Chapter 1 of God With Us: An Introduction to the Old Testament by S. Lennox

Summary | Chapter Questions

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS THE OLD TESTAMENT?
Jews simply call it the Bible[1] but most know it by its Christian name, the Old Testament.  Jews and Christians agree it is the Word of God.  That is, they believe it to be more than a book written by humans about God.  They believe God inspired the human authors to write about Himself. 

This inspiration was not the same as what William Shakespeare or John Milton experienced; those great authors never claimed to speak the words of God.  However, the Old Testament authors made precisely this claim: Jesus Himself agreed they were correct. God inspired these authors but did not dictate the Bible to them like a boss dictates a letter to a secretary.  If the authors were just God’s secretaries, the entire Bible would sound the same, like one long letter from God.  In fact, the books that make up the Old Testament do not sound alike.  Each one reflects the personality and purpose of its human author.  Somehow, God inspired each author to write exactly what He wanted him to say, but in a way that perfectly fit that author’s own personality and goal.

Tertullian, a church leader from Africa who lived from A.D. 160 until about A.D. 220, was one of the first people to refer to the Jewish Bible as the Old Testament.[2]  By using the title Old Testament, he wanted to emphasize that the Jewish Bible was Part One—the earlier or older part of a two-part work.  Part One describes how God worked through the Jews to prepare for the coming of Christ.  By testament, Tertullian meant something like arrangement or agreement.  Part Two—the New Testament—tells about Jesus’ life, how He died and rose from the dead.[3]  It also describes how the early church continued what Jesus began. 

taew> ~yIm;V'h; tae ~yhil{a/ ar'B' tyviareB. `#r,a'h' (The first verse of Genesis in Hebrew)

             

The Old Testament is actually a collection of thirty-nine books.[4]  Almost all were written in the Hebrew language with a small portion in Aramaic, a related language. 

The earliest book, probably Genesis, was written between 1400 and 1200 B.C.  The latest books to be written were probably 1 and 2 Chronicles, composed about 400 B.C. That means the Old Testament was written over a span of eight hundred years.  Relating that span of time to our understanding today, we have only to remember that eight hundred years ago a very different kind of English language was spoken and the printing press had yet to be invented.

Like a library, the Old Testament contains different types of literature written by many different authors. It includes poems, stories, laws, proverbs, songs, family records, and sermons, not always neatly arranged.  Few of the books identify their authors and those authors we know about represent many occupations from every level of society.

The Jews probably realized almost immediately that some of this material was God’s Word.  For some books the process took a little longer.  Scholars agree that by 400 B.C., at the latest, Jews considered the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—as sacred Scripture.  Most of the historical and prophetic books were recognized as Scripture by 200 B.C.  The rest of the Old Testament was validated by 100 B.C.  The early church, without any controversy, adopted the Jewish Bible as Part One of its Scriptures.[5]

WHY IS THE OLD TESTAMENT IGNORED?

                If you have seldom or never read the Old Testament, you are not alone.  Many Christians avoid it like a trip to the dentist.  Why do so few read a book that so many agree is so important? 

A Matter of Relevance

Many find it irrelevant, like outdated software.  They don’t see it as necessary to their spiritual lives.  After all, why would they need to know a long list of names or the ancient laws against wearing two kinds of fabric in the same piece of clothing?  Unable to grasp the significance of the Old Testament, they ignore it and develop their knowledge of God almost exclusively from the New Testament.  Occasionally they pay a visit to the Old Testament, mostly to learn how it predicted the coming of Jesus or for peace and quiet in the Psalms.  Those of this mind-set might include a reading from the Old Testament in a random church service, but few sermons would be based on it.  The Old Testament could disappear overnight and many would never miss it.

                Those who do try to read the Old Testament find themselves almost immediately overwhelmed by its length, about one thousand pages in most translations.  Since this huge amount of material is not arranged chronologically, it is very hard to follow the story from beginning to end.  Faced with the task of walking through a large, dense forest without clear paths, many avoid the woods altogether.  Those who dare the attempt often lose sight of the forest for the trees.  They get lost in the details.  Too many rules about sacrifices, too many territorial allotments, too many kings and prophets—it is easy to forget what you came looking for and easier still to lose the big picture. 

