Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Good morning. My name's Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here. Uh, if I've never met you, it's good to actually meet you from a distance. Um, after the service, um, I'd love to just say hello, shake your, uh, hand and get to know your name and face. Uh, we are in a four week series on the Bible. Now we always teach on the Bible, but this is actually about the actual book of the Bible. And last week we answered the question, what is the Bible? And wanted to give you, um, a tool and resource to be able to look at somebody and say, This is what the Bible is, this is why it was written, what it really is, what you hold in your hands, how it's used, et cetera. Wanted to give you something helpful to that end. And, and so this morning we're gonna be focusing on the Old Testament.
Speaker 1 00:00:48 And the question we're gonna answer is, uh, how did we get the Old Testament? Uh, the Old Testament, you hold in your hands. Where did it come from? What was the process? Uh, next week we're gonna do the same thing, but we're gonna look at the New Testament. We're gonna ask, how did we get this? What was the process? How do we know that we can even trust this? Are the documents reliable? And then finally in the last week of this study we're gonna do is we're going to, um, really answer this big question. Uh, what kind of story is God telling when I pick up the Pi Bible and I parachute into different sections? What is God doing in this thing? Big picture, because I think we can all agree that the Bible is not a random ha haphazard book, uh, that has no order flow or logic to it, like the Lord is up to something in the Bible.
Speaker 1 00:01:27 So we want you at the end of these, these four weeks to love and know God more through His word. Then what we're gonna do is we're gonna actually have a shorter three week series on how to read the Bible and how not to read the Bible. Uh, this is a Bible church, and I am struck at how many people still say, I don't know how to read the Bible when I open it up. I don't know what to do. If you are a parent or you are a grandparent, or if you're discipling somebody. How do we have some basic tools and resources that we can help somebody understand how to read, interpret, and apply the Bible? Then after that, we are gonna, we're gonna pick five of the most difficult cultural subjects that are attacked against the Bible. So for example, is the Bible oppressive to women?
Speaker 1 00:02:10 Why does the Bible promote or does the Bible promote and condone slavery? Um, there is the Bible anti-science. There's a whole bunch of topics like that we're gonna go after, um, because there are so many mantras and lies about what the Bible says, where it came from, and we want to resource you and equip you. Um, the Bible is, if the Bible's true and it leads to certain knowledge of God, and it tells us the only way of salvation would, its standard reason that the evil one hates it and does not want you under any circumstances to engage it. And if you do engage it, he wants you to doubt its authority, its reliability, it's it's authenticity. Like the evil one wants you to pick up the Bible and doubt. And so what we wanna do is we actually want to equip you and resource you so that you, when you pick up the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament, you have unbelievable confidence in what God is giving you.
Speaker 1 00:03:25 Um, all the way back in 1948, something really wonderful happened, There were a couple shepherds in the Dead sea area and they were throwing rocks and they threw one up and they heard something break, and they discovered a cave that nobody had entered for almost 2000 years. You have probably heard of this, It's called the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is what they found. It's in a cave in a place called Kuran. And what's interesting is that these shepherds didn't realize the unbelievable value of what they had discovered. And so they found it, and then they sold it in a Jewish market for pennies on the dollar. Inevitably, this made its way to a scholar who said, Uhoh, this is a really, really big deal. Uh, they ended up finding the initial cave and then realizing they were caves all over the area where different scrolls have been put into clay jars and hidden and preserved.
Speaker 1 00:04:22 Uh, apparently what happened is all the way back in the first century ad uh, Rome, there was a Jewish revolt against Rome. And Rome said, We are going to destroy the Jews, uh, if you've ever heard of the Roman emperor ation. And so he went and he was trying to obliterate the Jewish people throughout the nation of Israel because they were seen as a threat. Well, there was this community out in the wilderness and they knew this was coming. So it appears that they went and they hid all of their scrolls, these scrolls data back from about 300 BC all the way to 70 ad. And what was contained in these scrolls rocked the world, because previous to this, here's what liberal scholars would say, You can't trust the text of the Old Testament. You cannot with confidence believe the words that it says. Well, here's, here's actually what they found.
Speaker 1 00:05:19 Uh, they found a whole bunch of documents, hundreds and hundreds of documents, but they found the scroll of Isaiah. And, and here's the question. The earliest Old Testament manuscript before the Dead Sea Scrolls that anybody had was around, uh, 8 95 ad Let's do some math. 895 ad is how many years after the birth of Jesus ish, 895, give or take a year or two or three, right? So now, there, here, here, here's what we're wondering. We have this scroll of the entire book of Isaiah. How accurate are they? What happened in the transmission of the manuscript from roughly when this was likely written around one to 200 BC for over a thousand years? What happened? Because, you know, the story told over and over again, it's a copy of a copy of a copy, of a copy of a copy and the scroll, the, the scribes messed everything up.
