Published: October 24, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 10 | Scripture: Galatians 4:21-26; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
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we've talked about the issue of translations but we've never really made a big deal of it here and I don't plan to do that tonight um but we're not a King James only uh you know we're not we
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don't Advocate any particular but we have talked about the two different types of translations and also the fact that that any translation is itself an
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interpretation that's true if you're in Spanish class in high school you know there's there's almost never a onetoone equivalence between the word in the
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source language and the word in the language your your language so there's there's always some type of interpreting that you need to do plus there there is the um there are idioms and there are
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there's the just the plain fact that words often do multiple things in any given language we're not the only language that has puns for example so
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every language has plays on Words and and puns and whatnot because the God gave us language to confuse us uh and and so we I I've said this
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before you know you you may have heard this it's not so prevalent anymore but it's it's it's certainly prevalent um in in an older generation of fundamentalism and that is to say that that Hebrew is a
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very simple language oh there's there's no such thing it's like a you know a simple living organism there's no such thing as a living thing being simple and by analogy there's no such thing as a
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simple language um and while Hebrew is s simple in the sense for example that all the verbs have three letters which definitely by combinations and
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permutations limits the number of verbs you can you can have there's vow pointing and there are a whole bunch of different uh hith pel and P and hiil and newal and all these
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different I don't remember half of them but you know all these different tenses and and whatnot that takes the they take these words and make them do bunch of different things um and so when we when
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we look at our English Bibles we first of all need to realize um it's a translation what whatever you have it's a translation which means it's it's from a language
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into your language uh I saw a clip the you a few days back and I don't know whether it was real or not he looked like this was real um but he was a King James only fellow and and he made the
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comment that with the King James Bible I can correct the Greek and and you hear in the background this chorus of amen and I'm just stupid amen you know I
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oh my word there's there's still some of that I guess out there there's no vaccine for it so you you still have it but mostly evangelicals realize that they're
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dealing with the translation but then within those translations there are basically two types there what's called the dynamic equivalent and then there's is the paraphrastic um the dynamic
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equivalent is going to be your um King James your American Standard your new King James your new American Standard I think the the ESV but the point being is
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that the the translators of those Bibles try to find the closest possible word for the Hebrew or the Greek word from the documents that they're dealing
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with there's always issue of trans of manuscripts and choosing what text family you want to use majority or critical and all of that and that's
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beyond what I'm getting at here the paraphrastic uh and I don't mean by that the living Bible um the most popular paraphrastic is the new international version I call it
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paraphrastic um it's not a paraphrase but what the translators have done is they have tried to smooth out the English of their
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translation and so it becomes an easier reading Bible I think there is an easy reading Bible isn't there is there a Bible so um and sometimes they do a very good job
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but I think what what we're going to what we're getting at here what I'm going to point out tonight is if you're if you're reading a Bible like that then the hermeneutical lessons that
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I'm teaching you aren't going to work because the words especially in Illusions and Echoes the words that
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click from an earlier verse aren't there the the translators have taken them away and put in something else so that you
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don't catch the markers that would probably connect you to the Old Testament verse so I and it it's been many years that I've recommended you know when
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people say well I have the NIV I I say well that you know that's good for when you're reading your Bible but I'm beginning to think well maybe it's not even all that good for that because of what the more I'm learning about how the
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Bible Echoes itself the more I'm realizing that as difficult as it may be a dynamic equivalent is probably the best Bible you could have one and so
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when you're when you're looking at getting a new Bible you really should look into the translation philosophy and and just read through that paragraph or look it up online now
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because you can do all that without even having to go to the store in fact you can buy your Bible without having to go to the store um but look at the translators philosophy and see their what they're
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doing in terms of how how much they're massaging the translation to make it easier for you to read
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and and that's of course popular because um you know I think the years ago I I read where this how many years ago
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newspapers write at an eighth grade level they the journalists are are told to and taught to write at an eighth grade level because at that time that was the average reading comprehension of
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the average American right I don't imagine it's gone up any um I I expect it probably has gone down so I can understand why Publishers of of
