STUDY JOURNAL

Chapter 1

1. The term “canon” means a measuring standard for faith and practice. People knew or decided which books

belonged in the Bible by using principles which are: written by a prophet or other Spirit-led person (the

Spirit of God had to guide the writing process), written to all generations (had to impact all generations),

and written in accord with previous revelation (could not contradict the message of earlier canonical books).

2. The Bible is unique because it is God's revelation recorded in human language. According to 2 Timothy

3:16-17 the words of Scripture are "God breathed" or inspired. This implies that God is the source or origin

of what is recorded in Scripture. God, through the Holy Spirit, used human authors to write what He

revealed in the Bible. They were not mere copyists or transcribers. The Holy Spirit guided and controlled

the writers of Scripture, who used their own vocabularies and styles but wrote only what the Holy Spirit

intended.

The Bible is verbally inspired. This means that the words of the Bible, not just the ideas, were inspired.

What is more, this is true of not just some, but all the words of the Bible. As a result, the Bible is free from

error in what it says. It is the supreme source of our knowledge of God and of the salvation provided

through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.8 It is our indispensable resource for daily living.

3. Scribes played a crucial role in the ancient world. They copied God’s Word by hand, taking great care to

maintain its accuracy. The scribes who copied the biblical texts believed they were copying the very words

of God. Consequently, they took great care to preserve the copies they had received. The major manuscripts

we have are: The Masoretes (comes from the Masoretes and the oldest copies of this text date to somewhat

earlier than AD 1000 and it is the most reliable Hebrew text we have), The Samaritan Pentateuch (only

contains Genesis to Deuteronomy and originated with the Samaritans. Its oldest dates are about AD 1100. It

is not as reliable for determining the text’s original reading because they only believed the Pentateuch and

had chosen Mount Gerizim – not Mount Zion as a place for worship him), the dead sea scrolls (a shepherd

boy accidentally discovered the first of the Dead Sea Scroll in a cave in 1947. Scrolls date to about 200-100

BC and found more scrolls in the cave and contains at least parts of every OT book. They confirm the
 reliability of the Masoretic Text), the Septuagint (also called LXX because written by 70 people – it is a

translation of Hebrew text into Greek. Some parts of the Septuagint are more reliable than others (eg.

Masoretic – Jeremiah), and the Aramaic Targum (It reflect a fairly literal translation of the Hebrew. They

add commentary and stories as they elaborate on the text’s meaning. They are collections of writings based

on the OT text, but they do not provide a reliable witness to the OT text.

4. Grammatical-Historical interpretation is trying to find the basic “plain sense” meaning of a Bible passage by

applying standard rules of grammar and syntax. It seeks to determine what the text says grammatically and

what it meant historically. It tries to discover the author’s original intention. It is important to use good

guidelines for interpretation because it helps us to know the context of the text and the author’s intended

meaning.

Chapter 2

1. God’s revealed truth in the Old Testament is called OT incarnational. God revealed himself in specific times

and places to a specific group of people, the Israelites.

2. The location of Israel was strategic in ancient times because many nations and empires throughout history

desired to control, or at least have access to, Israel for purposes of trade and transportation to other parts of

the ancient world and many foreign cultural influences poured into ancient Israel.

3. The ancient Near East contains three geographical subregions joined by an arch of rich soil known as the

“Fertile Crescent.” Most of the terrain of the ancient world was rugged and inhospitable to human life. The

three geographical subregions of the ancient Near East are Mesopotamia (the potential good life in Mesopotamia

was no secret to others living in the ancient Near East), Syria-Palestine (the great cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt

were made possible by geographical features leading to the organization and unification of the regions), and Egypt (the

development of Egyptian hieroglyphs may have been influenced by Mesopotamian cuneiform, though this is far from

certain).

4. The four subregions of Israel are the coastal plains (this region was one of the riches in ancient Israel because of its

fertile soil and the accessibility of water), the ridge, or central mountain range (a ridge of hills rises sharply between

the coastal plains and the Jordan Rifts. A steep slope separates Upper Galilee from Lower Galilee to the south, with
 altitudes just below 2000 feet), the Transjordanian highlands (this mountain tableland is divided by four river canyons:

Yarmuk, Jabbok, Arnon, and Zered), and highways of the ancient near east (the way of the sea and the King’s

highway).

5. Around 3300 BC, bronze technology spread throughout the ancient Near East, and around 1200 BC, people discovered the

greater benefits of the us iron. About 3300 to 2000 BC, this period witnessed the invention of writing and the beginnings of

human history. By the close of the Early Bronze Age, all the main features of human civilization and culture had appeared

in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. The period of Meddle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC) is marked by the movement of ethnic

groups and new empires replacing the order powers of the Early Bronze Age. Hammurapi rose to power in 1792 BC and

established the old Babylonia empire. He is most famous for his collection of laws, many of which bear striking

resemblance to the laws of Moses in the Pentateuch. In this Middle Bronze Age, God called Abram and happened the

stories of Abram, Isaac and Jacob.