An Unusual Country

Those who press on find themselves in unfamiliar territory.  They read about events that took place more than three thousand years ago among people and in countries they never heard of and whose names they cannot pronounce.  Many of us have trouble with history anyway.  We don’t see its relevance, even when it’s our history!  Old Testament events transpired in strange, exotic places that are hard to visualize, even for those who watch the Travel Channel. Yet as we read the Old Testament, it is clear that so many of the events detailed were directly impacted by the geography of this unusual land.

In Israel, water is scarce, hills are numerous, and forests are sparse.[6]  Unlike ancient Babylon or Egypt, which were nourished by major rivers, this area depends heavily on rainfall.  Earthquakes are common and a deep split known as the Rift Valley scars the land. This valley, running north and south, contains the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the lowest spot on the earth, the Dead Sea.  Within this little country, smaller than the state of New Jersey, you can find extinct volcanoes, snow-capped mountains, and two large lakes below sea level.  Fertile, green oases stand out against bone-dry, barren hills.  This is a very unusual place indeed!

(Map of the geography of Palestine)

An Unusual Culture

Even more confusing than the ancient history of a foreign land is the strange culture we meet in the Old Testament.  We’re not used to a man having several wives or to women who are OK with that.  We’re bothered by the group-oriented culture that stifles people from expressing their individuality.  We’re surprised that they believe in a supernatural world and take this belief seriously.

                In those areas of the world that have retained this culture, such as parts of Africa today, the Old Testament is more easily understood and embraced.  However, those with different cultures often become offended by what they find in the Old Testament.  We cringe at the hundreds of passages that describe violence, especially when God is the one being violent.  We are offended by examples of patriarchalism, the dominance of men over women.  I know one woman who rejected the Bible completely because she thought it embraced patriarchalism.  In chapter 3, we’ll return to this cultural divide and its implications for reading the Old Testament.

Misused and Distorted

                Some ignore the Old Testament because they have seen it misused.  Perhaps they heard a sermon that ignored the obvious meaning of a passage or made a passage say something it was never meant to say.  I once heard the opening chapter of the book of Ezekiel used to prove the existence of space ships. This kind of abuse is rightly rejected; unfortunately, the abused text is sometimes rejected as well.

                The opposite is also true.  Some pastors who use outdated information or scholarship produced on the fringes of respectability dismiss the Old Testament as only a human book about God, rather than God’s Word to humans.[7]  Sadly, not only the misguided pastor but also his or her parishioners feel justified in ignoring the Old Testament.  An open-minded reading of up-to-date, sound scholarship could restore their confidence.

WHY READ THE OLD TESTAMENT?

Those who overcome these obstacles and read the Old Testament are abundantly rewarded.  Who couldn’t benefit from reading one of the finest pieces of literature ever produced? Even in translation, the artistry of the Old Testament is complex and incisive.  Its poetry is among the most eloquent ever written.  Thousands of years after it was written, its stories continue to confront and comfort at our deepest levels.  The teachings of the Old Testament represent some of the most profound human insights.

Timeless Literature, Timeless Truths

This remarkable literature also allows us to better understand Western civilization.  In his book, The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill describes how the Jews and their sacred scripture have enriched us.  Their way of looking at the world, he says, made it possible to see how the universe operates under observable laws of cause and effect.  Such laws allow people to think historically and scientifically. 

The Old Testament reinforces humanity’s value and dignity. “Democracy,” Cahill writes, “grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals, subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny.  There is no way that it could ever have been ‘self-evident that all men are created equal’ without the intervention of the Jews.”[8]

Cross-Cultural Relevance

Although it is the basis for much of Western civilization, we have seen that the Old Testament arose from a very different world.  By reading it, we are exposed to another time, another place, another way of thinking about life.  This sort of cross-cultural education is one of the hallmarks of a well-educated person.

