00:00:03
If you open a Protestant Christian Bible and look at the table of contents,
00:00:07
you will notice the first three quarters is a collection called the Old Testament.
00:00:11
If you look at the list of books, you will see it is made up of 39 smaller works that are grouped into four main sections.
00:00:17
The first five are called the Pentateuch,
00:00:20
followed by the historical books,
00:00:21
then the poetic books and finally the books of the prophets.
00:00:25
Now, that seems simple enough but actually it is more complicated and way more interesting.
00:00:31
This arrangement of the books in a single volume called the Old Testament
00:00:34
is a later Christian tradition that develop after Jesus and the apostles.
00:00:39
In ancient Jewish tradition these works were all on separated scrolls
00:00:42
and were conceived of as a unified three part collection called TaNaK.
00:00:47
It is a Hebrew acronym for "Torah" which means "instruction",
00:00:51
"Nevi'im" which means "prophets",
00:00:53
and "Ketuvim" which means "writings".
00:00:55
The TaNaKh has the same books as the Protestant Old Testament but they are arranged differently.
00:01:00
The "Torah" corresponds to the Pentateuch.
00:01:02
But the "prophets" consist of four historical narrative books
00:01:06
and then the 15 works named after specific prophets.
00:01:09
After this comes the "writings", a diverse collection of poetic and narrative texts.
00:01:14
This 3-part design is really, really old.
00:01:18
It is referred to in ancient Jewish texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Wisdom of Ben Sirach.
00:01:23
Even Jesus of Nazareth mentioned it
00:01:26
That is because this 3-part shape is woven into the compositional design of the scrolls themselves.
00:01:32
If you pay attention, you will discover that every scroll has been coordinated by means of cross references
00:01:37
that link each work into the larger 3-part collection.
00:01:41
So, who put all these scrolls together?
00:01:44
it was a long process.
00:01:45
Some of the famous contributors are named, like Moses or David.
00:01:49
But most of the authors remain anonymous.
00:01:52
In the Bible, they are simply called "Scribes" or "the Prophets".
00:01:55
These scrolls took shape throughout Israel's history as generations of prophetic scribes collected earlier stories and poems,
00:02:03
integrated them into larger compositions,
00:02:05
and then eventually shaped all of this material into the unified library of scrolls, the "TaNaKh".
00:02:11
It is clear from texts in the Psalms and Prophets
00:02:13
that these prophetic scribes believed that God's Spirit was guiding this whole process
00:02:18
so that through these human words, God speaks to his people.
00:02:23
That is why they treasured these texts, studying and composing them into a unified collection.
00:02:28
We do not know when precisely this process was finished,
00:02:31
but it was somewhere in the last centuries before the time of Jesus.
00:02:34
In its final shape, the TaNaKh offers a prophetic interpretation of Israel's history
00:02:39
that claims to reveal God's purposes to rescue the whole world.
00:02:42
While we cannot do justice to the whole collection in one video,
00:02:45
it is helpful to get an overview what these scrolls are all about.
00:02:49
The Torah begins with God creating and blessing a great piece of real estate: our very good world.
00:02:55
God entrusts it to a creature that reflects the divine image: human.
00:02:59
Or, in Hebrew, "Adam".
00:03:01
God appoints humanity to rule the world as kings and queens of creation.
00:03:05
The question is whether they will trust God's wisdom to discern good and evil
00:03:10
or seize autonomy and define good and evil for themselves.
00:03:14
But there is another creature with the humans: a mysterious snake.
00:03:18
It is in rebellion against the Creator.
00:03:21
And it dupes the humans to foolishly rebel against God's generosity.
00:03:25
As a result, humanity is separated from its divine source of life
00:03:29
and exiled from a garden of blessing to die in a dangerous wilderness.
00:03:34
From there, humanity keeps spreading and redefining good and evil.
00:03:38
And things go downhill fast.
00:03:40
They build cities plagued by violence and oppression,
00:03:43
all leading to the foundation of a city called Babylon
00:03:47
where people exalt themselves to the place of God.
00:03:50
Now the basic plot conflict of the whole Bible is set.
00:03:53
God wants to bless his world and rule it through humans.
00:03:57
But now, humans are the problem.
00:03:59
They are under the influence of evil.
00:04:01
They are stupid and short-sighted and headed for self-destruction.
00:04:05
This is all a setup for God's solution:
00:04:07
We need a new kind of human.