Speaker 1 00:06:25 You've heard it all before. What happened? Well, there are always gonna be scribble errors and spelling errors, and that's part of the process. And so after they get rid of all of those, what they found is that the scroll from 200 to 100 BC was 99% identical to the scroll that they had an 8 95 ad. And the 1% differences had zero impact on anything doctrinally or theologically in any way. Listen, Bill sch, we can't even play the game at telephone in the same room without massively, massively messing it up. And this is nothing short of a miracle that should make every believer in Jesus go. There is something fundamentally different about the preservation and the accuracy of these Old Testament manuscripts century after century after century, and now millennium after millennium after millennium. Uh, three big goals in this four week series. Uh, number one is I want to increase your confidence in the Bible that the actual text to English text that you have is translated from a Hebrew manuscript that is reliable and authentic revelation of God himself.
Speaker 1 00:07:41 Uh, I don't want there to be a single doubt in your brain that when you open up your Old Testament that this has been divinely, miraculously preserved by God for your good, that you and all of humanity might know him. Number two, I wanna increase your discernment. There are so many ridiculous cultural mantras and lies about the Bible. And, and if you, again, are the evil one, would you not want to go implant cultural lies and mantras invade them and pervade them throughout popular culture? So the masses hear them over and over again? And if I hear something over and over again, it must be true, right? Let, let me tell you a little lesson I learned at Michigan State University, um, in my religion classes. Uh, it's a little lesson I also learned from authors like Dan Brown and other secular authors who do not believe in Jesus or the authority of the word of God.
Speaker 1 00:08:31 I'm gonna say this bluntly and directly, they don't care about the accuracy or the historical reliability of the, of the words. They say. They are not concerned at all for your faith. And they do not care by and large whether the things they say are consistent with original documents. Uh, if you just read Dan Browns, like you remember when that whole book came out, et cetera, and then the DaVinci code, it is so replete with verifiably wrong information from original sources in the first 400 years of the early church. At some point, I have to wonder, Dan Brown, are you just blatantly lying or are you not smart enough to do your basic research? And when I learned, when I had my professors, uh, in the religious department, they would say to me, But Michael, I have a PhD. And I'm like, I can go back to the source documents and show you that you're wrong.
Speaker 1 00:09:22 They don't care. And yet, high school student after high school student, they graduate, they go to secular university and they hear this overwhelming barrage of information about how unreliable, particularly the Old Testament is. And it's not true. It is not true. In fact, they start with the basic assumption. It is all myth. It was written in the fourth, fifth or sixth century BC at the late or earliest. Uh, they start with the idea that none of it is true and it's all basically mythology. Like any other mythological series you would read, we wanna increase your discernment as you sniff out cultural mantras. There's no way I'll be able to sniff out every cultural mantra. What we can do is provide you with a verifiable set of information that can give you confidence in what truth is. And when you find something that varies from reality and truth, you can discern that.
Speaker 1 00:10:14 Number three, wanna increase your excitement. I want you to pick up the Bible. I want you to be excited about it. I want you to know that God himself has revealed to you his heart and his mind. He wants to spend time with you. He wants you to know him through Jesus, through the Spirit, but also explicitly in the Bible. Sound good? Now, this is going to be very different than most sermons that I usually give. Some of you will not enjoy this in any way, and that is all right. My job is not to entertain you, although I would love for all of you to be happy. My job is to train you. My job is to help you have right doctrine, right ideas, but also when there are lies to combat those lies with truth and reality. So you could consider this sort of like a seminary 1 0 1 class on the origin of the Old Testament. Uh, I wanna start off and I wanna teach you a very important word that theologians use when they talk about the Bible. The word is canon. Canon does not refer to a big gun with cannon balls that shoots things. That's not what we're talking about. Cannon comes from the Greek word for a read. It was the standard of measurement in ancient times. Uh, nowadays we use feet and our neighbors to the north, they use a ridiculous standard of measurement called the meter. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1 00:11:40 So what the Bible is or the can is, is the standard by which all other things are measured. And so theologians and scholars and councils, they have spent incomprehensible hours discussing, debating, writing, discerning which books of all the books written in history, which books are direct revelation from God, and which books are not directly from God, but generally truthful in the things they say. And then which books are just flat out wrong about who God is in history. And if a book is direct revelation from God, then what theologians have done, and what church leaders have done, is they put this in what they call their cannon, their official list of scriptures, the official book of official list of books recognized as scripture. You have to know this fact about cannon. The cannon does not make something scripture. The cannon recognizes that which already is scripture.