Familiarity with the Old Testament also allows us to better understand the three major world religions, all of which claim this book as sacred scripture.  Jews consider it their Bible, while Christians see it as Part One of their two-part Bible. Muslims also revere the Old Testament, regarding it as one of the holy predecessors to the Koran.  A glance at the headlines today reinforces an obvious reality: The more the adherents of these three religions can understand each other, the better we can get along on this shrinking globe.

The Old Testament also helps us to better understand ourselves.  Although separated from us by miles and millennia, the people of the Old Testament were human.  They were motivated by the same things that motivate us: fear, pride, hope, anger, compassion.  When we read the Psalms, for example, we hear the echo of our own voices crying out to God for relief, rejoicing at what God has done, calling on God to help us.  Reading about Moses’ anger in Exodus 32 helps us understand our own.  Our frustration at God’s silence finds expression in Job’s complaints (read Job 31).

Jesus Read It

The Christian has several more reasons to read and understand the Old Testament.  This is the Bible Jesus read, quoted, and believed.  He asserted, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;[9] I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17).[10]  Another time he announced, “Heaven and earth will disappear before the smallest letter of the Law does” (Luke 16:17 Contemporary English Version).

When challenged, Jesus almost always turned to the Old Testament for His defense.  As He was tempted by the Devil, Jesus quoted from the Old Testament.[11]  When criticized for spending too much time with society’s undesirables, Jesus sent his critics to study the Old Testament prophet, Hosea (Hos. 6:6).[12]  Another time he told a group of Bible scholars, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures [that is, the Old Testament] or the power of God” (read Matthew 22:23-29). When He saw some religious leaders acting hypocritically, He blasted them for their “fine way of setting aside the commands of God [found in the Old Testament] in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:9; read 7:1-13). 

Foundational to the Early Church

The early Christians shared Jesus’ commitment to the Old Testament.  The Apostle Paul said, “All Scripture [by which he meant the Old Testament] is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16).  For the Apostle Peter, “the word of the Lord stands forever” (1 Pet. 1:25).  The writer of Hebrews continually referred to the Old Testament as the words of God (read Hebrews 1 for several such examples).

The Old Testament was so important to the early church that the believers turned to it when they worshiped. Like the Jews before them, they sang the Psalms and read the Old Testament stories to learn about God.  Using the Old Testament, the Apostle James settled a very thorny debate that threatened to divide the young church (read about this in Acts 15, especially verses 15-18).

The Old Testament is the best commentary on the New Testament ever written.  There we learn why Jesus had to come, why He taught what He did, and why He worked miracles. From the Old Testament we learn that Jesus had to die on the cross and rise from the dead (read 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).  The Old Testament explains why the early church preached what it preached (read Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 or Paul’s explanation in Romans 15:4).  Many New Testament terms that sound strange to us—for example, Son of Man, sanctification, Law, and circumcision—are words found frequently in the Old Testament. Two of the most puzzling books in the New Testament, Hebrews and Revelation, rely heavily on the Old Testament.  Some Christians ignore the Old Testament and focus on the New, but only those who read the New in light of the Old can really learn what God is saying in His Word.

It Reveals God

Perhaps the most important reason to read the Old Testament is because of what it teaches us about God.  What we learn there about God is just as important as what we learn from the New Testament.  The Old Testament tells us a great deal about God’s character and behavior!  There we see His power, creating the universe, parting the Red Sea, and summoning water from the rocks. There we suffer His silence, as Job did.  There we experience His anger and harshness.

Because some of these pictures of God seem unpleasant, many reject the Old Testament.  Very early in the history of the church, a man named Marcion announced that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were two different beings.  The former was harsh and vindictive while the latter was loving and forgiving.  Although the early church decided Marcion was wrong, many modern Christians agree with him—if their neglect of the Old Testament tells us anything.

