THE HISTORY TOLD BY THE OLD TESTAMENT

                                             

The text of the Old Testament contains law, history, poetry, and prophecy. But each book was written within a particular historical context, and a great history permeates them, giving them meaning. Knowing this History facilitates the understanding of the books, per se, and the entire text as a whole. What is the history told by the first part of the Bible?

The story that the Old Testament tells begins with the creation of the world by God. After all was ready, He created man and appointed him to dominate over all creation (Genesis 1:26). For a time, he lived in his original state of perfection and fellowship with the Creator; but one day the man made an unusual decision, contrary to divine guidance, and turned away from God. This fact profoundly altered their personal nature. Their body and their spirit went into imbalance, because they were disconnected from the source that nourished their life. Thus, they began to experience pain and suffering and were subject to a process of degeneration of being that culminates in death.

Separated from God, man began to found cities (Gn.4.17; 10; 11.4), initiating the model of urban life that evolved into the great world empires, where the dominant mark is the man dominion by man. In time, he alienated himself from God and went on to worship, as gods, elements of creation. The man lost himself. But God, by his great love for him, established a plan to deliver him from the prison of death, opening a way back to his original condition. This would involve His own entrance into humanity.

Then, around the year 2,000 BC, according to scholars, He appeared to a man from Mesopotamia, Abraham, and made a covenant with him. From him would arise a nation, Israel, with which God would have a relationship, revealing himself to the world and preparing His entry into it. This relationship of God with Israel is the dominant subject of the OT text.

The OT History will show that Israel, an extract of humanity, acted just like Adam. Although he received the Revelation, he witnessed the great miracles of God in the world, and enjoyed His presence, broke the covenant with Him and departed from Him, worshiping the Canaanite gods (1 Kings 11: 5,6,33). Because of this, Israel just did not disappear from the face of the earth because God preserved a remnant. The History of the OT ends around the year 430 BC with the prophecy of Malachi, when God begins a silence of 400 years until His entrance into the world, through the person of the Son.

Antônio Maia – M.Div.

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