Speaker 1 00:12:57 Let me illustrate. We have in our home, one of the manliest dogs you could ever get the mini golden doodle. I like my mini golden doodle. I think Paxton is sweet and kind. But I want you to imagine, you put me into a room and you say, Michael, you need to identify all of the mini golden doodles. And I'll look at a boxer and I'll say, not a mini golden doodle. And, and I'll start to put all the doodle ish dogs in one big bucket, right? But here's a problem with mini golden doodles. They can be like six pounds or they can be 50 or 60 pounds in a regular golden doodle. They can be 50 or 60 pounds, or they can be a little bit bigger, 80, 90 or a hundred pounds if it's crazy. So I got all these 50 pound doodles and how do I figure out, is it a mini, is it a big mini or is it a small regular?
Speaker 1 00:13:48 And so you have to do some research. Sometimes you have to look at like the mother and the father and if you have that documentation. But what if you don't have that documentation that you look at the siblings and you look at all this stuff and my job is to leave this place discerning and plucking out all the many golden doodles. Now, if I take a boxer and I put it into the golden doodle category, does that make it a golden doodle? No. And, and just, if somebody were per chance to take a book that is not direct revelation from God and put it in the can, does that make it canon? Not at all. The Canon's job, the goal of this set of books is to recognize, not create scripture, but to recognize that which is direct revelation from God. So what I've done for the rest of our time is I've organized my message into six questions.
Speaker 1 00:14:35 Um, I want to say you're welcome on the front end because I have over 20 pages of single space notes that I have not shared with you at all. Um, trust me, I boiled this down, I think to I think some of the most helpful pieces of content for you. Uh, six questions. Number one. So how did we get, or how did the old ca Old Testament cannon develop? The Old Testament cannon developed in four ways. Number one, by God's orchestration, he oversaw the entire process of its inspiration, its documentation, and its preservation. Number two, through prophets, those who spoke and wrote for God. A prophet by its very definition, is somebody who is bringing the word of God to people. Number three, progressively in four stages, roughly over a thousand years. And then number four, by the hands of scribes who meticulously preserved every word for generations. So let's explore each of these four categories. Stage one of the Old Testament cannon. Uh, if, if you heard a message I gave, I gave a very shortened version of this a few years ago, you might know the answer to this. What was the first cannon, the first written word of God that the people of God had and identified as scripture? Who knows what it is not the Torah.
Speaker 1 00:16:09 The 10 Ments. Look at Exodus chapter 34, verse 27. The Lord said to Moses, Write these words for in accordance with these words, I've made a covenant with you and with Israel. And he wrote on the tablets, the words of the 10 of the covenant, the 10 commandments. From the moment Israel was freed from Egypt's oppressive slavery, God wanted his words immortalized in writing for his people, for all generations, immediately they get out. And God is already saying, It's time to write that this is a little fun thing for you. For, uh, hundreds of years, liberal theologians said The Bible can't be true because there was no writing when Moses was alive. There was no way he could have done this cuz there was no writing. And then archeological discovery started to happen, and then their tune changed. And they said the only writing that happened was at high level government, uh, level for really important things that like mo, someone like Moses would never, ever have done this.
Speaker 1 00:17:16 They didn't have the tools, resources, or technology to do it. And then guess what happens? More archeological discoveries and more archeological discoveries. And then you realize low and behold there was writing outside of government official capacities in the time of Moses. Oh, by the way, what was Moses before he was a part of the Jewish people in the government of Egypt. By the way, stage two of the Old Testament, Cannon Law or Torah or Penta took, these are all synonyms. They refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. There's a lack of confidence there, but that's fine. It's the book that everybody gets to and stops their annual reading plan, right? They're like, Oh, my dream is to teach Leviticus here, fyi, one day we're gonna do it one day. This is a story there, but Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Speaker 1 00:18:10 This is the Torah and the law or the Penta to, so we'll use these words interchangeably. And what the Torah or law did is it recorded two big things. Number one was oral tradition. Oral tradition is before Moses, a long extensive history of stories meticulously memorized and retold with unusual accuracy. So different elders from different communities would carry on the stories, uh, of old and they would corroborate their stories with each other. And if one was an heir, they would correct the other. And, and then Moses did is he took these oral traditions that he wrote them down. So how would we know at all about the creation story, world tradition? How do we know about the fall or the flood or babble or Abraham? These were told verbally, um, from generation to generation. We also know that Moses had direct access to God, spoke to him as a friend, speaks to a friend.