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bibles are are trying to make them easier to read because we're becoming less and less in fact I just just heard someone comment I was listening to a um a lecture and he commented on the the
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fact that we're becoming a postliterate society um if you tweet or text you know that we're becoming a postliterate society that we're we're no longer
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reading the um the classics um and and therefore our appreciation of literature but also our ability to read is hindered by that um
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now again just another side note there have always been denominations within Christianity who have considered reading of any secular literature to be uh sin
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or or the very um best the very least um a a dangerous digression from what you should be reading I don't hold to that I
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think Reading literature is is important in many ways um but not the least of which is that the Bible is a piece of
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literature uh a classic piece of literature and we don't we don't naturally know how to read literature if we just don't if we don't do it at any other time so translations are important
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and and what brought this to mind it's not in the notes and but what brought this to mind was listening again to another lecture um by Richard Hayes and he was talking about um the angel
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Gabriel speaking to um Mary uh regarding the uh her conception and the birth of Jesus and I I mentioned this on Sunday
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in Sunday school but um I had not seen this although now that he mentions it it's it's like of course of course that this that's what this is
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one of the reasons that you might miss the illusion is because the the verb is changed in the at least in The New American Standard but in Luke chapter 1 of course uh the angel tells her she
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will be with child and and she's like I've never known a man um how can this be since I am a virgin and the angel answered and said to her the holy spirit will come unto you and the power of the
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most high will overshadow you and and that verb right there in the Greek is the same one used in Genesis 1 when it speaks of the Holy Spirit the spirit of
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God hovering over the Deep that's that's like John 1 in the beginning L Luke's doing the same thing only he's he's catching on to something
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different he's talking about the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb but what is he doing he's saying well this is the new creation that's what we're talking about
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here with the coming of Jesus Christ we have the not just the coming of the kingdom of God but the the background meaning of that phrase Kingdom of God in the Old Testament and that is the the
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new heavens and the new Earth so again I do you have to know that to know that the birth of Jesus was miraculous no you
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don't have to catch that illusion it's certainly not a quote again just like John 1:1 there's no quotation for it's an illusion because there's a word
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marker now the holy spirit is a marker in and of itself but we don't necessarily make the connection with Genesis 1 I think that's verse three the
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spirit of God was hovering over the Deep um Until you realize that they're the same verbs but I don't realize they're the same verbs because the New American Standard translates it one way in Luke 1
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and another way in Genesis 1 overshadow overshadowed yeah yeah so um I'm not saying that the New American Standard you know is just is egregiously in error
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here does anybody have a different ver verb there in um Luke
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um 35 other than overshadow the hly the power of the most high will overshadow you does anybody have anything different there I don't I don't imagine anybody
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has hover over you uh I don't you know I don't think they and that really doesn't make necessarily a lot of sense in the English you have overshadow yeah well
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overshadow means to Shadow over which means to hover over I mean it's the same word but in the English overshadow works better than hover over
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okay in the in Genesis 13 you have the idea in your mind I do anyhow of the of like a bird over the waters and I I use the the the metaphor
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of the bird of course because as a dove descending but the holy spirit is hovering over the waters but what that's actually teaching us is that he is the executor of the word of God in creation
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so when God said that saying is the logos Jesus Jesus is the word of God and through him and by him we're all things things created but did he actually and
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again this is using human terms did he actually do the execution of the command well no that's the Holy Spirit who is the executor of the Divine will so you
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have that in Genesis 1:3 and then here in Luke in Luke 1:35 it's the same picture now it's not the it's not exilo
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it's not creation out of nothing it's not the the earth covered with water it's the womb of woman and that takes you back of course to the promise in Genesis 3 that the
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seed of woman will crush the Serpent's head so it's in all kind of ties together and again it's not necessary that you make that connection
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I mean having M having someone else make that connection I can see it now I hope you can see it um but that didn't all of a sudden convince me of the ver
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birth actually the theology isn't touched at all I've always belied that as long as I've been a Christian um but it does it's like it does give me a
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little bit more sense of the New Creation in Jesus which is such a powerful theme in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament couple weeks
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we're going to be starting actually next week um Lord willing we're going to start looking at some of these arcs and the first first Arc we're going to look at is creation Creation The Arc of
