Bible and Protestant Old Testament have the same contents, but they list the books in different order.
39:14: I already showed you that on our paper.
39:16: Catholicism ordering is similar to the Protestants, but its canon includes the deuterocanonical books not found in the Jewish and Protestant Bibles, while the Orthodox add further deuterocanonical materials.
39:29: Now, I know you can't read this, and I apologize.
39:32: I didn't realize how blurry it was on your side.
39:35: But I want to read to you.
39:36: This is from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.
39:39: They may know what a catechism is.
39:42: You guys should.
39:43: It's a standard set of beliefs that is set in a question-and-answer format, like we do the New City Catechism with our young people.
39:52: You guys do it.
39:52: It's set free.
39:54: Do you guys ever do catechism with the kids? Keech's Catechism? Yeah, you guys are...
39:58: That's a good one.
39:59: Okay, so in the catechism, it's a standardized understanding of what we believe.
40:04: Well, the Roman Catholics have a catechism as well.
40:06: And this is the Roman Catholic Catechism.
40:08: It says this.
40:09: The Church...
40:10: And by that, they mean the Roman Catholic Church, because to them, they are the Church.
40:13: The Church accepts and venerates, as inspired, the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.
40:21: That's their catechism understanding.
40:24: So we have 39 books, and according to their catechism, they have 46 books.
40:33: The second...
40:34: Excuse me.
40:34: The Westminster Confession of Faith says this.
40:37: This is a Protestant confession.
40:40: The books commonly called apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration and no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings.
40:56: So that's the Protestant position.
40:58: Basically codified in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is saying we don't believe in Scripture.
41:04: We don't believe that this is meant to be taken as Scripture.
41:08: And you say, why not? Isn't that an unreasonable division between Catholics and Protestants? There's already so many other things that divide us.
41:20: We can't even agree what makes up our Bible.
41:23: And I want to ask this.
41:24: You don't have to answer it.
41:25: You don't have to raise your hand.
41:26: But I want to ask you this.
41:28: If you were ever to be in a position where you were face-to-face, nose-to-nose, with a Roman Catholic, and they were to say to you, why does your Bible not include the book of Tobit? Would you know why? Because most Protestants don't.
41:47: In fact, most Protestants don't know that the King James Bible, when it was translated, had those books in it.
41:54: In 1611, all of the Apocrypha was included in the 1611 King James Bible.
42:01: So, why don't you have an original King James? That might be another way of getting really to the heart of the issue.
42:10: Anybody want to take a stab at the answer? Can't read it? My man Cory, ain't in my Bible.
42:19: Don't need to be there.
42:21: Anybody else? Okay, but what do we mean by authentic? Authentic is a...
42:28: They were authentically written.
42:31: What I mean is they were authentically written by the people they were written by in the time they were written by.
42:37: In fact, what we're going to learn later is we don't know who wrote the Chronicles.
42:41: Not inspired by God? But who determines that? I'm not arguing, I'm just saying.
42:48: Our argument is it's not inspired by God, but then comes the question.
42:53: Doesn't match with the rest of the...
43:01: Okay.
43:06: No, there's plenty of copies.
43:07: We have a sizable amount.
43:09: We know what was in them.
43:11: As far as what they contained, that's not really a debate.
43:15: We have enough to know what was in them.
43:18: Leaders of the faith determine it? I don't mean this in a negative way, Frank.
43:24: That could be a conspiratorial argument.
43:27: People say, well, you know, it was Constantine and his fellows.
43:30: No, no, no, I'm glad you said that because that is what is often conjectured.
43:34: That there was a group of men in a smoke-filled room with funny hats that all decided what was going to be in the Bible and what wasn't.
43:39: Doctrine and reasons.
43:40: The doctrine and reason, that kind of goes with what Corey said, that there are some things in there that may be factually or doctrinally inaccurate.
43:46: And all those things are true.
43:48: What'd you say, babe? I was thinking that, but also, it doesn't have like an apostles authority.
43:56: Okay, but the Old Testament was before the apostles, right? I mean, not apostles, but it doesn't have...