Speaker 1 00:19:03 So it would seem logical as Moses wrote the books of the law. He wasn't just purely writing from oral tradition, but God himself confirmed the oral tradition and gave him and instructed him on the stories of human history before Moses was alive. The the second thing that the law, the Penta took, Ator did is it recorded the history and the laws of the nation of Israel. Specifically, there are 613 laws of the Jewish people had to follow. And there's a whole bunch of stories in there. Uh, Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 24 says this, When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levis take this book of the law, put it by the side of the arc of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.
Speaker 1 00:19:52 Now, Moses wrote the vast majority of the first five books. Uh, it is very likely that at the very end of Deuteronomy where, uh, Moses's death is recorded, that that was probably Joshua who wrote that. Um, and so 99% of the Torah probably written by Moses, that last few like section of, of the Torah probably written by j or Joshua, sorry, stage three of the Old Testament cannon is what we call history and prophecy. And so what you, you see is that the Jews understood these first five books. This was Cannon. But then Joshua comes along and Joshua sees it fit to expand the writing. And look what happens. In Joshua chapter 24 since to Joshua, he made a covenant with the people that day and put in place statutes and rules for them at shek. I'm want you to notice the way this is written.
Speaker 1 00:20:45 Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God. So when Joshua had the law, the Torah, the Penta took these first five sacred Holy Books cannon, He felt authorized by God to take that book and continue it on and to add to it. And so what we find is that kings and prophets continue to write the history, the story of the people of Israel, and they would document these things as sacred scripture and they would hand them down from generation to generation. Stage four, the Old Testament canon is we call poetry and wisdom literature. And this would be books like Proverbs, Psalms, Ecclesiastes song, Solomon. And and I want you to hear this from Romans chapter three, verse one and two, The Paul Paul says, So what advantage there is there to be a Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? And Paul says, much in every way to begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the Oracles of God that not only did God pluck out this Jewish nation to bring to us a Messiah, but he also plucked out this group of people to take the Oracles the truth, the word of God, to preserve them in writing and to transmit them from generation to generations so that humanity could know the revelation of God through the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1 00:22:15 These are the four big stages over about a thousand years that the Old Testament cannon developed. Question number two, what books are in the Jewish Old Testament cannon? Uh, Jesus says this in Luke 24 44. He says, These are my words which I spoke to that everything written about me in. And I I want you to notice the threefold breakdown in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled and for Jesus. And it's very common in the first century, they would use the word Psalms to refer to generally the poetic writings of the day. It was a catchall term for this kind of poetry. And, and you see, it was very common for them to have a threefold breakdown of the Old Testament. And so the Jewish Old Testament is actually identical in content to your Protestant Old Testament. But they didn't break them up into books like we do.
Speaker 1 00:23:12 They broke them up into scrolls. And so the Jewish Old Testament actually has 22 scrolls. Uh, the first five scrolls are the law. Each books of the law, the to the Penta two got their own scroll. And then there's a, a section of scrolls called the prophets. There are seven scrolls here. This is maybe gonna blow some of your brains here, but did you know that the book of First Samuel and second Samuel was actually originally one scroll and that when we broke it up and do books because of the size of the books, we had to break them up into first at a second. It's the same at the Kings. It's one scroll. Uh, we've broken it up into two. The 12 minor profits were also written on one scroll, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ziel Daniel, They all got their own scroll because they were so big seven scrolls in the prophets.
Speaker 1 00:23:59 And then finally you have the writings and there are 10 scrolls in the writings. This is Psalms Proverbs, job, Song of songs, Ruth Lamentations, Ecclesia Esther, Ezra. Now did we do the math right? Does all of that equal 22? Yes, we're good. All right, good. Uh, sometimes I royally mess up the math not on purpose, but this is should be it. Now we're gonna get a little bit more, um, personal for some of you in the room, why do Catholic Bibles have extra Old Testament books? I if you go today and you pick up a Catholic Bible, there will be seven books in their Old Testament that you do not have in the Protestant Old bi, Old Testament Bible. There will also be sections of the book of Daniel and Esther that you don't have in your Bible. They have them in their Bible. So what I wanna introduce you to are a handful of other terms that to answer this well, we need to understand, uh, the first term is what we call the inter testament period.
