Old Testament Intimidation

There are various reasons why Christians sometimes avoid the Old Testament. Its truths are not as readily applicable as those of the gospels and epistles. Some people don’t like history, and the Old Testament contains the most ancient history. The style of the poetic books is difficult for some. The prophets, with their symbolism, layers of meaning, and intimidating reputation, can be difficult. While not valid excuses for ignoring the Old Testament, each of these factors does contribute to the challenge in profiting from it.

Some of these factors may be the subject of future posts; for today I would like to focus on the enigma of the Old Testament’s overall structure. The Bible is one unified book, and its sixty-six parts work together to present a central message. The Bible doesn’t read like most books, however. When we read a book, we expect it to be written consistently in the same format, and we expect the chapters (or sections) to be arranged in a logical order. The Bible does not meet these expectations in the way that we are used to. In order to profit from our study of the Old Testament, we need to understand the way its parts fit together.

The Old Testament is arranged chronologically only in part. Rather than strictly chronological, the overall organization is by type of content. These various types of content mean that the Old Testament does not have a single format. The Bible begins with the Pentateuch (or books of Moses). Next come the books of history. These are followed by a section of poetic books. The Old Testament ends with the books of the prophets, divided into major and minor. Even within each section, the books are not always arranged in chronological order. Most significantly, the books from one section intertwine with books from other sections in regard to historical context.

When we read individual books, therefore, especially in a front-to-back reading of the Bible, we don’t always have the right context. As we lose the flow of history, we end up seeing the books as isolated units rather than linked together. When we lose the broader context and fail to see how the books relate to each other, we have the tendency to throw up our hands, believing the Old Testament organization to be a puzzle we can’t master. Our forays into the Old Testament tend therefore to focus on individual and isolated stories that seem interesting; we read them as such, hoping to gain some profit from them.

Our overall understanding of the Old Testament can be helped by seeing which books fit together, and where each falls in historical context. It is impossible to assign precise dates, and there is some difference of opinion about exactly where each book falls, but the following is an idea of how the Old Testament might be arranged on a chronological basis. Clearly this is not the same order in which the books appear in the Bible.

Genesis; Job (somewhere within the time frame of Genesis or Exodus); Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers; Deuteronomy; Joshua; Judges; Ruth (somewhere within the time frame of Judges); I Samuel; II Samuel; I Kings; Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon (these books fall mostly within the time frame of I Kings); II Kings; I Chronicles and II Chronicles (these books run parallel with I Kings and II Kings); Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel (these prophets fall in the time frames of II Kings and II Chronicles); Lamentations; Haggai; Zechariah; Esther; Ezra; Nehemiah; Malachi.

Another aspect that can hinder our understanding of the Old Testament is lacking an overall time line. Without an accurate bird’s eye view, we lose track of how books and Bible characters fall in relationship to one another. The creation was about 4000 B.C. Of those 4000 years, most of the Old Testament account (from the time of Abraham through the end of the Old Testament) fits into about 1700 years – less time than from the birth of Christ to the present. We tend to think of the time frame as being much longer than that.

One thing that can throw off our perspective is that the length of a particular book is not proportional to the period of history it represents. If we’re thinking on a time line, we can’t weight every book the same. About 1700 years of history have already passed by the time we read of Noah in Genesis 6. Another 400 years bring us to the life of Abraham in Genesis 12. This places Abraham about halfway between creation and the birth of Christ; the first 2000 years are covered in only eleven chapters of the Bible. God then focuses the Biblical record on an approximately 1700-year period, to which He devotes the remaining thirty-eight and three-fourths books of the Old Testament. Twenty-one of those books fall into the time frame of I and II Kings.

While the dates below are approximate, these selected major events and characters help to divide Old Testament history into some pretty even segments. This skeleton time line can help to establish a helpful perspective for the timing of the Old Testament.

4000 B.C. - creation

2350 B.C. - flood
2000 B.C. - death of Abraham
1500 B.C. - Moses’ early life
1000 B.C. - David’s early life
500 B.C. - rebuilding in Jerusalem
400 B.C. - end of OT

Upcoming posts will go a level deeper into the Old Testament by breaking pre-Christ history into several segments and providing an overview of the books and characters relative to each segment.

Sources consulted:

http://biblehub.com (biblos.com)
The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible, 4^th ed. B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co.: Indianapolis, 1982.
Wood, Leon J. A Survey of Israel’s History. The Zondervan Corp.: Grand Rapids, MI, 1986.