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creation ends as it as it develops and as it moves towards its culmination in Jesus Christ it's creation New Creation
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later on we're going to look at man who is the image of God in God's Temple Eden and we'll look at that but man also
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sets up there's so many things about man his co- Regency is really incredibly important in terms of God uh the the the democratization of the image of God in
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the ancient world Moses was so radical uh that we'll look at that but it's it's man of course that's the Hebrew Adam so it's Adam and then it's the last Adam so
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you know the ark takes us through and and everything it does it takes us to Jesus which is you know why I had that discussion weeks ago about how Jesus is not necess necessarily himself one of
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those themes though he is permeated through all those themes because they all end in him you know they all culminate in him so those are the two first that we're going to look at um and and I think
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we'll hopefully see we can't go exhaustively but I I'm hoping that when you begin to see these Illusions and Echoes and the way the scripture re
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redounds and and kind of rebounds against itself that reading your Bibles will become actually more enjoyable uh Steph Dempster makes the
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comment I have it up on the board this is kind of a f uh a weakness of reformed theology that we we're so intent in um interpreting the Bible correctly that
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sometimes we forget to read it uh and and I think there's some wisdom in that comment uh I think it can be you know obviously we're reading it to interpret it but we do tend in the
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reformed camp we do tend toward the pical we do tend toward debate and and proving our point and winning the the doctrinal debates and and I imagine
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there will be a number of of excellent theologians in hell you know I don't I you know I I think they'll they'll I don't know what they'll talk about but um I think it it's going to be a very
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sad realization for them I mean one of them one of them almost was Saul of Tarsus right so I I'm not I mean I'm not making
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this up you can be very learned in scripture and be very far from God so um and I'm not saying that means you should ignore Doctrine I'm not saying that at all I'm just saying that I think
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Dempster has a point here that that we we want to interpret scripture accurately but have we in that process forgotten to read it and so that leads to um any any
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comments on translations or questions I just you know I guess one of the things I thought about is
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right yeah six right right sixth day is it the sixth day yeah yeah yep and there's no end of it and and the richness just and I think that's
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that's um one of the beauties of scripture I I think in literature in general you will exhaust the Illusions uh that that are there in the text you may have to read the novel a
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couple times but after a while you know you you can recite it scripture is not that way it's more like an onion that you keep peeling and peel it's an internal onion you keep peeling back
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layers and there's
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that's oh I think it absolutely does strengthen our faith and it gives us a uh a deeper Arsenal to defend our faith when we're uh challenged on such issues as um you know as as whether or not is
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it important that Adam was a real human being a real person many in professing Evangelical Christianity do not think that's important that that's an ancillary issue
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um and is not necessary at the at the root of Christianity I'm not one of them and we'll we'll talk about that in a few weeks but um I do think that that this
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this way of reading our Bible reading it the way the authors of the New Testament read their Bibles is going to deepen and root our faith in God's word to where
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it'll become essentially unshakable uh because we we'll see more we'll see more of those connections as we continue to read and and I think
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that's what that's the that that to me is the essence of the New Covenant because the New Covenant promises that you will not have any need of any to teach you the law will be written in your hearts right and every
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man will teach his brother every man will be able to you know all everybody will be a scribe okay everyone will be a priest so um but how do you do that you
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you don't do that simply by sitting and listening to a sermon once a week and and even if you were to listen to them by you know um podcast or whatever through the week that's not how it's
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done it it's done this way it's done by reading and rereading and and hearing The Echoes of scripture that just keep reinforcing the main points of scripture
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to where they're essentially unassailable because we have so much Divine backing for like the Virgin birth we don't have to go to Just One passage
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in Isaiah to to try to prove it we can see that it it fits the entire trajectory of the seed of woman okay and and the fact that it's the seed of woman
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not the seed of man we'll talk about that when we talk about man but not the seed of man right um why well in my opinion because that's the
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transmission of sin is through the seed through the male seed and uh I have there's good biblical reason to conclude that but what is bypassed in the case of
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of Jesus's birth well Joseph the male seed okay so we we'll get into that when we talk about Adam um but I agree with that that it doeses strength it
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strengthens my faith and I hope it does yours as well but what we're doing here then and I want to I've talked about
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before reading the Bible is literature and and I bring this up again because you will you will hear probably you will hear people say oh don't go there you know don't it's just a story book then you know you