00:04:09
So God promises that a new human will come who won't give into the snake.
00:04:13
In fact, he will crush it and will be crushed by it.
00:04:17
From here, the story traces the promise lineage to a man and woman: Abraham and Sarah.
00:04:22
God entrusts them with the same divine blessing given to humanity on page 1.
00:04:27
So they leave Babylon to a new garden-like land that God promises to give his family.
00:04:32
What follows is a story of Abraham's family.
00:04:35
Three generations: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, followed by 12 sons.
00:04:40
Our hopes are high, until we read their very dysfunctional and destructive family story.
00:04:47
They lie, cheat, nearly kill each other, not to mention the sex scandals.
00:04:51
But, what did you expect after the garden story?
00:04:53
They are human.
00:04:55
Eventually, Abraham's family ends up exiled down in Egypt.
00:04:59
All these failures of Abraham's family form a dark background for the handful of bright moments in the story.
00:05:04
God stays committed to these people.
00:05:06
He even makes them an eternal promise called a "covenant"
00:05:09
that he will rescue and bless all humanity through them.
00:05:13
How exactly is not clear.
00:05:15
But Abraham's family is at its best when they stop their selfish scheming
00:05:19
and trust God's promise with radical faith.
00:05:22
From here, the family grows.
00:05:24
They end up enslaved in Egypt.
00:05:25
And we are introduced to the Torah's other main character, Moses.
00:05:29
God raises him up to rescue the Israelites and bring them to a mountain
00:05:33
where they are all invited into a covenant relationship with God
00:05:37
They are given 613 terms of the relationship,
00:05:41
guidelines for becoming new kinds of humans who will faithfully represent God to the world.
00:05:46
Moses brokers this whole deal because he is awesome.
00:05:50
He is the ultimate prophet who speaks God's word to Israel.
00:05:53
He is a priest who represents them before God and he is even called a king,
00:05:57
Israel's leader and deliverer in time of need.
00:06:00
But as the Torah progresses, the Israelites fail, big time.
00:06:04
They violate the covenant and even Moses rebels against God.
00:06:08
In fact, the Torah ends with Moses predicting that Israel's failure will continue
00:06:12
as they go back into the Promised Land.
00:06:14
And they are going to end up in exile once again.
00:06:18
But, he has hope that God will fulfill his promise to rescue Israel.
00:06:22
One day he will cover for their failures, he will heal their selfish hearts so they can truly love God and live.
00:06:29
And then, Moses dies.
00:06:31
The final sentences of the Torah scroll are surprising.
00:06:35
They zoom forward in time and we hear from the prophetic scribes who shape the TaNaK.
00:06:40
They reflect back on the story of Moses from their vantage point.
00:06:43
They tell us that never again in Israel's history did a prophet like Moses arise.
00:06:49
Man, I wish another prophet-priest-king like him would come along.
00:06:53
With that, we move into the Nevi'im.
00:06:56
It has two sub-collections.
00:06:58
First, the former prophets.
00:07:00
Four narrative works about Israel's story in the Promised Land,
00:07:03
told from the later perspective of the prophet.
00:07:06
Things start great with Joshua's leadership.
00:07:08
We are told he is successful because he is just like Moses.
00:07:11
And, he meditates on Scripture day and night.
00:07:14
But, eventually, even Joshua fails
00:07:17
beginning Israel's long and violent descent into self destruction,
00:07:21
just like Moses and the garden story anticipated.
00:07:24
These stories mostly focus on the failure of Israel's kings, prophets and priests,
00:07:29
how they lie, cheat, kill each other and worship idols.
00:07:32
It is basically a longer, bloodier replay of the ancestors' failures.
00:07:37
But there are some bright spots.
00:07:39
God reaffirms his covenant promise to bless humanity through a new human.
00:07:43
It will be a king from the line of David.
00:07:45
You get some stories about people like David or Solomon
00:07:48
who have moments like Abraham when they trust God
00:07:52
But it never lasts.
00:07:53
Wouldn't you know it, the family of Abraham ends up right where they began,
00:07:57
conquered and exiled in Babylon.
00:08:00
But remember, this whole story is being told from the later perspective of the prophet.
00:08:04
They know exile is not the end.
00:08:07
So they design these stories of Israel's past as pointers to their future hope.
00:08:12
When God does rescue his people out of Babylon,
00:08:15
he will send that new king who will be like Moses and David and Solomon were on their good days.
