Book Comment: A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

 

In his book, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Dr. Gleason L. Archer presents a conservative discussion pf Old Testament canonicity, historicity, information about the Semitic languages, known textual problems, the “specific difficulties” presented by each book, archaeological evidences, how the Hebrew/Aramaic manuscripts were prepared and transmitted to new generations, and the challenges which can be presented by higher criticism.

Gleason sees the Old Testament as the preparation and the New Testament as the completion of the Christian message. He points out that “It made a great deal of difference that Greek was precise in expressing time values, and that Hebrew laid chief emphasis upon mode of action rather than upon tense.”

The survey takes each book verse by verse and discusses historical, textual, and modern questions. The text assumes some level of knowledge about archaeology, the Hebrew language, the history of the Middle East, various approaches to biblical criticism, and tends to become a little technical on some points. It is obviously intended for beginning college or seminary level students but is not above the understanding of the interested layman. Pastors and academics will definitely find it useful.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book:

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

 

Almost everyone acknowledges that the original text documents of the New Testament have been lost. The originals were written on perishable materials and were hand copied onto other perishable materials to be distributed among the churches. Constant use, environmental factors, and sheer age led to the degradation of the documents which had to be recopied repeatedly. What we now have has been reconstructed from thousands of early textual fragments and the earliest known full copies of the books.

In the 120 pages of his book, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce presents a detailed but highly readable statement about the proofs that the modern New Testament as it stands represents as much as a 99.9 percent recovery of the original documents. Through the comparison of numerous copies, scribal errors and intentional editing can be detected and rejected. The oldest copies and those with the hardest to accept meaning (and therefore most likely to be "corrected" by the scribe) are favored.

Comparing the extant New Testament documents to those of secular antiquity, Bruce shows that the texts of the Christian scriptures are actually far better attested than those of universally accepted secular books.

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F.F. Bruce, who died in 1990, was a highly influential British conservative evangelical biblical scholar and university professor. He wrote numerous books and articles.  https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802867230/f-f-bruce/

Information you will need to search for this book: Bruce, F.F., The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downer’s Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 5^th ed., 1960).

A similar book with a very apologetic bent is:

Sala, Harold J., Why You Can Have Confidence in the Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008).  (This is an apologetics book comparing the extant biblical documentation to that of classical documents from antiquity.)

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Jesus Spoke Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek

The New Testament is written in Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire at the time.  It was the Greek language which helped spread the gospel across the then known world. Some, myself included, believe that God arranged events so that at the arrival of Jesus there was one essentially global empire with one universally understood language. Communications across the Empire were much faster across great distances than we today would imagine.

The languages of the subjugated peoples were still in use and the Jews spoke Aramaic among themselves. The sacred language in use in their synagogues was Hebrew and they considered it to be a great honor to speak and read before the congregation.  Jesus would have been conversant in both languages and he also read before the congregation. The Samaritan Woman at the Well would have been speaking Hebrew. (Luke 2: 39-52; John 4:4-26: Luke 4:16-21)  Some of Jesus' sayings  in the New Testament are presented in untranslated Aramaic. ("Talitha cumi" and "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!")

Many Jews probably spoke only Aramaic and Hebrew, but to function in the Roman environment it was very helpful to also speak and understand Greek. Jesus was able to talk to Pilate (John 18: 28-38) and the Roman soldiers  (Matthew 8: 5-13 ), answering them in Greek It is unlikely that Pilate or the centurions understood a single word of Aramaic.

Biblical Greek Word Studies: μετοικεσίας

I started trying to read my Greek New Testament again recently, and very soon realized that the old adage "use it or lose it" really is true.  What I have especially forgotten is the vocabulary.

As I work my way through the new Testament, starting with the book 

ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ,

"according to Matthew"), I plan on posting vocabulary studies.  I hope you find the posts to be useful.

The first word is metoikesias μετοικεσίας which appears in Matthew 1:17.  The word is from metoikizo which means "changing one's abode," "resettle," or "deport."