Speaker 1 00:25:00 Uh, this is exactly what it sounds like. It is the period of time between the writing of the Old Testament and the writing the New Testament. The last book in the Old Testament is book a Malachi roughly four 50 bc. And the next books written are the stories where the gospels about Jesus Christ. And so you have this time, um, where there is no revelation from God for the people of Israel, the inter testament period about 400 years. But during the inter testament period, the Jews did what Jews do. They wrote a lot of books. They continued to document their history, but they didn't do it in the Jewish language of Hebrew or ama. They did it in language of Greek because what happened is the Jews were being taken over, they were exiled to different countries, and the languages of those countries became their languages.
Speaker 1 00:25:45 And the common language of the people became Greek. And so they started writing in this Intermental period in the language of Greek, and they wrote tons and tons and tons and tons of books. All of these books written by the Jews in the Intermental period are what is called apha. Have you heard that word before? So this is a catch all term to Greek, to Jewish books written in Greek in the Intermental period. And there's a whole bunch of apocryphal books, but there is one very small subsection of apocryphal books. In fact, there are seven of them plus sections of Daniel and Esther that we call Dro canonical. That simply means second cannon. And what was believed, what we learned from the Catholic church is that what they believed is that there's the Old Testament cannon, but these are, that's like a second Old Testament can that should be included. And these books are barrack First and second, McAfees Tobit, Judith CAC Wisdom, and then again additions in Daniel and Esther. I went to all boys Catholic high school my freshman year, Father Doner, he made us memorize, um, the songs or the a song that had all the names of these books so that we could never forget it. I was the prostate kid in the class, drove him absolutely nuts. And I did it with great joy.
Speaker 1 00:27:17 If you are a Roman Catholic, here is a frustrating fact for you. These books were not officially put into the Roman Catholic Old Testament cannon until the Council of Trent in the 16th century. And that council was convened as a response to those pesky little Protestants who said, Hey Pope, you can't tell people they're going to heaven by being good. Hey Pope, you can't sell indulgences that get people out of an imaginary place called purgatory so they can get into heaven quicker. Hey, Pope, you can't exploit the people for money to build St. Peter's. You can't do these things. And so an entire council was convened to respond to these Protestants. And as a result of that council, um, these seven books plus Daniel and Usher were officially canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. I don't know, 16 centuries feels like a long time to wait.
Speaker 1 00:28:13 But does the Bible ever mention the dood canonical books? Uh, does the Bible kinda ever elevate them as having a special status? So our Old Testament, the Jewish Old Testament, also, it is quoted at least 295 times as scripture in the New Testament. So the New Testament 295 times quotes the Old Testament as scripture. Our Old Testament is directly referenced 695 times. Our Old Testament is indirectly referenced as many as 4,105 times in the New Testament. There are only five books that are not mentioned. Uh, in the New Testament secular writings, they make their way to the New Testament four times. Do you know how many times the seven due to canonical books plus Daniel and Esther are mentioned explicitly or implicitly in the New Testament? Zero. And then some of you, like three of you in the room, are like, Well, actually you're saying, But Michael, the Book of Jew references the apocryphal book of Enoch.
Speaker 1 00:29:18 Yes, it does, but is Enoch could do to economical book? Is it one of the seven? No, it's not. And so the Bible is allowed to reference ancient literature. It's even allowed to reference Jewish literature that might even have pieces of truth in it. But never once are the Duro canonical books ever mentioned or implied in the New Testament. In 100 ad there was a Council of Jewish scholars who got together in a city called Jam, it's called the Council of Jame. And among other things they discussed, uh, their objective was to finalize once and for all the Jewish cannon or what we call the Old Testament, and what they finalize at the Council of JAMA is identical to what you have in your Protestant Old Testament. Which brings us to question number four. What Old testament cannon did Jesus and the Apostles use? Shouldn't I use that one?
Speaker 1 00:30:14 What the Council of Jama establish? What's what's called the Palestinian cannon? And this is the exact cannon that Jesus and the apostles used as their Old Testament. Alright, question number five. So what books almost didn't make the Old Testament and why? So in order for a book to kind of pass the test to get in as cannon, there were at least five questions that Jewish scholars would ask and have to answer in a certain way. And here are the five questions. Does the book number one claim to be revelation from God, number one. Number two, is it written by a confirmed prophet, somebody that we have established as from God reliable, the prophetic words they speak, come to pass. Does it agree with previous revelation? Will scripture ever contradict scripture? The answer of course is no. Does it come with the power of God? One of the ways that, um, the Jews would say this is, does it get into your soul?