6. Moses and Joshua times were happened in the late Bronze Age. Egypt was dominant throughout this period; Mesopotamia

experienced a time of political weakness. The Babylonian dialect of Akkadian became the lingua franca, or international

language of the day. Hundreds of clay tablets written in Babylonian (the so-called Amarna Letters) have been found at

Akhenaten’s short-lived capital. Sometime during the Late Bronze Age, while Israel suffered under the heavy burden of

slavery in Egypt, Moses was born to the tribe of Levi. Moses was prepared and called by God to lead the Israelites out of

their bondage in Egypt.

7. Around 1200 BC, cataclysmic changes began to occur in the ancient Near East. The major powers suddenly

declined, and the political map changed dramatically. Survivors must have fled by sea along the coasts of

the Mediterranean, disrupting all the major powers of the ancient world. These people are known as “Sea

people.” There are two special significance changes brought about by the Sea people. First, the political

order that had existed for over three hundred years dissolved, leaving a power vacuum. They eventually

developed smaller empires of their own, notably the Arameans of Damascus and the Israelites in the

highlands of Palestine. Second result of the arrival of the sea peoples was the spread of new metalworking

technology, particularly the use of iron for making weapons. Gradually iron technology replaced bronze,

and archaeologists refer to the period after 1200 BC as the Iron Age. It was the time of King Saul, David

and Solomon.
8. Archaeologists use the term Iron Age II for the period 930-539 BC, which covers Israel’s divided kingdoms:

northern Israel and southern Judah. It includes most of the times of OT prophetic books – the kingdom of

Babylon and Persia.

Chapter 3

1. The term “Pentateuch” refers to the first five books or the Bible (from Greek pente, “five” and teuchos,

“scroll). The Jewish designation for these books is the Hebrew word “Torah.” Although we usually translate

this word “law,” it means much more. It comes from a word for “teach” and is better understood as

“instruction.” “Torah” is an appropriate tag for these first five books of the Bible, because they contain

instructions for life.

2. Genesis comes from a Greek word meaning “origins.” The problem in Gen. 1-11 is humanity ruined what

God had accomplished. The effects of sin were evident in every aspect of God’s creation and became

progressively worse. Genesis 12-50 is the story of Abraham, his family, and their journey of faith. The point

of Gen. 12-50 is that these people believed God, and he used their faith as the solution to the sin problem in

the world. or at least as the beginning of the solution.

3. Exodus means departure. The role of the Exodus is the preparation and call of Moses and his role in leading

the Israelites out of Egypt. This miraculous deliverance of God’s people is the formative event in Israelite

history and the best example of God’s power and grace. The book also describes God’s special new binding

relationship (covenant) with his people.

4. Leviticus is indispensable to the total message of the Pentateuch. It calls God’s people to ritual and moral

purity. In Exodus, God liberated captive Israel and established a unique relationship with the nation.

Leviticus focuses on how the people can maintain that relationship. It instructs the priests in how to offer

appropriate sacrifices to God. The content of Deuteronomy restates the law of covenant (Deuteronomy

means second law) and warns them against turning from God and his people.

5. The overarching themes of the Pentateuch are Sovereignty of God, History, Fallen Condition of Humanity,

Salvation and Holiness.

references that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. The Talmud refers to the first five books of the Bible

as “the books of Moses.” The Mishnah and the Jewish historian Josephus both accepted the Mosaic

authorship of the Pentateuch and other evidence also proved that Moses’ authorship – Modern critical

approaches, source criticism, redaction and form criticism, tradition criticism, canonical and literary

approaches.

7. Source Criticism – The end of 19 century, a new paradigm emerged that the Pentateuch had been compiled

from four separate sources and this theory is frequently known as the Documentary Hypothesis.

Redaction Criticism – This has attempted to explain scientifically how these four separate sources were

edited together, but this approach has met with little agreement among scholars.

Form Criticism – It become a popular approach shortly after Wellhausen’s development of the source

theory.

Tradition Criticism – This approach is more subjective than other approaches and fails to take account

evidence from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. It comes from form criticism.

Canonical Criticism – This approach attempts to study the received form of the OT and to expose its

theological message. This approach provides a helpful corrective to the atomizing tendencies of its

critical predecessors.

Literary Criticism – This approach emphasis on text-centered, or sometimes reader-centered, analysis rather

than the traditional author-centered approaches of earlier scholars.

8. Conservative biblical scholars learned a great deal from these various approaches. Conservative have

contributed most of the OT scholarship – the use of ancient Near Eastern comparative materials to serve as

checks and balances for proper methods of OT research. The three positions are allowing for various

degrees of post-Mosaic material, dating the final form of the Pentateuch to a period between Joshua and

Solomon (substantial amounts of post-Mosaic material were also included), and believing that the

Pentateuch acquired its current form relatively late in Israel’s history.