Πᾶσαι οὖν αἱ γενεαὶ ἀπὸ Ἀβραὰμ ἕως Δαυὶδ γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες, καὶ ἀπὸ Δαυὶδ ἕως τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς μετοικεσίας Βαβυλῶνος ἕως τοῦ χριστοῦ γενεαὶ δεκατέσσαρες. (SBL Greek New Testament)

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and

from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations;

and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. (KJV)

Thanksgivingkuh

When I first heard about Thanksgivingkuh, it somehow did not sound right to me.  It is a sort of comical take on the extremely rare occurance of the American secular holiday, Thanksgiving, and the first day of the Jewish religious holiday, Hanukkah, occurring on the same day.  The next time this convergence will occur is on 28 November 79,811.   Since the Hanukkah festival lasts for eight days, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah have and will continue to occur on other days within the eight-day period over the years.  The last time both holidays fell on the first day of the festival was on 29 November 1888.  Hanukkah 2013 began on Wednesday 27 November because the Jewish day begins at sundown.  Since the Jewish calendar is lunar-based and on a nineteen year cycle, the festivals move around in date much more than in the common Gregorian Calendar.  Hanukkah begins each year on the 25^th day of the month of Kislev.

Thansgivingkuh (Thanksgiving + Hanukkah) cards have appeared along with a menurkey (menorah + turkey).  A menurkey is a turkey decoration whose tail holds the candles normally place in the sacred menorah.

I asked a Jewsih friend what he thought of Thanksgivingkuh and he said he had not heard of it but that he was amused. My friend did not share my feeling that the merging of the two holidays, one secular and one religious, was somehow sacrilegious.  Though Hanukkah is a religious holiday, many American Jews see it as overly secularized and commercialized.  Some see it as a time to give gifts so that their children will not be upset about not celebrating Christmas.

Hanukkah celebrates a Jewish military victory in 165 BC/BCE over the Greek/Syrian army of Antiochus Epiphanes after which the candle in the Temple burned for eight days on a supply of oil sufficient for only one day.  The battle ended on 25 Kislev. This was seen as an affirmation from God of the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.  The word “Hanukkah” derives from the Hebrew verb חנך   which means “to dedicate.”  The festival is mentioned in the New Testament at John 10:22-23.  The events of Hanukkah are recounted in the apocryphal books of 1 and 2 Maccabees.

Rachel Gurevitz, the Senior Rabbi at Congregation B.nai Shalom in Westborough, Massacusetts, sees Thanksgivingkuh as a chance to discuss Jewish and American history with children, seeing a convergence of meaning in both holidays.  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, on the Fox News Channel, said essentially the same thing.

I am not a humorless Scrooge, but Thanksgivingkuh still strikes me as questionable.

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I am not sure who first pointed this out, but Hanukkah, from a Christian perspective, is very important.  If Antiochus Epiphanes had succeeded in basically exterminating the Jewish religion, then Jesus would probably not have been born as a Jew.   Jesus had to be truly human, He had to be truly divine, and He had to be Jewish.  Salvation comes through the Jews (John 4: 22).  God used the Jewish nation over the centuries to reveal Himself in a manner intellible to man’s limited understanding.  All of history before the Crucifixion was a preparation and an explanation of what God is like and what the Crucifixion and Resurrection mean.

Extrabiblical Evidences of Biblical Persons, Places, and/or Events: The Gezer Calendar

The Gezer Calendar is a tenth century BC/BCE (possibly 925 BC/BCE) fragment of an inscribed limestone  plate.  It was found in the ruins of the Canaanite city of Gezer (Tell el-Jazari).  The inscription is one of the earliest known examples of a text written in ancient Hebrew script.  It consists of seven lines of text and was discovered in 1908 by R.A.S. Macalister (see the bibliography below).  The Hebrew name, Abijah, appears in the text.