Speaker 1 00:31:21 Like there are some books, you read them and they're interesting, but there's something fundamentally different about God's word. That when the person with the spirit of God interacts with the word of God, it has a, a unique and inherent power. It is subjective for sure, but it was one of the questions they asked as it get into your soul. And the finally number five, was it received by the people of God. And most of the books of what we now call the Old Testament canon easily made it in. They were verifiable. They stood the test of time. But there were five books that over centuries created a ton of debate. And here the five number one is Esther. The biggest concern about Esther was not its historical reliability, but it never mentioned God even once God is the silent character behind the scenes of the book that was concerning for many people.
Speaker 1 00:32:08 Uh, the book is song is Solomon Far Too Sexual to Be from God. Apparently the book of Proverbs, it seems to contradict itself at times for fun. Open up your Bibles, read Proverbs 26 versus four and five, two separate proverbs right next to each other that say the exact opposite thing is the one before and after it. Uh, I think if you use your mind a little bit, you'll see exactly what the author of Proverbs is doing because that person did write that and scribes continue to rewrite it for centuries. The Book of Ecclesiastes, uh, one of the biggest concerns is it was just so sad, just such a sad book, Vanity of Vanity, all this vanities. I mean, it's like taking to the last verses of the book of Ecclesiastes. It's just one big depression manual that was concerning. It felt counter to the book of Psalms.
Speaker 1 00:32:55 Uh, the book of Ezekiel created quite a bit of controversy because there's so much prophecy in, in Ezekiel particularly prophecy that re references, um, the new Jerusalem and they're having a hard time getting their brains into the future or to a heavenly Jerusalem. And they would look at the actual dimensions of their city and the dimensions of the city of Jerusalem mentioned, and they would say, Well, well, the the dimensions aren't the same. This can't be right, There must be something off about it. But they didn't realize is that Aika was talking about something heavenly something bigger or different or future. And so they had a limited understanding. And over time, the the teachers of the law and the scribes and the priests helped people understand, oh, this is actually reliable, trustworthy. But those are the five big books that almost didn't make it all right Now to one of my favorite parts of this message.
Speaker 1 00:33:42 So how is the Old Testament cannon copied? So if you open up your New Testament, you're gonna find a couple groups of religious leaders. You have what's called the priest. Um, what they do is they perform temple duties, sacrifices, et cetera. You have the Pharisees, they're part of the, uh, what call the political religious system of the nation of Israel. Uh, largely conservative, although they didn't obey the Bible a whole lot, but they're conservative in their doctrine. You had the Sadducees, which only believed in the first five books of the Bible, only the Torah, nothing more at all. Also sort of, we'll just say progressive and liberal in the way they view some things, like that's what we call today. But really they didn't believe in the afterlife, resurrection, angels, demons, none of that. All of that was like, I don't know, like that was like future Old Testament stuff, but it's not in the Torah.
Speaker 1 00:34:26 So they didn't, they didn't believe in it. But you have this fourth group they're called the scribes scribe is a Jewish man devoted to the meticulous preservation and multiplication, multiplication of copies of scripture. Remember Romans three, he says this, The Jews were entrusted with the Oracles of God. And the tradition of the scribes goes back centuries and millennium. They're called the sofer, the sori. And even to this day, there are modern scribes in Israel. Most of them focus their attention exclusively on the Torah. Uh, but you can even find this entire system in place today throughout the world and especially Israel. Let me just share with you, uh, a handful of the scribes policies and procedures. But I want you to understand, I'm gonna share with you 10 or 11, and there are around 4,000 that for you to be a scribe that is writing and transmitting and copying the word of God in a way that is authoritative and able to be given away, you have to be a master at this.
Speaker 1 00:35:33 So here's just a few of their policies and procedures. They could only use clean animal skins or kosher animal skins, both to write on and then to bind the manuscripts, the book of Isaiah, uh, I think it required 11 or seven different animals, skins, animals and animal skins. Just to have enough to write that one book, each column of writing could have no less than 48 and no more than 60 lines gotta be specific. The ink must be black and of a special rep recipe made by the scribe himself. So if you were gonna be a scribe, one of the arts you would've to learn was not just how to find the right quill, sharpen the quill. So it writes, but also you have to make the ink so that it is perfect and matches all of their standards. They must verbalize each word allowed while they are writing.
Speaker 1 00:36:23 So you how if you had to write the dog was purple, you would say, the dog is purple. Think you write, The dog is purple. Not them. They had to write the, and then they would write it out and they would say it again. And then they would start over. Dog write out dog, dog. And they would do this every single word throughout the entire Old Testament. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies in what's called a ritual bath called a mikva. Before writing the word yawe, every single time, every time, wipe everything clean, wash your body. Imagine a verse where it comes up like five times. <laugh>, there must be a review within 30 days. And if it is as if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone, the letters, words and paragraphs had to be counted and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other.