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don't really believe it's God's uh in inspired word if you're just reading it as literature um it's it's like it's an either or situation for a lot of people either the Bible is some uniquely
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special book that cannot be read like any other book or it's not the word of God does that does that make sense that that dichotomy that if it's the word of
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God it can't be like any other book you can't read it like any other book you have to be in a special place or in a special seat or no that's not the Bible
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and that's actually very harmful with regard to the reading of the Bible because how was the Bible written was written by men right it's mediated
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through human beings and even that is mediated through the history of mankind and particularly a particular Nation out of the nations of mankind so God's
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revelation as we've talked about before is mediated in terms of um of um literary uh techniques now the one one way that everybody kind of agrees in at
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least again when I say everybody I'm I'm talking about reformed theologians reformed Scholars everybody agrees that hermeneutically the Bible possesses a
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multitude of literary genre okay so any hermeneutics book you pick up on Amazon or out of the library our library is going to talk about the fact that some
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scripture is historical narrative some is poetry some is prophecy which is also sometimes poetry um there are Epistles and then there's that really weird type
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of writing called the apocalyptic so we
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[Music] hermeneutical reality hermeneutical reality now I I say we and again the reason I I I highlight the fact that that's a reformed position is because not it's
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not a universal position there are many who have taught that you read the Bible the same
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literally but it it's it it it seems clear to me and it is always seemed clear to me that there are aspects of Ezekiel and certainly of Revelation that we're not intended to be
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literal and it's also historically undeniable that the style of writing called apocalyptic was very popular in the ancient near
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ancient near East but of course that's the world and the secular side God wouldn't use anything that the world uses well the world used letters
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too right you so what are we going to do with Paul's letters they're just they're letters they were written to congregations to people to be read and
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and to be learned from as letters so I I think denying the reality of of different literary genre is is just
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um willful ignorance does anybody disagree I mean I don't want to insult anybody sometimes I I know I do um I don't intend to but does anybody
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disagree that that there are literary genre in the Bible that are not to be read the same as the others we all agree with that right okay I'm glad we'd have
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to start over um but I also don't want to presume okay so we accept that but what we recoil
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from viewing the Bible itself as a work of literature
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right danger a danger of reading but it is poetry though right I mean when when you read The Poetry the Psalms for example it is poetry it has all the aspects of
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Hebrew poetry parallelism and you know do a rhyme like ours does but it has all of that I mean so we that doesn't mean we understand it I mean I I studied I mean they taught me poetry when I was in
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high school and I didn't understand it they they told me what it meant and then that that's what I put on the
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test didn't mean anything to me um but it's still poetry so the fact is yeah we read we read The Song of Solomon okay what is the Song of
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Solomon what once every 10
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man um I mean it's poetry it's a love Sonet but does it make sense we read Ezekiel and we read Revelation and there are people who say they understand they understand Revelation um there also people who say
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they don't sin but they'll all find out later that I mean they're they're frankly book there are places in the Bible that are hard to understand and and we're also um
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temperamentally um not each one the same in terms of the literature we read right well I can read a poem and it doesn't make any sense to me Angela can read it and she loves it makes sense to her
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that I think it's just different way of of thinking of things so so maybe that's one of the reasons why God has given us his Revelation in so many different ways but that's a very good point what do we
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do when we don't understand it well that's why it is so important to realize that the Canon is our ultimate context and that the ark that that every
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book of the Bible fits in the Arc of God's revelation so the song of solom is not just some Hebrew love Sonet that got
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stuck in with the others in like a three- ring binder of Hebrew Works no it's part of the Canon of
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scripture which means its interpretation cannot just be in and of itself it has to be seen in light of the whole context of
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Canon right now I'm not saying that immediately makes the Song of Solomon clear to the understanding I'm just saying that this idea of can canonical theology is how the different genre will
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be best be best interpreted okay there there will still be things in the scripture that individually we're we're not going to get um and and possibly even as a
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community we won't fully understand if we were to do and I I hope someday to do a study a study Revelation I don't expect at the end of
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it everybody will have the same view okay pre-trib historical post-trib aill I mean
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postmill there are so many different perspectives I I don't expect that we'll all come to the same view in fact I hope we
