Biblefaktor

Suppose you find, in an old trunk, a thick packet of letters written by your great uncle. You soon realize they are all out of order. One he wrote from the trenches of Franceduring World War I. The next also refers tons war, but from the references to British prime minister Winston Churchill you soon recognize it as World War II, over 20 years later. Those letters might contain the whole of your uncle's life, but to get his story straight, you'd have to read the whole packet. A reader of Jeremiah finds a very similar situation. The book is an anthology of prophecies given at different times. They jump forward and backward in history, and if you imagine that the book is in chronological order, you will become very confused. Fortunately, it is not hard to reconstruct the order of the main events of Jeremiah's life. Jeremiah spoke to a nation about to be destroyed by war. Three hundred years before him, the Israelites had split into two countries, Is real in the North an...

In the eighth century B.C., about the time Homer was writing The lliad and The Odyssey, Isaiah wrote the book that bears his name. It is arguably the most eloquent book in the Old Testament, and you will likely recognize many verses and phrases. Isaiah is full of profound insights into the nature of God and his plan for the earth. Due to its length and its peculiar organization, however, the book may seem hard to grasp. Remember that Isaiah consists of a collection of many messages on various topics, pulled together into groupings. To understand Isaiah, it helps to think of “road markers” that set off the major groupings. Here is a summary of them: Isaiah 1-12: Isaiah’s call and messages of warning to Judah during the prosperous days of the kingdom. (These came mostly in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz. Isaiah 13-23: Isaiah's messages to all the nations around Judah-including enemies and close allies. Isaiah 24-35: A view of the earth’s future (24-27) and specific...

Since love songs are always popular, many people approach Song of Songs with great expectations. However, readers often find the book different from what they had expected. Two main problems may hinder today's reader. One is the poetic imagery. No modern lover would say, "Your hair is like a flock of goats" (4:1), "Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon" (7:4). While some images in Song of Songs appeal-"His banner over me is love" (2:4) or "Love is as strong as death" (8:6)-the majority of the book's metaphors sound strange to our ears. Most of the comparisons aren't visual, but emotional. For instance, when the lover tells his beloved that "your two breasts are like two fawns" (4:5), he isn't saying that her breast looks like deer. Hhe is saying that they bring out the same tender feelings baby deer do. When you read strange-sounding metaphors in Song of Songs, don't ask, "What did these things (pomegrana...

Ecclesiastes attracts extreme reactions. For several hundred years, Jewish scholars fiercely debated whether the book should even be included in the Old Testament. Yet American novelist Thomas Wolfe said of it, "Ecclesiastes is the greatest single place of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound." Because of the book's unique nature, it is important to keep certain principles in mind while reading it. Consider Ecclesiastes as a whole. The teacher was exploring various philosophies of life. During his search, he tried different approaches, including hedonism, the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure. The book honestly records the authors search without endorsing it. At times then author concludes with despairing statements that directly contradicts other parts of the Bible (for example, the recurring phase, "Everything is meaningless"). Read such individual statements in their context. Just as the book of Job cont...

People love to quote proverbs. Often the express truth about life in an elegant, witty kernel. You’ll find more humour in Proverbs than anywhere else in the Bible. Yet Proverbs may as well be the most abused books in the Bible. People often quote the proverbs as though they were absolute promises from God or rigid rules for living. In fact, few of the proverbs should be read that way. And some proverbs, read alone, would give you a distorted point of view. To understand Proverbs, you should no hunt through it for proverbs you like. You should study the whole book to get its overall point of view. This takes time, for Proverbs covers dozens of subjects in subtle detail. Each oif the more than 500 proverbs is a tough but you have to crack before you get the inner meat. Read Proverbs slowly, but not for too long as one sitting. Some people like to read a small number of proverbs each day in addition to their regular Bible readings. Others concentrate on memorizing proverbs, so...

The best way to read the psalms is also the most common way to make these ancient prayers your own and speak them directly to God. So many of the poems catch such deep human feelings that you can’t help being moved by them. But not all the psalms seem attractive. Some sound harsh, self-congratulatory, or boring. You will not find it easy to pray these until you understand them. And there are so many psalms! This is the longest book in the Bible. To compensate, many peoplke read only selected psalms, skimming over the others. But then they miss the deeper messages found there, including the messages that the New Testament writers saw when they quoted Psalms more than any other Old Testament book. The richest lessons from Psalms may come from particularly difficult poems you must read again and again until you begin to see what the author had in mind. The original Hebrew of these poems probably used no rhyme or strict rhythm as traditional English poems do. Instead the psalmists...

The book of Job is regarded as one of the world's truly great literacy masterpiece. It contains some of the finest, most expressive poetry in the Bible. Yet first-time readers of Job can easily get lost because the complete "story line" is found in the first two chapters and the last one. Everything in between consists of a series of speeches. Rather than reading large sections of the book, read one entire speech by Job, or a speech by Job and a rebuttal from one of his friends. It may help if you try to summarize the statement behind each speech in one sentence and write that sentence in the margin (for example, "Job protests that he's innocent"). Speakers of that day impressed their audience more by eloquence than by rigorous logic, so the speeches may seem flowery. The issues Job and his friends address, however, are life-and- death ones. As you read the speeches of Job's friends, remember that their views do not necessarily reflect God's. The...