Speaker 1 00:37:24 So when you start looking at at manuscripts, you'll notice that no two letters touch the middle paragraph word and letter must correspond to those in the original documents that all these checks and balances can't be more than this line. It's got this paragraph, it's got you ever do that in like two different notes. You scroll side by side, make sure they're the same, just me. Okay, <laugh>, the documents can only be stored in sacred places, synagogues, temple, et cetera. Um, no document containing God's word could ever be destroyed. They were always stored or buried, which is why in the Kuron caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were, they were put into caves and put into jars. You can't burn them. If a king walked in while a scribe was writing God's name, the scribe could not stop until the king's until yacht way's name was fully done, Letter by letter period, no interruptions because there is no king but yah way, uh, this is again, 10 or 11 of 4,000 standards that scribes abided by, which is why the Old Testament documents that we find in the Kuron community are 99% identical to what they had in 900 ad.
Speaker 1 00:38:43 The sheer preservation of this document is an unbelievable miracle. Uh, there's a first century historian, his name's Josephus. He wrote a book called Against Aon, which is a dude he didn't like. And so, uh, I kinda think I should write a book against Bryce, you know that <laugh> and uh, would never do that. Um, and so in the book, here's what he writes, Aons kind of attacking and and he says this, We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own scriptures. For all those such long ages have now passed. No one has ventured either to add or to remove or to alter a syllable. And it is as intact with every Jew from the day of his birth to regard them as the decre of God to abide by them and if needed, be cheerfully to die for them. Describe what tradition continued even past Roman 80 70 when they saw to obliterate the Jews, particularly in the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1 00:39:40 Uh, this, uh, s scribble tradition preserved in smaller ways and around six or 700 AD there was a group of Jewish scribes that emerged called the Maseratis. And the Maseratis actually were an incredible gift to us because if you open up year Old Testament, it is probably most likely interpreted or translated, sorry, from the Mazari text, which is the text that these Marets gave us that finally culminated in around 900 ad. And what's interesting is that the original Hebrew Bible, it had no spaces and it had no vowels. So what the marets did is they didn't just continue the tradition of s scribble copying, but they also put in vow markers so that we could actually know as the Hebrew language died, how these words were actually pronounced. And so what you have in your Bibles is most likely a translation off of the metic text.
Speaker 1 00:40:34 All right, three. So whats number one, Don't be afraid. Archeological data, new manuscripts, basic logic will not invalidate the authority, reliability, and trustworthiness of your Bible, especially your Old Testament. I wanna take a moment. I wanna go back to the Dead Sea scroll. So we talked about the book of Isaiah and the, um, 99% accuracy between that a thousand years prior. What they also found was the book of Leviticus, and guess what? It was also 99%. They also found the scroll of the minor profits or what we called the minor profits. Guess what, 99%. Well, let's go back even further. So most people are unaware of most of the archeological digs and findings that happen. Um, I happen to come across them randomly. And I love every time I do. 1979, there was an arch architectural discovery made just southwest of the old city of David of Jerusalem, and they were looking to build, I think a hotel and somebody hit something hard and it was a tomb that was unopened from around 700 bc.
Speaker 1 00:41:44 And in the tomb was a woman dead, don't worry. And in the tomb, in her tomb were two ambulance. And in the ambulance were two miniature scrolls. It took archeologists three years to unfurl these scrolls. Man, what they found was very short, but very simple. And it was numbers chapter six, verse 24 through 26. It's the priestly prayer. You all, for the most part know it. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his cnce upon you and give you peace. Even this word for word identical. Now we are 700 bc. Here's what's crazy. Every single archeological dig and find does nothing but corroborate the authenticity and reliability of the Old Testament and the New Testament. People don't tell you this because it's not convenient for their narratives.
Speaker 1 00:42:52 These things should be making headlines, but people don't want to say anything because it's not convenient. Because if the Bible is really the trustworthy and authoritative word of God, so help the world. Number two, read the Bible, especially the Old Testament, if you will read the Bible. This is one of the chosen ways that God has determined to reveal with clarity, His heart, his mind, his ideas, truth, reality, your history. One of my prayers is that as we go through this, this whole semester kind of unpacking the Bible, is that you would not just love it, but you would trust it more than ever. And God would remind you that when you open up the Bible, even the Old Testament, God is revealing himself to you. The first Bible verse I ever memorized was Joshua one eight. Here's what Joshua says, this book of the law referencing the Torah shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in him.
