Bible History Master List



Bible History Master List

Day 1

Classroom Rules and Regulations and Class Procedures

OT – 1 Creation of the Modern Bible

Bible

• Derived from the Greek Biblia (books)

• The formation of the Canon was a process, not an event

• The criteria for selecting the books of the OT was not known

• The criteria for the selection of the NT books revolved around the “apostolicity” of the early church writers

• It took several hundred years to reach finality in all parts of the Roman empire

Moses writes the 1st five books of the Bible

Hebrew and Aramaic Writing

• There are 22 letters in the Hebrew language – not one of them is a vowel

• In many of the ancient texts, all the consonants are strung together, with no spaces between the words

• Hebrew is read from right to left

• The language is more than 3,500 years

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• Aramaic was the chief Semitic language of the Persian Empire

• It became the common language of the Jews after the exile

• From that time they started translating the Old Testament into Aramaic

• In New Testament times Aramaic was the language all Jewish boys and girls spoke at home

• It was the language of Jesus and the Disciples

Alexander the Great sweeps through the Middle East – 300 AD

• Alexander the Great wanted to conquer the whole world and transform it

• He intended to use Greek language, thought and culture to spread his ideals

• This ideals were on kingship, government, learning, art, and beauty

• He was a noble ruler, intending to bring peace and prosperity to all under his hand of rule

• He brought in Greek ideals as if they were a gift, improving the lives of the conquered people

• Cities were built for them, with public baths, gymnasiums, theaters, senates, political assemblies, feasts and philosophical discussions

• They were allowed to govern themselves

• They were allowed religions liberty

• They were allowed to keep their own languages

• But Greek did become the language of trade and learning

• This introduction of all things Greek to a foreign people was called “Hellenization”

Septuagint

• Legends say that the 70 men worked in solitude

• Finishing their translations, they discovered that each of the 70 translations was identical

New Testament Writings – Oldest writings were the early letters of Paul (20 yrs after death of Jesus)

Biblical Scholar Athanasius sends letter to Pope Damasus (27 Books of the NT)

Council of Rome in 382

St. Jerome

The Vulgate

Problem with Translating Hebrew – No Vowels

• Scribes took pride in their work, and they liked to be thorough

• Any mistakes in their copying would have been disastrous

• In a world without spell-check, they had to be meticulous

• In their quest for copy-perfect scrolls, the scribes earned the title “the counters”

• They actually counted every letter in every book of the Scriptures to make sure they didn’t leave anything out

• As a way of double checking that figured out which letter appeared in the middle of each book

• That is why the Old Testament has been preserved intact

Gutenberg printing press

Bible didn’t want the Bible in English

John Wycliffe

• The most eminent Oxford theologian of his day

• Wycliffe has been called the “Morning Star of the Reformation”

• He boldly questioned papal authority

• He criticized the sale of indulgences, he spoke out against church hierarchies

• The Pope reproved Wycliffe for his heretical teachings and asked that Oxford University dismiss him

• But Oxford and the government stood by him – he was able to survive the Pope’s assault

• Wycliffe believed that the way to prevail in his struggle with the church’s abusive authority was to make the Bible available to all people

• And he wanted it to be in their own language – Then they could read for themselves about how they could have a personal relationship with God

• Wycliffe and his associates completed the New Testament in 1380 and the Old Testament in 1382

• Wycliffe and his associates were unfamiliar with the original Hebrew and Greek – they translated the Latin text into English

• Many of his contemporaries didn’t like that he did this

• Several decades after he died, they condemned him to heresy

• They dug up his body, burned it and threw his ashes into the Swift River

William Tyndale

• William Tyndale was born in the age of the Renaissance

• He graduated in 1515 from Oxford, where he studied the scriptures in Greek and in Hebrew

• By the time he was 30 he was committed to translating the Bible into English

• In 1523 Tyndale went to London seeking a place to work on his translation

• When the bishop of London would not give him hospitality – he was provided a place to work by a local cloth merchant

• In 1524 he went from London to Germany, because the English church was still under the iron grip of the Papacy

• He met Martin Luther while in Germany – He was very familiar with Luther’s German translation of the NT (1522)

• Both Luther and Tyndale used the same Greek text (The one compiled by Erasmus in 1516) in making their translations

• Tyndale completed his translation in 1525 (He only finished the NT, he was working on the OT at the time of his death)

• 15 thousand copies were smuggled into England between the years 1525-1530

• Church authorities did the best they could to confiscate copies of Tyndale’s translations and burn them

• But they couldn’t stop the flow of Bibles from Germany

• Tyndale himself could not return to England because his life was in danger since the Translation had been banned

Death of Tyndale – Henry IIX

• In May 1535 Tyndale was arrested and carried off to a castle in Brussels

• After being in prison for over a year, he was tried and condemned to death

• He was strangled and burnt at the stake on October 6, 1536

• His final words were very poignant “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes”

• The Bible was completed by an associate named Miles Coverdale

Henry the Eighth and the Bible

• By the time that Coverdale produced a complete translation (1537) – The King of England, Henry the Eighth had broken all ties with the Catholic Church

King James Bible

• After James VI of Scotland became the king of England (Known as James I)

• He invited several clergymen from Puritan and Anglican factions to meet together with the hope of settling their differences

• This meeting did not achieve this, but one of the leaders asked the King to authorize a new translation of the Bible

• More than 50 scholars trained in Hebrew and Grek began their work in 1607

• The translation went through several committees before it was finished

• The King James Version captured the best of all the previous English translations and far exceeded all of them

OT – 2 – Biblical Culture

The Factors of Culture

What did Biblical People look like?

Egyptian Tomb – Beni Hasan

Physical Appearance of the Patriarchs

• The average height of the Israelites was between 5’3” and 5’7”

• They were smaller than the Canaanites that lived around them

Skin of the Ancients

Childhood

• The children of an ancient farm were kept busy with little jobs to do

• They gathered firewood and fetched water

• During harvest they helped with the reaping and the threshing

• Children could help tend grapes in the family vineyard

• They were expected to learn about every aspect of working the land, for it would be their inheritance one day

• Most of the time the children were put to work looking after the families animals

Size of the Family

• Essentially, Old Testament times saw little of the nuclear family

• Extended families stuck together for a very good reason, there was safety in numbers

• The more brothers and uncles and cousins there were to protect the encampment, the less likely they would be invaded by thieves or raiders

• Also many hands make the work load lighter

• The men had more help in the fields and the women more help in the kitchen and with the children

Help with the Family Farm

• Every day young women filled their jugs at the local well and carried them home on their heads

• When filled with water, the jugs could weigh more than 50 pounds

Toys

Childhood Tasks

Following fathers footsteps

Penalty for disobedience

Education

• The children growing up in Israel received a balanced education, split equally between religious instruction and vocational training

• Since they were an Agricultural community, very few Israelites learned to read and write

• This was left to the scribes and the leaders

• The children were taught at home

• The goal of parents was to have their child “increase in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and men”

• By New Testament times, the Jews had adopted a more formal approach to teaching

• They had set aside classrooms and qualified teachers to instruct all the children in the village

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• Fathers were responsible for teaching their sons a trade, from the time the boy was out of diapers

• He was given small tasks to do at his father’s side

• It was said that if a man did not teach his son a useful trade, he was raising the boy to be a thief

OT Marriage

• The perfect wife had to be beautiful and a hard worker – working with the grain and gathering the water

OT Divorce

Betrothal

Bride Price

• A groom paid the bride price to the bride’s father

• By taking away a daughter, he was decreasing that household’s workforce

Women’s roles

Women as Possessions

OT – Towns and Buildings

• Towns in early Israel were pretty small – 200 hundred homes, around 1,000 people

• Towns were crowded and dirty but they offered safety

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• Social Structure of the Day

• There were three kinds of people that lived in the Middle East

1. There were the city-folk, who lived comfortably within city walls

2. There were the country-folk, who lived in small villages and worked the land

3. There were desert-folk, who wandered with their flocks through barren reaches and lived in tents

• These classes of people weren’t necessarily on friendly terms, they rarely met at social events

• Although they lived near each other, their lives were worlds apart

Walls

• The difference between a town and a village depended upon its defenses

• A village did not have a wall

Tent dwellers in the winter

• During the Winter months or when invasion threatened they would gather into the safety of the towns

• The winter months lasted around 3 months

• In the winter months towns offered cramped conditions to cooped up people

• Things could get pretty messy

• The houses were little more than shanties, mostly joined together

• Where the streets sloped with the hillsides, houses were built right on top of each other

• The unpaved paths between houses were choked with mud and rubbish

• It sometimes rose higher than the floors of the houses along them

• When the rains came, the whole thing turned into a filthy swamp

• Town life stank and people were glad to return to the fields in the spring

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• The Bedouin term for his home literally means “House of Hair”

• The long rectangular Bedouin tents were made of cloth that was woven with the hair of goats

• The long black hair of the goats they raised was shown in the spring and women wove the cloth themselves

• The outside of the tent in the summer is too hot to touch – but the inside of the tent remained blissfully cool

• The reverse was true in the wintertime, a small fire in the tent kept everything toasty warm

• The cloth has proved to be weatherproof – when the rains fell the weave of the fabric would contract making it watertight

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• The tents of the nomads were carefully divided into 2 sections

• One was for the boys and one was for the girls

• The woman’s section was separated by a curtain from the men’s half

• The woman’s side was strictly off limits

• Only the head of the household could enter into the woman’s private area of the tent

• A male stranger who entered a woman’s quarters could be punished with death

• The woman’s section held all the household supplies, cookware and clothing, this is where the children played and napped

• The man’s section of the tent was open, with an awning offering shelter from the sun

• He would welcome and entertain guests

• The women had small concealed holes to eavesdrop on the men

Street layout

Canaanite and Assyrian vs. Hebrew architecture

Married couples living arrangements

Tent structure

Hebrews living in Canaanite structures

• Most people found themselves sitting on the ground. Mats and cushions might be found to make the floor more comfortable

• If there were furnishings there may be the luxury of a chair

Hebrew Building Structure

• Having a flat roof did have a few advantages in the days of the Bible

• It made an excellent vantage point

• It was a cool place to sleep on a hot summer night

• It provided a place to dry out crops for storage

• The rooftop was a place to get away from the noise of the house below and a place for meditation and worship

• The roof provided a platform for shouting out news to neighbors

• So busy were these rooftops, that the law required that a railing should be built around them to prevent people from falling

Leisure Time

Food – Foods they ate and meals

• Mom rolled out of bed first each morning

• She got up early and started the fire in the hearth or oven

• She had hungry children to feed and a husband to pack a lunch for , and send off for work

• The main food in the Jewish diet was bread

• The wife had to grind the grain to make the bread (the bread making took a good part of a woman’s day)

• Other mainstays in the ancient diet were goat’s milk, which could be made into butter, yogurt or cheese

• Depending on where you lived, the meal could be spiced up with the addition of olives, dried fish, raisins, figs, and lemons

• Most women supplemented their cooking supplies with their garden, and fresh greens, onions, leeks, cucumbers, and melons

• Fresh meat was a luxury, often only enjoyed during special occasions and feasts

• The cups at a meal were usually filled with water, wine or a fermented beverage made from goat’s milk

• It was this potent milk-based beverage that put Sisera to sleep in Jael’s tent

Eating utensils and bowls

Clothing

• The men of Israel paid little attention to the passing fads and fashions of surrounding nations

• Their clothing styles remained unchanged from generation to generation

• The basics for the Jewish man was simple – an inner garment, and outer garment, a girdle and sandals

• Any variation of this outfit was in the quality of the fabrics, detailing in the cut of the cloth, or in the colors used

• Quite practically, these clothes were the best for the hot climate in which the Jews lived

The Tunic or Inner Garment

• Every man woman and child wore a tunic, or inner garment

• This simple undergarment, a kind of close fitting long undershirt, was made from cotton or wool

• It was left its natural color

• The tunic was really just a sack with openings cut in the head and arms to pass through

• In the marketplace, a brand new tunic was normally sold without a neck opening cut

• So that the seller could prove that the tunic was unused

• When a man was wearing just the inner garment or tunic, he was considered naked

The Outer Garment

• The Outer garment worn by Bible men was kind of an outer coat worn over the lighter fabric of the inner garment

• For warmth the outer garments were made of a thick woolen material or goat’s hair

• At night fall the owner wrapped himself in this cloak to sleep

• A rich man’s overcoat resembled a dressing gown with wide sleeves

• This might have been made of fine linen or silk and served only a decorative purpose

• The earliest cloaks were made of two pieces, with a seam that ran horizontally across the waistline

• As dyes were introduced, Jewish men favored the color red in their cloaks

The Belt or the “Girdle”

• The girdle was the belt worn by men of the Bible

• The girdle was made of a wide band of colorful cloth

• Elijah and John the Baptist wore girdles of leather

• It was tied about the waist of the inner and outer garment, and greatly improved the appearance of an otherwise shapeless outfit

• The expression “to gird up the loins” refers to a method of tucking the robe up between the legs and into the belt

• This allowed the men to work much more freely

Tunic

Loincloth and Linen

Biblical Hair

• The ancients poured Olive Oil on their hair

• Looking your best included well oiled tresses and the glossy curls that resulted were admired

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• Jewish men were not to shave their hair off, because this was seen as an imitation of the heathens

• They were also not supposed to resemble the Nazarenes who never cut their hair

• Long hair was considered unnatural on a man.

• So the Jews were content to keep their hair carefully trimmed in styles not too short nor too long

Beards

• All Jewish men had a beard

• They kept their beards carefully trimmed to keep them tidy and maintain their shape

• To shave off a beard or to let it become overgrown would have been a sign of mourning and great distress

Biblical Makeup

• Hebrew women did not really “paint their faces” – but they did use something like modern mascara

• Women that used paint to enlarge their eyes was mentioned by two Old Testament prophets – Jeremiah and Ezekiel

• This may reflect the fact that this was becoming a widespread practice among the women of Palestine

Hebrew Calendar

• There were six seasons on the ancient calendar

1. Seedtime

2. Summer Fruits

3. The Hot Season

4. Harvest Time

5. The Col Season

6. The Bare Season

Linier Measures

Dry measures

Measures of Weight

OT – 0 – Intro to Epoch 1 (Creation to 2000 BC)

Histories of Meopotamia and Egypt Linked

Sumerians

• The earliest identifiable group of people

• The Old Testament refers to them as “the people of the plain of Shinar”

• The Sumerians had several large cities, one of which was Ur

Egyptians

OT – 3 – Creation Story

Genesis

Possible Location of Eden

4 Rivers of Eden

7 Days of Creation

Creation Stories

The Enuma Elish – The Babylonian Creation story

Egyptian Creation Story

OT -4 – Adam and Eve

Genesis 2-3

Defining the name of Adam

Tree of Knowledge

• Forbidden tree in Eden, whose fruit imparted knowledge and subsequent death

• It is the movement from innocence to moral awareness

Tree of Life

• Tree placed by God in the Garden of Eden whose fruit could give eternal life

• The Genesis narrative suggests that God intended the tree of life to provide Adam and Eve with a symbol of life in fellowship and dependence on him

Man’s helper – Woman

Adam’s Rib – Creation of Woman

The Serpent

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Eve convinces Adam to eat the Fruit

Adam, Eve and the Snakes punishments

OT -5 – Cain and Abel

Genesis 4

Why didn’t the Lord accept Cain’s offering

Cain’s Punishment

OT – 6 – Noah and the Ark, Tower of Babel

Genesis 5 - Wow, they live a long time

Genesis 6-9 Noah and the Flood

God becomes Angry, decided to wipe out mankind

Noah is found to be Righteous

Dimensions of the Ark

• Nobody knows what gopher wood is, some scholars think it may be cypress wood

Building Ratio of the Ark

Comparison of the Ark to Modern ships

7 of every clean animal and 2 of every unclean animal

Cubit Feet of the Ark

Where did the Water come from

How long were they on the Ark, Where did the Ark land

Mt. Ararat

Noah’s Ark sightings

Earthquake and Mt. Ararat

The Ravens and the Doves

• The dove and the pigeon have a limited ability for sustained flight

• Navigators used them to determine the location of landing sites

• As long as they return there is no landing area nearby

The Epic of Gilgamesh

God’s Covenant

Tower of Babel – Genesis 11:4

• Jewish and Arab traditions associate the Tower of Babel in Genesis with the with a large temple ruin

• This Temple Ruin was dedicated originally to Nabu in the city of Bosippa, or Birs-Nimrod

Ziggurats

• There were no rooms, chambers or passageways of any sort inside

• The structure itself was made to hold up the stairway

• At the top was a small room for the deity, equipted with a bed and a table

• The table was supplied regularly with food

• In this way the deity could refresh himself during his decent

• None of the festivals or “ritual” acts suggest that people used the ziggurat for any purpose, it was for the gods

• The priests would have certainly have to go up to provide fresh supplies, but it was holy ground

The Goal of the Tower

God foils their plan

End of Epoch 1

Epoch 2 – The Patriarchs

OT – 8 - Epoch 2 – Israel’s ancestors

What is a Patriarch?

Intro of Abraham

OT -9 –Abraham, Sarah and Hagar

Abraham from the City of Ur

• Hometown of Terah, the father of Abraham and the birthplace of Abraham and Sarah

• The land was dominated by the ziggurat

• The land was controlled by a religion with a multiplicity of gods

• The chief deity was Nannar, who was worshipped a Haran, near his Ziggurat was a temple dedicated to his consort, the moon goddess Ningal

• Many clay tablets found at Ur tell of the business life in the city, which focused on the Temples and their income

• There were factories there that manufactured woolen cloth

• Students were instructed in reading and writing cuneiform script

• They were taught multiplication and division, and some were even able to extract square and cube roots

• Domestic Architecture was highly developed – Houses had two stories and many rooms – 10to 20 – sometimes with a private chapel

• Small clay religious figures were discovered

Ur Factual Info

Moon goddess Nannar

Abraham’s Father Terah

• When Abram gave up his place in his father’s household; he forfeited his security

• He was putting his survival, his identity and his future in the hands of the Lord

Ziggurat at Ur

• They built temples of worship that were feats of architecture and engineering’

• Some of them were massive, even by today’s standards

• As a rule, temples were built to bring you closer to your god

• That meant the higher the temple the closer to god

• The stairs ran up the eastern side of the structure

Death of the city of Ur

Abraham goes to Canaan – with Sarai

Haran

• En route to Canaan, Abram and his family stop there for a time

• The thought is they stopped to take care of his father, Terah

• Terah was ailing and would eventually die in Haran

• Abram would continue on to the promised land

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• The Bible states that the Canaanite lifestyle was immoral

• In their own literature, Canaanites reveal that they were a people that reveled in…

• wanton slaughter, adultery, bestiality, homosexuality, drunkenness, and idolatry

Famine –Moves to Egypt

Tells Pharaoh that Sarai is his sister

Disease on the Pharaoh

Abraham and Lot split

• Lot chose the fertile plain of the Jordan

• Lot became increasingly involved with and contaminated by the corruption of the cities of the plain

• He took up residence in Sodom

Lot Captured by the 4 Kings

• While Lot was living in Sodom, 4 Mesopotamian kings (probably of small city states) defeated the 5 towns in the area in battle

• In the plundering of the towns, Lot and his family, as well as their possessions were carried off

Abram and the Battle of the 4 Kings – Genesis 14

• When word of this reached Abram, he launched a rearguard action against the invaders and recovered all the prisoners and all the loot

God’s covenant with Abraham

Father of Nations

The covenant definition

Sarai gives Abram her maidservant Hagar

Ishmael

God reaffirms the covenant with Abram – Blood Covenant, Circumcision

God tells Abram and Sarai they will have a child – Sarai laughs

• The Bedouin were famous for their hospitality and their generosity was not a myth

• When entertaining a stranger, the Bedouin host wouldn’t dream of asking the names of his guests

• This was in case their families were involved in a blood feud, this could cause tension, and this might cause the host to be discourteous

• He would have welcomed the guests with his head erect – he would incline forward slightly

• He would then raise his right hand to touch his forehead, lips and heart

• Water and Towels would be brought for the washing of feet

• Food would be prepared – roast goat in gravy, bread, butter and sour camel’s milk

• The meal was slow paced, to allow leisurely conversation

• To show kindness to a guest was to honor one’s god

Abram pleads for Sodom (Lot is there)

Destruction of Sodom

• The refusal of the men of Sodom to listen to reason and unanimous insistence on violence as they rushed toward the house sealed their fate

• When Lot offers his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom as a substitute for his guests, he is playing the consummate host

• He is willing to sacrifice his most precious possessions to uphold his honor by protecting his guests

• He is saved from making this sacrifice by the refusal of the mob and the actions of the angels

• Some historians have a different viewpoint of what Lot does when he offers his daughters

• They state that the corruption of Sodom has rubbed off on Lot

Lot’s wife

Pillar of Salt

Current day Sodom

• Lot’s daughters, despairing for husbands of their own got Lot drunk

• So drunk in fact that they engaged in sexual relations with Lot

• The result was the birth of 2 sons, Moab and Ben-Ammi

• These tow sons were the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites – huge enemies of the Israelites as their history progresses

Ancient explanation of Pillar of Salt – Barrenness

Birth of Ishmael

• Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years old

Birth of Isaac

Hagar and Ishmael sent away

Hagar and Ishmael struggle in the desert

• Hagar and Ishmael were left to wander in the wilderness of Beersheba

• When the water was exhausted, God rescued Hagar and Ishmael and Hagar was told that Ishmael would be the father of a great nation

• Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran, became a hunter, married an Egyptian and became the father of the Ishmaelites

• The Ishmaelites (later called the Midianites) were later heard from as the group of traders that bought Joseph from his brothers

Split between the Hebrews and Arabs

OT – 10 – Sacrifice of Isaac

Ancient Near East practices on Child Sacrifice

Deutoronomy and Leviticus forbade the practice

Molech worship

• National god of the Ammonites

• Worship of this deity , which was accompanied by sacrificing children in the fire, was strictly prohibited by Israel

God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac

Isaac or Ishmael?