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don't because that would pretty much guarantee to me that we're wrong okay I I think there's there's we see it as a mirror dimly and if we're all if if we're all equally possessing
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of the anointing we're all also equally possessing of the dimness of our understanding so we don't conclude the same thing but here is a method here is
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a hermeneutical um a a method of reading that will at least put us on the right path to understanding the more difficult passage of scripture as well as
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deepening our our understanding of the ones like Luke chapter 1 I mean I think none of us came into this room not understanding the doctrine of the Virgin birth and the and the interview between
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Gabriel and Mary okay we've read it we understand what's going on there we understand the prophecy from Isaiah okay but now we also see that it's an illusion to creation and that just
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deepens our understanding so there's kind of a level at which the deeper we go those passages and Concepts that we do understand will become even deeper and
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richer those that we still don't understand will will begin to become they'll come back into better focus even like even the Song of Solomon
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so that's why I think we we we do accept the reality of literary genre you you you know you say it's poetry do I just make something up no
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you don't do that it is far better to read a passage and say I don't know what that meant and then move on and then 10 years later come back read it again and say oh I still
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don't know we have the we have the encouragement that when we are with the Lord we will know as we are known and it may be at that point we say oh that's
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what it meant we know that from the disciples right that it wasn't until the Holy Spirit was given that they realized many of the things Jesus said what they actually meant and they were they were
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humble enough to admit that that when Jesus said tear down this temple in 3 days I will raise it up again he was it was afterward that John said he was speaking of the Temple of his body or he
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was speaking in the rivers of Living Water he was speaking of the Holy Spirit which was not yet because Christ had not been glorified so yeah our understanding will grow I think frankly through
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eternity will no longer have the dimness of of U remnants sin we won't have that but I don't think we're going to all of
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a sudden know everything I think God's ways are are far too deep for us to ever Plumb them um but I do think that we'll
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there will be things like oh that's what
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meant yeah abely absolutely absolutely uh I think to say that every and this is another thing that is taught especially among fundamentalists and that is to say that every passage is equally important I don't buy that I I don't think that's
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true at all in fact I don't frankly think that the Song of Solomon ranks up there uh really high in terms of matters of faith and Doctrine and practice I just don't think it's up there very high
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um certainly not up there like Isaiah 53 okay so I I again I think that that's self-evident don't
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you it is oh yeah that's that's where I'm going to get at it's yeah we we got to say that you know the Bible is God breathe and therefore every word of it is just as important as every other word no no that's not how
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God revealed himself and and clearly again I think it's we just don't like what's self-evident but it is self-evident that there are passages in Scripture that are
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not nearly as important as others you know there are narratives of history that are just not as important as The Narrative of of the Virgin birth or of Christ's trial and execution okay you
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can't equate them I mean yes juu rote his Chariot fast and killed people but is that the same as as Jesus before Pilate come on it's self-evident that
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these are not equal didn't write it all they didn't write it all down yeah right right in order for
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you to believe yeah but The Supporting Cast I I like that because that that is that shows also the drama of scripture that this is in fact a piece of
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literature it is a meta narrative and there are many supporting characters it it is like a Dickens novel there are a lot of characters in a
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Dickens novel and not all of them are as important as the others one of the characteristic traits of a Dickens novel is the most important person is going to be the most boring that's just that was his Trope
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all the other ones will be really really graphic like he takes a particular Vice or a particular virtue and he concentrated into one person like Uriah Heap but then the character the lead
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character is just boring she's just little dor you know or or Arthur kenam he was like milk toast but I'm not saying and there are people in the scriptures that
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just stand out you know that that are amazing and you they're great for children Sunday school lessons like Samson you know frankly think about it if Samson was Arnold Schwarzenegger Levi
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Schwarzenegger why would anybody wonder where his strength came from I think he looked like a bald Jewish rabbi Frank well he wasn't bald of course until afterward I I think he probably looked
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like a a a little uh Bookworm there was something about him obviously that made others wonder where did his strength come from so he wasn't some hulking bro like you see in our
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photos he was probably about 115 pounds wet okay that's how I picture it um so yeah there's there are things that stand out the flood Sodom and Gomorrah you
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know there are events that stand out and then there are other events that you you read it you say I I've read this book before but I don't remember that you know and and I again that's it's it's