44:06: That's okay, that's okay.
44:08: And this is actually one of the most difficult questions and most people do not ever really investigate how to answer this question.
44:18: Because I could ask you the same question about the New Testament, and if you take our New Testament class, I will, ask you why is it we have 27 books in the New Testament instead of 28, or 29, or 45? Why don't we have the book of...
44:35: Well, I was gonna say the Didache or the Epistle of Barnabas.
44:40: Two books that were read and circulated through the church.
44:45: And the first couple of canons that were ever written, the first couple of lists of books included the Epistle of Barnabas in them, but were later not recognized.
44:56: So this is actually a very important question that goes deep into the heart of how we understand what we believe.
45:02: Because we believe our authority is the Bible, but how do we know we have the right one? This is an important question.
45:07: Go ahead, Frank.
45:10: No, that's a good...
45:11: That is actually a good point, and I'm getting there.
45:14: I'm heading in that direction.
45:16: There is...
45:16: Remember earlier I showed you how much of the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament? There is not one time where those books are ever quoted as Scripture.
45:26: They are never given the quality called, thus saith the Lord, or it is written, which are two specifically distinguishing marks of something that is Scripture.
45:35: It either says it is written or thus saith the Lord.
45:37: That never happens with any of those books that are considered to be deuterocanonical.
45:42: But here's another part that is the part that we often miss.
45:47: Who was the Old Testament entrusted to? The Jews.
45:53: Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 3.
46:15: All right.
46:24: In Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 1.
46:32: Sorry, it's taking me a second.
46:35: I feel like I'm back in seminary class.
46:36: I can't find my...
46:39: It says this in verse 1.
46:42: Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way.
46:47: To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
46:55: Now what are the oracles of God? Scriptures.
47:00: The scriptures.
47:01: The oracles of God means the Word of God, or the words of God.
47:04: And who was it that was entrusted with the words of God? The Jewish people.
47:09: In fact, they were the ones that the Word of God came to through Moses and through the rest of the writers of the Old Testament.
47:16: And so when the question of the Old Testament canon comes up, the first thing we have to ask ourselves is who or what did the Old Testament Jews see as scripture? What did they recognize as being the Bible? And as I already showed you, the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible, includes the same books that our Protestant Bible includes.
47:42: In fact, when the Bible was translated into Latin, which happened under Jerome...
47:48: I don't know if you guys are familiar with Jerome and Jerome's Vulgate.
47:53: But when the Old Testament was translated into...
47:57: I'm sorry, I had a little issue there with my recorder.
48:02: When the Old Testament was translated into the Latin, Jerome had spent some time among the Jews in Israel.
48:11: And he realized that the books that were a part of the canon that they had recognized, which included those Deuterocanonical books, were not accepted in the Hebrew canon.
48:25: And so when he went to translate the Bible into Latin, he rejected the books of the Deuterocanonical books.
48:35: But because of the powers, and again this goes back to somewhat of what Frank was saying, because of the powers that be, there were those who demanded, and he did include them under protest.
48:45: So they did get included in what was known as the Latin Vulgate, and they became part of the traditional Bible for the next thousand years.
48:54: The Latin Vulgate was the Bible of the church for a thousand years.
48:59: Now some people could argue in the Roman Catholics too, well that was the providence of God.
49:05: Or as the Protestants would argue, that was another example of overreach by authorities that did not have the power to do what they did, or should not have had the power to do what they did.
49:16: Here is a little statement on this.
49:21: It says, When Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate, he included the additional apocryphal writings under protest because he knew they were not considered scripture in the Hebrew text.
49:32: So, if anybody ever asks you, why don't you accept the Deuterocanonical books? My first answer is because the Jews don't.
49:41: Because Jesus would not have recognized them as scripture.
49:45: When Jesus talked about the law of Moses, the writings, and the Psalms, he was referring to the Tanakh, the Ketuvim, and the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim.
49:56: The same Hebrew Bible that the Hebrews have today is the Old Testament that we possess and use.
50:02: And the other books simply do not measure up.
50:05: Now, I do want to address one other thing.
50:07: What Corey said is absolutely right as well.