Isaac’s concerns

Sacrifice of Isaac

Sacrifice avoided

Ram in the thicket

Christian connection to this Story

Descendents given the promised land

Mt Moriah today

• Many of the most famous stories in the Bible mingle together at Mt. Moriah

1. It is where Abraham brought Isaac to sacrifice him

2. It is the site of Jacob’s dream of the Stairway to Heaven

3. Hill of Jerusalem where Mel-chizedek reigned as priest and king of Salem

4. When the Jebusites lived in its fortified city, they called it Zion

5. David conquered the city, making it the Capital city and renaming it the “City of David”

6. Solomon’s Temple was built on the summit of the Mountain

7. Traditionally, the very summit of the mountain, called the Foundation Stone, was the site of the Holy of Holies

8. Originally the stone was used for a threshing floor, it is where the Ark of the Covenant rested

OT – 11 – Rebekah, Jacob, Isaac and Esau

Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for his son

• The place that Isaac tells Jacob to go to find a wife was Paddan Aram

• Most scholars believe it was an alternate name for Aram Naharraim

• This place is located in the northern region of the Euphrates river, in the vicinity of Haran

• The place where Abram stopped during his trek to the promised land

Rebekah is found

Rebekah has twins Jacob and Esau

Esau attributes

• His name means Edom or “Red”

• The Edomites claimed to be descended from Esau

Jacob’s Attributes

Jacob loved Esau

Rebekah loves Jacob

Jacob steals Esau’s Birthright

• There were some serious perks to being the first-born boy in an ancient family

• So much was riding on the birth order

• When twins were born, the midwife was obliged to mark the first baby to make an appearance

• A man expected his oldest boy to following in his footsteps and take care of the families interests

• The birthright only concerned the material inheritance from the parents

• The inheritance was divided into the number of sons plus one

• The eldest son then received a double share

• This was the customary practice throughout the Near East

• The stew buys from Esau that additional share (probably not his whole inheritance)

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• The incident with the stew seems to take place away from home, otherwise Esau would have appealed to his parents

• Jacob was not the hunting type so it is doubtful that he is out in the wilderness

• It is stated that he was a man that “stayed among the tents” – he was more closely associated with the sheepherding business

• It probably meant that Jacob was in a sheepherding camp, supervising shepherds when Esau stumbled upon them

• Jacob would have been in charge of the camp, so the decision would be his

• And there would also be witnesses to the agreement made between Jacob and Esau

Isaac says Rebekah is his Sister

Jacob steals Esau’s Blessing

Esau is angry, forces Jacob to leave

• Rebekah told Jacob to flee to her brother Laban, because Esau was going to kill Jacob

• Esau’s marriages to foreign women were against the wishes of his parents

OT – 12 –Jacob, Leah, Rachel and Laban

Jacob flees Esau

Jacob sees a stairway to heaven

• The Stairway that Jacob sees in his dream is the passageway between heaven and earth

• The comparable word is “Akkadian” is used in Mesopotamian mythology

• This describes what the messenger of the gods uses when he wants to pass from one realm to another

• This is the mythological stairway that the Babylonians sought to represent in the architecture of the ziggurats

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• In the context it seems clear with the angels ascending and descending upon it

• God is reaching out to Jacob and making a way for Jacob to have a relationship with him

Jacob meets Rachel at the Well

• The well was community property

• The opening was covered with a stone – and a low wall surrounded the well to protect it from blowing sand

• It also guarded from clumsy people falling in

• It also kept people from poisoning the well or from contamination

• The water was brought up using leather buckets or water skins

• Fetching water was woman’s work – to be a male water carrier was considered to be a lowly and despised occupation

• In the cool of the evening, the women came from all direction, some from long distances to fetch water from the local well

• But at the end of the day, it gave the women a chance to gather and meet, to gossip

Jacob says that he will work 7 years for Rachel’s bride price

• The typical bride price was 30 or 40 shekels of silver

• Since 10 shekels was the typical for an annual wage of a shepherd

• Jacob was paying a very high bride price – but the father dictated the price, Jacob had no bargaining power

Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah

• The bride would be veiled during the public festivities

• Also it has to be assumed that the high spirits of the occasion led to drunkenness

• These tow factors lead to Jacob’s inability to recognize the substitution of Leah for Rachel at the feast

• When Jacob woke up the next morning the marriage had been consummated and he was married the wrong sister

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• Laban was right, the tradition in the Middle East was that the older sister gets married first

• If an older sister was bypassed and then never married, her family would be left with the financial responsibility to support her

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• The bridal week diverted the bride and groom from other tasks

• It was designed to insure a pregnancy early in the marriage

Jacob has to work another 7 years to get Rachel

Chart of 12 tribes of Jacob

Leah

• Reuben

• Simeon

• Levi

• Judah

• Rachel had not conceived any children so she gave her maid Bilhah to Jacob - She bore him…

• Dan

• Naphtali

• The Leah gave her maid Zilpah to Jacob as a wife, She bore him…

• Gad

• Asher

• At this point Reuben found some Mandrakes in the field (See below for info on Mandrakes)

• Leah traded them to Rachel for Jacob’s services

• Leah then bore two more sons

• Issachar

• Zebulon

• At Last Rachel herself conceived and had two children

• Joseph

• Benjamin

Mandrakes

• Rachel and Leah fought over some mandrakes that young Reuben had found out in the fields during the wheat harvest

• Since Reuben was Leah’s boy she had first dibs on them

• The mandrake roots were often shaped like a person and so it was believed that the plant had special powers to boost fertility

• The sisters were fighting over an aphrodisiac and both hoped to coax Jacob into their own bed for the night

• The Hebrew word for Mandrake is connected with the verb “to love”

Jacob decides to make up with Esau

Jacob wrestles with God

Eating the tendon forbidden

Jacob meets Esau – Genesis 33

OT – 13 –Joseph

• In the narrative of Joseph, the Hebrew states: Ketoneth passiym

• The first word is definitely coat; no problem

• The second word appears no where else in the Old Testament

• Translators have had to guess at its meaning…it has been interpreted as…

1. Coat of many Colors

2. Coat with Long Sleeves

3. Coat with much embroidery

4. Coat of Choice Wool

• The simple fact is that no one knows what the precise meaning is, and at this point there is no way to find out

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• Joseph’s coat of many colors was probably white

• The book of Hebrews states that the coat was made of many pieces

• Indicating that some fancy tailoring was involved

• It may have been a fine linen garment with long pointed sleeves

• Long sleeves prevented the wearer from doing heavy labor

• So Joseph was not expected to do the same work as the other brothers

• This coat would have made it clear to the other brothers that Joseph was the favorite and the future leader of the clan

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• The Hebrews often ripped the outer garment in times of great distress

• Since clothing was so valuable, it was indeed at sign of intense grief to tear it to pieces

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• Joseph’s brothers threw Joseph into a dry cistern

• Cisterns were made with bottle shaped openings, so that the lower chamber widened to some 20 feet in diameter and depth

• The deeper the cistern was dug, the cooler the water

• Escape would have been impossible without someone lowering a rope

• The floor, walls and ceilings of this “room” were coated with plaster to make it waterproof

• To prevent evaporation, a cover was made to fit over the top

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Dinah’s Rape

• Rape as a means of obtaining a marriage contract was apparently one strategy used in the Near East

• Laws on the subject (Ex 22 16-17 and Deu. 22:28-29 and Assyrian and Hittite laws) required…

• The rapist to pay an to pay an especially high bride price and sometimes forbid the possibility of divorce

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• Circumcision preformed on an Adult is quite painful and would have virtually debilitated the adult male population for several days

End of Epoch 2

Start of Epoch 3

OT – 13 – Exodus

Hebrews held hostage in Egypt 400 years

Main Characters

Time period of Exodus

Jacob moves his family to Egypt (Famine)

Turns the Hebrews into Slaves – Make Bricks – Build cities

Moses

• Aaron was three years older than Moses

• His sister Miriam is also older than Moses

Moses in the Nile

• Bulrushes are actually Papyrus plants

• Those were the same leafy reeds that the Egyptians used to make paper

• Interior bark was cut into strips and sewn together

• Once dried in the sun it was ready to write on

• Papyrus grew all along the length of the Nile, and Egyptians used them to make braided cords, baskets, clothing, shoes, boats and sails

Found by Pharaoh’s daughter – nursed by own mother

Adult – saw a Egyptian beating a Hebrew – Killed Him

• Just when Moses became aware of his Hebrew heritage is unknown

• His first 40 years are spent in Egypt, where he gained the knowledge of the Egyptians

• One day he went out to visit the Hebrews and observe their treatment

• He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, Moses killed the Egyptian and buried him

• He thought the deed had gone unnoticed – but as he was trying to break up a fight between two Hebrews, acting as peacemaker…

• They both turned on him and accused him of murder, they stated:

• “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian”

• Knowing that a member of Pharaoh’s household would not be exempt from punishment, now that the deed was known

• Moses fled to life in the Area of Midian

Moses fled to Midian

• It was the area on the edge of the desert, bordering Gilead, Moab and Edom south even into the Sinai

Moses meets his future wife at the well

Marries Zipporah

Zipporah’s father was Hobob (Jethro) – He is a priest in Midian

Tended Flock near My Sinai

• Sheep are mentioned about 750 times in the Scriptures

• When a shepherd brought his flocks into the hillsides to graze he usually tended a combination of sheep and goats

• Though the two animals were very different from each other, their needs were basically the same

• Moses spent 40 years in Midian, he thought his life in Egypt had faded into the past

Burning Bush

• Moses was told to remove his shoes when God spoke to him from the Burning Bush – because he was standing on Holy Ground

• For the same reason, Priests in the Temple at Jerusalem went about their tasks barefooted

• They had to wash their hands and feet before entering the Temple

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• Unlike the gods of Egypt who were pictured as living in the gloomy darkness

• Israel’s God revealed himself as one who lives in unapproachable light

Told to lead the Hebrews out – Didn’t think he could

Talks to Pharaoh

Slaves have to make Bricks without Straw

Ten Plagues

• A swarm of Locusts were nothing but trouble

• These insects were about three inches long and traveled in huge swarms

• Their wings would carry them into the skies, where they would catch the wind, they would sail as a giant cloud

• With a good tail wind Locusts can travel as many as 100 miles before having to drop down

• At night they descend onto trees and grasses, and when the sun warms them up in the morning, the feasting begins

• An entire tree or field can be laid bare in a matter of minutes

Passover

• During the ceremony of the Passover meal the Hebrews were commanded to eat bitter herbs with the lamb

• They were to symbolize the bitterness of the bondage in Egypt

• Usually the dish was prepared using lettuces, endive, coriander seeds, tansy, horseradish, parsley and watercress

• It was a salad with some kick to it

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• In primitive religions blood was often used to ward off evil powers

Routes of Exodus

• The size of the Israelite population has been considered problematic for several reasons

• If the number of men was 600,000, then the total population would be over 2,000,000

• The entire population of Egypt at that time was around 5 million

• As it traveled the line of people would stretch over 200 miles

• Most caravans could travel between 20-23 miles per day – a group of this size could make about 6 miles a day

• Whatever the case the back of the line would be two weeks behind the front of the line

Red Sea –Sea of Reeds

Crossing the Red Sea

• Most Chariot units of this time range between 10 to 150 – 600 Chariots is a large muster

• This represents only Pharaoh’s unit

Manna

Quail

• Small, plump migratory quail often come through the Sinai on the way to Europe

• Generally in the months of March and April

• Quail looking for a place to land and rest have been known to sink small boats

• Their inability to sustain long flight may account for their low flying level – 2 cubits or about 40 inches

• And sometimes they cover the ground of the Sinai so densely that some landed on the tops of the others

• During the 1900s Arabs living in northern Sinai used nets to catch between 1 and 2 million quail

Settle at the base of Mt Sinai

• The Israelites reach the wilderness surrounding Sinai 3 months after leaving Egypt

Ten Commandments

1st Commandment

• Prohibition of worshipping gods other than the Lord

• When the text says there should be no other god “before me” – It does not refer to a god having a higher position than God

• The phrase “Before Me” means “in my presence”

• Therefore it prohibits other gods being considered in the presence of Yahweh

• This was different from most religions of the time because most religions of that day had a pantheon

• A divine assembly that that ruled the realm of the gods, the supernatural and the human world

• There typically a god that was designated the head of the pantheon

• This commandment effectively bans much mythology that deals with the interactions of the god with one another

2nd Commandment

• Prohibits the Israelites from making images of the Lord

• The 2nd Commandment concerns how Yahweh is to be worshiped, for the idols it forbids are idols of himself

• Punishments to the 3rd and 4th generations are not granted to human judges, only to God

• It expresses that “covenant violation” brings guilt to the entire family

• The 3rd and 4th generations are a way to refer to all living members of the family

• When there was a sin in the family, all members shared responsibility

3rd Commandment

• Prohibition of the improper use of God’s name

• This commandment does not refer to blaspheming or foul language

• It is intended to prevent the exploitation of the name of Yahweh for magical purposes or hexing

• Israel was not to attempt to use Yahweh’s name in magical ways to manipulate him

• The commandment was also intended to insure that the use of Yahweh’s name in oaths, vows and treaties was taken seriously

4th Commandment

• Requirement to observe the Sabbath

• Sabbath observation has no known parallel in any of the cultures of the ancient Near East

• It is independent of any of the patterns and rhythms of nature

• The commandment desires an interrupting of normal activities of ones occupation

5th Commandment

• Requirement to Honor Parents

• In the ancient Near East it is not the religious heritage, but the fabric of society that is threatened when parents are disobeyed

• Certain obligations have to be met as a child, and violations included striking parents, cursing parents, neglecting the care of elderly parents

• Treating parents with contempt is an issue

• And even failing to provide an adequate burial for a parent

• Commandments 5-9 deal with the issues of “covenant in community”

6th Commandment

• Prohibition of Murder

• It is used in the terms of Homicide (accidental or intentional, premeditated or not, judicial, political or otherwise)

7th Commandment

• Prohibition of Adultary

• The purpose of the commandment was to protect the husband’s name by assuring him that his children would be his own

• In the Bible the wife is an extension of the husband, and his name is damaged through adultery

• In the Bible if a married man had an affair with an unmarried woman it was not considered adultery…

• The offender had to pay damages to the father (ex 22:16-17)

• This was a natural result of a polygamous society.

• Promiscuous behavior is not acceptable, but it was not called Adultery

• The protection of the integrity of the family was the foundation of the society

• Compromise or collapse of the family meant compromise or collapse of society

8th Commandment

• Prohibition of Theft

• It can be applied to stealing property, there is a much broader meaning to this commandment

• Issues such as kidnapping as well as stealing intangibles (dignity, self-respect, freedom, rights) are all important

• The word is also used in the sense of cheating – by cheating someone out of something, you are stealing form him

9th Commandment

• Prohibition from False Witnessing

• The maintain ace of justice was dependent on the reliability of the witness

• Nevertheless, character assassination in any of its forms, legal or casual would constitute false witness

• That would be a violation of this commandment

10th Commandment

• Prohibition of Coveting

• In the ancient Near East the concept of coveting occurs in expressions such as “to lift the eyes”

• But coveting is a crime that can be detected and punished only when the desire is translated into action

• In ancient Near Eastern literature shows that offenses like theft and adultery can be described generally in terms of desire that triggered the events

• The illegitimate desire for something that belongs to someone else is the core of the problem

• This is looked at as a threat to the community – any action to fulfil such a desire is a sin

Golden Calf

• After Moses came down from the mountain and saw the Golden Calf he made them ground up the calf

• Once the calf was ground to powder, Moses scattered it on the water and made the people drink it

Apis

The Tabernacle

• The court of the Tabernacle was a rectangle of 150 feet long and 75 feet wide

• The Tabernacle was considered to be the dwelling place of God

• It was a mobile temple, it could be broken down and moved about with the children of Israel

• Put most simply, the Tabernacle was a trick

• However it wasn’t just any tent

• The Tabernacle was draped with linen tapestries, goats hair curtains, ram’s skins that had been dyed red

• It also had a weatherproof covering made from animal skins

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• The tree and its wood are mentioned in scriptures often

• It seems to have been the local building material of choice

• The Hebrews used its hardwood for boards, pillars, tables and alters when they built their tabernacle in the wilderness

• Acacia trees grow to be 15 to 20 feet tall and have long thorns all over them

• In the spring they have yellow flowers that produce pods

Areas inside the Tabernacle

The Holy Place

• Was an area 30 by 15 feet

Holy of Holies

• Was a perfect cube 15 by 15 feet

• They used layers of overlapping fabric given to the joints emphasizes the darkness of the innermost shrine

Ark of the Covenant

• Inside the Ark were several items :

• The two tablets on which God had written the 10 Commandments

• A Golden pot of Manna

• And Aaron’s rod which had blossomed

Table of the Showbread

• Made of acacia wood and covered with gold

• 3 feet by 1 and half feet (height of 2 and half feet)

• On the Sabbath of each week 12 loaves of bread were baked in the Temple

• They were placed on the table in two rows, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel

• This was the Showbread, which was placed hot from the oven on a special table in the Holy Place of the Temple

• The table was spread with a beautiful blue cloth

Golden Lamp

• The seven branched golden lamp stand was the only source of light in the Tabernacle

• It was hammered out of one piece of gold

• It weighed sixty six pounds or more

• It was decorated with flowers and buds like almond blossoms

Incense alter

• Located in the Holy Place, immediately opposite the Holy of Holies and the ark of the covenant

• Made with acacia wood and overlaid with gold

• It was 18 inches square and 3 feet high

• The alter was used for the offering of incense every morning and evening

• It was also used for anointing the horns for the yearly atonement

Brazen Alter or Alter of the Burnt offerings

• 7 feet square and 4 and a half feet tall

• Basically it was a hollow wooden framework overlaid with bronze

• Light enough to be carried on bronze plated poles and passed through bronze rings on the corners

Laver

• It was made from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the court

• The Laver sat between the alter of sacrifice and the Tabernacle

• Failure to wash in the Laver prior to ministering was punishable by death

• It was a solemn reminder of the need of cleanliness and obedience before undertaking any task of God

Uniform of the Priests

• The High Priests garments consisted of Seven Parts

The Ephod

• The Ephod worn by the High Priest was a beautifully embroidered linen garment.

• It was worn over the breeches and under the breastplate and robe

• It was embroidered in gold, blue, purple and scarlet

• The garment was fastened at the shoulder by a large onyx stone

The Girdle

• The girdle or belt, which the High Priest used over his ephod was made of blue, purple and scarlet fabrics interwoven with gold thread

• The ends of the Girdle hung down to the ankles

Robe of the Ephod

• The robe which the High Priest wore was less extravagant than the embroidered ephod it covered

• The Linen robe was dyed blue, it was longer than the Ephod

• While on duty in the Temple, the priests all wore pure white linen robes

• The bottom of the garment had a long fringe, on which were embroidered blue, purple and scarlet pomegranates

• God’s command to affix tassels to the hems of Israelite Garments carried rich symbolism in the ancient world

• People perceived the hem of the garment to be an extension of the wearers person and status

• So strongly did the hem represent the wearers identity that legally binding agreements were sealed by impressing the hem

• The hem was impressed as a “signature” onto the wet clay tablet of a recorded contract

• In Israel, fringed hems with twisted cords of blue marked the wearers community as being consecrated to the Lord

• The prescribed blue color of the tassels was reminiesnt to the sacred blue textiles used to make the Tabernacle coverings and…

• The High Priestly garments

• The tassels were on the clothes to remind them to keep the commandments

• Between each pomegranate hung a bell, which allowed the other priests to keep track of his movements

• The movements were when the High Priest came and went from the holy place

• When it was time to go into the Holy of Holies, the other priests would tie a rope around the High Priest’s ankle and send him in

• The other priests waited, holding their breath and listening to the sound of the tiny bells moving back and forth in the room

• They all knew if the High priest had done anything the displease God while in his presence he would be struck dead

• If the bells suddenly stopped, that was their cue to haul on the rope and pull out the body of the priest

Breastplate

• The breastplate and the ephod were called a memorial – because they reminded the High Priest of his relationship to the 12 tribes of Israel

• The breastplate was a carefully embroidered piece of cloth about 10 inches square

• It was doubled over to make a pouch

• 12 precious stones each bearing the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, were affixed on it

• The upper corners of the breastplate were attached to the Ephod, the bottom two corners to the girdle

• The fastenings that held the breastplate were made of gold or rich lace

• The pouch was where the sacred lots, the Unim and Thummim, were kept

Turban

• A turban, also called a miter, was the official headdress of the high priest

• A fine linen cloth, about 8 yards in length was wound and folded about the head

• Pinned in the front was a gold plate upon which was written the Hebrew words “Holiness to the Lord”

Embroidered Coat

• Long Skirted, embroidered with a pattern as if stones were set into it

• The common priests also wore this garment

OT -14 –Leviticus

Leviticus

Hammurabi’s Code

• The most complete example of the code was found a Susa in 1901 by French Archeologists

• It stood 8 feet tall and showed a bias relief of Hammurabi receiving the law from god Shamash

• Beneath this relief was a poetic introduction

• Following by the 282 articles of the code

• It was carried to Susa as a battle trophy by the Elamites in 1160 BC

• It is now in the Louvre in Paris

Burnt offerings

• The Burnt offering is always a male animal that is completely burned on the alter, except for the skin

• Male animals were both more valuable and more expendable

• A herd could be sustained with only sustained with a few males in proportion to the many females needed to bear the young

• The burnt offering serves as a means to approach the Load with a plea

• The plea could concern victory, mercy, forgiveness, purification, favor or any number of things

• At least one each day was offered up on behalf of the Israelite people

Grain offerings

• The rabbis considered the grain offering to be a substitute for the burnt offering for poor people

• Generally a small portion was burned on the alter as a token of the gift to the Lord

• The remainder was given to the officiating priest

Fellowship offering

Sin offering

Guilt offering

Clean and Unclean food

Mammals

Birds

Reptiles

Fish

Insects

Tattoos and Self Laceration

• In ancient Pagan religions tattooing was often thought to protect the individual so marked from Harmful Magic

• Some tattoos also indicated that a person belonged to a certain god or cult

• Temple slaves were branded or tattooed with the symbol of the respective temples to which they belonged

• It seems likely that the Biblical prohibition against Tattoos was directed against specific Idolatrous practices

• Some of the Tattoos were involved with erotic idolatrous practices

• The Old Testament treats tattooing and body disfigurement as inherently pagan and depraved

Scapegoat

• The day of Atonement was on the 10th day of the 7th month

• On this day the High Priest didn’t wear his traditional outfit – He wore white undergarments and a white tunic