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okay to accept the self-evident but I your your word fear is exactly where I was going what what are we doing here we're
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afraid to demean the demean the Bible by saying it is literature because what is literature well literature is the work of
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man well so is the Bible holy men moved by God right they were not just taken
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over and their hand motions Guided by the Holy Spirit no they were participating in the production of
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divine revelation and as with Paul's letters we've talked about this before I'm not convinced that they were even aware at the time that they were doing so when
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I yes he used men right he he's first of all he is God and so he did what God has always done and that is he revealed himself through the agency of men he
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kept them from error by the working of his holy spirit but he did not keep them from themselves which is why we have so many diverse books in the scriptures
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okay and diverse genre they're they're not all U homogeneous they're not like the Book of Mormon that is such a piece of garbage why anybody would ever believe that it was handed down from the
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angel Moroni on reformed Egyptian gold tablets okay they also don't realize that putting an i at the end of a Hebrew word
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makes it possess iive so the angel was my
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that particular yeah right yeah he say you you yeah right you picture the disciples saying or the the the women mared saying Rabbi Rabbi my teacher and then Joseph says my my
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right you're in the right boat um yeah the the scripture is just so much unlike it's unlike the the Quran of course you know it's like it's unlike any other religious book at all totally
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all right so we we go on and say um the the scriptures we accept the scripture as being lit literary but we have to we have to get over this that that doesn't
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mean we're saying that the Bible is not inspired it is absolutely God breath it is a God breathed work of literature but what this tells us and I've mentioned
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this before is that recognizing its literary identity is is simply recognizing that it is one story by one
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author that's that's where we lose it when we and you you see this in commentaries um you you see it you hear it in sermons they just people just have a hard time recognizing that the Bible is not just
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chapter and chapter and verse it's one work the cannon of scripture is the revelation of revelation of God the division of the Bible into books
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and into chapters and verses are really conveniences but it it wouldn't be a bad thing if we didn't have them especially
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the chapters and verses Scrolls didn't have no the Scrolls didn't have them now the Scrolls had something else the the scribes would count the number of letters and they
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would Mark the middle letter and they would have other markings and that was primarily for the reading um the public reading of scripture but they didn't have the chapter and verse um so when we
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read when we look at the scripture as literature and live in a post literary age well that means that we need to
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relearn how to read literature okay and the difficulty we have with this this challenge for us is that unlike little
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dor or David Copperfield where no matter what Edition you get the chapters are going to be in the same order
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not the Bible okay the Bible is is not in and we talked about this we talked about the cannon of scripture but the the fact is the the books of the Bible
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are not in the same order in every Age and and in in Jewish Bible versus the Christian Bible um now your Bibles today
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if you buy a Bible it's going to be in the same order okay um but that's not the order that Paul's septu was in for example when he was quoting the
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Bible Chronicles would have been the last book of that Hebrew Bible perhaps we don't really know because even from that era the lists of biblical books
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from say Josephus or Pho are not the same order so that tends to work against the idea of the literary identity of the
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scripture and so I'm bringing this up in case you get into a conversation and someone knows that um that the the Bible is not in the same order also the Bible
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is not necessarily in a chronological order in terms of the books written Justin was telling me that when we were talking last week about um Paul in in 1
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Corinthians saying that that Christ di Christ died according to the scriptures and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures he was saying he he knows believers who
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wouldn't have any problem with that because that's what the gospels teach and the gopel at the beginning of the New Testament this therefore Paul was referring to Matthew Mark Luke and John which in fact weren't written when Paul
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wrote his letter to the Corinthians we but we tend to think that the Bible was given in the order we have it well
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that's um manifestly not true because it isn't there there are just too many extant manuscripts codexes whatnot and
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reference ref es to the books of the Bible that do not have a uniform order so uh the challenge we have is the
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order of the books how how do you have a um a piece of literature in which the order of the
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chapters move around depending on what addition you addition you buy that that seems to work against the idea of the Bible is literature right yes but fortunately the Bible
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doesn't um have any problem with that and and that is because it does have some anchor points okay for example in in no known
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copy or manuscript or codex of the Old Testament are the first five books anything other than the Books of Moses