50:09: There are inaccuracies in those books as well.
50:13: Like one of them says that Nebuchadnezzar was king in Nineveh.
50:18: He was not king in Nineveh.
50:19: He was king in Babylon.
50:21: So that is a historical inaccuracy.
50:24: And there are others.
50:25: There are also false teachings regarding the nature of God, the nature of man, the nature of salvation.
50:30: And a lot of those false teachings make their way into the Roman Catholic Church.
50:34: Which is one of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church has the false teachings that it does.
50:38: So, there are theological and historical errors in those books as well.
50:45: So, we have a reason historically, theologically, and practically to reject those books as part of the canon.
50:53: Now, I'm going to let you listen to a couple minute video and then we're going to take our break.
50:56: This is a video of Dr.
50:57: James White giving a debate on the Apocrypha.
51:00: And I would encourage any of you who has time, maybe you're a person who drives a car for a living or something, you can put this on your phone, listen to it.
51:06: It's a two hour debate.
51:08: It's worth every minute to listen to a man actually defend why he believes the Apocrypha should be a part of our Bible.
51:15: And Dr.
51:16: White, well, he kills it, as always.
51:18: And he demonstrates why it's not.
51:20: But this is just a two minute clip of him explaining why the Jews were entrusted with the Scripture and we should trust what they were given.
51:31: Let's start at the beginning.
51:32: What does the Bible say? The Bible says in Romans chapter 3 verses 1 through 2, the Apostle Paul writes, then what advantage has the Jew? What is the Jew's advantage? Verse 2 says, it is great in every respect, first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.
51:50: Now, entrusted is a particular term.
51:53: If I were to entrust someone with my laptop computer over here, I assume that they know which laptop they are to take care of.
52:01: They're not just going to go looking for any old laptop.
52:04: I'm going to identify for them that which I am entrusting to them.
52:08: In the same way, the very same word is used in 1 Thessalonians 2.4 where Paul spoke of the Apostles being entrusted by God with the Gospel.
52:19: Now, obviously, the Apostles knew what the Gospel was.
52:24: They didn't know just a part of it.
52:25: They weren't confused as to what the Gospel entailed.
52:28: They knew what the Gospel was.
52:29: It had been entrusted to them.
52:32: Well, obviously, therefore, the Jews had to know what the Scriptures were to be entrusted with them.
52:39: Mr.
52:39: Machuda will have to explain to us this evening what Romans 3.2 means if he does not believe that Jews actually knew the Canon of the Old Testament.
52:49: Yet, the Jews never embraced the books Rome dogmatically defined as Canon 1546.
52:55: We have not heard any evidence of this.
52:58: I'd like to introduce some interesting discussion here.
53:00: For example, in Baba Bathra, it's an ancient Jewish word, we have what's called a Baraita.
53:08: A Baraita is an ancient tradition.
53:09: Many of these traditions go well beyond the time of the New Testament, even into the intertestamental period.
53:17: It is these writings that shed so much light upon the customs of the Jews that we see in the Gospels.
53:22: And there you have a listing giving to us 19 books in the Old Testament excluding the books of the Law, which were, of course, 5.
53:32: Well, 19 plus 5 is 24, and we consistently find one of two numbers in Jewish sources.
53:38: 22 or 24, and they're not actually two different numbers.
53:42: It depends on whether you, for example, attach Lamentations to Jeremiah, how you count the books in that particular way.
53:48: Both numbers represent the same canon found in Protestant Bibles today, and this is found in a Baraita, an ancient tradition, going back even before the time of the New Testament.
53:59: Joe? All right.
54:01: Hear what he said, that last thing he said.
54:02: The books that we now confess as the Old Testament that same list of books existed prior to the time of Christ.
54:14: So, this is not something that the Christians changed or augmented or made fit their theology, but this is something the Jews understood even before the time of Christ.
54:26: All right.
54:26: We have the right books, simple enough.
54:28: All right.
54:29: We're going to take a 5-minute break, come back at about 10 to 12 after, and we will begin again.
54:37: All right.