• The idea behind this that no man can approach God with any pretense of special authority or prestige

• The High Priest began the ritual observation by offering a bull for his own sins and those of his household

• He went to the Most Holy Place and sprinkled blood from the bull onto the Ark of the Covenant

• This deliberate self-inclusion demonstrated that no one, including the High Priest could stand guiltless before God

• On the day of Atonement all of the sins of the people were symbolically transferred to a scapegoat

• Two goats were brought to the High Priest – he casted holy lots – One goat was sacrificed to God, the other became the Scapegoat

• A piece of red wool was tied around its horns

• A bull was sacrificed and its blood was sprinkled on the curtain of the holy of holies

• The goat for sacrifice was slaughtered

• The High Priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat, confess the peoples sins

• A priest would then escort the goat out into the wilderness (10 miles out)

• Stations were prepared along the path in case the weary priest needed to break his fast to continue his walk

• At the final station, the goat was pushed over a cliff

• Then the stations served as relay stations, and a system of flag signals sent word back to the Temple

• The sins of the nation had been forgiven

OT – 15 –Numbers

After a Year at Mt Sinai the Hebrews leave for the Promised Land

• Kadesh Barnea was the main camping place during the wilderness wandering

• The Israelites stayed there for nearly 38 years

• Because of the water, pasture, and agricultural lands, plus the proximity to Canaan, the Israelites found this to be the best spot

• They spent most of their time here before entering the promised land

The 7 tribes of Sinai

• The groups inheriting the land are identified as the…

Anakites

• Ancestor of a race of giants in old Canaan

• When the Israelites got to the promised land the Anakites were well established in Hebron

• 10 of the 12 spies were terrified by the size of these guys

Amalekites –

• Amalek was the son of Eliphaz (Esau’s son) by his concubine Timna

• Descendents of this tribal chief of Edom were known as the Amalekites

• They were nomadic or semi-nomadic

• They settled in the Negev desert, they had allies in the Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, Ishmaielites and the Midianites

• The Amalekites were enemies of the Israelites

• The feud started with grandfather’s antagonism towards Jacob

Hittites

• The Hittite Empire centered in Turkey extended to Syria

• But isolated groups were found in central Judah

• Most of the citations dealt with the Hittites living in the region of Canaan – the isolated groups

• The name Hittite occurs nearly 50 times in the OT, but none in the NT

• The Hittites were not exterminated during Joshua’s conquest

• They maintained separate status for a while

• Until Solomon consigned them to forced labor

• They eventually blended in with the people of Israel

Amorites

• Semitic people found throughout the Fertile Crescent

• Controlled portions of Syria and Babylon

• They were first mentioned in the Bible as descendents of Canaan

• Seemed to migrate from the Syrian desert into Mesopotamia and some went into Palestine

• They were a major obstacle to the Israelite conquest of Canaan

• The term Amorite is used in the Bible as a broad ethnic label, referring to the general population of the Holy Land

• The term Amorites is virtually interchangeable with “Canaanite”

Canaanites

• Noah’s grandson Canaan was the progenitor of 11 groups that lived in the area of Syria and Palestine by 2,000 BC

• They were the principle inhabitants of the fortified cities in the land

• Jebusites – Walled city, lying on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin – conquered by David

• It was known as the “city of David” or ancient Jerusalem

Midianites

• Midian was Isaac’s younger half brother, the forth of six sons born to Keturah, whom Abraham married as an old man

• Expelled from Abraham’s family, for Isaac’s sake, they became semi nomadic peoples of the deserts east and south of Palestine

• Moses moved to Midian and married Zipporah, daughter of a Midiante priest

Moses takes a Census

Manna

12 Spies sent out

• The reference points suggest that the scouts explored the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean

• They went up and down the full 350 miles length

Decide it is too dangerous to enter the Promised Land

• Initially God was so angry at the Israelites grumbling that they were all condemned to die in a plague

• However after Moses asked Yahweh to have mercy, this sentence was changed to the death of the unfaithful people in the wilderness

• Without seeing the promised land

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• Back in Bible times, the land was not rocky and desolate

• The hills were heavily wooded with lush forests – sycamores, cedars and oaks

• Orchards were cultivated by the inhabitants – citrus trees, figs, pomegranates and bananas

• However after years of warfare, overproduction and misuse, most of the trees were stripped from the land

• It was common for invaders to chop down trees, burn orchards and destroy crops

Hebrews decide to kill Moses, Aaron

Hebrews doomed to wander 40 years in the Wilderness

Moses strikes a rock

Moses not allowed to enter the promised land

Poisonous snakes invade the Hebrew camp

Snake staff

Balak

• King of Moab

• Became fearful of the after the Israelites defeated the Amorites

• So he attempted to hire a soothsayer named Balaam to pronounce a curse against Israel

• He knew that there was no way to successfully withstand Israel militarily

Balaam

• A prophet and soothsayer from Northern Mesopotamia

• Balak offered Balaam an impressive sum to come down and curse the Israelites

• He had an international reputation, his exploits are found on a non-Biblical Aramaic Text

Balaam’s donkey

Baal worship

• The calf was the central idol in Baal worship

• He started out as your average false god believed to have power over bountiful crops and multiplying flocks

• Later, he evolved into “Master of the Universe” and was thought to rule over the other Canaanite gods

• He was considered the leader of the Pantheon of gods in Canaanite religion

• Baal’s sphere of influence included agriculture, animal husbandry and human sexuality

• Baal worship involved prostitution

• Baal worship involved Human sacrifice

• Baal Worship involved self-torture

• Supplicants also would kiss the idol itself

Joshua chosen to lead the Hebrews

OT – 16 –Deuteronomy

The Israelites are ready to cross the Jordan and invade Canaan

• The Jordan river served as an effective boundary to Canaan, holding back any invaders from the east

• It was the border of the promised land

Defeat of Sihon and Og

• Sihon and Og Amorite kings opposed the Israelites on their journey

• The kingdoms of Sihon and Og goes from the Amnon River valley in the south to the Jabbok river in the South

• This was on the east of the Jordan – a place called Heshbon

• Prior to Israel’s journey, Sihon had driven out the Moabites and taken this territory

• Defeating the kingdoms of Sihon and Og would give the Israelites passage to the land of Canaan

• When Sihon led his attack against Israel, he was killed and his foes scattered

• Sihon’s capital was taken and the territory was given to the Israelites

Moses gives the Hebrew a refresher before entering the Promised Land

The Book reads like a contract with God

Preamble

Prologue

Og King of Bashan

• Og’s kingdom was located in what is now know as the Golan Heights

Rephaites

Rules of the Treaty

Astral worship

Gleaning

• Grape Gleaning – At the time of the harvest, the grape pickers were to go through the vineyards, harvesting the crop

• However they were not allowed to go back over the vines that they had already picked

• That meant any missed fruit , as well as the fruit that hadn’t quite been ripe were left hanging gin the vineyard

• The poor were able to search through the vineyard and take whatever remained

Oath of Allegiance

Instructions for observing the Treaty

Moses dies on Mt Nebo

• Mountain summit found 8 miles east of the Jordan River at the Northeastern corner of the Dead Sea

• Moses viewed the Holy Land from this vantage point, until his death

OT – 17 – Joshua

Joshua - Leader, two goals

• Son of Nun – Moses successor

Jericho

• The settlement at Jericho goes back to the 9th century BC – It was the oldest city in the world

• Jericho is located by an oasis about 5 miles west of the Jordan river, 6 miles north of the Dead Sea

• It guards a strategic passageway between the Jordon Valley and the Central hill country to the west (Including Jerusalem)

• The city itself is 825 feet below sea level – the lowest city in the world

• The oblong shaped mound that used to be Jericho, covers a area of about 10 acres and a circumference of about a half a mile

• An area that size would have housed around 2,000 people

• More people would have lived in the surrounding villages and farms

Rahab

• Spies in the ancient Near East regularly collected info on troop movements and troop sizes

• Spies once inside the city walls would be concerned with – defenses, food and water supplies

• Also the number of fighting men and general preparedness for attack

• Most important was to find the source of the water supply – how it could be cut off or compromised

• This would give a siege a better chance of success

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• Rahab’s house was built into the side of the city wall, this was common for this period

• It benefited the city by adding extra width and support for the wall

• It benefited the resident by providing a firm wall to support the house

Israelites cross the Jordan

Joshua stops the Jordan

• This is springtime and the melting snow from the Anti-Lebanon mountains often creates a flood stage for the Jordon

• Mudslides result ad water undercuts the cliffs – also seismic activity occasionally interferes with the Jordon

• This occurred at the very spot this story occurred in 1927, when the Jordon was blocked for two days

Jericho conquered

• Joshua laid a curse on anyone who might rebuild Jericho

• The curse was fulfilled about 500 years later when king Hiel rebuilt the city at the cost of two of his sons (1st Kings 16:34)

Joshua’s battle tactics

Achan’s sin

• There were five or six pounds of silver and a pound and half of ingot gold

• It would take an average worker a lifetime to make this amount

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• Stoning is a communal form of execution – it is used to punish crimes against the whole of the community

• It requires all persons who have been offended to participate

• Because it cannot be determined which individuals stone caused the death of the condemned – no one person had to bear the guilt

Defeat of Ai

• On the 2nd attack the Israelites were successful

• Joshua captured the king, executed him, burned the city and left it as a heap of ruins

Sun and Moon stopped

Defeat of the Amorite kings

• The kings of the various Canaanite cities allied themselves against the Israelite threat

• A league of five Amorite cities – Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon attacked Gibeon

• The Gibeonites appealed to Joshua for help; he responded quickly against the Amorite confederation

• It was during this battle that Joshua commanded the Sun and the Moon to stand still

• So that Israel would have more time to defeat their adversaries

• This victory was followed by a series of successful attacks on enemy towns

Joshua divided the land among the 12 tribes

End of Epoch 3

Start of Epoch 4

OT – 18 –Epoch 4

From tribes to a Nation 1200-900 BC

Loose confederacy of tribes into a Monarchy

OT – 19 – Judges

The Israelites captured the Highlands of Canaan

• The tribes had problems with completing the conquest of the holy land that Joshua started

• The remaining Canaanite resistance was found mainly around heavily guarded and well-fortified cities

Joshua dies

Israel fails to conquer the land and get rid of the Pagan idols

Israelis start worshiping Canaanite idols

Intermarrying with Canaanites

The Pattern of Judges

Minor Judges

Shamger

• Shamgar’s exploits were against the Philistines in the coastal plains

• He had a non Israelite name but was probably an Israelite by Birth

• Like Samson he fought the Philistines with an unconventional weapon ( an ox goad)

• His name is mentioned in the song of Deborah

Tola

• Tola was a minor judge from Issachar who judged Israel for 23 years

Jair

• Jair was a minor judge from Gilead who judged Israel for 22 years

Ibzan

• Ibzan was minor judge from Bethlehem who ruled Israel for 7 years

Elon

• Elon was a minor judge from Zebulon, Elon ruled Israel for 10 years

Abdon

• Abdon was a minor judge from Pirathon, the location of which is uncertain – He ruled for 8 years

Major Judges

Othniel

• Othniel was a transitional figure

• He linked the Conquest and the Judges

• He had involved himself in the conquest of Kiriath-seper

• He was also related to Caleb, who was his cousin

• He repelled the Arameans, so that the land enjoyed peace for some 40 years

Ehud

• The Moabites, allied with the Ammonites and Amalekites, came against Israel from the East and oppressed them for 18 years

• This alliance was under the leadership of Eglon

• Ehud led the mission to bring tribute to Eglon at his palace, located near Jericho

• Ehud paid the tribute and left, he returned with a supposed oracle of the gods

• The King fell for the deception and was murdered

• Ehud was uniquely qualified for this mission; being left handed

• He was able to use his double edged sword in an unsuspecting manner to stab the King

• The delay in at the Moabite court gave the Israelites an opportunity to bring their forces together at the fords of the Jordon

• Ehud’s success was complete, no Moabite escaped

• Israel enjoyed peace for 80 years

Jephthah

• Under attack from the Ammonites, the elders of Gilead requested help from Jephthah

• He promised to help them on condition that he remain their leader even after the war

• The spirit of the Lord came over him – Jephthah led Israel into battle

• Jephthah ruled for only 6 years

Thumbs and Big Toes

• Like the blinding of the right eye in 1st Samuel – cutting off the Thumb and Big Toes assured that the person could never be a warrior again

• The act is also an act of humiliation

• Unsteady on their feet and unable to grip a bow or spear, these men could only beg to survive

Deborah

• The narrative turns to Canaanite aggressors in the North under the leadership of Jabin, king of Hazor and Sisera

• He had an army of 900 iron chariots and had ruled over Israel for 20 years

• Deborah called on Barak to muster the armies of Naphtali and Zebulan, the tribes affected by the Canaanite raids

• She also told Barak to engage Sisera in a surprise attack by the Kishon River

• Barak’s hesitancy led him to request Deborah’s presence, which resulted in his forfeiture of honor in killing Sisera

• The Lord gave success to the surprise attack from Mt Tabor, so that the Canaanites were routed

Luring Sisera to Kishon

• This is a flat plain that would normally favor a chariot based attack

• The river was apparently overflowing its banks due to heavy rainfall

• This would have muddied the battlefield, not allowing the chariots movement – it would turn them into death traps

• The enemy was accepting the advantage but were surprised by the condition of the terrain – an advantage to the Israelites

Sisera and Jael

• In this part of Judges many of the customs or everyday actions are reversed

• A woman, Jael, offers hospitality to the guest – not the husband

• As a guest Sisera is not supposed to ask for anything, he asks for two things – a drink and sentry duty from Jael

• Finally murdering a guest is not part of protocol, but Jael might be justified if she felt Jael was a threat to her or her home

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• Deborah is the only figure portrayed in the book of Judges as actually functioning in a judicial position

• She hears and decides cases under a palm tree

• She tells Barak to muster the troops at Mt Tabor, a flat topped promontory rising above the northeastern end of the Jezreel valley

• They were about 2 and half miles from Nazareth

• Should an enemy detect their movements they would already control the high ground – and remain safe from the chariots

Gideon

• Israel’s rest for 40 years was disturbed by the invasion of the Midianites and Amalikites from the East

• They destroyed the economy by invading the country at harvestime

• God sent a Prophet

• An angel appeared to Gideon and called him to lead the people into battle

• Gideon destroyed the cultic site dedicated to Baal and Asherah

• Gideon went into battle with an army of 300

• 22,000 left the original army because they were afraid

• Another 9,700 were sent home, even tough they were valiant men

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• In the society of that time status and power were important

• Gideon saw that he had little of either, he had no authority to call out troops from his on clan, much less the other tribes

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• Styles of drinking water

1. Those that drink water in a kneeling position with their heads in the water to lap it up are…

• Unaware of any enemy movement

• An Easy Target

• Susceptible to leeches

2. The alternative is to lie down flat

• Where one presents a smaller target

• Allows you to keep alert, bringing water to your mouth while continuing to look around

Attacking the Midianite Army

• The Midianites are a people living in the southern portions of the Transjordan region

• They are descendents of Abraham and Keturah

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Gideon’s strategy

• Gideon’s three companies would have been positioned on the three sides of the camp, the north south and east

• The hill of Moreh was on the east

• The torches they carried would have been made of material like reeds – it would smolder until exposed to the air and waved

• The pitchers cover the glow of the torches until the proper moment

• When all three divisions were in their proper positions, the ram’s horns were sounded

• Usually only a few soldiers carried trumpets for signaling, because hands were needed for weapons and shields

• Likewise, for an night battle, a certain number would be assigned to hold the torches and illuminate the battle are

• They were also there to block retreat around the perimeter

• It would be expected that the trumpet blowers and the torch holders would represent a small percentage of the army

• The rest would charge in and fight

• Therefore when the Midianites heard the blast of 300 trumpets and saw the myriad of torches around the perimeter…

• They thought there was a massive army there, that would be charging into camp

• Gideon told them to hold their position around the perimeter

• The Midianites in confusion, started fighting themselves

Samson

• In Old Testament times Israel had the lush growth of a jungle

• The Jordan River valley was a deep gorge, filled with a jungle of plant life and swarming with flies

• Though they are gone today, Lions were a danger during Old Testament times

• The Lower Jordon Valley provided one of the most fertile growing area in the world, since its tropical climate produced an abundance of fruit

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• When Samson threw a party to celebrate the finalization of his marriage arrangements he posed a riddle

• It would result in 30 fancy robes in his closet if nobody solved it

• A fresh set of clothing for every day of the month would have made him the talk of the town

• It’s no wonder he was so upset when he was cheated out of the prize

Nazarene

• A Nazirite was an Israelite who consecrated himself or herself and took a vow of separation and self imposed abstinence

• Being a Nazirite could be a temporary thing (minimum 30 days) or a permanent covenant like with Samson, Samuel and John the Baptist

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• It may be no coincidence that the three prohibited areas for the Nazirite represent fertility

• Grape products, sympathetic magic (hair), and the cult of the dead (corpse contamination)

• These are the three principal popular religious practices that Yahweh worship sought to eliminate

Philistines and Iron weapons

• The Philistines originated as a group known as the Sea Peoples about 1200 BC

• The tribe known as the Philistines settled on the southern coast of Palestine

• There they established their five capital cities of Ashkelon, Ashrod, Ekron, Gath and Gaza

Jawbone of an Ass

• The Jawbone of a donkey would be about 9 inches long and weigh a little less than a pound

• It would be slightly curved and may well have had many of the teeth still in place to improve the effectiveness as a weapon

Samson’s weaknesses

• Samson had his hair braided into 7 braids – It was common for men to have the hair bound or curled in segments

• His hair had seven braids – 1 in the back and 3 on each side

Delilah

• Eleven hundred shekels of silver is an exorbitant sum

• She received 1,100 each from each of the 5 Philistine rulers

• Compare that ten shekels was the standard annual wage of a laborer

• 400-600 shekels would purchase a tract of land

• The 5500 shekels would equal 550 times the annual wage

• If it took $25,000 as an average annual wage today, that kind of offer would be around $15 million category

Samson Blinded

• It took Delilah several times to trick Samson, she was successful on the 4th attempt

• It was common practice in Mesopotamia to either gouge out their eyes or have tongues removed from the prisoners of war

Samson brought in to the Temple of Dagon to entertain

• The “entertainment” provided by Samson was probably not connected to his wit or strength, but to his blindness

• Putting obstacles in the way and striking or tripping him would only be a few of the cruel possibilities for tormenting the blind person

Samson destroys the Philistines

• Bringing down the house. The verb used in verse 30 suggests a twisting motion

• Samson turned the pillars off their stone bases, thus removing the support of the roof and causing its collapse

Dagon

• The Philistines were a seafaring people, and so naturally, their god was related to the sea

• Dagon was one of their main gods, half-man half-fish – a Merman

OT -20 – Ruth

All the men die

• Driven by Famine, Elimelech, and his wife Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion cross the Jordan and stay for a period of time in Moab

• Moab has enough food to support the family

• The two sons, after marrying Moabite women, die, and their father dies as well

• Naomi is left a widow, with two foreign daughters in law

• Widows in the ancient Near East lost had lost all social status and generally with out political or economic status

• They would equate to the homeless in American society

• Typically they had no male protector and were therefore economically dependent on society at large

Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem

• Hearing rumors that the Famine has ended, Naomi decided to return home to Bethlehem

• Bethlehem is located about 5 miles south of Jerusalem

• Its doubtful that the town had more than a couple hundred people at this time

Ruth refuses to leave Naomi

• Naomi strongly urges the girls to stay in their own land

• Both widows refuse, but Naomi presents the facts

• First, she is not pregnant, so the chance of a younger brother fulfilling the responsibility of marrying the girls is not imminent

• Second, she has no prospects for remarriage and consequently no future children

• Then she mentions, even if the first two conditions were met, the girls would have to wait years for a marriage

• Orpah is persuaded and kisses her mother in law good-by

• Ruth renounced her old life in order to gain a life that she considered of greater value

• She decided to follow the God of Israel and his laws

The arrive in time for Harvest

• Arrival in Bethlehem was traumatic for Naomi, she left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons, and returned with nothing

• Wheat and Barley were harvested in April, May and June

• Stalks were cut by had with a sickle

• The bundles of wheat were tied up in sheaves

• A generous field owned would instruct the workers no to be too thorough in their work…

• He would desire to leave some of the grain for the poor gleaners who followed along behind them

• Once the sheaves had dried out in the field, they were loaded onto carts or onto donkeys and taken to the threshing floor

Ruth meets Boaz

• Ruth happened to come to the field of Boaz

• His overseer reported that she had industriously worked from the early morning till that time

• Boaz, attracted to her because of her loyalty and concern about Naomi, made additional provisions for her

• She was given a favored position in reaping, directly behind the main body of reapers

• Further, she was to receive water that had been drawn for her by the young men – an unorthodox arrangement

• Ruth , falling before Boaz, asked why, as a foreigner had been shown such favor

• Boaz gave tow reasons, her kindness to her mother in law and her spiritual insight

• The Bible identified Boaz as a “man of standing”

Gleaning

• Israel’s law mandated provision for the poor and destitute by allowing them to follow the reapers in the fields

• They would gather what would be dropped or left behind

• This solution to the social problem required the recipients work hard for their provision, allowing them to keep their dignity

Threshing

• At threshing time, grain from the fields was brought to the threshing floor

• This was usually a clay covered or rocky ground in a high spot

• It was in a high spot so that it could catch the wind

• Stones were put around the edge of the floor

• The goal of threshing was to shake all of the kernels of grain from their stalks

• To accomplish this, the farmers could do one of three things

1. He could stack up the sheaves knee deep on the floor and beat them with a stick

2. He could lead his animals through the sheaves and let their hooves do the work

3. Better yet he could use a threshing sledge – this was simply a board which had bits of iron fastened to it

It was dragged through the grain to help grind the grian from the hulls

Winnowing

• Once the grain had been thoroughly stomped, trampled and beaten – threshed, it was time to winnow

• This the part of the process where the elevated location of the threshing floor comes in handy

• Winnowing was scheduled on as windy a day a possible

• The farmers would throw their beaten down stalks of grain into the air with a wooden fork or a shovel

• The wind would cause the heavy kernels of grain to fall right back down at the farmers feet

• The lighter straw and chaff was blown to the side by the breezes

• The straw was collected and stored to feed the animals in the winter

• The grain was placed in earthenware jars for the year ahead

Ephah

• Between 30 and 50 lbs of Grain

Lying at the end of the Grain Pile

• The threshing floor was used by the community, each would have their assigned area

• Each would sleep by his pile after the festivities so as to guard it until it could be carted away the next morning

Uncovering the feet and the spreading of the garment

• There are occasions in the Old Testament where the term “feet” is used for the sexual organs

• The expression “spread the edge of the garment” is likewise used in sexual overtones in a bethroval context in Ezekiel 16:8

• The text of Ruth does not suggest a blatant sexual act but is provocative in its ambiguity

Boaz – Kinsman redeemer

• Naomi advised Ruth to approach Boaz as a Kinsman Redeemer

• Naomi seems to feel that Boaz was the nearest kinsman, but he was not, there was one closer

• Every clan had its appointed hero

• He was the avenger, the rescuer, the protector – He was the kinsman redeemer

• This man was able to help his family out of many difficult situations

• When a clan member found himself in a financial pinch, the kinsman redeemer was called upon

• The clan member would have to sell of a parcel of his land to pay off his debts

• The kinsman redeemer would be called on to buy the parcel in order to keep it in the clan

• If a man was taken captive by his enemies and sold into slavery, the kinsman redeemer was given the task of finding the unfortunate soul

• Then trying to purchase his freedom

• Should a man die childless, the kinsman redeemer was expected to marry the man’s widow

• Any children born of this union were considered to belong to the deceased in order to carry out the family name

• If a clansman fell victim to murder, the kinsman redeemer was sent to avenge the crime

• In carrying out this justice, he was called the “avenger of blood”

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At the City Gate

• Boaz went to the City Gate, it had a forum to discuss public affairs

• Boaz indicated that he wanted to talk business with a nearer kinsman

• Ten of the cities elders acted as witnesses

• Boaz asks if the man wanted to buy land from Naomi, that means he also had to marry Ruth, the Moabite woman

• The nearer kinsman was unwilling to marry Ruth, because this would inevitably cost him some financial lost

• Since he would have to divide his own property with any son born of Ruth

• He relinquished his right by taking off his shoe

• The shoe was symbolic of the land rights that belonged to the inheritance

Removing the Sandal

• Boaz drops a bombshell that there is another man who is a closer relative (This is about marrying Ruth)

• There is a meeting at the town gate and the exchange of the sandal takes place

• What’s up with the sandal thing?