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okay so we we have some anchor points here the first being the pentat took is
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first why oh and within the Pento Genesis is always first the Pento is always in the same order no problems there okay well the pentet is Torah it is the law okay
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and when you get to the Minor Prophets you get to um Malachi and and he says remember Moses it's the laying of the foundation of the whole house of Revelation is on
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the pentet took I've mentioned last week that and I I'll mention again but frankly the entire Bible flows out of Genesis 1 2 and 3 everything you read in scripture can
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be traced back to Genesis 1 2 or 3 so so there's the foundation or the cap or the Cornerstone of the foundation but the the entire uh Narrative of humanity is
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found in Genesis really up to chapter 11 and then the entire history of Israel is outlined through the rest of Genesis by the time you get to the end of Genesis
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you have you have Israel and and the rest of it is just commentary so Exodus the the rest of the penet took are essentially commentary on Genesis and the rest of the Bible is
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essentially commentary on Genesis so this is always at the beginning now beginning now once the cannon of the New Testament was was finally settled and it really hasn't
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been settled in everybody's mind even today but at the end of it there's
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Revelation okay so I should have said last which makes sense considering that it's last things um but the the Book of Revelation is always at the back of the book I don't know what's happening here
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of revelation we see that Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 our book
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ends we start in a garden we end in a garden we start with a river we end with a river okay so you know know it we
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we've got the we got the first chapters we got the last Chapters at that point The Genius of scripture is that the rest of the parts
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are movable so the New Testament did not always have the gospels first and the gospels were not chronologically first to begin with most writer most scholars
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believe that the johannine literature was written after all the others and that the gospels themselves were probably written later than the
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Epistles so um and it's the Gospel of Luke for example we we know that that was as best we know that that was written by Luke as he was a companion to
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Paul and much of the research that he did he did during the years that Paul was in prison before he was sent to Rome Luke was with him and during that time
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he interviewed everybody who was still living and for Theophilus he wrote two books Luke in Acts but having carefully researched he says well that means he
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probably wrote that after most of Paul's letters if not all of them um well not the pastorals perhaps so the the the beauty of scripture is that what goes in
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between here doesn't really matter and that's because everything aligns itself with a theme that arcs from here
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to here okay so the Exodus and and even the promise of Exile that's in Deuteronomy and the deliverance from Exile that's Deuteronomy 30 which we'll be looking at Sunday morning in Romans
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chapter 10 okay the the New Covenant and we think oh that's Jeremiah no that's actually Deuteronomy 30 I will circumcise your circumcise your heart so it's all here and everything
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else is is merely an expansion on what's here and will culminate here so I don't know whether that um you know if you still have discomfort of the
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fact that that that different versions or Assemblies of the scripture will have different orders of the books yeah that's that's his
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historical reality to deny that um or you know what one of the problems with any
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only movement is what it says about all the others so you know the big problem with the King James only is not that the King James is not a good translation it is it is a very good
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translation the primary problem with the King James of course is that the the English is archaic right and that some of the words that are used in the Old English mean not only something
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different but in some cases the opposite of what they did in 1611 but we're not claiming that the the King James was a poor translation but as soon as you say something something only
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you're excluding all others and and that is exactly what they do and you can't exclude versions of the Bible without claiming that those who use them are at
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least verging on heresy right just the order that they're in that they find them you know so
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Chronicles for us is is um before Ezra and Nehemiah which is before job before the wisdom literature okay Chronicles in
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our Bible is is with Kings you know it's it's with the histories right seems like a good place to put it in the Hebrew Bible it's at the end okay we we put Daniel among the
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prophets but he's not he's among the histories in the Hebrew Bible that's my point is that the order of them in their actual when they're put put together is not the same in every
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assembly that we have Okay um chronologically we can't be sure when some of the books have been written obvious some of them are obvious well some of them are obvious
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um that's more obvious except we don't really know who wrote first the Kings um what's the word for four
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books quadrivium or something it's TR it's not a Trilogy not a anyhow 1 and 2 Samuel 1 and 2 Kings are actually Four 1 2 3 4 Kings
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in the Hebrew Bible we don't really know who wrote who wrote those and we we think that Chronicles was written by Ezra but we also think Ezra may have