54:40: So, we are going to spend the last 20 minutes or so on understanding interpretive methods.
54:52: Each week, when we come into this class, we are going to have a different category of books that we are going to be looking at.
55:02: So, next week, it will be the Pentateuch.
55:04: That's the law, Genesis through Deuteronomy.
55:07: The week after that, it will be the history books.
55:09: The week after that, it will be the poetic books.
55:12: And then we will look at the major prophets, the minor prophets, and then we will have two additional lessons.
55:18: Week 7 will be Jesus in the Old Testament, looking specifically at messianic prophecy types and shadows that are in the Old Testament.
55:26: And week 8 will be the intertestamental period.
55:29: So, this 8 weeks encompasses all of the different categories of books of the Old Testament.
55:35: And each week, we're going to talk about, for each book, the authorship and dating.
55:40: We're going to talk about the key figures of the books that are in those lists.
55:47: And we're going to talk about interpretive challenges.
55:51: Now, I have heard some people say, the Bible doesn't have to be interpreted, it just has to be read.
55:59: Well, that's not true because everything that is read is interpreted the moment you read it.
56:06: And so, someone who says, you don't have to interpret the Bible, you just have to read the Bible, well, that's not true.
56:12: The Bible says, the trees will clap their hands when the Lord returns.
56:15: Well, do trees have hands? No.
56:17: So, you're immediately having to interpret an anthropomorphic statement.
56:22: And if you don't have an anthropomorphic statement in your lexicon, if you don't understand what that means, then you will probably interpret it incorrectly.
56:32: And so, what I want to talk about in this last few minutes of our first class is interpreting the Old Testament and interpretive methods.
56:40: The first thing we're going to discuss is the concept of literal interpretation versus figurative interpretation.
56:50: Now, I've talked about this in hermeneutics, so if you were here in our last semester, you're going to get a little bit of a rehashing of something I've already said, but it's an important thing to say and repetition is the key to learning and the key to learning is repetition.
57:05: So, I don't mind saying something again if it's important.
57:09: When someone asks me if I interpret the Bible literally, my answer is typically no.
57:17: And the reason why it is no is because I don't interpret the Bible literally, I interpret the Bible literarily.
57:27: And there is a difference between interpreting it literally and interpreting it literarily.
57:32: Literarily means I interpret the Bible according to the genre of literature in which I am reading.
57:40: Therefore, much of the text of the Old Testament is written in the form of the historical narrative.
57:46: When I read a historical narrative, I interpret it according to the rules of historical narrative.
57:52: And there are things that happen in historical narrative, such as truncation and telescoping.
57:58: And what that is is basically when a story is told in a shorter version than what actually happened.
58:04: And so, you might read one paragraph in the Old Testament that covers a 200-year period.
58:09: Right? And you have to understand that this is a much more is happening here than what little bit we see.
58:15: We've been studying the life of Jacob.
58:17: We went through just a couple of chapters and went through 20 years of events.
58:21: He spent 7 years working for Leah, 7 years working for Rachel, and then another 6 years working for his fortune of animals that he received from his father-in-law Laban.
58:33: And all that happens in just a few paragraphs in the Old Testament.
58:37: So a lot of things are left out.
58:39: A lot of things are unstated.
58:41: But that doesn't mean that it's not true.
58:43: It just means it has to be interpreted in a literary format.
58:47: It's written in a very specific way.
58:49: There are things that the Bible provides, things such as chiasms.
58:53: A chiasm is a specific literary structure designed to focus you to a point.
58:57: Now it's hard for me to explain this without taking another 20 minutes on the board, but basically a chiasm is based on the letter Ki from the Greek.
59:07: The letter Ki from the Greek looks like our letter X.
59:11: And what it is is you will have a subject and then it will have a corresponding subject here and then another subject here and here and there will be a key point in the center that these two build to and build away from and this tells us this is the key to the whole story.
59:25: In fact, the whole narrative of Noah's Ark is given to us in the form of a chiasm.
59:32: Genesis chapter 6 all the way through Genesis 9 fill a chiasm.
59:37: And so there is a literary structure to the whole three chapters that focus on one central point in the narrative.