• It was a custom of course

• When a woman’s husband died and she was left with no son, it was the duty of the dead husbands brother to take the young widow as his wife

• The children they had would carry on the name of the deceased husband

• In Ruth’s case the close relative chose not to do this

• By shirking his duty in this way, Ruth could have taken him before the cities elders, told him off and spit in his face

• She could also have taken away one of his sandals

• This practice evolved, so that by Ruth’s time, the sandal thing was more symbolic that insulting

• Boaz took care of the matter himself, leaving Ruth out of the confrontation

• But the shirker still had to walk home without one of his sandals

Obed

• Listed among the ancestors of Jesus

OT – 21 – 1st Samuel

Separation of the book of Samuel

Hanna gave her baby to Eli

• The inability to have children was often viewed as a sign of God’s punishment

• Additionally, a woman’s status in the family would be very tenuous if she had not borne children

• Barren women could be and were often discarded, ostracized or given a lower status

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• Eli was from the line of Aaron through his fourth son Ithamar

The baby was Samuel

Eli’s wicked sons – Hophni and Phinehas

• The procedure was for the priest to receive whatever part came up from the boiling pot on the end of the fork

• Eli’s sons insisted on taking what they wanted, when they wanted it

• The ritual offenses came in three areas

1. The selection of the best parts for themselves

2. Their preference for the meat to be roasted rather than boiled

3. Their refusal to yield the fat for burning on the alter

• They also committed immoral acts with the women serving at the entrance to the Tabernacle

Eli’s sons die

Samuel becomes a prophet of God

• In the ancient world it was believed that a person sleeping in the temple become privy to divine plans

Eli dies

Philistines capture the Ark

• 30,000 Israelites die in the battle (number issues in translation)

• The ark would have been placed in the Temple to indicate that Yahweh, Israel’s God was a defeated prisoner of Dagon

Dagon

• We see Dagon in the scriptures

• The Philistines managed to steal the ark, they brought it home to Ashdod with great pomp and circumstance

• They set it in front of the statue of Dagon as a trophy of war then they went home happy

• However when they returned to the Temple in the morning, they found poor Dagon flat on his face in front of the ark

• This wasn’t dignified for the conquering god, so his priests set him back upright

• The next morning, they were stunned.

• Not only had Dagon hit the floor again in the presence of the Israelite God, but their idol had lost his head

• Dagon had hit the threshold with a great deal of force – his head and hands were destroyed

• Then a plague broke out in Ashdod

• The Philistines moved it to Gath

• A plague broke out in Gath

• They moved it to Ekron

• Then a plague broke out in Ekron

• The Philistines opted to get rid of the ark, and brought it back to the Israelites voluntarily

• Dagon is often identified as a god of grain or of storm, but this is based on speculation

Baal

Hebrews decide they want a King

• Samuel immediately perceived that their request was a rejection to God (Their King) – because they wanted a king “like the other nations”

• The leaders of Israel have decided that they want a permanent head of government empowered with centralized authority over the tribes

• He would also have command of a standing army

• They concluded that their organization as a loose confederation of tribes had put them at a military disadvantage

• They believed that a king with a trained standing army at his command would level the playing field

• This would allow them to successfully defend their land

• Samuel tries to clarify to them was not a political problem, it was a spiritual problem – this would not solve anything unless their heart was right

Saul

• People in the Near East placed high value on the stature and appearance of a king – Saul was a head taller than his people

• Saul’s search for the donkeys was about a 60 mile trek – a long trip to take in a three day period

Saul defeated the Ammonites

• The victory over the Ammonites under Saul’s leadership placed a seal of divine approval on his selection as king

• Saul attributed the victory to God and not to his military strategies

Saul and the Philistines

• Saul’s selection of 3,000 men represented a choice of men to serve as an imperial guard

• The total number of volunteers was more than that number

• The Philistines have an overwhelming military superiority , with 30,000 men (sometimes amended to 3,000 men)

• They had chariots – and 6,000 horsemen (Charioteers)

Saul disobeys God

• When Saul was threatened with imminent attack from the Philistines, he gathered troops at Gilgal and awaited Samuel, like he had been instructed

• When it looked like Samuel would not arrive in the prearranged time, Saul became impatient and decided to take measures in to his own hands

• Saul decided to offer a sacrifice before the battle – he decided to do it himself (This was a priestly duty)

• He broke a command of God

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• He also disobeyed God when he fought against the Amalekites

• God told Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions

• He did attack the city but he failed to kill the King and…

• Saul distributed the choicest livestock to his men

• For this the Lord condemned him and God sent Samuel to tell him that his kingship was ended because of this sin

• Samuel then slaughtered the Amalekite king Agag

Representative Combat – Goliath

• Goliath’s spear was nearly as tall as him – It really was a young tree that was smoothed and tipped with a metal spearhead

• The spear head weighed 15 lbs

• His armor weighed 125 lbs

• His sword was 6 feet long, giving him a 12 foot reach on the battle field

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• Champions of Goliath’s size are not simply a figment of Israelite imagination or the result of embellished legends

• The Egyptian letter on Papyrus Ananstasi I (13th century B.C.) describes fierce warriors in Canaan that are 7 to 9 feet tall

David

Saul made David a military commander

Saul tries to pin David to a wall

David becomes a fugitive

David joins the Philistines

• It was most likely that David was going to offer his services as a mercenary to the Philistines

• David had a reputation as a fighter and a warrior, he would have been welcomed

• King Achish saw that Saul and David were split, maybe the hope was to use David at a latter date to go after Saul

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• David uses his time with the Philistines to …

1. Escape Saul

2. Obtain wealth through raiding which he can use to ingratiate himself with the elders of Judah

3. Learn the military tactics and the iron technology of the Philistines

4. Eliminate some of Israel’s enemies in his raids

By leaving no survivors, David eliminates any witnesses and thus maintains the Philistine king’s trust

Saul destroys the Priests

• Saul felt that the Preistly community at Nob were supportive of David

• Saul set out an order to kill Ahimelech and the entire priestly community

• Only the Edomite mercenary Doeg was willing to carry out the order

• This shows Saul’s instability and shows how he has cut off his contract with God

Saul spared by David

• Saul goes into a cave to relieve his bowels

• David cut the corner of Saul’s robe

• The robe would have had a elaborately decorated hem, and special dyes would have been used

• It symbolized his power and authority

Saul goes to the Medium

• The practitioners of spiritualism and sorcery are condemned because of their association with Canaanite religion

• And also because their “art” attempted to circumvent Yahweh by seeking knowledge and power from spirits

• Saul is concerned about the upcoming battle with the 5 Philistine city-states

• The Medium of Endor had a reputation as one who could successfully contact ghosts and ancestral spirits

• This spiritualist used a pit to conjure the spirits, a portal from which the spirits could pass form the spirit world to the living

• Here is the procedure (found in Mesopotamian and Hittite literature)

1. Done at Night

2. After a spot is divined a pit is dug with a special tool

3. a food offering (bread, oil honey) or blood from a sacrificial animal is placed in the pit to attract spirits

4. An invocation ritual, including the spirits name is chanted

5. Finally the pit is covered to prevent spirits from escaping after the ritual is concluded

• Both practitioner and client play a role in the procedure

• The spirits that emerged were in human form and were generally able to communicate with the clinent

Saul goes to battle with the Philistines

• The fact that so many Israelite men and three of Saul’s sins are killed on Mt. Gilboa shows that his army was quickly forced to flee

• He was overwhelmed by superior Philistine forces and tactics

Why Saul chooses to Die

• In this period it was common for captured kings to be mutilated and subject to a life of humiliation

• Putting out of eyes and cutting off thumbs and big toes were common measures

• As a sign of their lost power to the conquering king, they were doomed to spend miserable years begging

• Or fighting for scraps under the triumphant king’s table

• They might be put on display in public places for whatever abuse a passerby might invent

Saul dies

• Saul’s head is cut off – A king’s head was a treasured prize used as a means to boast about ones conquests

• The Armor, being displayed is a trophy of the victorious king

• Exposing the corpse – To dismember the body of Saul and leave it unburied was the height of shame and disgrace

• It was a shame to the victim and to the conquered country

• Improper burial was stated to jeopardize the afterlife of the fallen

OT – 22 -2nd Samuel

David becomes the new king

David expands the borders of Israel

David collects taxes from the neighbors

The book airs out David’s dirty laundry

David picks Jerusalem to be the new Capital

• When David became the undisputed monarch of Israel, he needed a capital acceptable to the Northern and Southern tribes

• Jerusalem had remained neutral in David’s conflicts, it was a Jebusite enclave

• It was in a militarily desirable location, up on 5 hilltops

• It was commercially central to the new nation

Uzzah dies because of the Ark

• The use of a new cart would assure there was no ritual impurity connected to the cart from previous usage

• Possibly a used cart had carried dung or dead animals

• However the instructions for transporting the ark included priests and poles

• The cart precedent was set by the Philistines

David refuses to bring the Ark into Jerusalem

• The name Obed-Edom means servant of Edom (perhaps a deity’s name)

• He is identified as a Gittite – from Gath

• A company of soldiers (mercenaries) from Gath make up David’s personal bodyguard – Obed Edom may have been one of these soldiers

David danced in the Ark to Jerusalem

• The dancers connected in festivals would resemble folk dancing of today – coordinated movements

• Single dancers usually performed either whirling, squatting, leaping and hopping type dances

• Sometimes the dancers dance nude or scantily clad – this was prevalent in cultic culture of that period

City of David

• There are no remains of David’s palace but by excavation of Solomon’s palace there is an idea what it looked like

• About 70 feet square

• A number of large halls are inside, an audience chamber an interior courtyard and about a dozen smaller rooms

• It was at least two stories tall and had a guard tower

David and Bathsheba

• Kings because of the duties of state or physical reasons could not always accompany the army in every campaign

• The roof of the palace had a cool breeze that hits Jerusalem every evening

• Many people come out to socialize or enjoy the breeze in the evening from the privacy of their roof

• Bathsheba’s bathing is probably an act of purification - it would be based on the laws of purification found in Leviticus

• It is uncertain whether her intent in bathing on the roof was to help her dry after her bath, or to show her self off to the king

David and Uriah

Nathan confronts David about the Baby

Solomon

• In all David had 19 sons by his 7 wives

• Bathsheba had sons, Shimea, Shobab, Nathan and Solomon

Amnon and Tamar

• Tamar’s fate – because she is no longer a virgin, her worth to her household was diminished

• It was possible that no marriage could be contracted for her because she was no longer a virgin

• She would have lived an unfulfilled exsistence

Absalom killed Amnon

• After Amnon refused to marry Tamar, his half sister – Her full brother took responsibility for her

• Absalom brought his dejected sister into his own house, expecting his father, David, to punish Amnon for this act

• After two years of waiting Absalom could no longer suppress his rage

• He plotted revenge against Amnon

• At a sheep shearing festival, the servants of Absalom killed Amnon, after Amnon had become intoxicated

Absolom’s hair

Absalom tries to take the Throne

• Absalom plotted a rebellion against David, gathering supporters in Hebron and all over Israel

• Once some of David’s main advisors went over to Absalom’s side, Absalom announced his own kingship

• By the time of the conspiracy, David had no recourse but to retreat from Jerusalem (So the city wouldn’t be destroyed)

• When Absalom decided to attack David’s forces, his army was routed

Absolom’s head gets caught in the tree

• Absalom rode away from the battle on a mule

• His long hair got caught in the branches of an oak tree

• Joab and his men came upon Absalom dangling in a tree, they killed him

• They threw him in a pit and covered him with stones

OT – 23 – 1st Chronicles

1st 9 chapters – Hebrew genealogy

Saul killed in Battle

David brings the Ark to Jerusalem

Uzzah catches the Ark

David plans the Temple

• David enthusiastically amassed most of the necessary finances and materials and drew up the blueprints for the Temple

OT – 24 – Psalms

Psalms assignment

OT – 25 – 1st Kings

Solomon becomes King after David’s death

Solomon expands the borders of Israel

Solomon asks for Wisdom

• On of Solomon’s recorded acts as king was to go to the high place at Gibeon and sacrifice 1,000 burnt offerings

• The next night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream

• He asked Solomon his fondest wish – Solomon asked for wisdom to judge Israel

• God was pleased with the request, so much so he gave Solomon long life, riches and fame

Baby to be cut in Half

Solomon builds the Temple

• In order to provide the necessary labor for the build, the Canaanites became slaves

• Israelites were also compelled to work

• They worked in groups of 10,000 every 3rd month

• The workers for the Temple alone comprised 80,000 stonecutters, 70,000 common laborers and 3,600 foremen

• It took 7 years to complete the building

• By today’s standards it was a rather small building

• 90 feet by 30 feet with a height of 45 feet

• Nevertheless the gold covering for both walls and the furniture made it quite expensive

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• In ancient times the mountains of Lebanon were covered with the most magnificent of cedars

• They are legendary

• These trees were eighty feet tall, with branches that spread over one hundred feet

• The trunks of these giant trees were thirty to forty feet around

• The timber was strong and durable, carpenters loved working with it, it was red in color, fragrant and free from knots

• After 40 centuries of logging, very few of the magnificent trees remain

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• Cherubim – Had anywhere from 1 to 4 faces and either 1 or2 pairs of wings

• Was closer to a beautiful young man than to a toddler: God sat among or just above the Cherubim

• In Biblical art the Cherubim tend to be blue and sometimes have books

• They are the second highest ranking of the 9 “choirs” of angels

• Seraphim had three pairs of wings, hovered over the throne of God and had a reputation of zeal and ardor

• In art Seraphim are often red-toned and may carry a candle

• Was the highest ranking of the 9 “choirs” of angels

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• The huge limestone blocks for the temple were cut from a nearby quarry

• They were trimmed to size outside the city walls

• This way there wasn’t a lot of construction noise for the citizens of Jerusalem

Queen of Sheba visits

• Ceremonial visits between royal houses, accompanied by the exchange of rich presents were a regular feature of the ancient near Eastern political scene

• They liked to visit with people of their own social class, and check out each others stuff

• The Queen had heard of Solomon’s wisdom and went to test him with hard questions

• The Queen was impressed by Solomon’s wisdom and his stuff too

• The Queen’s country was in southern Arabia (Where present day Yemen is located)

• The countries in this region had a virtual monopoly on the immensely valuable spice trade in myrrh and frankincense

• The Queen presented a mass amount to Solomon

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• Sheba was located in southwestern Arabia

• They were a merchant people holding trade relations with Israel and countries as far east as India

• Rich in spices, precious stones and agricultural commodities

• The people of Sheba established a network of overland and sea routes to trade their wares

Solomon’s wealth

• Solomon collected horses, some as far away as Egypt

• During the time of Solomon the Israelite army had 12,000 mounted troops and 40,000 horses for the chariots

• Solomon actually had whole cities built to house the horses – They wer called chariot cities – The barns were enormous

• One city in particular had 4,000 stalls to house Solomon’s horses and chariots

Solomon’s wives and concubines

• The division between wives and concubines was mainly because of social standing

• Wives whose children were in the line of succession were held in higher standard than those of lower social standing

• So if you were deemed a concubine, your children have no way to get into the line of succession

Reason for the Wives

• The policy of using royal marriages as a diplomatic tool, tying local leaders as well as foreign monarchs together in treaty and familial alliances

• When Solomon married the monarch of Egypt, her dowry included Gezar to Solomon

Solomon worshiping Pagan Idols – Asherah

Asherah poles

• Asherah can either be the name of a fertility goddess or the name of a cult object

• The goddess was popular in the pagan deviations in Israel and was sometimes considered to be a mediator of “Yahweh’s blessings”

• In Canaanite literature she is a consort (female companion) of the chief god

• The Asherah pole may represent an artificial tree, since Asherah is often associated with sacred groves

• The chosen symbol of the fertility cult of Asherah was the trunk of a tree

• This explains the prohibition against the planting of trees near the alter of the lord

• We have little information on the function of these poles in “ritual practice”

High Places

• People in general figured that the best way to be heard by their gods was to get as close as possible to them

• Throughout the Old Testament, kings were going back and forth between building up and destroying the alters upon the highest hills

• Though King Solomon loved God he traveled around to the various High Places and offered incense

Molech

• The Canaanite Baal

• Child sacrifice was important to the Ammonites – it was also common in Phoenicia and its surrounding countries

Chemosh

• Described in terms very much like Yahweh in a Moabite inscription

• Was also a part of the pantheon of gods in Mesopotamia

Golden age of Israel is fading

• Solomon’s numerous building projects and high living seemed to have bankrupted the kingdom

• This resulted in an incredible tax burden on the people

• The people also objected to the forced labor on various projects

Rehoboam is picked to be next king

Rehoboam’s choice

• When he says he will use scorpions he is talking about a type of whip that has fragments of metal and glass attached to the tip

• Because of the barbs in the end it was considered to be one of the cruelest instruments of Punishment used in the OT

Country splits into Judah and Israel

• The separate existence of the Northern kingdom was not a new development

• After Saul’s death, the north had gone their own way while David ruled in Hebron

• Some 30 years later, it had briefly supported Sheba in a revolt against David

• Now under the leader ship of Jeroboam the split becomes permanent

OT – 26 – Proverbs

Assign Students Proverbs assignment

OT – 27 – Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is written by Solomon later in life/ he was far from God

One of the last books added to the Canon – Pessimistic

Everything is meaningless

Wisdom is meaningless

Pleasure is meaningless

Toil is meaningless

Time for everything

Life Cycle

Pile of Dust

Riches are meaningless

Life is Short – Enjoy

Life is not fair

Solomon’s conclusion

OT – 28 – 2nd Chronicles

Temple Built by Solomon

Dome of the Rock

Holy of Holies

Rehoboam and the Reformers in the South

Should I adjust this it has much of the same info as the massive kings section?

OT -29 –Epoch 5

The fall of Two Nations 930-586 BC

OT – 30 – Divided Nations

The Nations divided

• People look at the 12 tribes of Israel as a unified force – but they usually acted as 12 independent tribes

• It took great skill and effort by David and Solomon to keep them unified (it also took a time of great prosperity)

Rehoboam

• Rehoboam became sinful and engaged in idolatrous practices, allowing male shrine prostitutes to operate in the land

Judah

Shishak

• During Solomon’s reign he afforded asylum to Jeroboam, Solomon’s servant that had gone to Egypt to avoid being killed by Solomon

• Shishak’s own account, recorded on the walls of the temple complex dedicated to Amon at Karnak (Thebes) contain a list of conquests

• It is a list of 150 cities he claimed he conquered

• Along with references of tribute gained from Syria, Jerusalem was not mentioned

• But many of the Gold and Silver objects that had been manufactured for the Temple were carried away as tribute

• This was to avoid destruction of Jerusalem

• This may have made up the lion’s share of the 200 tons of gold and silver Shishak states he brought to the Temples of his gods

• This happened in the 5th year of Rehoboam’s reign

Jeroboam

• Jeroboam started as a member of Solomon’s bureaucracy

• He had helped rebuild an important part of Israel’s defenses

• He was efficient and energetic – His background, tribal pride and opposition to Solomon had produced a young rebel

• He was a local labor organizer, supervising projects on dams and renovation of temples

Israel

Capital at Tirzah

Built shrines at Dan and Bethel

• Jeroboam placed shrines geographically on the ends of the nation

• It facilitated the peoples religious pilgrimages and sacrifices

Bethel

• Bethel was only 11 miles north of Jerusalem, on the dividing line between the two kingdoms

• It’s sanctuary would draw pilgrims who might otherwise travel south to worship in Solomon’s Temple

Dan

• Excavations of Dan have uncovered the high place constructed by Jeroboam for the calf

• The sanctuary complex was 195 by 145 feet and featured a large alter in an open air courtyard

Golden Calves

• Jeroboam saw this was an excellent political maneuver, pleasing Israelites who were more comfortable with…

• A mixture of Yahwist and Baalist imagery

• Like the ark of the covenant the golden calves are not idols

• Rather both the ark and the bulls function as thrones, or pedestals upholding the glory of God

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• Jeroboam continued the use of shrines or “high places”

• He allowed popular forms of religious expression to flourish with out undue restriction

• Places like Mount Carmel, Gilgal, Mizpah and Mount Tabor were the places were these cultic religions florished

Non-Levitical Priests

Abijah (J)

Asa (J)

Nadab (I)

Baasha (I)

Elah (I)

Zimri (I)

Tibni (I)

Omri (I)

Jahoshaphat (J)

Ahab (I)

Jezebel (I)

Elijah (I) – Prophet

Elijah and the Baal prophets go head to head

Jehoram (J)

Ahaziah (I)

Baal-Zabub

Elisha (I) – Prophet

During Bible times bears roamed all the land – Cursed the youths and 42 were attacked by two female bears (2 Kin.2:24)

Differences between Elijah and Elisha

Elisha and Naaman

• The life of a leper was lousy

• In order to keep the disease from spreading through a community, the leper was effectively quarantined

• He had to leave his family and move outside the city walls

• When he took a walk, he had to keep his hand in front of his face

• He also had to call out “Unclean! Unclean!”

