Old Testament

I remember in Sunday school, the teacher said we should all read the Bible. It would not be easy but he was going to give us ten years to do it. Ten years, I thought, wow that’s plenty of time. Well thirty years later I thought I should get started. I have always been intrigued by the Old Testament as it seemed really out there. Once I got into it, I found it was WAY out there. I give the followers of these words a great deal of credit for being able to reconcile them in today’s world. But at the same time I find virtually the entire thing very believable and profound. I’m not turned off at all by the death, destruction and overall meanness of God or the people in it.

I can’t say I gained any great insight or revelations. But reading them for myself was important. For me much of it was simply amazing. Much of it occurred over two thousand years ago, that’s many thousands of generations. The people I can from lived during this time, probably not in this area, but maybe. They had many of the same concerns as we do today in our internet connected society but they also lived during a time we just can begin to imagine.

The fact that all of this has survived and influenced so many people so profoundly is nothing short of a miracle. Below is my quick interpretation.

Genesis

In the beginning God made man to have someone to hang out with and gave him a woman and all kinds of creatures. He told them “Ignorance is bliss” but when they chose knowledge, he said life will now be difficult, and it has been ever since.

Man propagated but God didn’t like what they became, but he liked Noah. He killed them all but Noah and his family as a reboot of the man experiment.

Later man strayed again but this time he picked Abraham. He had a son Isaac who had Jacob, who had Joseph. Joseph was sold to the Egyptians as a slave but later became the number guy after the Pharaoh and was able to save his family and all the his people when they moved to Egypt.

Exodus

Later the Egyptian Pharaoh’s thought the second class citizen Jews were becoming to numerous, so they tried to thin the numbers by killing the newborn boys. Moses survived and through God brought wrath onto the Egyptians until he let them leave along with a bunch of loot from the locals.

The Jews left but strayed from God. He wanted to kill them but Moses pleaded from them. God made them wonder though the desert until that current generation died off.

Leviticus

God gives his people a huge and detailed list of rules. Rules on what to eat, how couples engage and worshiping that consisted of sacrificing and burning certain animal parts. It set up a very structured priesthood. He was particularly ruthless about punishing people that worshipped other Gods. Much of the killing of other tribes later on is so his people don’t learn the worshipping habits of other people.

Numbers

This is an accounting journal of the people. Very detailed records.

Deuteronomy

This is basically a rehash by Moses of everything that happened up until now. Moses dies before they get to the promised land.

Joshua

Joshua is the successor to Moses. He takes the people into Canaan and crushes and annihilates everyone until they conquer most of the land promised. This period is particularly brutal by today’s standards. He is very successful during the initial conquest. He divides up all the land between the 12 tribes.

Judges

It gets messy as they try and claim the rest of the territory and fall into a period of defeat until certain Judges (mini leaders) but lasts only during the period these Judges are alive. All defeats are blamed on Gods people turning away from him. When it gets bad enough, they come back, ask for help and God sends them a Judge.

Ruth

Cute story of Ruth, the good daughter-in-law. After sticking it out with her mother-in-law she gets rewarded with a new husband and to be the great grandmother of Kind David.

1 Samuel

Samuel becomes an important priest of the Lord and anoints Saul as the first King of Israel. But Saul gets mad when a young David gets better placement in a song than he does and wants to kill him. David gives Saul a few chances and surprisingly stays loyal to the current king. Saul son Jonathan sides with David. But God sends the king and his son to battle and both die and the ark of the covenant is captured because God is displeased with Saul.

2 Samuel

David becomes king but commits adultery and murder but overall is a good king. He shows kindness to the previous kings family, rare at the time. Two of his sons die, one that raped his sister the other that killed him for it.

1 Kings

David gets old, there is a power struggle but he helps get his son Solomon into power as the next king. Solomon is a great king, finds peace or victory on all sides and builds the first Temple, piled high with gold. God is unhappy again because the people are once again worshipping false idols so promises bad stuff will happen.

2 Kings

After the death of Solomon, the kingdom breaks up and goes into civil and external war for a LONG time.

Chronicles

After a long exile from their land and in under the control of others, the people start to return and this book is intended to list the details and records of the past. I think it was suppose to inspire people, but only an accountant could love this. The Temple is destroyed and contents carried off to Babylon.

Ezra

Cyrus king of Persia decides to let the Jews return and rebuild their temple. Erza leads the people to get rid of the foreign brides and people.

Nehemiah

Recounts the details of who has returned and who did what in Old Testament excruciating detail. They start the task of rebuilding the temple and city wall. Many enemies try and stop them and the people arm themselves while working.

Esther

This is a story of a Jewish woman that becomes queen to the Persian king. One of the kings men hates the Jews and sets up a plan to kill her stepfather who will not bow down to the king and have all Jews killed throughout the kingdom. Ester exceeds her role and convinces the King to not only spare the step father but Jews everywhere. On top of this they hang the person responsible for the plan and kill all his sons.

Job

A well known story that is suppose to teach us about suffering. Job is a god-fearing righteous man that is the pawn of a bet between the devil and God. God says “Look at Job, he is such a good guy” The devils says “Sure but its only because he has everything, let’s take it away and see what he does.” So the devil destroys his farm and kills all his children. Job bows down and says “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” The devil then says, “Sure but if we take his health, then he will crack”, so Job ends up in a dump heap scarping scars with a broken pot shard. Again he shakes it off. Three friends come to try and help. They say, come on Job, you must have been a bad guy for all this to happen, but he insists otherwise. They argue for a while, they God buts in and says you guys suck, Job you rule and gives him back everything he had X2 and has him live to be 140 years old.

Psalms

A bunch of poems mostly asking God to help defeat ones enemies. I know there are some very popular ones but I found them lacking in the punch I thought they would contain.

Proverbs

This is the book of wisdom. Like Psalms I didn’t find them as powerful as I would have imagined.

Ecclesiastes

This book tries to drive home the point that life is futile and personal gain a waste of time. I’m told this book points to the coming a Christ, but I didn’t really see it.

Song of Solomon

A sassy description of the romantic relationship between God and his country. Its more blatant then I would have expected. Not quite a love poem, but getting there.

Isaiah

Here the author prophesies the doom of Israel but also its restoration. Like many of the prophets of the time, there is a lot of doom and gloom. Also, it doesn’t matter if you try and do good, as you might be suffering because of what your ancestors did. Seems like the writing was on the wall for some time.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah like other prophets tries to warn the Jews that honoring other God’s is going to bring down the wrath of God. Nobody really listens to him, in fact they seem to treat him like a quack in the streets. He is pretty bitter and frustrated. After much warning he witnesses the destruction of the temple.

Lamentations

This book was written by Jeremiah just after the fall of Jerusalem. Not quite a “I told you so” but maybe that was his intention.

Ezekiel

A prophet during the exile. He tried to help fellow Jews to maintain faith and gave some guidance about practical issues like where to worship now that the temple was destroyed and they would in far away lands. He also tells how the temple would be rebuilt.

Daniel

This prophet also lived during the exile. Daniel is true to his faith and is believed to be able to interpret dreams because of this. Daniel becomes an advisor to Nebuchadnezzar who is currently ruling over them in Babylon and interprets his dreams for him.

The Twelve Prophets

With the exception of Jonah, these minor prophets; Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi don’t stick out in my mind. Perhaps it was because listening to the entire Old Testament was like a marathon and the last mile is just a blur. Jonah of course ,is an interesting story of a man that tried to not do what is suppose to, but does it anyway thanks to God putting him into the mix.