The calendar describes the crops planted, tended, and harvested in various months.  The purpose of the calendar is unknown, but some have suggested that it may have been used for taxation purposes. 

http://www.google.com/search?q=the+gezer+calendar&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=-9jBUerzIYzS9ASAzoDQCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQsAQ&biw=1202&bih=812

The limestone tablet is housed in the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul, Turkey. The Jewish Virtual Library gives these bibliographical listings for the Gezer Calendar: 

R.A.S. Macalister, Excavation of Gezer, 2 (1912), 24–28; Albright, in: BASOR, 92 (1943), 16–26; L. Finkelstein, ibid., 94 (1944), 28–29; Wright, in: BA, 18 (1955), 50–56; Segal, in: JSS, 7 (1962), 212–21; Talmon, in: JAOS, 83 (1963), 177–87; Wirgin, in: Eretz Israel, 6 (1960), 9–12 (Eng. section); Rathjen, in: PWQ, 93 (1961), 70–72; Honeyman, in: JRAS (1953), 53–58; Pritchard, Texts, 320; Pritchard, Pictures, 272; EM, 2 (1965), 471–4 (incl. bibl.).  S. Ahituv, Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions (1992), 149–52.

Biblical mentions of Gezer: Joshua 10:1-34, 12:12, 16:3-10, 21:21; 1 Chronicles 6:67, 7:28, 14:6, 20:4; Judges 1:29; 2 Samuel 5:25; 1 Kings 9:15-17.  Gezer is not mentioned in the New Testament.  During that period it was known as Gazara.

Missing Something

On a calendar, we switched the page from March to April.   The next page said October, then November, then December. There was no sign of April through September.  This is the way that many people read their Bibles.

Many people don’t seem to realize that the Bible is one book.  They read only the New Testament.  They ignore, reinterpret, or “re-imagine” passages which are uncomfortable or which do not fit into their philosophy of life.

Book Comment: Who's Who in the Age of Jesus

The 2005 book, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus, by professor Geza Vermes, is an extremely interesting book for those who love history, biography, and the Bible.  Dr. Vermes intended the book to emphasize the unassailable historicity and the intense Jewishness of Jesus. 

Many of the people Dr. Vermes discusses are persons you have never heard of before.  He talks, of course, about the Roman emperors, governors, procurators, and legates and the Jewish High priests, but also about important women such a Mariamne and Drusilla,  rabbis such as Yohanan ben Zakkai and Simeon ben Shetah, Jewish mystics such as Simon the Essene and Honi the Circle-Drawer, Jewish revolutionaries such as Simon bar Giora and Judas son of Sapphoreus, writers such as Josephus and Justus of Tiberias,  and important persons.

The book also contains genealogical charts and a chronological table.

Dr. Vermes was born in 1924 in Hungary into a Jewish family, some of whom (including his parents) died during the Holocaust.  The family became converts to Roman Catholicicsm and young Geza went on to become a Roman catholic priest.  Vermes is essentially a scholar and academic and became a specialist in Hebrew, Aramaic, Christian and Jewish history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the life of Jesus. 

 Dr. Vermes questions some of the traditional Christian understandings of Jesus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/mar/18/academicexperts.highereducationprofile

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, of their orthodoxy or lack of it, or of their actions.  Some of those listed may surprise you.  Readers are encouraged to suggest persons who should be included on this list.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Duccio di Buoninsegna: (b. ca. 1255-1260, Italy – d. 1318-1319)  Painter.  He worked on commission and provided paintings for churches, cathedrals, and government buildings.  Many of his works are now lost.

Frederick Fyvie Bruce: (b. 1910, Scotland –d. 1990; aka: F. F. Bruce) Biblical scholar, university professor, specialist on the life and ministry of Paul, wrote over forty books and biblical commentaries.  In his classic work, New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, he showed that the New Testament documents have better historical attestation than any other ancient documents.

Allan B. Bicknell: (b. ca 1890, USA –d. 1948) University professor of French, Greek, Latin, and Spanish at Bridgewater University for forty-one years (1906-0917), opera singer.    