• This warned passer-bys that he was diseased, and others should give him a wide berth

• It was hard to make friends this way, which explains why lepers ended up hanging out with each other

Gehazi and the gift form Naaman

Elisha punishes Gehazi

Jehoram (I)

Jehu (I)

Athaliah (J)

Ahaziah (J)

Joash (J)

Johoiada (J) – Chief Priest that helps Joash gain the throne

Jehu (I)

Jezabel killed

Aram Damascus (Syrian King)

Shalmaneser III (Assyrian king)

• Carvings show the Assyrian people wearing elaborate fringed robes

• Their long hair was curly and sometimes it was braided

• Even their beards are shown with braids or ringlets, trimmed with a square edge

• Assyrians were known for their fine clothing, for they were a wealthy people who enjoyed the spoils of many victorious battles

• Their homeland was a prosperous nation, with the Tigris River providing an ample water supply

• Grapes, Olives, Apricots and Cherries flourished on their hillsides

• Wheat and Barley were harvested from their plains

• Their homes were beautiful and the clothing was tasteful but they were ruthless and savage

• The Assyrians were a cruel people who seemed to enjoy making war

• These warriors showed no mercy on the battlefield

• When a city was taken, no one was spared, and all they left was smoking ashes – Everyone was afraid of them

• People sent tributes to Assyria in hopes that they wouldn’t be attacked

Assyrian Garments

• Warriors had garments shaped to allow easy movement in battle

• These tunics were made from scarlet fabric

• The armor and equipment were also painted a bright blood-red

• This was a form of psychological warfare

• The waves of men flowed like a sea of blood across the battlefield

• On a practical note, the color of the cloth and armor would hide any injuries, which might have deceived an enemy and renewed the Assyrians will to win

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Assyrian Battering Rams

• The Assyrians routinely went up against impressive fortresses

• They developed battering rams to break through defenses

• One kind of Assyrian battering ram had 6 wheels and was surrounded by a wooden framework, supporting wicker shields

• Several men would wheel it up to the gates of the city, protected by wicker on all sides

• A metal dome topped the length, giving the men room to stand upright beneath it

• This protected the siege soldiers from the spears and arrows that were being flung at them from atop the walls

• Inside this protective shell, ropes from the framework suspended a huge battering ram

• It rocked back and forth on the ropes like a pendulum, with each swing delivering a shattering blow

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Impalement

• A spiked wooden stake was set in the ground and the victims body was forced onto the spike

• Commonly practiced by the Assyrians, that form of execution was reserved for those guilty of the worst crimes

• Or war criminals or deserters

• The Persian king Darius is reputed to have impaled 3,000 men when his army entered Babylon

Johoahaz (I)

Amaziah (J)

Jeroboam II (I)

Amos (I) – Prophet

Jonah (I) – Prophet

• February 1891 – the Ship the Star of the East was off the Falkland Islands

• They spotted a 80 foot Sperm whale

• Two rowboats filled with crewmen were launched to capture the monster

• Closing in, one harpooner let go of his weapon and shafted the whale, which lashed out, almost overturning the boat

• Returning to the ship with the dead whale the crewmen realized one sailor, Jim Bartley was missing

• They decided he was tossed overboard and had drowned

• Six hours later the crewmen began removing the blubber from the dead beast

• By midnight the task was still unfinished, and the sailors went to bed

• In the morning they resumed their job, they found something amazing, as reported by the Journal des Debats (Paris)

• “Suddenly the sailors were startled by something in the stomach which gave spasmodic signs of life

• Inside they found the missing sailor, James Bartley, doubled up and unconscious

• He was placed on deck and treated to a bath of seawater which soon revived him

• His mind was not clear on why he had been placed in the Captain’s quarters”

• Recovering, Bartley recalled being hit by the whale’s tail and that he was “encompassed by great darkness”

• He felt that he was slipping along a smooth passage that seemed to move and carry him forward

• He could breath, but the heat was terrible

• Except for the fact that his face, neck, hands had been bleached white, Bartley survived the belly of the monster

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Tarshish

• Tarshish was the farthest known geographical point

• Most believe it was in Southern Spain

• In Jonah’s day a ship going to Tarshish would not return for three years (It had a top speed of 4 knots (4.6 mph)

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• The men on the ship are reluctant to throw Jonah in to the sea, because they were afraid of the retribution of Jonah’ God

Nineveh

• Nineveh was located on the Tigris River, 600 miles from the Persian Gulf

• The population was 125,000, later it will grow to 300,000 at its peak

Hosea (I)

Zechariah

Uzziah (J)

Jotham (J)

Shallum (I)

Menahem (I)

Pekahiah (I)

Pekah (I)

Micah (J) – Prophet

Ahaz (J)

Isaiah (J) – Prophet

• 1:7 – Fields stripped, laid waste

• The devastation of the land was a natural consequence of invasion

• Invading armies often lacked an adequate supply line and therefore expected to live off the land they were invading

• What they didn’t uses for their own purpose they destroyed

• This usually crippled the agricultural cycle for several seasons afterward

• Sometimes people would burn their own crops so that the enemy would not have access

Hoshea (I)

Shalmaneser V – Assyrian King

Sargon II – Assyrian King

Hezekiah (J)

Sennacherib – Assyrian King

Hezekiah’s tunnel

Manasseh (J)

Nahum (J) – Prophet

Assyrian cruelty

Amon (J)

Josiah (J)

• Josiah took the throne at 8 – he had scrolls read to him all the time

• He learned to read and write himself

• At the age of 18 he gave the order to renovate the Temple

• His stewards started cleaning out the dusty corners of the storage rooms and came across some stone jars

• The High Priest gave them the king’s scribe

• They were the 1st Five Books of the Old Testament

• They were read aloud to the king, he was convinced that the whole kingdom should hear these stories

• The command went out and the scribes read the stories

• The Law of God was put back in practice

• Idols were suddenly illegal and the temples were torn down

• The countryside was cleaned up, and the people practiced God’s holiness agian

Zephaniah (J) – Prophet

Johoahaz (J)

Johoiakim (J)

Jeremiah (J) – Prophet

• Jeremiah was thrown into the cistern, it would have been a quagmire at the bottom

• It would have preventing Jeremiah from resting

• It also would have been extremely unhealthy

• Since the king was afraid to execute Jeremiah, he may have been relying on disease or malnutrition to rid him of the prophet

Nebuchadnezzar – Babylonian King

• A person could lose himself in a Babylonian city

• As you entered Babylon, you passed through the Processional Way, series of 8 gates which served to protect the city and impress visitors

• One of these gates, the Istar Gate was decorated with images of bulls, dragons and mythical beasts

• However, once within the confines of the city itself, it was easy to lose your sense of direction

• The streets of the cities were unpaved and wound back and forth with no rhyme and reason

• Closely following the contours of the road were one and two story homes built form mud brick

• In the nicer areas of the cities a well to do Babylonian was able to plaster and whitewash their home

• The Babylonians were considerable engineers, they maintained an impressive system of canals and reservoirs

• They were map makers and mathematicians

• The zodiac is one legacy of the Babylonian astrologers is the 360 degree circle and the 60 minute hour

Jehoiachin (J)

Daniel (J) – Prophet

• King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon descended upon the Jews and carried off their best and brightest

• Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were selected form among the Jews for a Babylonian education

• Such an education would have included special training in the Babylonian arts of war, hunting and leisure

• They would have learned to speak Chaldean and how to read and write cuneiform

• They would have been given lessons in counting and mathematics

• Etiquette and proper behavior in the king’s court were also taught

• The training period usually lasted 3 years

Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego

• Furnaces were used for baking pottery or bricks for construction projects, as well as for metal work (forging, smelting, casting)

• They were domed with side doors for ventilation, they were built with clay or brick (lined with a special selected types of stone)

• The furnace would be at a temperature between 900-1100 degrees

• The technology of the time would not allow the temp to go above 1500 degrees

Ezekiel (J) – Prophet

Zedekiah (J)

• Eating the Scroll – The imagery associated with Ezekiel eating the scroll presented to him by God is part of his call narrative

• It shows his acceptance of the mission that God has given him

• The words on the scroll need to be internalized

Obiadiah (J) – Prophet

OT -31 – Lamentations

Five Poems

• First Acrostic Lament 1:1-22 – Despair and Distress

• Second Acrostic Lament 2:1-22 – Yahweh’s Anger

• Third Acrostic Lament – 3:1-66 – Hope in God’s Faithfulness

• Forth Acrostic Lament – 4:1-22 – Sin’s Results

• Nonacrostic Lament – 5:1-22 – Joy is Gone

Acrostic Poetry

OT – 31 – Epoch 6 Overview

Jerusalem after the destruction – 586-332 BC

OT – 32 – Epoch 6 PowerPoint

Ezekiel and the Dry Bones

Ezekiel’s vision of God departing the Temple and 19 yrs later returning

Belshazzar and the writing on the wall

• 30 years have passed since the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar is the king, it is October 539

• The area the writing takes place is in a room 170 by 55 foot hall

Daniel interprets the writing – Babylon will fall

Cyrus the Great overtakes the Babylonians

• The Persians expectation was that recognition of regional identities and a measure of local autonomy would help the empire to stay together

• The autonomy was in the form of religious freedom

• They also felt it would control the almost constant revolts that the Assyrians and the Babylonians had to deal with

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• In the Cyrus Cylinder, Cyrus gives credit for his victory over Babylon to the chief god of Babylon – Marduk

• The chief religion of the Persians was Zoroastrianism

• Other gods can always be brought in to help this main god, it is a very inclusive religion

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• The Persians conquered Babylon while the Jews were in exile there

• 2 years later King Cyrus granted these exiles permission to return to their homeland

• The Persian Empire was one of great wealth

• Persian Kings prided themselves on their beautiful palaces

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Persia’s National Hobby

• The wealthy men and women of Persia had it all: ornate homes, gourmet foods, extravagant jewelry

• But the national craze among the wealthy was the hobby of collecting Drinking Vessels – All made out of solid gold

• Chalice, goblet or a drinking horn, each one different from the rest

Achaemenid Empire

Cyrus allows the Hebrews to return to Jerusalem

Book of Job

• Sackcloth was uncomfortable to wear

• When a person was in extreme grief, they would wear the cloth next to their skin

• To further express despair a sack-cloth wearer would go sit in an ash heap and throw ashes over his head

Sumerian Job

• The Sumerian book does no t compare with the Biblical book, either in literary scope or depth of feeling

• It deals with the plight of a young man whose sorrow has turned to joy as a result of his personal pleading to his personal deity

• According to Sumerian thought, the gods were responsible for the evil as well as the good

• Only placation of some kind could prevent the evil that they could do

• There is no effort to philosophize or expound on the problem of the presence of evil in the world

Cyrus Cylinder

• Cyrus describes his faithfulness in worshipping Marduk, his benefactor

• He talks about the beneficent treatment of his subjects

• His desire to have a strict control on his troops to prevent acts of terror against the newly conquered subjects

• A maintenance of peace in the cities of Babylon

• Abolition of the hated public work details

• Speaking specifically to the Jews, he stated…

• He reversed the deportation policies of the Babylonians

• He allowed all peoples that had been uprooted to return to their ancestral homes

• He also returned the images of the gods to their former sanctuaries

Rebuilding the Temple

Neighbors concerned about the rebuilding of the Temple

Prophet Haggai tells them to continue work – 20 year gap in time

• During the captivity under the control of the Persians, the Jews picked up a taste for the finer things in life

• The Bible tells us that the Israelites built large and costly houses in Judea

• These were the homes of the wealthy, who put their own comfort ahead of their promise to rebuild the Temple

•

Zechariah’s visions

Book of Zechariah

Zechariah and Messiah prophecies

2nd Temple completed

• Cyrus gave back to the Jews some of the sacred implements that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple

• The Jews worked off and on becoming discouraged and needing some pushes by the prophets to finish the job

• The 2nd Temple stood for about 500 years

• It was a pale imitation of Solomon’s glorious workmanship

• When the oldsters looked at the 2nd Temple, they wept (They had seen the 1st, and it was stellar)

The three Persian Kings – Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes

Ezra and the Hebrew law

• There were two groups that returned back to the promised land – the first consisted of 42,360 and the 2nd group was smaller at 5,000

Ezra and the non-Jewish wives

• The time that Ezra makes his statement about intermarriage was the rainy season (October-February)

• There were torrential rains, and it would not be unusual for the temperatures to be in the 40s

• This weather situation on top of the whole divorce issue would have compounded the intensity of the situation

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• Ezra 10:16-17 – The issue is whether the wives of 110 individuals were in fact non-Israelites

• The matter of children was discussed and then determined

• Since this would have affected inheritance patterns within the community

• Then each one was required to take an oath to put aside their wives and disown their children by these foreign women

• In addition it has to be determined what the appropriate guilt offering should be

Darius the Mede and Daniel

Daniel breaks Darius’s law

• Under Darius the Mede Daniel became one of the three administrators of the realm

• Daniel’s rank along with his capable and distinguished management, infuriated his political enemies

• They persuaded Darius to pass a decree forbidding petition to any god or man but the king

• The penalty was being cast into the lions den

• Daniel’s religious integrity forced him to violate the law

Daniel in the lion’s den

Book of Esther

• Only a person summoned by the King could visit without suffering a harsh penalty

• The custom had a practical basis – It gave dignity to the monarch and protected him from assassination

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• Xerxes followed a policy of monogamy, but that did not eliminate his Harem

• Though he only had one wife at a time, his harem consisted of over 360 concubines

• His many affairs were well documented and were the cause of much court intrigue

• Life in the royal harem clearly had its advantages and disadvantages

• While women enjoyed every sort of material comfort and were indulged and pampered in many ways

• They had no recourse for intimate relationship with a husband

• Their opportunities to be intimate with the king would have been rare and offer no companionship

• They had friendships with the other women in the harem but they had no prospect at a husband, raising children within a family setting

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• It is unlikely that the gallows that are being discussed were a hanging gallows – hanging was not a form of execution in the ancient world

• It is generally agreed that it reflects the practice of impaling the corpse of the executed victim on a pointed stake in public view

• A spiked wooden stake was set in the ground and the victims body was forced onto the spike

• But afterwards the body would have been “hanged”

• This was a way of exhibiting a corpse as a warning to local inhabitants

• The hands were tied behind the back and hung from the arm of the wooden gallows

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• Haman is an Agagite – ancestor to a king of the Amalakites, Israel’s hated enemy

• Haman offers 10,000 talents in order to get the king to allow him to attack the unknown group (Israelites)

• Its about 333 tons – this would be the equivalent of 5.6 million

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• Esther fasts before going to the king

• In the Old Testament the religious use of fasting is often in connection with making a request before God

• The principle is that the importance of the request causes an individual to be so concerned about their spiritual condition…

• That physical necessities fade into the background

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• To celebrate the national deliverance, the Jews planned a great celebration

• That celebration became the festival of Purim – A time of feasting and distribution of gifts to all – especially the poor

Malachi and the bad sacrifices

Malachi speaks of return of Elijah (John the Baptist)

Nehemiah

• The cup bearer in the Persian court was an honorable position

• He was a food and wine taster for the king

• The cup bearer had to be with the king constantly throughout the day – in case the king wanted to eat or have something to drink

• This gave the cupbearer the opportunity to make small talk with the king, and a trust was formed

• Sometimes the cupbearer could obtain special favors from the king, which might be denied to any other

• The proper way to test the wine was for the cupbearer to pour the wine from the container into the kings cup…

• Then pour some from the king’s cup into the palm of his left hand and drink it

• The cupbearer would also have worn a long richly embroidered and fringed napkin over his left shoulder

• This was for the king to wipe his mouth on after drinking from his cup

Rebuilding Jerusalem’s Walls

• Jerusalem still lay in ruins from its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II, 140 years earlier

• The town had its walls and gates completely destroyed

• They were completely vulnerable to outside aggressors

Arab and Samaritan opposition to rebuilding the Walls

• Seeing the efforts of the Jews a group of people from Bethel offered to help

• They were the descendents of the Israelites who had intermarried with the people of other nations

• Distant cousins that offered to roll up their sleeves and help raise the walls

• They even worshiped Yahweh alongside the gods of other nations

• But Haggai spoke bluntly to them and said they were unclean

• He refused their offer of help and they resented it bitterly

• This began a “family feud” that would last for centuries

Sanballat and Nehemiah

Sanballat opposed Nehemiah because Jerusalem and Judah had previously been under his jurisdiction

Wall Completed

With the Walls rebuilt a steady stream return to Jerusalem

Ezra reads the Law

Ezra and the new Covenant

• Ezra instituted a religious reformation in which the ancient Torah was made the norm for Jewish life

Prophet Joel and invasion from the North

Time between the Testaments

Persian Period

586-332 BC

Factors that influenced Israel during the Persian period

Creation of a Cosmopolitan culture

Elimination of the King of Judah

High Priest in Power

Development of the Torah

Separation of the Jews of Judah and the Samaritans

Hellenistic Period

333-37 BC

Alexander the Great

Synthesis of Cultures – Retained Administrative structure

Alexander’s death – division among the generals

Antiochus IV

• Is the most important of the Seleucid rulers as far as Biblical literature is concerned

• Is one of the cruelest tyrants of all time

• Believer in the Olympian god Zeus, he hoped to unify the territories by spreading Hellenistic Culture, law and religion

• In doing so he came into violent conflict with the Jews in Judah

• At the beginning of his reign he meddled in the appointment of High Priest

• He waged war against the Ptolemy empire and attacked Egypt – he captured Jerusalem

• Prohibited Judaism with cruel persecution

• Under Antiochus’s edict Judaism was made illegal under pain of death

• He forced participation in Pagan festivals

• Looted the Temple and tried to establish the worship of Greek gods by building an alter to Zeus over the alter of Burnt offering

• Open rebellion broke out in 167 BC

• By 160 BC every vestige of power of Antiochus IV had been erased from Jerusalem

Roman Period

• There was an ample military presence in the Holy Land and the areas surrounding it during the rule of the Romans

• By this time the Roman army enlistment was open to citizens

• The legions were commanded by experienced officers of the rank of consul

• Auxiliary forces were raised outside of Italy

• The inducement to join these Auxiliary forces was guaranteed Roman citizen ship after 25 years service – for the soldier and his descendents

• The provinces military command lay with the provincial governor or prefect

• At the time of Jesus’ ministry, Pontius Pilate was designated “prefect of Judea”

37-324 AD

General Pompey

Area divided into districts

King Herod

• People get confused because of the amount of Herods found in the New Testament

• Here are the Herods and the events associated with each

• Herod the Great – Christ was born

• Herod the Great’s son Herod Antipas was the ruler of Galilee and Perea - He beheaded John the Baptist and tried Christ before his crucifixion

• Herod Agrippa I is the persecutor of the church in Acts 12

• Herod Agrippa II heard Paul’s testimony just before he went to Rome to be tried by Caesar

Herod the Great

• Ruled from 47-4 BC

• He was Governor of Galilee from 47-37 BC

• He became governor at age 25

• He was successful in this position, under a series of rulers

• He was successful at collecting taxes and suppressing various revolts

• He ruled as King from 37-4 BC

• His rule had many twist and turns

• (1st Time Period of his Rule) In the time between 37-25 BC he had many adversaries gunning for him

• (1st Group) The people and the Pharisees – didn’t like the fact that he was a Idumean (a Half-Jew) and a friend to the Romans

• (2nd Group) The aristocracy – Herod had executed 45 of the wealthiest and confiscated their properties to replenish the coffers

• (3rd Group) His Mother-in –Law – she wanted a different High Priest appointed – But Herod would get his way

• At the Feast of the Tabernacles, Herod had his mother in laws choice drowned, and made it look like an accident

• He then put his mother in law in chains and placed her under guard to keep her from causing any more trouble

• (2nd Time Period of his Rule) The time of Prosperity 25-14 BC

• It was an intense time of building – Theaters, Amphitheaters, Racecourses for men and horses

• And his greatest building project – Herod’s Temple

• (3rd Time Period of his Rule) Domestic Troubles 13-4 BC

• Herod had 10 wives and scores of heirs to the throne – they went at it to see who would take over for Herod the Great

• It got so bad, one of his kids tried to poison him

• He finally decided to pick his youngest son Antipas as his successor

Caesarea Maritime

• City built in Honor of Augustus Caesar

• Built by Herod the Great between 22 to 10 BC

• It was built on an 8,000 acres site (About 32 sq miles)

• King Herod built a high level aqueduct that brought water from Mt Carmel to Caesarea

• There were underground sewers that flushed by the action of the sea

• A 30,000 seat Hippodrome is on the east side of the city

• The official center for administration of Judea was Caesarea Maritima

• One or more legions of soldiers would be at the disposal of the governor would be garrisoned there

Masada (means Mountain Stronghold in Hebrew)

• The rock of Masada rises 1,400 feet above the dead sea

• It has sheer cliffs on all sides

• The top of the rock is around 20 acres (2 large city blocks)

• Herod the Great built Palaces, a Roman bath, storerooms

• Also an elaborate water supply system

• The water supply consisted of drains from the wadis in the West

• It was designed to collect water during the water during the rainy season

• 12 cisterns in 2 rows on the Northwest side of the fortress held the water – they had a capacity of 10.5 million gallons

• There was a bath – 33 by 36 feet with walls six feet thick

• The wall of the structure entirely surrounded the top of the rock (4,250 feet)

