Bible charts

The Backstory of Jesus—Old Testament tabernacle, sacrifices, and festivals—foundation for understanding the rest of the Bible

2023-03-08 by bible805

Every sport, hobby, or special interest has insider terms and history and the more you know the back story of them the more you’ll understand and enjoy the activity. —

The Bible is no different—the more you understand the foundational items in the first 5 books of the Bible, what we call the Pentateuch, the more the rest of the Bible will make sense. This is especially true in what you’ll see about what it will tell you about the foreshadowing of Jesus’ life and completion of our salvation in the Old Testament.

We’ll talk about some of them in this lesson today that is longer and more complex than some, but I trust worth it in your understanding of the Bible. Below is a PDF of the handouts, plus links to the podcast and video on the lesson.

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How we got our English Bibles, The long and winding road from Greek and Hebrew to English translations

2022-10-28 by bible805

After the decision was made as to which books would go into our Bibles, it was still a long, complex, and difficult time before most people had what we take for granted—our own Bibles in the language we speak.

When we see staid, serious, old-fashioned pictures of Bible translators we have no idea of their sacrifices and heroics involved in bringing us God’s Word as we have it today.

In this lesson we will talk about the history, but also how we got the translations we have, the value of listening to the Bible, and which translation is the best one for us for our study and application to our lives.

Below is the Podcast, video, a chart of Bible Translations, and notes of the lesson.

A SPECIAL BONUS: the image of the challenge from the lesson that “You are writing a gospel” is a downloadable, 8.5×11 PDF, free for you. CLICK on the image to download it. Other versions of the image, many sizes for print and social media use are available Bibleverse Shop at: https://payhip.com/b/lNHB7

The chart below is from the Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Time Lines and is not part of any sales but copied for educational purposes. Click on the chart to download it.
Chart of Bible Translations from Rose Publishing use for Educational Purposes

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How we got the New Testament, Part 2—why the Gnostic Gospels aren’t part of it & implications for today

2022-10-13 by bible805

A primary criticism of the New Testament is that critics say that Christians intentionally left out and/or suppressed certain writings, primarily what we call the Gnostic Gospels and that they should be part of our New Testament and aren’t.

It isn’t just scholars who are affected by these views. Consider this quote:

“It seems to me that the only true Christians were the Gnostics, who believed in self-knowledge, i.e. becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light.”

That was the opinion of John Lennon of the Beatles and this idea, along with many other New Age and alternate ideas about spiritual truth have caused many to doubt the solid foundation of our New Testament, which is the ONLY source that truly tells us both how to be saved by faith in Jesus AND how to live our lives after we accept Him as Savior in ways that are pleasing to Him.

But there are alternative voices, and ways to be saved and live a “spiritual” life. These ideas have been the inspiration of books and movies that promote the idea that you need to discover the “god within you” (without Jesus) and the Gnostic Gospels are the origin of where much of this comes from.

This lesson looks at a textual analysis of where they came from and why in every way they are not equal to the Gospels in our Bibles.

Included in the lesson are excerpts from them that will help you see how they have little in common with the true Gospels.

Below are links to the podcast, video, downloadable chart, and eBook mentioned in the lesson, plus a transcript/notes following them.

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The Time Between the Testaments, and what to do when God seems silent

2022-09-30 by bible805

Time Between the Testaments in the Bible — The New Testament opens with a very different world than we left in the Old Testament and this lesson will tell you all about it.

In the previous lesson in our series on How We Got Our Bibles, we looked at the Apocrypha, the series of books written between the Old and New Testaments and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible done at that time.

As interesting as the writing of these two collections are (and they are fascinating—so be sure to check out the lesson on them) much more was going on at this time in between the Testaments and if we aren’t aware of it, it can be a rather jarring when we finish reading the Old Testament and jump into an entirely different world in the New Testament where Judea is now controlled by Rome politically and has the new religious groups—the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

How all these changes happened and who these new religious leaders will be covered in this lesson.

In addition, this time is often referred to as “The Silent Years” and we’ll look at why that description isn’t entirely accurate along with advice for what we need to do when it seems that God is silent in our lives.

This is the third lesson in our series on How We Got our Bibles and the next lesson is on How We Got the New Testament.

Click on the images below to download PDFs of the NOTES, charts, and the eBook talked about in this lesson

Following is a transcript of the lesson.

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How We Got the Apocrypha and its relationship to the Septuagint

2022-09-23 by bible805

Lesson on The Apocrypha — This lesson is quite complex, but worth the time to understand how the Apocrypha and the Septuagint are related.

Many people are familiar with the books that are placed in some Bibles between the Old Testament and the New Testament but what are they and are they important for us to read to learn about God and to grow in our Christian lives?

The best way to answer those questions correctly is to look at the history of when and how they were written and how they relate to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was the Bible Jesus and Paul used and quoted from. If we didn’t have the Septuagint, we most likely would not have the Apocrypha in Bibles today as it was primarily their inclusion with the Septuagint that Jerome used to translate the Bible into the Latin Vulgate that they were considered part of the Old Testament scriptures.

Evaluated on their own, they were never included in the Old Testament canon.

In addition to false teachings in them including prayers for the dead and alms as contributing to salvation, you’ll see from this lesson how on the basis of their manuscript history alone, they have no place in the canonical Old Testament.

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