59:46: And that's why when I say I interpret the Bible literarily you have to read the Bible understanding that it was written by the Jewish people.
59:54: It was written by a people that had a specific way of writing.
59:58: When we get to the Proverbs and the Psalms we're going to talk about how the Proverbs and the Psalms provide to us parallelisms.
01:00:07: And understanding parallelisms help us to understand what is meant by the Proverbs and the Psalms.
01:00:15: And so these are all literary structures that are important in our understanding.
01:00:18: Now, when I say that I interpret the Bible literarily I am not saying that I don't believe the miracles.
01:00:26: Because that's usually what people are afraid of.
01:00:28: When I say I don't interpret it literally they'll say, well, do you think there was a flood? Yeah, I think there was a flood.
01:00:34: Do you think it was a worldwide flood? Yes, because that's what the narrative says.
01:00:38: The narrative provides for us a very clear picture of a worldwide flood.
01:00:44: And because there's nothing in the text that would indicate to me that that is in any way painting an anthropomorphic or some kind of analogical picture I take it at face value.
01:00:55: So, I'm not saying that I don't believe the miracles.
01:00:58: I do.
01:00:59: But, I'll ask you this question.
01:01:02: Was Job a real figure? Or was Job a parable? Okay, based on what? Because I don't like the idea that he'd be a parable.
01:01:17: No, that shouldn't be it.
01:01:22: Who said what? Somebody said something.
01:01:24: Well, say it loud, sister.
01:01:27: I cannot.
01:01:28: You cannot? That was very cute.
01:01:33: He was mentioned.
01:01:34: He is.
01:01:35: And that's a very good point.
01:01:36: He is mentioned along with other historical figures such as Noah.
01:01:40: He's mentioned along with Noah and another character I forget.
01:01:45: He's named there are three men Job, Noah, and one other that are named as historical figures.
01:01:51: And therefore, there's a reason why we would accept Job as being more than just a parable.
01:01:55: Now, let me ask you this.
01:01:56: Would Job work as a parable? Absolutely.
01:01:58: I mean, there's a lot in Job that literally comes across as a moral tale.
01:02:04: What's the point of Job? God doesn't need our permission.
01:02:10: Now, you might not like that point, but that's one of the overarching points of Job is that God can do with us as He chooses and He doesn't need our permission.
01:02:17: At the end of Job, and Job has suffered all this, and he looks to God for an answer.
01:02:21: What's God's answer? Were you there when I formed the earth? Were you there? Can you put a hook in the nose of Leviathan? No, you can't.
01:02:26: I am God.
01:02:29: Who are you, old man, to answer back to God? Romans 9, right? The overarching point of Job is God is God and you are man.
01:02:37: Right? And so there is a moral tale that goes along with Job.
01:02:41: And one of the things that we do kind of understand is that when a story has an obvious moral tale, it does make us step back and wonder, is this a literal account or is this account intended to tell us something and it's not necessarily based on a literal figure? For instance, I don't believe, and don't get excited, I don't believe there was a real good Samaritan.
01:03:03: I believe it was a story.
01:03:04: I believe Jesus told a story about a good Samaritan, but I don't believe that means there had to be a real guy from Samaria who did the things that Jesus said.
01:03:15: Now that doesn't mean it didn't happen, but the story doesn't require it to have happened because I have no reason to believe otherwise.
01:03:24: Jesus tells these stories all the time to make a point.
01:03:27: It's a moral tale.
01:03:28: It doesn't necessarily have to be attached to an individual.
01:03:31: Now I do believe Luke 16 is a real story because in Luke 16 when Jesus talks about Lazarus and the rich man, it's the only time in any of the stories that he tells that he gives an actual name to an individual.
01:03:42: He says, Lazarus sat outside the rich man's house and the dogs licked his sores and he was hungry for the bread that fell from the rich man's table.
01:03:51: It's the only time Jesus ever uses a proper name.
01:03:54: So I do think that that is a story and not a parable.
01:03:57: But again, you understand why I'm kind of coming to that conclusion.