• There were 30 towers and 8 gates

• The wall was built in a casement system (with and inner and an outer wall – between them were 110 rooms)

• The space between the walls was 13 feet

• A three tiered palace villa was built in a spectacular location on the northern end of the rock

Herod’s Temple

• Herod the Great the Idumean Jew, who inherited his father’s governorship of Judea, hoped to win the favor of his subjects

• With that end in mind he made plans to construct a new Temple in Jerusalem

• The work started around 20 BC and was completed totally in 64 AD

• Priests were specially trained for the work of building so that they could be sure the construction was followed to the letter

• The first thing that had to be completed by clearing and leveling a site of 500 yards by 325 yards

• It involved cutting away some sections and adding to parts with the building up of rubble

• The walls were constructed of stone blocks on average 15 feet long by 4 feet high

• Some of the stones in the corners of the south wall weigh up to 70 tons

• After 10 years most of the main sanctuary had been completed and was operational

• The detail work continued for years afterward

• It was twice as high as Solomon’s Temple and was covered in gold

• The Temple literally glittered in the bright sun

• The sanctuary was very similar to Solomon’s Temple

• The divergence from Solomon’s Temple was the imposing porch

• 150 feet in height and width

• Outside was a doorway 30 feet wide by 40 feet tall

• With an inner doorway about half the size leading into the sanctuary

• By allowing empty rooms over the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place – there was a uniform roof height of the roof at 150 feet

• Golden spikes on the roof discouraged birds from alighting and defiling the structure

• Access to the porch was by a flight of 12 steps from the Court of the Priests

• Centrally placed before the porch and 33 feet away from the alter of sacrifice

• It was a multileveled construction – 15 feet high and 48 feet square at the base

• Male Israelites were allowed into the area once a year, during the Feast of the Tabernacles, to walk around the alter of sacrifice

• Otherwise they were restricted to the Court of Israel

• The Court of Israel was separated by 15 steps and a Great Gate – made of Corinthian bronze from the Court of the Women

• The Court of the Women were where the offertory chests for Temple expenses were located

• The next court was the large, lower, outer Court of the Gentiles

• This Court surrounded the inner courts and was separated by a Balustrade ( a divider rail supported by ornate posts)

• There were also warning notices in Latin and Greek…

• It forbade trespass by Gentiles into the inner areas, on pain of death

• This outer court was widely used

• Immediately inside the walls was a Portico, supported by four rows of columns almost 40 feet tall

• The eastern portico was known as “Solomon’s Porch”

• Here is where the stalls of the money changers and merchants were set up…

• Its also where the Sanhedrin met and where Christ and the scribes taught and debated

• Just to the northwest of the Temple enclosure was the Fortress of Antonia, where the Roman governor resided when in Jerusalem

• This is also where the Roman garrison was kept in case of disturbances

• Overlooking the Temple area, it was separated from it with a wide moat

• The High Priest’s vestments were stored in the fortress as a symbol of Roman authority

Differences in the Four Gospels

The Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Luke

The Gospel of John

NT – 1 – Birth of Jesus

Birth of John the Baptist foretold

• John was born in the Hill country of Judah

• He descended from the line of Aaron – Moses’ brother

Importance of Children in 1st century Israel

Birth of Jesus foretold

“Virgins”

Nazareth

Mary visits Elizabeth

Birth of John the Baptist

Mary and Joseph

Betrothal

• The penalty for adultery during Old Testament law was stoning

• In the New Testament times Joseph would have had to divorce Mary and expose her to shame

• But a woman with a child, divorced for such infidelity, would be hard pressed to find another husband

• This would leave her with no means of support if her parents died

Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem

Roman Taxation

Birth of Jesus

Swaddling clothes

• When the baby was born, the midwife gave it a good salt scrub, which was thought to harden the skin

• Then the little one was swaddled in yards and yards of white cotton or Linen cloth

• These bands of cloth were about 5 inches wide and 6 yards long

• The Jewish mothers thought if their baby was bound in this manner its arms and legs would grow straight and strong

Bethlehem

• Was a small town, less than a ten mile walk from Herod’s Jerusalem

Church of the Nativity

The Inn and Manger

Visit by the Shepherds

Date of Jesus birth

Saturnalia

• One long standing mystery religion that survived for years involved the Persian god Mithras

• He was the soldier’s god

• Men advanced from rank to rank in this god’s service fighting against evil

• For a time Mithraism was one of the most serious rivals to Christianity

8th day circumcision

• Doves were clean birds and could be used by the poor as a sacrifice when a lamb couldn’t be afforded

Visit of the Magi

• They were a priestly caste that came out of Persia, they were versed in a variety of science and mystical arts

• The Magi were astrologers who spent their night studying the portents of the stars

• They brought gold, frankincense and myrrh – wealth, worship and healing

• The gold probably came from Africa

• Gold was a tribute fit for a king

• The frankincense was a gum obtained from the bark of a resinous tree in central India – it had a fragrant smell when burnt

• The smell was warm and woody, with light lemony undertones

• It was used in the anointing oils in the Holy Place

• The myrrh was a healing medicinal gum that relieved pain – it was obtained from a shrub growing in Arabia

Herod the Great

• You can understand why the Magi did not return to Herod, he was known for his acts of violence

• A young, but popular competitor, a high priest, had a “drowning accident” in a pool only a few feet deep

• Enraged by his favorite wife, he had her strangled

• He was deceived into having two of his innocent sons executed

• And on his deathbed he had another son executed (admittedly a guilty one)

Magi and the star

Magi’s gifts

Killing of the males under the age of 2

One of his fortresses, the Herodium was within sight of Bethlehem; he could have dispatched guards from there to kill the young boys

Mary, Joseph and Jesus go to Egypt

Nazareth

NT – 2 – Jesus at 12 in the Temple

Jesus at the Temple

• If we assume a pace of 20 miles per day (maybe slower, depending on transportation and the children)

• Nazareth would be a little over three days journey along the shortest route

NT – 3 – John the Baptist, Jesus Baptism

Reign of Tiberius Caesar

Pontius Pilate

• Appointed by Tiberius as the 5th prefect of Judea

• Served from 26-36 AD

• His dismissal in 36 Ad involved a Samaritan false prophet promised to show his followers sacred vessels hidden by Moses on Mt. Gerizim

• Pilate sent a heavily armed contingent of footmen and Cavalry who intercepted the pilgrims and slaughtered most of them

• The Samaritans complained to Vitellius, prefect of Syria

• Pilate was ordered to report to the Emperor Tiberius

• Another prefect, Marcellus was sent as Pilates’ replacement

• Little is known of the life of Pilate after 36 AD – One historian, Eusebius stated that he committed suicide

• This supposedly happened during the reign of Caligula

Herod Antipas

Annas and Caiaphas

Annas

• Jewish High Priest from 7 to 15 AD

• He was removed from power by the prefect of Judah (Valarius Gratus) in 15 AD

• Evidently Annas’s power and influence remained considerable even after his removal from office

• Like and American supreme Court justice, the High Priest held a lifetime appointment

• Deposition of the High Priest by the pagan Romans would have been strongly resented by the Jews

Caiaphas

• High Priest

• Presided over the Sanhedrin – the highest court next to the Roman governor

• He was the most powerful man in Judah, and he was responsible for the conduct of his people, he reported to the Roman government

John the Baptist

• John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and was preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had turned form their sins…

• And turned to God to be forgiven

• The unusual dress of John the Baptist – clothing of camel’s hair and the leather belt around his waist

• This suggested that he wanted his audience to associate him with Elijah in particular and the prophets in general

Locusts and Wild Honey

People dry them, store them bags like potato chips

Wilderness of Judah

Jordan River

• River lying in the bottom of a great canyon called the Jordan rift

• The river follows a north-south route, from the Huleh Lake which is 7 feet above sea level to the Dead sea which is 1,274 feet below sea level

• It follows a 20 mile route – Starting at the Huleh Basin it descends quickly to the Sea of Galilee, 685 below sea level

• From there it goes to the Dead sea, a distance of 65 miles

• The river that connects these two seas is really around 200 miles, because the course of the river is very snakelike and curvy

Pharisees

• Radical Right wing fundamental conservatives

• They were concerned with living a holy life before God

• Religion was the supreme passion of a Pharisee’s life

• It affected their education, their reading, their culture, their speech and their day to day living

• The Pharisees ate, drank and slept holy living

• There were thousands of Pharisees during New Testament times – they were not all bad

• They were faithful Jews who were awaiting the fulfillment of the promised Messiah

• In fact, the Pharisees were widely admired by people for their holy lifestyle

• Unfortunately many were blinded to anything but keeping of their rules

• In their desire for a perfect nation the Pharisees took steps to ensure the Law would never be broken

• They added rules and regulations to their religion, which they called the “Tradition”

• Later these rules were collected into a book called the Mishnah

• They were supposed to help the people not break the Laws of Moses – but all these little laws were petty and difficult to recall

• This “Tradition” made everyday life a burden too heavy to bear

• They were interested in getting their message to the people

• Ordinary people were treated with contempt and dislike by the strict Pharisees

• Pharisees believed that by keeping everyone of their rules, they were living a life pleasing to God

• Since the ordinary people of the day fell so far short, they were considered slackers

• Accepted Oral and Written Tradition

• They campaigned for the ideas of afterlife and resurrection, Day of Judgment and the Messiah

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• The Pharisees, who always thought bigger was better wore fringes on the bottom of their robe – and they were huge

• Their fringes were long and loud

• Their heavily tasseled hemlines were intended to impress others with their obvious obedience to the law

Sadducees

• They were another Religious sect among the Jews

• They were known for having a high view of the Law

• The only believed in the actual words of the Law – in fact if it wasn’t mentioned in the Law, they doubted its existence

• They didn’t believe in any kind of Afterlife – Heaven or Hell, because neither is mentioned in the Law

• Nor did they believe in angels or demons for the same reason

• Many Jews were disgusted with the Sadducees because they had taken sides with the Romans

• The Sadducees wished to avoid anything that would stir up trouble with their masters

• The reason for this is quite obvious, the Sadducees wanted to keep themselves in Power

• They accepted only the Hebrew scriptures, rejecting all oral tradition

• Most were upper class types

• They were much stricter than the Pharisees

• They were not very popular

• It didn’t help that, not believing in any future punishments in heaven, they doled out harsh legal ones on earth

Pharisees vs. Sadducees

• The Pharisees and Sadducees had something of a feud going on

• While the Pharisees held the Law and “Tradition” in high esteem, the Sadducees refused to live by the traditions of men

• The Pharisees hated the Gentiles and longed for the Messiah to come and wrest control of Israel form their hands

• Sadducees preferred peace at any costs, and so they were pro-Roman

• The two sects were at odds and neither intended to give any ground to the other

• In fact there was only one matter on which they held common ground – both sects despised Jesus

• They plotted together to have him killed

John and his problem with Herod Antipas and Herodis

• Jewish law forbade marriage with one’s brother’s wife (Leviticus 18:16;20:21)

• Except to raise children for a deceased brother

• Herod Philip was still alive and had a child, Salome

Jesus Baptized

Jesus Temptation

First Miracle at Cana (Water to Wine)

Ancient Cana

• Modern scholars have settled on Khirbet Kana as the site

• That ruin is about 8 miles north of Nazareth

• The Arabs in the region call it Cana of Galilee to this day

• Archeologists studying the site have found pottery from the Hebrew Monarchy period (900-600 BC)

• As well as from Hellenistic, Roman, Arabic, and Crusader times

NT – 4 – Woman at the Well

Jesus travels through Samaria

Samaritans

Woman at the Well

• The place were Jesus sits with the woman in Samaria was known as Jacob’s well

• This well is located in plot of ground acquired by the Patriarch Jacob

• It is located about 300 yards southeast from the traditional site of Joseph’s tomb

• Near here Abraham built his first alter and Jacob his second – Thus this site is one of the most ancient and sacred in the Holy Land

Jesus returns home to Nazareth

Reads the scroll of Isaiah

Townspeople try to throw him off a cliff

NT – 5 – Start of Jesus’ Ministry

John the Baptist still in Jail by Herod

• He was held in Machaerus – It is east of the Dead Sea at the southern extremity of Perea

Jesus sets up home base in Capernaum

• It lay on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee

• Capernaum was an important settlement with a Roman garrison

• Adopted by Jesus as his own city after his rejection in Nazareth

Cures the demon possessed man in Capernaum

Andrew becomes a disciple

Simon Peter becomes a disciple

James and John become disciples

• The Sea of Galilee was surrounded by fishing villages and boats were on the water daily to haul in their catches

• Fishing is often a family business

• Their days were spent hoisting sails, hauling nets and repairing boats

• Often they fished at night

• The catch of the day had to be cleaned and preserved and brought to the markets for sale

• Fish from the Sea of Galilee found their way all the way to the sellers stalls in Jerusalem

• Fishermen had more income than the average person in Galilee

Peter’s House in Capernaum

Jesus heals Peter’s mother in law

• There were several miracles in Capernaum, it was a highly favored city to Jesus

Jesus travels to Galilee

• Jesus was raised in Galilee, and 11 out of 12 disciples were from there (Judas Iscariot was the only Judean)

• The first three gospels are largely occupied with Jesus’ ministry in Galilee

• Much of it being spent around the Sea of Galilee

• Most of his Parables were spoken here, and the vast majority of his miracles

• Jesus received his greatest response in this region

• The Sermon on the Mount was spoken in Galilee

• One of the mountains in the region was the site of the Transfiguration

Region of Galilee

• The Historian Josephus stated that there were 240 cities in Galilee and 100,000 men available to fight for the Romans

• Galilee was an area filled with trade routes, linking it to the outside world

• There was a lot of coming and going, and the community was culturally diverse

• Jesus spent his childhood in Nazareth in Galilee, where most Jews made their living by farming or fishing on the lake

• The Jews in Jerusalem thought that the Jews form Galilee were nothing more than country cousins and bumpkins at that

Sea of Galilee

• In a region where there is not a whole lot of water, the Sea of Galilee was huge

• 60 miles north of Jerusalem

• The lake was 6 miles wide, and 15 miles form north to south

• The greatest depth is 200 feet and it’s shape resembles a Harp

• A hike around the circumference was 32 miles long

Man lower to Jesus through the roof

• After Jesus healed a person, leper what ever – All they had to was show themselves to the Temple priests

• Then he could be declared clean and could go home to their families again

Judaism and the forgiveness of sins

Matthew becomes a disciple

• Matthew served King Herod Antipas in Capernaum in Galilee

• He collected tariffs on goods passing on the road from Damascus to the Mediterranean Sea

• To function in this capacity Matthew would have been an educated man

• Able to read and write Greek as well as the native Aramaic

Role of the Tax collector in 1st Century

• The Hebrews were weighed down with double taxation

• First they had the prior obligation to God

• But then the Romans demanded their due as well

• Rome levied taxes on the entire known world in order to maintain its vast army, its building projects and its emperor

• Tax collectors who worked for the Roman’s were distrusted and despised

• They cheated the taxpayers into paying more money than they owed

Jesus eats with sinners

New Testament dietary practices

Jewish practices

Disciples pick grain on the Sabbath

• The Jews found a day of rest and reflection on the Sabbath

• But that wasn’t good enough for the Pharisees

• They wondered which activities would break the Sabbath – so of course they made rules about this

• If a man carried a needle in his cloak on the Sabbath, he was sewing

• If he dragged a chair through a sanded floor, he was plowing

• If he picked some grain and rubbed in between his hands – he was reaping and threshing

• He couldn’t erase two letters or write two letters, or sewing two stitches

• Couldn’t extinguish a fire

• The Jews set about to determine how far was too far – the number of paces someone could travel on the Sabbath was 2000 paces

• This was just a little under a half a mile

• The mount of Olives was a Sabbaths days walk from the walls of Jerusalem

• All these things broke the Law

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• The Jewish day of rest set the Jews apart form their neighbors

• Lots of other countries celebrated New Moon or Harvest

• God’s people were the only ones to set aside a day for worship and rest every week

• The Sabbath belonged to God and was treated as sacred

• It was to be honored by not traveling, working or talking idly on that day

Large crowds start following Jesus

NT – 6- The Disciples and Sermon on the Mount

Jesus picks the Disciples

• Strictly speaking the disciples were Students of Christ (from the Latin word for “Pupil”

• The apostles were envoys (from the Greek for “Send Away”)

Andrew

Simon Peter

James son of Zebedee

John son of Zebedee

Philip

Bartholomew (Nathanial)

Matthew

Thomas (Doubting Thomas)

James son of Alphaeus

Simon the Zealot

Jude (Thaddeus)

Judas Iscariot

Sermon on the Mount

• The Gospel of Matthew presents a substantial sample of Jesus’ teachings commonly called the Sermon on the Mount

• It is possible that Jesus often repeated his teachings on different occasions and with different combinations

Beatitudes

• The word Beatitudes is derived from the Latin term beatitudo

• Technically the term means “blessedness”

God blesses those who realize their need for him,

For the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them

God blesses those who mourn

For they will be comforted

God blesses those that are gentle and lowly

For the whole world will belong to them

God blesses those that are hungry and thirsty for justice

For they will receive it in full

God blesses those who are merciful

For they will be shown mercy

God blesses those whose hearts are pure

For they will see God

God blesses those who work for peace

For they will be called the children of God

God blesses those who are persecuted because they live for God

For the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs

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• The Sermon on the Mount is concerned with the righteousness that qualifies people to enter the Kingdom

Jesus discusses abolishing the law of the Prophets

NT – 7 – Do not use- Incomplete

NT – 8 – Woman touches Jesus Garment

Woman touches Jesus robe

• The God-fearing Jewish man always wore a blue fringe at the bottom of his cloak

• This was not so much a fashion statement as an act of obedience to God, who had commanded their presence in Num 15:38-39

• Jesus wore such a fringe on his cloak

• To prove their devotion, even the poorest of Jews were expected to have a minimum of four blue threads in their tassels

Cure of two Blind men

Cure of a mute possessed by a demon

Jesus returns to Nazareth

The twelve are sent out

Herod’s Birthday

Salome dances for Herod

Requests John the Baptist’s head on a platter

• Herod’s oath is a drunken one, as a vassal of Rome he has no authority to compromise any of his territory

Jesus feeds the 5000

NT – 9 – Jesus and the Adulterer

Jesus and the Woman adulterer

The Good Shepherd

Tyre and Sidon

Tyre

• Ancient Phoenician city-state located on the Mediterranean coast

• It was located 20 miles south of Sidon

• Alexander the Great destroyed the city but it rebounded by the time of Jesus

• It had regained prominence, it was equal to Jerusalem in terms of Population and Commercial power

• Jesus visited Tyre, he healed the SyroPhonecian woman’s daughter

Sidon

• Sidon, like Tyre was concerned with commerce and industry

Deaf man is healed

Jesus feeds the 4000

Jesus traveled to Caesarea Philippi

• City at the northern extremity of Palestine

• After the leader of Paniam (Pan Worship) died, Augustus Caesar gave the city to Herod the Great

• Herod adorned the place, which was already a remarkable one with the most beautiful temple, made with the whitest stone

• When Herod died in 4 BC, his son Philip was given the land

• Philip made it his capital and renamed the city Caesarea Philippi (after the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar and Himself)

Jesus tells Peter he is Christ

Peter given the keys to Heaven

Transfiguration

• Six days after the events at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus took Peter, James and John to be alone with him on a high mountain

• The significance of Moses and Elijah appearing is that they represent the Law and the Prophets

Jesus and the return of Elijah (John the Baptist)

Forgiveness 70 times 7

NT – 10 – Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem

How to gain eternal life

Who is your neighbor?

Good Samaritan

At the house of Mary and Martha

• Were from Bethany, the city that Jesus stayed while he visited Jerusalem

Role of women in the 1st century

Parable of Storing up Possessions

Prodigal Son

• There were no butcher shops in ancient times

• If meat was to be eaten at a meal, the family had to do their own butchering

• They saved beef for the special occasion

• There had to be enough people on the guest list to warrant bringing on the fatted calf

• Since there were no refrigerators or freezers the host wanted to make sure that all the meat was polished off in one evening

• These should be no leftovers

Lazarus and the Rick Man

• The parable of Lazarus has been misinterpreted sometimes as a condemnation of wealth

• What it is a warning against enjoyment of wealth without regard to the poor

Tax collector and the Pharisee

Zacchaeus

• Jewish tax collector who collected taxes for the Romans in Jericho

• He probably secured his position by purchasing the exclusive right to collect revenue in that region or…

• He was working as a sub contractor for another affluent official

• In either case he would have accrued great wealth

• Jericho, a significant center of commerce was situated along a major trade route connecting Jerusalem with lands east of Jordan

The Resurrection of Lazarus

• Jesus performed one his more spectacular miracles on Lazarus

• He brought Lazarus back to life after 4 days

• Lazarus lived with his two sisters, Mary and Martha in the town of Bethany

• They were some of Jesus’ closest friends, on several occasions he visited their home

• Their home served as his headquarters during the last week of his life

NT – 11- Passion Week Day by Day

Sanhedrin called together

• The Sanhedrin held sway over the Jewish people

• The group, largely made up of Sadducees, made the civil and religious decisions

• The leader of the Sanhedrin was the High Priest

• So, long as the Jews were peaceful and law and order were maintained, Rome was content to leave the High Priest in authority

Jesus no longer moved freely among the Jews – was in Ephraim

• This is where Jesus retired briefly after raising Lazerus from the Tomb

Jerusalem during the Passover

Roman Troops in Jerusalem

Pontius Pilate arrived

Jesus feet anointed with perfume

• The perfume that the woman used is worth a year of a common laborer’s wages

• Her family had probably kept it as a status symbol

• The fragrance was preserved by sealing it in alabaster, once the container was broke it had to be used immediately

• Her anointing of Jesus’ feet represents a major sacrifice and indicates the depth of her love

• But given the great numbers of landless or tenant farming peasants, some people think the worth of the perfume could be put to better use

Bethany

• Village on the Eastern Slope of the Mount of Olives

• It was about a mile and half east of Jerusalem

Herodion

Palm Sunday

Zechariah 9:9 Riding on a Donkey

Sheep Gate

• The Sheep Gate is place where offerings and sacrifices were brought into Jerusalem

• It was the first Gate rebuilt when they were rebuilding Jerusalem after the exile

Jerusalem – Herod’s Temple

• A brisk business was built around the Temple

• Most of the trade involved goods used in worship at the Temple

• Especially animals for sacrifice

• Merchants sold goats, lambs, and doves as well as a fine meal and oil for sacrifice

Financial impact of the Temple

• The Jews were subject to a Temple Tax

• It applied to every male over the age of 12

• This bounty consisted of cattle, grains, fruit, oils, spices, and other goods

• This was to sustain the members of the tribe of Levi, who served as priests in the Temple and did not own their own land

• The priests could farm no land, but they wanted for nothing

• God called for his people to bring the “first fruits” of all their labors to the Temple

• The seven “first fruits” – wheat, barley, figs, grapes, pomegranates, olives and honey – had a portion reserved for temple use

• Even though the Temple vaults were richly stocked, even the poorest Jews didn’t complain about the demands from the Temple

• Their gifts were in obedience to God’s command

Money Changers

• Ancient profession that undertook many of the services performed by the modern banker

• The role of the moneychangers was to exchange foreign currency - for a modest fee – for the accepted Jewish shekels to pay the Temple tax

• The need for such procedures was particularly important in Palestine, where every adult male had to pay the half shekel offering

• Jews from various countries who came to pay this sum would come with a wide variety of coinage

• Temple authorities had to authorize a coin appropriate for this purpose

• The Tyrian half-shekel or Tetradrachma

• The money changers operated in the provinces on the 15th month of Adar (The month before Passover) to collect this tax

• Ten days before Passover the moneychangers moved to the Temple to assist Jews from Foreign countries

• There were also the sellers of birds, animals and cake offerings

• Jesus must have seen that these money changers and the sellers of these sacrifices were making an exorbitant profit

Jesus and the Money Changers

• Jesus objected to the moneychangers trade going on right in the courts of the Temple

Paying Taxes to Caesar

• The Romans were hated for their domination

• There was a 1% poll tax, just for living in the empire

• There was a road tax, a property tax, a water tax, a city tax and even a death tax

• There was a poll tax of a half a shekel just for being alive

• Imports and Exports were subject to duties, and there were tolls in the markets

• Caesar Augustus went so far as to institute a sales tax that provided pensions for retired Roman soldiers

The Greatest Commandment

Mt of Olives

Destruction of the Temple

Wednesday – The Silent Day

Judas Iscariot

• In ancient times, the going rate for a slave was 30 pieces of silver

• This was also the compensation provided to a man whose slave had been killed carelessness of another man

• This was the same price that Judas was paid for betraying Jesus

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Why did Judas betray Jesus?

