The Basics About the Bible: The First Five

Valerie's Non-Scholarly Briefing The Bible in Minutes Course:

Old Testament: Books of Law

  These are known as the Pentateuch, Torah, and Books of Moses as well.*

  

Genesis - Beginnings - the world, sin, evil

- Salvation promised

- God chooses a family through whom to work His plan.

- Every story in the Bible finds its beginning in Genesis.

Exodus - "Going Out," or, as Veggie Tales puts it, The Big Exit.

- Genesis ends with Joseph's death; Exodus begins with it.

- God - chooses one man to lead His people,

            - gives that man a vision of the job he must do

            - trains him 

           - starts him in the job

Leviticus - "The book of the Levites," it can be amazingly exciting.

- The sacrifices tell of Christ

- The feasts detail God's history of mankind.

Some translations in Acts, for example, will say that Pentecost was "fully come" - that was the occasion for which the feast was given.

Numbers - The history of the wilderness wanderings, plus a couple of censuses.

- Here we find the story of the pagan prophet Balaam, including the story of the talking donkey and

the prophecy of the star that brought the wisemen to Jesus.

Deuteronomy - "The Second Giving of the Law"

- Moses talks to the people before he dies, sermons :

- retelling and explaining their experiences of the past 40 years

- foretelling the nation's future

   *Traditionally Moses is believed to have written them.  There has been some controversy about this, and i had problems with the concept at one point.  But it seems that Egypt of Moses' time did have the skills to produce writing.  People who want to quibble can always find something, and scholarly discussions abound, but having read many, i am satisfied that Moses was the primary author.