00:08:21
In fact, this is what the second part of the Nevi'im, the latter prophet, is all about.
00:08:26
There are 3 large and 12 short works connected to specific prophets.
00:08:31
This design intentionally recalls the 3 plus 12 ancestors from Genesis
00:08:36
whose stories of failure contained the seeds of hope.
00:08:40
These prophetic scrolls are loaded with cross references
00:08:43
that link back into the narrative of the Torah and the Prophets and they carry the story further.
00:08:49
The job of lsrael's prophets was to be like Moses,
00:08:52
to accuse the old Israel of failure and corruption,
00:08:55
and to warn them about the looming result: the great Day of the Lord,
00:08:59
which ended with defeat and exile in Babylon.
00:09:02
But the prophets also promised that God had a purpose:
00:09:06
to purify his people and recreate a new Israel who would be faithful like Abraham was.
00:09:11
They will live in a new covenant relationship with God under the reign of that promised ruler
00:09:16
who is described as a new Moses but called by the name, David.
00:09:21
He will be the one to restore God's blessing to the entire world.
00:09:24
The conclusion of the Nevi'im is just like the Torah.
00:09:27
There is a note from the TaNaK's prophetic scribes.
00:09:30
They reflect back over the whole story so far.
00:09:32
They urge readers to anticipate the arrival of a new Moses-like prophet who they call "Elijah".
00:09:39
He will announce the arrival of Israel's God to purify and save his people.
00:09:44
From here, we move into the TaNaKh's third and final sub-collection, the Ketuvim, a diverse collection of scrolls.
00:09:51
Each one has been designed to link back into the key themes from the Torah and the Prophets
00:09:56
and develop them further through an elaborate tapestry of cross references.
00:10:01
For example, the Psalms scroll is introduced by two poems that are coordinated to the beginning of the Torah and the Prophets.
00:10:08
In the first Psalm, we meet the Righteous One who is described as a new Joshua,
00:10:13
a successful leader who meditates on the Scriptures.
00:10:16
He is like the king promised by Moses.
00:10:18
And he is like the eternal tree of life in the Garden of Eden.
00:10:22
Psalm 2 then identifies this figure: it is the promised king, the son of God from the line of David
00:10:28
who is going to defeat evil among the nations and restore God's blessing to the world.
00:10:32
The rest of the Psalms scroll teaches God's people how to pray as they wait for this future hope.
00:10:39
Then there are the wisdom scrolls that address some of the most difficult questions raised by the story of the Torah and the Prophets.
00:10:46
So Proverbs sounds like Moses in the Torah:
00:10:49
trust in God, be faithful and obedient, and you will have peace and success.
00:10:53
But then, Ecclesiastes and Job reflect back on Israel's complicated history and say,
00:10:59
"Yeah, we tried that, and it is not that simple."
00:11:02
These three books carry on a profound conversation
00:11:05
about what it means to live wisely in God's good and often confusing world.
00:11:11
Two of the last books of the TaNaKh to be written make a crucial contribution.
00:11:15
The Daniel scroll looks back over the long history of Israel's failure and suffering
00:11:20
as a strange door of hope into a new future for the world.
00:11:24
One day, that new human promised in the Torah and the Prophets will arrive.
00:11:29
He is going to be trampled by humanity's animal-like inclinations towards evil.
00:11:34
But then God will vindicate him and raise him up to rule the world in divine power.
00:11:40
Finally, the scroll of Chronicles retells the entire story of the TaNaKh, from the beginning up to Israel's return from exile.
00:11:48
The author focuses on God's promise to David of a future king
00:11:51
who will reunite God's people in a new Jerusalem and bring divine blessing to the nations.
00:11:57
The final lines of the Chronicles scroll have been coordinated with key texts from all over the TaNaKh.
00:12:03
They keep alive the hope of an ultimate return from exile,
00:12:06
pointing to the arrival of an Israelite whose God is with him
00:12:10
that he may go up and restore the new Jerusalem.
00:12:14
That is how the story ends.
00:12:16
The TaNaKh is a majestically and intentionally designed collection of ancient Hebrew scrolls.
00:12:22
These diverse texts from all periods of Israel's history have been woven together as a unified story
00:12:28
about God's covenant promise to Israel and to all humanity.
00:12:32
They were made for a lifetime's worth of reading and reflection
00:12:35
as these remarkable human words offer a divine word of wisdom and future hope that still speaks today.