1. In keeping with his patriotic zeal, Judas turned Jesus over to the authorities, after realizing that his master did not intend to overthrow the government

2. Judas believed Jesus was the Messiah and planned his arrest in hope of urging Jesus to usher in his new kingdom

3. He was a scoundrel that had plotted wickedness since the start of Jesus’ public ministry

4. Prompted by a Satanic impulse, Judas betrayed Jesus – However after recognizing he was deceived, out of remorse he took his own life

5. With damaged pride and humiliated ego from Jesus’ caustic rebukes, Judas, originally a loyal disciple, turned against him

6. Judas, moved by his own greed, yielded to his selfish instincts, not realizing that Jesus would consequently be tried and killed

Upon learning of the outcome of his betrayal, he repented in despair and committed suicide

Last Supper

• Guests reclined, propped on an elbow with one hand free to reach their plate

• The disciples were probably relaxing around the dinner table at the Last Supper

Passover Meal

• The Passover was a weeklong festival, which was kicked off by a special meal called a Seder

• At this meal, traditional foods with symbolic meanings were placed on the table

• A sweet concoction of fruit and honey

• Parsley dipped in salt water

• Bitter Herbs

• An Egg

• A Shankbone

• A place is set for Elijah, and the door was opened for him in case he should come

• The seder meal was designed to pique the curiosity of the children and encourage them to ask questions about everything they saw

Eucharist

Garden of Gethsemane

• The name Gethsemane means “oil press” – suggesting the presence of an olive grove

Sweating blood

• A rare medical condition called Hemohydrosis

• It is the result from hemorrhage of small blood vassals into the sweat glands

• It happens only in times of extreme distress

Temple Guard arrives

Judas kisses Jesus

Cutting off guard’s ear

Jesus in front of Annas

• The fact that Annas conducted a private inquiry of Jesus after he was arrested shows the clout he had

• He was taken there before he saw Caiphas, this shows that he is still a person of considerable stature among the Jewish religious leaders

Jesus in front of Caiphas

Jesus mocked

Jesus in Prison

Jesus before the Sanhedrin

Divisions of the Sanhedrin

• Scribes first showed up in the Old Testament while the Jews were in captivity

• They were the men who helped the priests write down the records of the Jewish nation

• But as time passed the scribes became better known as teachers

• Their job as copyists made them familiar with the words of Law

• They became interpreters of difficult passages

• Soon they became the Rabbis

Trial before the Sanhedrin

• The full Sanhedrin consisted of 71 members, normally met in the assembly hall in the temple called the Chamber of Hewn Stone

• They sat in a semi-circle with the high priest in the center

• In this case many members of the Sanhedrin (23 members were needed for a quorum) hold a secret night meeting

• Without prior notice in the High Priest’s home

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• Jewish law forbade trials on the Sabbath

Judas returns the 30 pieces of Silver

Judas hangs himself

• Judas despondent over his act of betrayal, went out and hung himself in a field bought with his 30 pieces of silver

• The field was purchased by the Chief Priests as a burial place for strangers (formally the potter’s field)

• Acts 1:18 gruesomely adds that his body burst open, spilling out his intestines

• For this reason the field was called the “Field of Blood”

Judas Potters field

Jesus before Pilate

• Jesus did not answer when asked about the charges before either Pilate or Herod

• He remained silent, except to make a comment to Pilate about the true nature of his kingship (Jn 18:33-38)

Jesus in front of Herod

Jesus before Pilate #2

• The Praetorium was Herod the Greats old palace, where the Roman prefect stayed when he visited Jerusalem

• A cohort of 600 men were normally stationed in Jerusalem (at Fortress Antonia), reinforced by the troops that accompanied Pilate to Jerusalem

Jesus and Barabbas

• All four Gospel writers took note of this event

• Barabbas was a bandit/ and or revolutionary

• He was imprisoned for committing murder during an insurrection

• Most scholars view it as a political insurrection against the Roman forces in Jerusalem

• Barabbas was more than likely a zealot, wanting to overthrow the yoke of the Roman government

• After examining Jesus, Pilate recognized that Jesus was innocent and wanted to free him

• Yet Pilate also had an interest in pleasing the Jewish leaders in order to protect his own political interests

• He offered to release a prisoner during the Jewish Passover

• Given the option of Jesus or Barabbas, Pilate thought that the Jewish crowd would release Jesus

• Pilate underestimated either the mood of the crowd or the influence of the Jewish leaders, or both

• The throng shouted for Barabbas to be released

• Barabbas, after being released, disappeared from biblical and secular history

Pilate washes his hands

• Pilate washed his hands, declaring his innocence in this affair

Jesus to the Praturium

Robe and Crown of Thorns

Scourging

• Before a scourging, the victim would be examined for physical fitness

• If death resulted from the blows no blame could be attached to the person administering the blows

• The victim was stripped at the waist and tied to a pillar

• The severity of the scourging depended on the severity of the crime

• Although Mosaic law limited the punishment to 40 lashes

• Lashes might be administered on the chest and the back

Path of the Crucifixion

Simon of Cyrene

• Cyrene was a large city in what is now Libya in North Africa

• It had a large Jewish community

• Like multitudes of foreign Jews , he had come to Jerusalem for the feast

• Roman soldiers could impress any person into service to carry things for them

• He was asked to carry the horizontal beam – Jesus’ back had been too severely scourged for him to do this

Golgotha

Crucifixion

• Crucifixion was the most shameful and painful form of execution known in antiquity

• Stripped naked – especially shameful for Palestinian Jews

• Hanged in front of crowds

• Unable to restrain the excretion of wastes in public

• His hands would not be free to swat away insects attracted to his bloody back or other wounds

Temple Curtain

Spear

Joseph of Aramethea

• Aramethea was only 20 miles from Jerusalem

• Joseph is said to have been wealthy – he had to be to secure an audience with Pilate after official public hours

• When buried, crucifixion victims were normally thrown into common graves

• They did not receive an honorable burial in their family tomb

• Exceptions were often made when relatives asked for the body, but in the case of treason ( as claiming to be the Jewish king would be)…

• Only happened if the deceased had a prominent advocate

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1st Century Burial practice

• In the 1st century the body would normally be left to rot in the tomb’s antechamber for the 1st year

• At the end of that first year the bones would be gathered into a box, which would slide into a slot on the wall

• This practice probably related to the standard Jewish hope in the resurrection of the body at then end of the age

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• Guards faced serious consequences for falling asleep on the job

• Roman guards could be executed

NT – 12 – Pentecost, Stoning of Steven

Matthias is made the 12th disciple

• Sometime a major decision was entrusted to the roll of the dice

• Actually it was more of a casting of lots

Pentecost

• Pentecost is the Jewish Feast of Weeks, originally it was held 50 days after the beginning of the grain harvest

• It is celebrated on the 50th day after Passover

• Since this was a required Festival Jerusalem would have been packed with Pilgrims

Tongues of Fire

Peter converts 3000

Peter heals a cripple

Communal lifestyle

Ananias and Sapphira

Stephen

• Stephen was one of the 7 deacons of the first Christian church

• He is the first Christian Martyr

Stephen in front of the Sanhedrin

Stoning of Stephen

• Stoning was the most common Hebrew death penalty

• The first stones were thrown by the prosecution witnesses

Saul holds the tunics

Saul the Persecutor

• Before the stoning of Stephen Saul was an oppressor of the new faith

• Saul was among the leaders of the opposition to Jesus followers

• He breathed murder and threats against the disciples of the Lord

• He persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it

• He imprisoned Christians, both male and female, in many cities

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Saul’s/ Paul’s Family and Background

• Paul was born around 10 AD, a Jew in a family of Pharisees

• He was born in Tarsus

• Tarsus was a center of commerce and learning that embraced the Hellenistic spirit and Roman Politics

• Tarsus was not a Jewish city, rather it had a Greek Character

• Greek language was spoken and Greek literature was cultivated

• Jews were brought to Tarsus in 171 BC to promote business in the region

• At that time, Paul’s ancestors were probably given Roman citizenship

• Paul inherited from his parents, Roman and Tarsisian citizenship

• From religious parents, Paul received knowledge of the Laws and Prophets, and the Hebrew and Aramaic languages

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Paul’s Occupation

• Paul was a tent maker

• He may have learned the trade from his father, or he may have selected it as a means of self-support

• Self-Support was the custom of those in rabbinical training

• Tarsus was well known for the goats-hair cloth called cilicium

• It was the weaving of this cloth and the fashioning of tents, sails, awnings, cloaks that gave Paul his economic independence

• He would need this during his ministry and his travel

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Paul’s Education

• Paul had a 1st class rabbinical education

• Sometime between the ages of 13 and 20 he moved to Jerusalem to study under the guidance of Gamaliel

• Gamaliel was the grandson of the originator of the Pharisaic school

• Paul’s knowledge went beyond many Jews his own age

Philip goes to Samaria

NT – 13 – Conversion of Paul, Death of Herod

Paul’s conversion on Damascus road

• Paul had obtained letters from the High Priest in Jerusalem to the synagogues in Damascus

• These letters authorized Paul to arrest the believers there and bring them to Jerusalem for trial

• This is why Paul was going to Damascus

Blind for three days

Damascus

Ananias

Straight Street

• The street today is elevated 15 feet higher than the one that Paul used

• A lane off the Eastern end of Straight Street is the “house of Ananias

Saul to Paul

Paul was a Roman Citizen

• Roman Citizenship offered many benefits; the right to vote being one of them

• Citizenship also protected a person from certain indignities – He could not be bound, scourged or imprisoned without a trial

• If a Roman citizen felt he was being unjustly treated in a court of law, he could appeal to Rome

• Rome used citizenship as a means of further endearing itself to the nations under its control

• The empire would sometimes grant Roman citizenship to non -Romans

• It was like winning the lottery, and an otherwise unimportant person could hold the same rights as a Roman Senator

• This citizenship was jealously guarded and highly prized

Peter and the vision of a sheet with Animals

Food rules change

James in front of Agrippa

• This Herod is Agrippa I, brother in law and son of a half brother of Antipas

• Hared Agrippa I had partied with Gaius Caligula in Rome

• When Caligula became emperor, Agrippa I became the first official Jewish “king” since his grandfather Herod the Great

Agrippa kills James

• Formally preformed with an axe, during this period beheading was performed with a sword

• It was the most merciful form of execution

Herod has Peter arrested

Peter escapes from Prison

Herod, struck dead, eaten by worms

• Agrippa was in Caesarea in 44 AD – He was wearing a sparkling silver robe

• The people flattered him and called him a god, he was struck with a horrible illness

• Jewish Historian Josephus reports he was carried to the palace, he spent five horrific days there racked by stomach pain

• He had stomach worms, Deaths from bowel diseases and worms were though among the most horrible

NT – 14 – Book of James

James was prominent in the church in Jerusalem

• Most scholars have identified this James as the brother of Jesus

• This letter was written before there was a complete separation between Christianity and Judaism

• James message follows Jesus message closely, it doesn’t deal with the Jewish/Gentile problems that arise in the 50s and 60s

• James is writing to Jewish Christians

Purpose of the book of James

Situation of the book

Gap between rich and poor

Faith and Deeds connected

Chapter 1 – Trials and Tribulations and Doing

Respect the Poor

Taming the tongue

True Wisdom

Envy

A warning to the rich

Patience and Prayer

NT- 15 – Paul’s First Journey

Trip – 1400 miles – from Houston to D.C.

Syrian Antioch

• The journey from Jerusalem to Antioch was roughly 400 miles

• Principle city among 16 others of the same name built around 300 BC by the Syrian Emperor Seleucus I

• They were built to honor his father Antiochus

• This Antioch is modern day Ankara Turkey

• 500,000 population at this time in history

• Because of its location on navigable waters reaching to a Mediterranean port 15 miles away

• And because of its ready access eastward through the Tarsus Mountains, gave trade to the interior

• Antioch was a busy cosmopolitan center of trade, religious ferment and high levels of intellectual and political life

• Jerusalem Christians flocked to Antioch to avoid persecution in Jerusalem

• Side by Side with a truly high culture were…

• Degrading institutions of strange fertility religions…

• Brutalizing sports spectacles and a variety of mystery religions

• Not to mention the gambling, brothels, exotic banquets

• To top it off, Antioch had a fully developed Jewish community

Cyprus

• Cyprus was annexed to Rome in 58 BC

• Cyprus was made a senatorial province

• Sergio Paulus was selected as Proconsul in 46 AD

• The Birthplace of Paul’s companion Barnabas

• Jewish believers sought refuge at Cyprus, because of what happened to Stephen in Jerusalem

• 1st stopping point for Paul on his 1st Missionary journey

Salamis

• Seaport on the Eastern shore of Cyprus

• Barnabas and Paul land there at the start of the 1st Missionary journey

• For centuries it was a major seaport – shipping copper, timber, ceramics and agricultural products to Europe, Africa and Asia

• Chief town of Cyprus

Paphos

• A Greek Harbor town on the North and West of Cyprus

• Had long been the provincial capital of the Roman Empire and maintained some trade relations with Judea

Paphos – Worship of Aphrodite

• Paphos was the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite

• Was the most important and Famous place to worship Aphrodite in the ancient world

• Ritual prostitution was a huge part of the worship of Aphrodite

• It was said that every young maiden went once in her lifetime to the sanctuary to make love to a stranger

• The man chose his maiden, threw some money at her feet (The sum was unimportant)

• And stated “I invoke the goddess upon you”

• Beautiful maidens were able to fulfill their duty quickly, the unattractive maidens had to wait as long as 4 years to get it over with

Conical Stone in Paphos

• Weighs around a metric ton

Bar Jesus

• A Jewish Magician and Philosopher, whose job was to give the “Jewish” perspective to the Roman leadership

• He was looked at as a wise man, a sorcerer and someone with great scientific knowledge

• When the governor Sergio Paulus took and interest in the message that Paul and Barnabas were preaching…

• Bar-Jesus tried to influence the governor against their teachings

• Paul confronted Bar-Jesus and called him a “son of the devil”

• Paul then predicted that Bar-Jesus would be blinded, as a punishment from God – and Bar-Jesus was temporarily blinded

• The governor apparently became a Christian

Roman Consul – Paulus

• Proconsul of Cyprus

• Became the first recorded convert on Paul’s first missionary journey

Perga

• The cities that Paul and his companions visited in 13:13-14:26 were along the same Roman military road, the Via Augusta

• This road was built roughly 50 years prior to Paul’s travels

• Paul landed in Attalia and proceeded by road to Perga, 12 miles north

• This was just a stop over – no permanent Christian church came of the visit

Pisidian Antioch

• Population of 100,000

• Roman colony – If Sergius Paulus had supplied them with letters of recommendation to the local arisocricy, they would have been given immediate hospitality

• Paul was invited by the elders of the synagogue at Antioch to deliver any message of exhortation he might have at their Sabbath meeting

• According to Acts, many begged to hear more

• But certain Jewish leaders envied his popularity and began to revile him

• This group forced him to leave the city

Temple of Augustus – Pisidian Antioch

• The foundation was carved out of the rock of the hill

• At the back of the Temple was a two storied semi circular portico

Iconium

• Although Iconium was a wealthy and prosperous town, it was not close to the size of Ephesus or Smyrna

• Where urban culture in the empire tended to be uniformly Greco-Roman, rural society preserved local language and customs

• Iconium was an agricultural center, famous for its wheat fields and orchards of apricots and plums

• It was a major link between Syria, Ephesus and Rome

• Traveling teachers would have drawn more attention in a town like Iconium than in larger cities

• Because the native language of Iconium was Phrygian, Paul and Barnabas may address the Greek-speaking upper class

• Paul’s preaching initially won the approval of both the Jews and Greeks

• But unbelieving Jews soon incited a riot against him

• Paul fled to Lystra, but he was followed by the Iconium Jews

• They stoned him and left him for Dead

Lystra

• For half a century Lystra had been a Roman colony; its own citizens were accorded privileges as citizens of Rome

Hermes and Zeus

Derbe

• Derbe was the frontier city on the imperial road

• They profited form customs duties charged there

• It was a rude and poorly educated city

Back to Syrian Antioch

NT – 16 – Jerusalem Conference

Judaizers (Also known as the Circumcision Party)

• Christian Jews who attempted to impose the Jewish way of Life on Gentile Christians

• At this point in time the conversion to Judaism was in three separate steps

1. Circumcision (for males)

2. Ritual Bath in Water

3. Agreement to take upon yourself the “yoke of the law” – that is to obey the 613 laws plus the 10 commandments

4. For them Jesus was the messiah of Jewish expectation, but did not replace their Judaism

• Over time the growing number of Gentile converts to Christianity force Jewish Christians to face a very difficult problem

• Must a Gentile first become a Jew in order to be a Christian

• The Judaizers thought that a person had to

• Paul and Barnabas disagreed

2 big questions

Do you have to be a Jew to be a Christian

Do you have to follow the dietary laws and get circumcised?

Paul and Barnabus

Decide to allow Gentiles into church

• The Jerusalem council established that salvation was a free gift to be received by faith

• It rejected human effort as a means or contributor to salvation

• It also disassociated Christianity from any particular racial, national, cultural or social group

• It also stated that Christians were free from earning salvation through ceremonies and law-keeping

• It also stated the necessity of responsible and appropriate conduct

Peter visits and associates with the Gentiles

But the Judaizers followed Paul

NT – 17 – Book of Galatians

Galatia

Galatia Area

• The region of Galatia included the towns of: Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch

• Towns that

• Towns that Paul had visited in his first missionary Journey

Breaking Jewish traditions to join Christianity

Judaizers in the Galatian church

Anger towards the Galatian church

Galatian church doesn’t need circumcision

Be led by principles not by Jewish Law

Every one is equal in God’s eyes

NT – 18 – Paul’s Second Missionary Journey

Paul in Syrian Antioch

2nd Voyage 2,800 miles – Twice the distance of the first

Traveled through the mountains in Tarsus

Derbe

Picks up Timothy in Lystra

Phrygia and Galatia

Troas

• Troas was 10 miles south of the more famous ancient Troy

• Troas had a mixed population of Roman citizens and natives that never quite adjusted to one another’s presence

• It was also where two major trade routes from the East toward Rome converged

• Those traveling from Asia to Macedonia or the reverse regularly passed through the port of Troas

Luke joins Paul

Samothrace

• The mountainous and thus easily visible island of Samothrace is the first port travelers would reach

Neopolis

• Neopolis was the port of Philippi

• It was one of the best ports in Macedonia

• Sea travel was preferable to land travel, a person could cover a 100 miles a day by sea

• The port was on the Eastern end of the Via Egnatia

Philippi

• Philippi was extremely Romanized, despite its location, over 80% of the inscriptions are in Latin

• As a Roman colony the citizens enjoyed Roman rights, used Roman law, were exempt from Tribute and modeled their constitution on that of Rome

• Foreigners and non-citizen residents did not acquire Roman rights simply by settling in Philippi

Lydia – Purple

• Red Dye was procured from a little bug that lived in the bark of the oak tree

• Blue dye was concocted from the rinds of the pomegranates

• The purple dye was extracted from the shells of the whelks that were found along the seashore

• It was said that in Rome, only the Emperor was allowed to wear this rare color

• The purple dye was extremely expensive, and the shade of purple from Thyatira was especially lovely

Paul cures a girl with a spirit – Makes people angry

• Unless the accused were Roman citizens, they were normally beaten before the trial as a means of securing evidence before the trial

• It also humiliated those beaten and to discourage their followers

• Lower class citizens had few legal protections

• Roman magistrates attendants, called lectors, carried rods in bundles

• With these they beat the foreigners here

• Sometimes, as here, the accused were stripped first

Compares with the Oracle of Delphi

Paul and Silas thrown in Jail

• Stocks were often used for torture as well as detention, with extra holes so the legs could be forced into painful positions

Doors open up in Jail

• The Roman authorities freaked out when they realized that Paul and Silas were not just a couple of trouble making Jews

• They had unwittingly bound, beaten and imprisoned a couple of Roman citizens – which was a highly punishable offense

• Falsely claiming citizenship was a capital offense

Amphispolis

• Located on the Via Egnatia

Apollonia

• Located on the Via Egnatia

Thessalonica

• Thessalonica was an important city in this period

• Macedonia’s largest port, capital of its old second district and now residence of the provincial governor

• Thessalonica’s non-Greek importations included not only Judaism but the Egyptian cult of Seraphis and Isis

Via Egnatia

House of Jason in Thessalonica

• Jason was a common Greek name, but it was also common among “Hellenized Jews”

• He is a Jewish host with whom Paul and Silas stay while working there

Berea

Athens

Idol worship in Athens

Athens’ agora

Epicureans

Stoics

Aeropagus

Alter to Unknown god

• During a plague long before Paul’s time, no alters had successfully propitiated the gods

• Athens had finally offered sacrifices to an unknown god, immediately staying the plague

• By the time Paul got there the alter was still standing

Greek and Roman gods

• The gods of the Greeks and Romans were downright dangerous

• They were like superheroes run amok

• Here were these immortals allegedly imbued with incredible strength and magical abilities, but full of character flaws

• These supposedly powerful deities would get angry, throw fits, pout, commit adultery, hold grudges, plot revenge, ignore prayers

• They could even demand human sacrifices

• They would change their minds on a whim

• No wonder people tried to beg borrow and steal to stay on their favorite god’s good side

• Just to be on the safe side, the people of Athens set up an alter to an unknown god

• They didn’t wasn’t to suffer the repercussions of leaving somebody out

Corinth

• Corinth was a huge rival of Athens

• It had long surpassed Athens in importance

• It was the economic and political center of Greece

Aquila and Priscilla

Corinth size

Moving across the Isthmus of Corinth

The Bema in Corinth

Proconsul Gallio

• As proconsul, Gallio would decide important cases at his judgment seat in the morning

• Juries decided cases about murder, adultery and several other offenses

• A magistrate had to try other crimes

NT – 19 –Book of Thessalonians

Timothy visits Thessalonica and brings Paul questions

Paul wrote 1st and 2nd Thessalonians while living in Corinth

Thessalonica was the largest city and capital of Macedonia

East West Trade Route to Asia

Thanked them for their faith and devotion

Paul tells them to stand firm (Persecuted by the Jews)

Paul discusses sexual standards – not like in Thessalonica

What about the people who died earlier? Saved?