Asa: On 6 June 2012, a pastor identified only as Asa was arrested for proselytizing in Laos.

Joseph Elliot Giradi: (b. 1964, Illinois, USA) Major League Baseball catcher anf manager. 2006 National League Manager of the Year.

Where is Samaria?

The region of Samaria is mentioned repeatedly in the New Testament, but exactly where is Samaria?  The answer is that ancient Samaria corresponds approximately to the northern half of the modern West Bank.  The Hebrew name is Somron or Shomron.

32.1431 N, 35.2606 E

http://www.longitude-latitude-maps.com/city/102_47,Eli,Judea+and+Samaria,Israel

The name of Samaria is derived from Shemer.  Shemer was either an individual, a family, or a tribe from whom King Omri purchased the area about 884 BC.   Omri, the King of Israel, built his capital city here in this wine and oil production area.

The Samaritans are still an identifiable Abrahamic people who claim to practice the original Abrahamic religion.  They insist that Judaism is a later innovation.

The Samaritans built their temple on Mount Gerizim in the Fifth Century BC/BCE.  The Maccabean leader John Hyrcanus destroyed the Samaritan temple in 110 BC/BCE. 

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

F. F. Bruce was one of the pre-eminent New Testament scholars of the Twentieth Century.  He insisted that the New Testament documents are historically accurate and are better attested than universally accepted classical writings.  An emphasis of his teaching was that Christianity has its roots in history.  Though some religions (such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism) can stand independently of their actual historicity, Christianity is firmly grounded in provable dates and facts.  No credible scholar now insists that Jesus did not exist.

Dr. Bruce said,  “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning.  And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

Here is some evidence:

There are only two known copies of Lucretius’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1100 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Plato’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Aristophanes’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only eight known copies of Herodotus’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1300 years after the originals were written.

There are only forty-nine known copies of Aristotle’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are only six hundred and forty three known copies of Homer’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 500 years after the originals were written.

There are only one hundred and ninety-three known copies of Sophocles’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are 5686 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  The earliest dates to about 100 years after the originals were written.  There are over 25,000 partial documents.  The John Rylands Fragment, containing John 18: 31-33, dates from about twenty-nine to thirty-five years after the original was written. 

Luke says he recorded what was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses…” (Luke 1:2.)

Messianic Prophecies From the Bible: The Star of Bethlehem

Messianic Prophecies is a recurrent segment in this blog.  To see links to several other posts, click here.

Old Testament:

“I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.” Numbers 24:17

New Testament:

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”  Matthew 2:1-2

In ancient times, stars and comets were often believed to be heralds of important events.  Stars were also seen as symbols of royal power.

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To see other posts about Messianic prophecies in the Bible, go to the Labels list at the bottom of this page.  The labels are in alphabetical order.  Click on "Messianic Prophecies."

Messianic Prophecies from the Bible: He Would Die Among the Wicked But Be Buried Among the Wealthy and Powerful

Old Testament Prophecy:

“And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” Isaiah 53:9

New Testament Fulfillment:

Jesus was crucified and died between two thieves (Luke 23:32-43).  After Jesus’s death, a wealthy Israelite, Joseph of Arimathea (a secret believer and a member of the Sanhedrin; Matthew 27:57, Luke 23:50, Mark 15:43) asked Pontius Pilate for Jesus’ body (Mark 15:43-45).  The fact that Joseph was allowed to speak to Pilate attests to his social prominence.

Joseph and Nicodemus placed Jesus into Joseph’s tomb which Joseph had previously prepared for his own burial. (Matthew 27:59-60, Mark 15:46, Luke 23:53, John 19:38-42.)

The Praetorian Guard

The “Praetorian Guard” is never specifically mentioned in the New Testament.  They are referenced as “the praetorium” (τῷ πραιτωρίῳ) in Philippians 1:13.  They were the bodyguards of the Roman emperors and served for sixteen year terms, followed by a very generous retirement package.