Marcion and his supporters have misunderstood the Old Testament.  When reading how God acted in a harsh or angry manner, they assume they are seeing what God is really like.  After all, that is how we make judgments about other people. We watch them in action and decide if they are gentle or mean, wise or foolish, good or bad.  But even when evaluating people, we should always make room for the context.  If you saw me grab my son by the arm and yank him toward me, you might conclude I was harsh and abusive. But if that incident occurred along a busy highway, you would call me quick thinking, crediting me with saving my son from being struck by a car.  Before we determine character from behavior, we must consider the context.

We need to do the same when determining the character of God.  We must consider what made it necessary for Him to act as He did.  Don’t just ask what He did, ask why. When you do, you will notice that God always works with people where they are, doing for them what they need most.  When you see a young mother talking baby talk to her toddler, you don’t assume the mother is mentally deficient.  You assume she has stooped to her child’s level of conversation because she loves her child and wants to communicate that love.  There is always a good reason for what God does, even when we think a particular action is strange.

When God did not answer Job, it was because silence taught important lessons that words could never teach.  When God killed the man trying to help, it was because the help offered was actually harmful.  When God behaved violently or asked His people to behave violently, it was not because He is violent.  It was because the ancient Near East was a violent place.  God had no choice if He wanted to be understood. 

“Why didn’t He teach them a better way?”  He did. He showed them that violence is not the best response.  Many laws of the ancient Near East commanded excessive and unfair punishments.  You could be killed for insulting someone.  An offense against an important official was punished more harshly than the same offense against a common person.[13]

Instead, God called His people to perfect equity: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  No more, no less, and no favoritism. It did not matter whose eye or tooth was damaged—noble or common person—the punishment was the same.  Like a loving parent, God compassionately and gently taught His people a better way than violence.  He told them to treat others the way they would like to be treated.[14]

A Radical Departure

A bird’s-eye view of the Bible shows how God introduced a radically new and different ethical standard, one that placed great value on humanity.  Then He gradually and carefully took His people from where they were to where He wanted them to be.  When God called Abraham[15] in Genesis 12, every culture in the ancient Near East was polytheistic; that is, they believed in many gods, not just one.[16]  Abraham himself grew up in a home where many gods were worshiped (read Joshua 24:2).  Although there is only one God, and although this discovery would be an important cultural and religious step forward, God did not reveal this to His people all at once.  At first He told them that they should worship and obey Him and no other gods (read Exodus 20:3-4).  Later He made it clear there actually were no other gods, only Him.[17]

We can see God’s gradual, patient strategy in ethical matters like slavery.  He began by allowing His people to own slaves but required them to be treated fairly, far more fairly than elsewhere in the ancient Near East.  Further, slavery in Israel was limited to six years, like the indentured servant of America’s colonial days.  By New Testament times, the Apostle Paul, though still allowing for slavery, planted the seeds for its abolition in such statements as “There is neither . . . slave or free . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

God commanded animal sacrifices, not because He likes to see animals sacrificed, but because this was how ancient people related to the gods.  All ancient Near Eastern cultures offered animal sacrifices.  God began where His people were, and taught them about Himself through their culture.  For example, through His instructions about sacrifices, He showed His people that forgiveness for sins was not mechanical, but personal and freely given.  Eventually He replaced these sacrifices with the one sacrifice of His Son on the cross (read Hebrews 10).

When we see God’s actions in the context of the ancient Near East and understand how patiently He taught His people, we see God not as a bloodthirsty barbarian, but as a loving Heavenly Father.  Not that we can understand everything about God, but what we do understand about Him reassures us that there is a good reason for what we do not understand.

                What matters most is understanding God; this is the primary reason He gave us the Bible.  He knew we could never be fully human and reach our potential unless we understood something about who made us and why.  He knew that without revealing Himself, we could not embrace the salvation He offers us in Christ.  We can find many uses for the Bible, even many good uses like learning about history, but the most important reason is to learn about God.  The Bible, including the Old Testament, tells us all we need to know about God so we can be all we need to be.

                But the Old Testament is not just a biography of God.  Instead, it is a description of God in action.  Being able to see a bird’s-eye view of God’s panoramic, overarching design helps to clarify His individual actions as we see them throughout the Old Testament.  We are off to this scenic overlook in chapter 2.