Thessalonians have stopped working – waiting for Christ to return

Come like a “Thief in the Night”

Live in Unity and do good

NT -20 – 2nd Thessalonians

Paul is still in Corinth and writes 2nd Thessalonians

Still being persecuted by the Jews

Paul tells them of sign that will happen before the return of Christ

The Anti-Christ

Still not working and sponging off people – waiting for Christ to return

NT – 21 –Paul’s Third Missionary Voyage

Traveled 2700 miles – DC to LA

Paul leaves from Syrian Antioch

1st Stopping point – Ephesus

• Most important city of the Roman province of Asia – located on the western shore of Asia Minor (Modern Day Turkey)

“Free Cities”

• As long as peace was kept in certain cities, they were allowed to remain self-governing despite Rome’s ultimate control

• Two such free cities were Athens and Ephesus

• Certain cities were also allowed some control over tier religious affairs

• Jerusalem was also such a city, because the High Priest and the Sanhedrin were allowed to oversee the needs of the Jews

• Still the Jew’s authority was very limited, and Rome had the final say on important matters

Harbor Town in Western Turkey

Roman seat of Government

Silt in the Harbor at Ephesus

Unable to fix Harbor

Built the Temple of Artemis

• The Temple of Artemis served as a bank as well as a temple

• People all over the world deposited funds there

• The Temple was an impressive building, it was supported by 100 columns

• Ceremonies and services of Worship were conducted by eunuch priests

Group of believers that followed John the Baptist

Agora in Ephesus

• It is in the form of a square – each side 110 meters long

• Surrounded completely by columns

Artemis – Sister of Apollo

Ephesus Theater

• Capacity of 25,000

Merchants hold an Anti –Christian demonstration

City Clerk got up and spoke – allowed Paul to Escape

Wrote letter to church in Corinth

Troas

Philippi

Went to Corinth - Wrote letter to Romans

Assos

Mitylene

Lesbos

Samos

Miletus

Cos

• They stooped at Cos overnight, it was on the usual route to Rhodes

Island of Rhodes

• Rhodes was a regular stopping point for ships, it had a sizable Jewish population

Colossus of Rhodes

• To celebrate a military victory in 280 BC, the city of Rhodes erected an immense bronze statue of the Greek sun god

• 121 feet tall – about the height of the statue of liberty

• It was 12 years in the making, and soon after its completion, an earthquake broke it off at the knees

• But the fragmented ruins remained a curiosity until the Arab occupation of the Island in the 7th century

Patara

Tyre

Ptolemais

Caesarea

Jerusalem – delivered a collection for the church in Jerusalem

Judaizer’s thought Paul had brought in a non-Jew to the Temple

• Paul’s trip from Corinth to Jerusalem was marked by abundant warnings of the danger awaiting him in Jerusalem

• The Judaizers acrimony toward Paul was common talk everywhere

• The travelers carrying the collection for Jerusalem journeyed swiftly in order to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost

• When he got there Paul and his party stayed with Mnason, an early disciple, and was greeted warmly by the brothers there

• James and the elders of the church praised God when they heard of the things he had done among the Gentiles

• When they received the collection from the churches, they told Paul of his bad reputation among the thousands of Jewish believers in Jerusalem

• They encouraged him to set the record straight, that he was not against Jewish followers and their traditional observances

• Paul had kept the Jewish feasts, he had also cut his hair in a vow of Cenchreae,

• So it was a small matter to him, a Jew to ceremonially purify himself after becoming a Christian

• It would undermine the arguments of the Judaizers

• To reject the request of the Elders would lent credence to the Jadaizer’s argument

The Judaizers try to kill Paul

• It was the Judaizers from Asia, not the ones from Jerusalem that wanted Paul

• A violent crowd drug him out of the Temple, just like they had done Stephen several years earlier

• They tried to kill Paul, but he was saved by Roman soldiers

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• The barrier between the outer court, open to the Gentiles, and the Court of the Women was about four feet tall

• There were warning signs posted at intervals in Greek and Latin

• “Any Foreigner who passes this point will be responsible for their own death”

• This was the one offense for which Jewish authorities could execute capital punishment – Even on Roman citizens – without consulting Rome

Antonia Fortress

Paul brought before the Sanhedrin

• This meeting of the Jewish judiciary was shortly reduced to dissention and violence

• Paul resulted to tactics that would help him divide the Sanhedrin – he brought up the concept of Resurrection

• It immediately divided the Pharisees and the Sadducees

Group of 40 Jews decide to murder Paul

• In the meantime 40 Jews entered into a murderous plot to kill Paul

• They vowed to not eat or drink until they had killed the apostle

• They almost succeeded, but with the help of the son of Paul’s sister, the conspiracy was exposed

Paul taken to Caesarea for his own protection

• Paul was taken to Caesarea under guard of 470 soldiers and was handed over to Felix the governor

NT – 22 – 1st Corinthians

Paul hears troubling news from the Church in Corinth

Problems – Division in the Church

• At this time the Church in Corinth had between 150 and 200 members

• For the 1st three centuries of its existence, the church met mainly in homes, those belonging to more well to do church members

• Being that these people were well off, their homes would hold more people

• Because the size of the homes limited the size of the congregations, it forced Christians to meet in different house churches

• Divisions could easily arise among them, sometime along lines of social stratification

Apollos

• Native of Alexandria (Egypt), a Christian Jew who was an eloquent preacher

• He went from Alexandria to Ephesus

• Enthusiastic in spirit, learned and cultured in his ways, well versed in OT scriptures, and instructed in the ways of the Lord

• He began to speak openly and boldly in the synagogue there

• Apollos knew and preached accurately about the coming of Jesus

• But knew it only from the message of Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist

• Priscilla and Aquila, Paul’s friends and former associates heard Apollos speak in Ephesus

• They realized that he had not heard what had happened to Jesus

• They took him aside privately and explained the way of God to him more accurately

• Soon after the instruction Apollos left Ephesus

• Eventually he landed in Corinth – Paul considered Apollos work in Corinth very valuable

• Paul described Apollos as the waterer of the seed that Paul had planted as the founder of the church

• It is clear that a faction of the church centered around Apollos, he was not directly responsible for it

• Paul had difficulty convincing Apollos that he should return to Corinth, probably because Apollos doesn’t want to disturb the church

Peter

Paul

Incest in the Church

• The marriage of full brothers and sisters was considered immoral throughout the Roman Empire except in Egypt

• Parent-Child incest was universally abhorred throughout the Roman world

• It was one of the few crimes that all cultures agreed was terrible

• Relations with step-mothers was treated like relations with mothers - incestuous

Litigation between church members

Chaos in the Lord’s Supper

• The churches in Corinth met in well to do patrons homes

• In Greco-Roman society patrons often seated members of their own high social class in a special room (triclenium)

• While others were served, in plain view of this room, in the atrium

• The guests in the atrium (the larger room) often sat on couches that may seat up to 40 people

• This group was served inferior food and inferior wine, and often complained about the situation

• This societal problem spilled over into the church

• The Passover Meal was twisted by the Church in Corinth, they treated it more like a festival banquet

Sexual issues in the Church at Corinth

Ritual Prostitutes in the Temple of Aphrodite

• Prostitution was considered a business like any other

• Disreputable as the occupation was thought to be (for prostitutes, not for the men that had sex with them)

• It was readily available in inns and taverns, the ranks were stocked with slave girls

• These slave girls came from the vast amount of abandoned babies

• Jews strongly opposed prostitution (although a few engaged in it)

• Some pagans even considered prostitution a useful deterrent to adultery

Eating the Meat leftover from the Ritual sacrifices

• Often enough, the idolatrous temples had more animals brought in than the priests could consume

• Being enterprising folks, the priests and priestesses went into business

• They opened up butcher shops near the temple grounds

• When animals were brought to the false gods by worshippers, they were dedicated to the Idol, sacrificed, then hustled down the road for sale

• Since everyone shopped in these meat markets, new Christians were suddenly confronted with a moral dilemma

• Was it okay to eat meat if it had been previously offered in a pagan temple

• Could they continue shopping in town or should they boycott

Married Women go without head covering

Paul tells them to cover their head

• Women’s hair was a common object of lust in antiquity

• In much of the Eastern Mediterranean women were expected to cover their hair

• To fail to cover their hair was thought to provoke male lust

• Head covering prevailed in Jewish Palestine (where it even extended to a face veil)

• But upper-class women who wanted to show off their fashionable hairstyles did not practice it

Spiritual Gifts

Love

Paul’s thoughts on the Resurrection

NT – 23 – 2nd Corinthians

Paul had almost been killed in Ephesus – talks about his abused body

Tent and House – comparison of earthly and heavenly vessels

Discusses the collection of money for the Church in Jerusalem

Outsiders have arrived – attacking Paul

Self-appointed apostle

Paul answers his critics

What did Paul look like?

NT – 24 – Book of Romans

Paul writes to Christian Church in Rome – from Corinth

Purpose was to tell them he was coming

Roman church – Jew and Gentile

Paul talks about forgiveness and salvation

All that is needed is Faith

Romans 16 and 17

Martin Luther

Martin Luther – Salvation by Faith alone – no deeds needed

Paul describes a Christian life

NT – 25 – Paul Travels to Rome

After the group in Jerusalem tried to kill Paul he is taken to Caesarea

Governor says he will not try until the accusers show up

Ananias and the other arrive after 5 days

Governor Felix – doesn’t think has Paul has broken any laws

Felix keeps Paul in Caesarea for his protection

• When Felix was being replaced by Porcius Festus (summer of 59)

• Jewish leaders from Caesarea went to Rome and accused him

• Fortunately for his sake his powerful brother Pallas, who retained some influence to protect him from Jewish retribution

Paul’s treatment in Caesarea

Governor Festus

• History reports that Festus was a fairer and more cooperative governor than most that ruled Judea

• He undoubtedly wishes to engender a good relationship with the provincials here

• He suggested that the trial of Paul be held in Jerusalem, Paul didn’t like that idea

• He exercised his right as a Roman citizen to be tried in front of the Emperor in Rome

King Agrippa II and Bernice

• Ruled a small part of Palestine and worked with the Roman administration

• Bernice was Agrippa’s sister

• Some ancient writers maligned her close relationship with her brother Agrippa, slandering it as incestuous

• But this charge is highly unlikely

• Bernice later became the mistress of the Roman general Titus, who besieged Jerusalem

• But once he became emperor so much scandal arose about his consorting with a Jewish woman, that he was forced to ignore her

• She left Rome brokenhearted: she was 15 years older than Titus

Paul placed in the Pratorium

Crete

• Crete was the largest island of the Aegean Sea

• It had few harbors in the north, and a north wind from the Aegean there could wreck a ship against the coast

Paul shipwrecked on Malta

• This voyage is undertaken during the winter

• This is the season in which storms are most likely to be encountered on the Mediterranean

• With difficulty they reached the harbor of Fair Havens on Crete

• In spite of the warning by Paul, the decision was made to try to reach the Cretan port of Phoenix

• Phoenix was a more suitable place to winter

• Caught by a severe storm and driven helplessly by the wind for 14 days

• The ship finally neared land during the night

• In the morning, the ship tried for the beach but ran aground – The ship was pounded to pieces by the surf

• Everyone managed to reach the shore safely

• While putting wood on the fire, Paul was bitten by a viper

• The natives on the Island supposed he was a criminal whose life was being taken by the bite of a snake

• When he didn’t fall down dead, they radically changed their opinion of him and regarded him as a god

• Malta was on the shipping route from Rome to Egypt

_________________________________________________________

• The island of Malta is about 60 miles from Sicily

• The island is mainly agricultural, but the soil is not great

• The Island has no rivers and is dependent on rainfall and springs for its water

• In the Summer the island is subject to hot dust laden siroccos

Syracuse

• Paul made a three day stop on the Island

Puteoli

• Italian seaport town on the Bay of Naples

• It was a normal stopping place for seafaring travelers going to Rome

• Paul stayed there for 7 days

Apian Way

• A road built in the 300s BC – Helped troop movement and trade throughout Italy – the road was 350 miles long

• To build a main road like the Apian way the Roman engineers like to do things correctly

• First they would dig a trench the full width of the road – 4 or 5 feet deep

• Then they would build up layers of large and small stones, sometimes even a layer of concrete

• These road builders took pride in their work and built them to last

• Some of the largest Roman roads are still usable today

_________________________________________________________

• The Roman army and engineers built 50,00 miles of first class highways

• They also built 200,000 miles of lesser roads

Paul under House arrest in Rome for two years

Paul’s easy treatment under Roman house arrest

NT – 26 – Philemon

Onesimus

• A slave of Philemon, he had robbed his master and ran away from him

Philemon

Slavery in Christianity

Tells Onesimus to return to his master

Clues to what happened in the Story – No true ending

Slavery in the Roman culture

NT – 27 – Colossians

Colossae

• Ancient City in Asia Minor – located in the Southwestern part of modern day Turkey

• Colossae was located in the region known as Phrygia and was a trading center at the crossroads of the main highway form Ephesus to the East

• In Roman times relocation of the road leading north to Pergamum brought about the growth of Laodicea, a city 10 miles away…

• And led to Colossae’s gradual decline

• Colossae and Laodicea shared in the wool trade

• The name Colossae is derived from the Latin term Collossinus which means “purple wool”

_______________________________________________________

• In the apostle Paul’s time Colossae was a small city with a mixed population of Phrygians, Greeks and Jews

Epaphras visited Paul

• Epaphras was a native of Colossae, was responsible for the city’s evangelization, as well as that of Laodicea and Hierapolis

Church not started by Paul – Epaphras and Philemon

Asia Minor religion – combined elements of religions

Church at Colossae had parts of other faiths combining with their faith

• The heresy rose out of the flesh-spirit dualism that became characteristic of Gnosticism

• A major dogma of the Colossian philosophy seemed to have asserted that God was remote and inaccessible

• That God was assessable through a long line of intermediaries (angels could be in the line, and Jesus was in the line)

Jewish customs in the Church at Colossae

Gnosticism

• Religious thought distinguished by claims of obscure and mystical knowledge

• The emphasis is on knowledge and not Faith

Gnosticism beliefs

Paul’s answer to the Gnostics

False Teaching

NT – 28 – Ephesians

Ephesus

Temple of Artemis

Unity is the Theme

Uniting the Jews and Gentiles into one Household

Rules for Christian living

Becoming a “new man”

Submission to God – how it didn’t fit into Greek Culture

Marriage – submission

Relationship – Children and Parents

Spiritual Armor

NT – 29 – Philippians

Philippi 42 BC – Anthony, Octavian vs. Brutus and Cassius

Opened up the Roman Empire

War Veterans settled in Philippi

Church at Philippi started around 50 AD by Paul

Ignatian Way

Philippi was a Roman colony

Full Roman administration

Epaphroditus

Sends Joyful letter of Thinks

Paul’s living quarters in Rome

No Old Testament quotes

They will have to suffer

Judanizers in Philippi

Use of the word Joy in the book

NT – 30 – 1st Timothy

Paul wrote Timothy in Ephesus

Paul’s concerns with False Teachers

Trouble with the Gnostics

Conduct of Christians

Higher Standards of Conduct

Ministers and their Conduct

NT – 31 – Titus

Paul had left Titus on the Island of Crete to start the church

Paul talks about the poor Morals of the Cretans

Qualifications for a Church leader

Conduct of groups of Christians

Older men

Older Women

Younger men

Lifestyle issues discussed

NT – 32 – 1st Peter

Christians in the 5 Roman provinces in Western Turkey are persecuted

Christianity was no longer considered a part of Judaism

Not an official religion of Rome

Roman authorities pressure Christian to follow Roman culture and religion

Peter tells the Christians to live a righteous life

Nero is now in power in Rome – Paul is in Rome

Hope

Commit themselves to good deeds

Show proper respect for everyone

Husbands and Wives

Role of the Wife

Role of the Husband

What to do when suffering comes

NT – 33 – Book of Hebrews

A Generation after the death of Jesus Christians are going back to Judaism

An unknown writer describes why Christianity is better than Judaism

Three Main Points

1. Jesus is superior to the Old Testament prophets

2. Jesus is superior to the High Priest

There were no chairs in the Temple

3. Jesus is a better sacrifice than any animal

Quotes 40 passages from the OT

Faith

Faith – 35 times in the Letter

Avoid trickery of the Judanizers

NT – 34 – 2nd Peter

64 AD – Peter knows his time is growing short

Writes his last letter to the Christian church

New Teachers are entering the Church–Twisting Paul’s words on Freedom

New Teachings

Jesus 2nd Coming

Judgment by Fire

Peter tells the followers to be on guard against false teaching

NT – 35 – Jude

Jude –possibly the brother of Jesus

Very similar in tone to 2nd Peter

Christian imposters

Getting leadership positions

Teaching its OK to sin

Causing divisions in the Church

Used OT and ancient scriptures to show position

God punishes for sin – Sodom and Gomorrah

Take a stand for what is right

NT – 36 – 2nd Timothy

The end is near for Paul – writes to Timothy

Paul in cold dungeon

Paul is lonely

Tells Timothy to come to him – Timothy is 1,000 miles away

Paul worried about Heresy and Factionalism in the church

Great Fire in Rome

Persecution of Christians increases

Advice to Timothy

NT – 37 – Death of Peter and Paul in Rome

Nero burnt Rome – Christians are persecuted

Mamertine Prison

Christianity is illegal – Paul is a lawbreaker

Paul’s two hearings in front of Nero

• No details of Paul’s trial in Rome exist

• But Nero, who was emperor at the time, tired very few cases himself

• He appointed judges who listened to appeals like Paul’s

• So the chances of Paul actually being tried in front of Nero is very unlikely

Paul killed on the Ostian road

Peter imprisoned in the Mamertine Prison

Crucified at the Circus of Nero

Vatican

Crucified upside down

St Peter’s Tomb

Bones of St Peter

NT – 38 – Destruction of Jerusalem

Old City of Jerusalem

Rise of the Jewish Zealots

• The Zealots were Freedom Fighters, who spent most of their time plotting to overthrow the Roman government

• The favored armed rebellion

• The hope of this group was that a great man would come and lead them in a great uprising against Rome – A Messiah

• Between 56-60 Ad Riots broke out between the Jews in Gentiles

• Festus who was an able administrator, but the situation was almost out of hand

• Festus died in office in 62 – total anarchy broke out until his successor arrived

• Albinus arrived but he was totally incompetent and dishonest, he was recalled in 64 AD

• He was replaced by Florus – he was even worse – resorting to open robbery and bribery until there was no safety or justice in the land (64-66 AD)

• The Jews could take it no more

The Spark that ignited the Insurrection

• The spark that ignited the fires of rebellion was an anti-Semitic act by the Hellenistic population of Caesarea

• Soon riots spread to numerous cities, the Roman garrisons were massacred in several places

Fractured Jews

• But the Jews were not united

• In Jerusalem armed bands of Jews fought each other for supremacy

Rome intervenes

• Vespasian was chosen to command the Roman army of some 60,000 to put down the Rebellion

• He had subjugated most of Palestine by 69 AD – but he was elevated to Emperor after the death of Nero and left his son Titus in charge

Titus surrounded the city

Sent in Historian Josephus

Siege of Jerusalem

Destruction of Jerusalem

Deaths in the Siege

Masada

Jerusalem lay in Ruin

Western Wall

NT – 39 – 1st, 2nd and 3rd John

Written around 90 AD

John living in Ephesus

Book of 1st John

Gnostics

John – Love one another

Book of 2nd John

Very special woman and her children

Traveling Evangelists with false doctrines

Book of 3rd John

Demetrius

Diotrephes

Hospitality

NT – 40 – Revelation

Act of Revealing

Patmos

Seven Churches of Revelation

Ephesus

Smyrna

Pergamum

Thyatira

Sardis

Philadelphia

Laodicea

Four ways to interpret Revelation

Futurist View

Idealist View

Historicist

Preterist

#7

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