Speaker 1 00:44:03 Psalm one 19 is the longest chapter in the entire Bible. I'm only read a couple verses. It's all about the word of God says this, How can a young man, how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word? With my whole heart, I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandment. I i have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you O Lord, teach me your statutes with my lips. I declare all the rules of your mouth in, in the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. And these people believed that what they had was the word of God and they meticulously made sure that even these psalms were handed down from generation to generation, meticulously preserved for you.
Speaker 1 00:45:03 Number three, don't miss the most important part of the Old Testament to introduce you and humanity to Jesus. Uh, Luke chapter 24, I want you to hear what Jesus says. Oh, foolish ones slow of hard to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And then he says, beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them and all the scriptures, the things concerning himself, I don't know about you, but I would've given up my entire seminary education to sit down with Jesus and have him start from Genesis one and show me everything in the Old Testament that pertained to him, how it applied to him and why he himself inspired that thing to be written and why he veiled himself. Although there veiled himself for millennial until he came.
Speaker 1 00:45:52 I would love, love to be a part of that teaching of Jesus Christ. John chapter five, verse 46, he says, If you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of me. And and I bet they're thinking to themselves, but he never ever once mentioned the name of Jesus. We didn't hear that till the angel told Mary the name, Jesus. That name is a mystery for millennia. And yet all throughout the Torah, it was written so that when people meet Jesus, they go, You are the one, You're the one. John 1 45, Phil found Nathaniel. He said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the profits wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, the Old Testament is written so that you, when you met Jesus would understand him. The Old Testament finds all of its culmination and purpose by drawing you and showing you Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 00:46:53 To read the Old Testament without believing in Jesus is to miss ultimately the grand purpose of the Old Testament. If the purpose of the word of God is to reveal God, Jesus is the revelation of God in bodily form. And so we, we look at people and just say like, God wants you to read the Old Testament and and if you believe in Jesus, that's gonna make so much more sense what he was up to. Don't get me wrong, should you be reading the New Testament? The answer is yes, but the Old Testament is like three quarters of the Bible. It is at a significant amount of revelation of God's heart, mind, and will for his people. And we have the joy to dig it up, understand it, study it, and to apply it. And as you do, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ, when the word of God that you're reading in the Spirit of God and you come together, transformation is the result.
Speaker 1 00:47:49 What a beautiful gift that God has given us in His word. And maybe you're, you're here and you're like, I don't believe in Jesus. I don't even know what I think about the Bible. Open up the Bible. Start in the Book of John or start in the Book of Genesis. And here's what I wanna ask you to pray. Pray this, God, if you are real, and if Jesus is God in the flesh, would you use your word to show me who he really is? Would you use your word to reveal to me the truth and the reality of you and Jesus Christ? And if you are who you say you are, I will believe in Jesus Christ. And maybe you're here today and you're like, Listen, I I don't know why, but I believe in Jesus Christ. If today you believe that you're a sinner and that God has given a son Jesus, and that Jesus has died on the cross for your sins and you are ready to trust in him, today is the greatest day on the planet to trust in Christ.
Speaker 1 00:48:46 And so if you believe those things, and if you are ready to say, I am done trying to earn my way to heaven, which is the default mantra for like every American and person in the world, By the way, if you're ready to abandon that lie and take God at his word, that anybody who believes in Jesus, their sin shall be forgiven and eternal life is theirs. May today be this day for you. And if you are ready to make that decision, would you just do me a huge favor? Uh, would you tell somebody you came with? Would you come talk to one of us front? We'd love to rejoice with you, celebrate you, equip you and help you grow in your relationship with God. If you need prayer after the service, somebody would love the opportunity to pray with you and help you take a next step with the Lord, there is no greater decision you can make in a better time than today.
Speaker 1 00:49:29 I wanna take a moment, wanna pray for you, and then we're gonna celebrate communion and worship together. Um, Father, we love you and are so thankful for your word. Would you increase our confidence? Would you give us even the conviction to be more disciplined and then the, the energy and um, um, will and desire to faithfully pursue you in your word? God, I know that for some of us that the Bible has been very hard and challenging to engage. There's so many distractions, there's so much we don't understand. And um, Lord, would you remind us of how patient you are? God, would you intentionally reveal your heart and your mind to us? Or whether it be through reverse or reading a whole chapter or reading a whole book, whether it be through listening to an audio Bible or reading it, would you reveal yourself continually to us? And I am so thankful that after we trust in Jesus, that is only the beginning of what you have to show us through your word for the rest of our lives and probably all of eternity, we will continue to unravel the majesty and the beauty and the intricacy and the uniqueness of who you are. Thank you for that. We love you and thank you that all of this is possible only through Jesus Christ. We'd love you and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