The group was formally chartered in 27 BC/BCE by the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, and, over the years grew to have great political influence,  receiving greater pay and privileges than common Roman soldiers.  The guard was abolished in 312 AD/CE by the Emperor Constantine the Great.

ὥστε τοὺς δεσμούς μου φανεροὺς ἐν Χριστῷ γενέσθαι ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς πάσιν,

Unusual Christian Places: Lexington Ice Center Miniature Golf

Lexington Ice Center Miniature Golf  in Lexington, Kentucky (USA) is described by Entertainmentdesigner.com  as “a mini-golf course God himself would be proud of. … we consider it kooky and memorable enough to make the top ten”

The complex is built around an ice skating/hockey rink to which has been added three 18-hole biblically themed miniature golf courses.  The three themes are : the New Testament, the Old Testament, and the Miracles course.  The individual holes are each based on a verse or passage of scripture, such as Jonah and the Whale, Mount Sinai, or the River of Blood.  

For those unfamiliar with miniature golf, it is usually played on short themed putting tracks which incorporate odd angles, obstacles, and themed characters or objects placed along the course.  At one famed course in Florida (USA) there once was a giant monkey whose tail swept regularly in front of the hole.

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Update: 27 July 2026: YouTube seems to have removed or blocked the previously attached video clip.

A Joke Credited to the Roman Emperor Augustus

The Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus (b. 63BC/BCE - d. 14 AD/CE)  is only mentioned once in the New Testament.


"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." Luke 2:1


Emperor Augustus is credited with the eighth oldest known joke in recorded history:  "Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself.  Intrigued he asked, "Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?" "No your Highness," he replied, "but my father was."

Palindromes

The palindrome is a literary device in which a phrase, number, word, or sequence reads the same when read either from the left or the right.  The word “palindrome” was invented in the seventeenth century by the British writer Ben Johnson (1572-1637), from two Greek words; palin (πάλιν), meaning “again,” "back," "further," or "on the other hand," and dromos (δρόμος), meaning "road," “way,” or “direction.”

The earliest known palindrome is from 79 AD/CE, found in the ruins of the city of Herculaneum which was destroyed along with Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted.  79 AD is squarely within the late New Testament period.

The palindrome found in Herculaneum is actually four palindromes, a word square, cut into a square block of stone.  The Latin inscription reads “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas” which in English reads as “The sower, Arepo, holds works wheels.” The phrase reads the same if read from left to right, right to left, top to bottom, and bottom to top.

                                    SATOR

                                    AREPO

                                    TENET

                                    OPERA

                                    ROTAS

The New and Old Testaments

The New Testament was originally written in all upper case letters with no spaces between consecutive words.  The Old Testament was originally written in all upper case letters with no spaces between consecutive words and with no vowels.  Neither language used any punctuation. The paragraph below will give you an idea of how this would look in modern English.

THENEWTESTAMENTWASORIGINALLYWRITTENINALLUPPERCASELETTERSWITHNOSPACESBETWEENCONSECTIVEWORDSTHELDTSTMNTWSRGNLLWRTTNNLLPPRCSLTTRSWTHNSPCSBTWNCNSCTVWRDSNDNVWELS

Common Greek

In yesterday's post I mentioned the Koine or "common"Greek in which the New Testament was written.  The Koine dialect was the one commonly in use in the known world during the Hellenistic and Roman historical periods.  The word is a feminine form of the Greek word "koinos (κοινώς)," translated as "common."  It was the language of the common people and the lingua franca, the language used in common by the entire Mediterranean area, the language everyone understood and spoke even if their primary language was something else, similar to the status of Hindi in modern India.


Classical Greek had several dialects.  The dialect spoken in Athens was called Attic.  The Ionic dialect was spoken in the Greek city states across the Aegean Sea from Athens.  Koine Greek developed from the Attic and Ionic dialects.  Because it was the dialect spoken by Alexander the Great, Koine was spread throughout the known world.  Many Christians believe that this was in preparation for God's presentation of the Gospel to the world.