01:04:00: I'm not saying the Good Samaritan didn't exist.
01:04:02: I'm just saying I don't think it's necessary to believe that.
01:04:04: I think that it could be a story.
01:04:06: However, with Job, Job is given to us in other historical accounts as being a real person.
01:04:11: Go ahead.
01:04:12: Okay.
01:04:13: So getting back to the literal and figurative rule.
01:04:16: I do want to introduce you to a phrase, an important phrase.
01:04:19: Many of you, if you were in hermeneutics, you know this.
01:04:22: We follow the principle of interpretation called the grammatical historical method.
01:04:36: The grammatical historical method of interpretation.
01:04:41: The grammatical historical method means that we examine the grammar of the literature that we are reading and we look at the historical context in which it was written and that is how we determine the meaning or the interpretation of a particular text.
01:05:04: And so one of the things that we know right away if I'm reading the Psalms, what is the grammar of Psalms? What's the genre of the grammar? It is a poetic book.
01:05:17: Therefore, when I'm reading poetry and it says the trees clap their hands, I understand that poetry makes use of symbolic language.
01:05:26: It makes use of anthropomorphic language which means language of the human appearances of things like hands on trees and things like that and God having eyes and ears.
01:05:40: Those are anthropomorphisms.
01:05:42: God doesn't have eyes and ears like we do but the Bible talks about his eyes seeing us, his ears hearing us, his hands lifting us up.
01:05:47: It also says we are undergirded under his wings.
01:05:50: He doesn't have feathers so we have to begin to really be honest about what the grammar is telling us.
01:05:56: And so the grammatical side of it comes first.
01:06:00: What's the form of grammar that this is used? Now where this becomes difficult is there are historical narratives that include poetic grammar.
01:06:11: For instance, the book of Jonah.
01:06:15: Jonah is one of my favorite.
01:06:16: I wish in this eight weeks I could just do one week on just Jonah.
01:06:20: Can't because of time but Jonah is a wonderful story.
01:06:25: Not because Jonah is great.
01:06:28: Jonah is awful.
01:06:29: From start to finish he runs away from God when he finally takes that first submarine ride to get to where God wants him to be and he ends up on the shores of Nineveh covered in seaweed bleached white by the intestinal gases of that great fish and he walks up and says repent.
01:06:44: Everybody repents because if that guy told you to repent you'd repent too.
01:06:48: Then he gets mad.
01:06:49: Huh? And then he's mad.
01:06:51: And then he gets mad because the people repent.
01:06:55: Then he gets mad that God sends a worm to eat his gourd.
01:06:59: Sounds weird but all of these things happen.
01:07:02: But the point of the whole story is how much more gracious God is than we are.
01:07:08: How much more loving and merciful is God than we and the willingness of God to save even those who hate him.
01:07:15: And aren't you thankful that God saves those who hate him because that means he saved us because we were his enemies and God loved us.
01:07:23: And so so much in the book of Jonah is important but the question is when Jonah is in the fish that whole second chapter of the four chapter narrative is written in the form of poetry.
01:07:35: So does that mean it didn't happen? No, I don't believe so.
01:07:38: But we do have to interpret the second chapter as poetry because that's the form of language that it comes in.
01:07:46: It doesn't mean it didn't literally happen but there is something I think is interesting about the second chapter of Jonah.
01:07:52: There's a portion where it seems almost as if Jonah dies because it uses poetic language of death.
01:08:01: And I've often wondered because people say well how can somebody survive three days in the belly of the fish? Maybe in my thought maybe he didn't.
01:08:08: Maybe he died and he was resurrected.
01:08:10: Jesus made the picture of Jonah being three days in the belly of the fish a picture of his death and resurrection.
01:08:15: So what would be the problem with interpreting it as death and resurrection versus three days of literally just floundering around inside the gasses of the fish? Floundering.
01:08:24: But you see there where that takes you to a floundering point.
01:08:28: Winner! So that's where grammatical and historical context become helpful in our understanding of the text.
01:08:39: And so we have to consider the grammar.
01:08:41: Genesis includes mostly historical narrative but it also has portions of poetry.
