What You Need to Know About the Old Testament: Introduction

The new year has come and and a new Bible series has arrived!  As promised, Five Minute Bible Study is launching a new study series entitled What You Need to Know About the Old Testament.  From Genesis to Malachi, this series will introduce you to the flow of Old Testament history and the major story line that is unfolded by hallmark events.  Each study will be a five minute read maximum as usual.  The series will be 14 lessons in length.  Before we really start digging into that Old Testament, you need a proper introduction to this animal.

For starters…  There is something you need to know about the Old Testament as is starts out.  First, the Old Testament had an original audience, and that audience was Israel.  Nothing in the Old Testament can be rightly understood without understanding this key point from the onset.  With that said, every event detailed, every character mentioned, and every prophecy uttered must be understood within the original context of Israel as the reader.  “Why did Moses write Genesis?” could also be asked as, “What did Genesis mean to Israel?”  Second, Israel was chosen by God for a service, and that service was to bring the Messiah into the world for the ransom of all sin (Romans 9:22-23).  The Old Testament is not a random compilation of events in world history.  Rather, it is the covenant history of Israel, which is ultimately the unveiling of redemption.  With this foundation of understanding, we now present the Old Testament.

Introducing the Biblical Periods-   The Old Testament is 39 books.  These 39 books take a different order in the modern English Bible than they do/did in the original Hebrew Bible.  The reordering of books by English Bible editors was for the sake of categorizing the Old Testament books (i.e. poetry with poetry, history with history, law with law).  This naturally disturbs the chronology of events and might cause confusion for first time readers of these 39 books.  With new or newer readers as the intended audience of this study series, I will approach this series by methodically progressing through the periods of Old Testament biblical history in chronological order.  Not every single book of the Old Testament will be given special attention, but hopefully, by the end of this series, you will have a better feel for Israel’s story (the story of the Old Testament) and how this story plays a critical role in understanding the present blessings of Jesus Christ.

The following list of biblical periods is heavily borrowed from James Smith’s book Introduction to Biblical Studies.

1. The Beginning Period (Genesis 1-3)
2. The Pilgrim Period (Genesis 12-46)
3. The Egyptian Period (Genesis 47 – Exodus 15)
4. The Wilderness Period (Exodus 15 – Deuteronomy 34)
5. The Conquest Period (Joshua – Judges 2)
6. The Anarchy Period (Judges 3-16; Ruth; 1 Samuel 1-7)
7. The United Kingdom Period (1 Samuel 8 – 1 Kings 11; 1 Chronicles – 2 Chronicles 9)
8. The Divided Kingdom Period (1 Kings 12 – 2 Kings 17; 2 Chronicles 10-29)
9. The Assyrian Period (2 Kings 18-23, 2 Chronicles 30-35)
10. The Babylonian Period (2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chronicles 36; Daniel; Jeremiah; Ezekiel)
11. The Persian Period (2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra; Nehemiah; Esther)
12. The Silent Period (the period from Malachi to Matthew)

This list will form the exoskeleton for each week’s five minute study in this series.  Make it a new year resolution to read through your Old Testament this year, and hopefully this series will bring new depths of understanding to that reading.  Log on next week for Lesson 1 which highlights The Beginning Period (Genesis 1-3).