Hey everyone welcome back to Critical Thinking Aloud. Today we are continuing with our recently started series coving the topic of What is the Bible?
This is the second installment of this teaching series. If you would like to get caught up by reading the first part before you continue you can do so now by clicking here.
For those of you who already went over the prior material here is a quick recap.
What is the Bible?
“The Bible is a library of ancient Near Eastern literary works.”
What is the Bible?
Humans use literature to communicate truths to one another so its no surprise that God would choose this same vehicle to communicate His truths to us. Of coarse we believe the Bible to be much more than ancient Near Eastern literature as we went on to say this at the end of our last teaching.
“Over the 1,500 year period in which the Bible was written God moved upon the authors and editors to produce the most amazing work that has ever been written.”
What is the Bible?
Being lead by the spirit of God the people who wrote the Bible used their life experiences to shape their literary masterpiece. In the end the Bible is a work that is both fully human and fully divine.
Finally, we also made this statement in the coarse of our last teaching
“The Bible just like any other book has main characters made up of protagonists, and antagonists. Like all great stories the Bible also takes place in a specific setting and primarily focus’ on the characters in that setting. The stories in the Bible follow recognizable story telling patterns consisting of an origin, climax, and conclusion.”
What is the Bible?
Ultimately we want to pick up and continue in this thought of the Bible as literature.
The Bible is Literature
While we may have thought about several aspects of the Bible as a book just like any book, we may have never taken the time to think about the setting that the Bible takes place in.
Just like any other story, the Bible takes place in a particular setting. If we haven’t ever taken the time to critically think about this we may come away with a misunderstand of what the ancient Near Eastern biblical authors believed.
With out much thought it is most likely that a reader of the Bible would assume that the perception of the biblical authors “whole world” is the same as their own.
That is to say a globe with its seven continents are considered to be the setting of the Bible. This is not the case.
Genesis 10 is where we see the setting of the Bible expounded. The heading for this chapter in most English Bibles is going to read something like this “The Table of Nations“.
“These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.”
Genesis 10:32
The 70 Nations
The Bible’s setting consists of the seventy nations that are detailed in the tenth Chapter of the book of Genesis. This chapter chronicles the descendants of Noah which later became nations in and surrounding the Near East.
Here is an excerpt from one of our favoite resources here and Critical Thinking Aloud about these Nations as the setting to the Bible.
“This group of 70 does not reflect the perspective of the Noah’s descendants in the third or fourth generation; rather, it is Israel’s perspective at the time of the author. Note that there is no discussion of anyone outside the known world of the ancient Near East in the middle of the second millennium BC. The text only seeks to account for the groups the Israelites were aware of and does not hint at a world beyond the ancient Near East. In other words, the author has not attempted to provide a comprehensive list of all people(s) descended from the sons of Noah. Instead, he has addressed how all the known people and of his day are related to the sons of Noah.”
The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Notes on Genesis 10:2-29 pg 24
Did you guys catch that. The setting for the whole of the Bible is only the known world of the ancient Near East that the biblical authors were familiar with.
The Table of Nations
Here is a map to help you out:
Simply put the setting that the Bible narrative takes place is the area surrounding the ancient Near East. From Spain as the farthest boarder of the West, to India as the far reaches of the East, along with East Europe and the Balkans to the North and North Africa to the south.
This comprises the whole of the world in the ancient Near Eastern World View.
We talked about this more in our 8 part series on Why is the World the Way that it is? Learn more via those teaching by clicking here.
Still Important
Does this mean God doesn’t care about people out side of the ancient Near East? No way. Does any story negate the importance of people out side of the scope of the narrative it is telling? Of coarse not! Every one is import, but not everyone plays a role in the same stories.
A Christmas Carroll
Take the Novella: A Christmas Carroll, which everyone is probably familiar with. That story takes place in London. Out side of the few places that Scrooge visits with the ghosts, you have the main setting of the story in Scrooges house and the area surrounding it.
Does this mean that other nations, cities, or peoples house are not important? No, only that this particular story is told about this man in the setting of his house.
The Same with the Bible
The Biblical narrative takes place in the ancient Near East. People in other places in the world are important but Gods story of the redemption of humanity centers around one nation in the setting of their land and the area surrounding it.