01:08:47: The Psalms are mostly poetry but there are portions of historical narrative and wisdom literature like it's in the Proverbs.
01:08:57: One of the most interesting things about Proverbs is that the Proverbs are not promises.
01:09:03: The Proverbs are general truths given to us by God and they are not always intended to be accepted as absolute promises.
01:09:12: And somebody gets offended when I say that but I'm not saying that you shouldn't hope in the Proverbs and trust in the Proverbs but like if I say to you if you work hard and keep your nose to the grindstone you'll be successful.
01:09:23: Now is that true? Well it's true as far as it goes isn't it? It's a proverbial truth because I'll tell you this if you don't work hard and you're sluggard all day long guess what? You're definitely not going to be successful.
01:09:36: Unless you invest in crypto.
01:09:38: But you understand what I'm saying is the Proverbs are a specific type of wisdom literature.
01:09:45: We're going to talk more about it when we get there.
01:09:47: But everything has to be interpreted according to its literary form.
01:09:53: Understanding the literary forms of these books will help you to understand what they mean.
01:09:59: That make sense? Last few minutes we're going to talk about hermeneutical frameworks.
01:10:05: In five minutes I'm going to explain the difference between dispensationalism and covenant theology.
01:10:10: No, no.
01:10:12: No, but I am going to say this.
01:10:15: You have a copy of the of the commentary that I asked you to purchase.
01:10:25: The commentary that I asked you to purchase is the Believer's Bible Commentary which is put out by Thomas Nelson Publishers I think.
01:10:36: Yep.
01:10:36: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
01:10:39: This particular commentary I have used for ever since I started preaching.
01:10:46: This book not this particular one.
01:10:49: I bought a new one when we started using it for the course but I had an older one.
01:10:53: This particular book has been on my shelf for over 15 years.
01:10:58: But this book is written from the perspective of what's called dispensational theology.
01:11:07: And I am more in line with what would be referred to as covenant theology.
01:11:12: And you say well why in the world would you choose a book that there are parts you would disagree with? Because there ain't a commentary out there that doesn't have some parts I would disagree with.
01:11:22: That's the first thing.
01:11:23: I mean you're not going to find a perfect commentary.
01:11:26: This book is filled with good facts and good information.
01:11:30: But there are times when dispensationalism will show itself.
01:11:35: And you say well what is dispensationalism? Dispensationalism is the belief that there is a discontinuity between the old covenant and the new covenant.
01:11:46: And that God has a particular plan for the Jews that is different than his plan for the church.
01:11:53: The heart of dispensationalism is that the people of God are two.
01:11:59: The Old Testament Jews come in and have a seat we're having class.
01:12:14: The Old Testament scriptures are made up in this way.
01:12:18: They are about the Jews and the New Testament scriptures are about the church.
01:12:25: That would be the dispensational view.
01:12:27: And you say well what's wrong with that? Well the perspective that I would hold would be a continuity view versus a discontinuity view.
01:12:36: And that I would see the people of God as one not two.
01:12:40: The one people of God is made up of the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints.
01:12:44: The Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints make up the one elect of God.
01:12:51: And that distinction is what separates covenant theology and dispensational theology.
01:12:57: So when you are reading your textbook if you come across things in the textbook that refer to God's promises to Israel being different than God's promises to the church that is areas where I might have some disagreement.
01:13:14: And if you have questions please feel free to write those questions down send me an email or even bring it up in class and make for a wonderful conversation.
01:13:22: But understand I don't think any of that is enough to make me not use this book.
01:13:27: It's just slight variations particularly in how we understand God's promises as given to and fulfilled in the life of Israel.
01:13:36: For instance John MacArthur most of us like John MacArthur John MacArthur is a dispensationalist but hey he's still just as solid as about as solid as they come right? R.C.
01:13:49: Sproul was a covenant theologian he would be much closer to me.
01:13:53: So there's a difference but you know what they preach together on the same chancel many times.
01:13:59: Paul Washer would be covenant theology yeah Paul Washer would be Baptist covenant theology which would be much closer to us than R.C.
01:14:08: R.C.