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been a compiler of many of the other passages even some of the Psalms not a writer of them but a compiler of them but we don't know that there's no note at the bottom says compiled by or you
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know Ezra Ed editor um we don't know who wrote for the vast majority the books of the Bible we don't know the author e even the ones that we think we
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know like know like Ecclesiastes the only thing it says is calet the calet the preacher it doesn't say Solomon okay we we think it's Solomon um
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some people think it's not Solomon but someone likes Solomon uh so you know if we look at it that way we we are we're we're certainly prevented from putting too much faith in
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any given man um but what I'm talking about is just the fact that in different collections of the Canon of scripture you'll have all the same books but not in the same order
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but they will all start with the penet took and as far as Christian Bibles they will all end with Revelation okay and and then when you look at the first two chapters and the last two chapters you're going to understand why that that
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sets the beginning and the end of the rainbow okay and then everything else can move around and and one of the reasons that we do put the Bible the way we we do is because we think we know
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where it where it fits not fits not necessarily okay why job in front of Psalms because it's wisdom
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literature so it's job and we don't know when it was written we don't know who wrote it we have no idea when pardon me the story the story itself well yes it it is older um it
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seems to be from the time uh the setting is the time of Abraham back in that day but that would it's not it's not in with the histories though it's in with the
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wisdom and and so we have that you know we we have the wisdom literature is kind of in the middle okay and why do we do that Psalms
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was you know written why why aren't Psalms back with say Samuel 1 and 2 Samuel because most of them were written by David so why not put them there well
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because they're wisdom literature so we don't necessarily put things in there by chronology we know that Chronicles was probably written last and yet it's not last in our Bibles so there can be
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different types of arrangements as long as you have the anchor points it will all work all work out and that's because the word Echo is
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not unidirectional is it that's why the word Echo is so important here the I I think we can we can even go so far and I may be
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going out on a limb here but I've been talking about three literary devices quotations Illusions and Echoes and I've said the echo is the the least loud in terms of volume but in
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fact they're all of the same
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they're all really echos okay the quotation is a loud one all right it's pretty easy to discern what's being said but even the quotations because we don't necessarily
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know the chronology of all of the books of the Bible they also bounce off of one another and you can't be sure that this one was the original one because we we
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don't know necessarily the order of some of the prophets for example especially among the Minor Prophets we don't know exactly when they lived some of them give us time markers like who was
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reigning in Judah or Israel that helps others don't some of us say two years before the earthquake he all right fine look up the earthquake on Google um but
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but these are all really the the Echo and and the the thing about Echo is they are not are not unidirectional they unidirectional they bounce right and we're going to
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hopefully get to that but and I don't mind if if you have any questions about this concept of the Bible as literature I don't want to rush through this we don't we don't not really on any type of
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a a time limit here we are tonight but I mean weeks um not going to stay till 10: uh but if you if you have any questions in terms of of um what what I'm saying
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the way
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you're no you don't no don't no um both I I don't know that it's necessary to read the Bible from start to finish Genesis to Revelation straight
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through I really don't think that's and very few read through the Bible programs will do will do that um I think that it is important to
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get regular doses of each of the genre of genre of scripture rather than staying for example within the
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histories for six months I I don't think you should do that I think maybe you should read um Joshua and then go to
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Bible I don't think there's a problem with that I'm just saying I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily Advocate that I mean it's certainly not a problem with reading the Bible in any order you could read it from Revelation back to Genesis if you want it it's God's word um but I
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think if you want to get the that the the key here is immersion that's the key I don't think the New Testament writers were necessarily
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consciously thumbing through their scriptures trying to find verses to use in their letters I don't think they were doing that I think what was happening was as they were sharing the revelation
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of Jesus of Jesus Christ the quotes came to them so did the Illusions The Echoes may have even unintentionally come through they
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weren't even weren't even consciously doing it but they were so immersed in the scriptures that it was part of their literature it was part of their language
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and and I think however you best do that is how you should do it I really don't think there's one size fits all okay I'm just saying I would
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not Advocate any particular method reading it straight through or or reading it one genre than another I I just I think that especially if you're
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reading it on your own as an adult you