Studies on Ancient Israel

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Patrilineal & Patrilocal Life in Ancient Israel

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 35:, Genesis 36:, Numbers 26:33, Numbers 27:1-11, Numbers 36:1-12, Joshua 17:3-6, Matthew 1:

The term patrilineal has to do with tracing ancestral descent (and therefore tribal affiliation and inheritance) through the male line. In Israel the possessions of a particular lineage were carefully...

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The Song of Israel

Author

Mike Cosper

Keywords

This is the song of Israel. It begins with the starlit hope of the patriarchs as they sing bleary-eyed songs of their promised future. It becomes a slave song, sung in the chains of Egypt, and evolves...

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Israel Was Part of The Ancient World

Author

John H. Walton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:1, Exodus 20:13

The [Mesopotamian ancient texts] serve as sources of information for us to formulate the shape of each culture’s ways of thinking. In most areas there is more similarity between Israel and its neighbo...

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The Origin of the Sabbath

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Where did the observation of a Sabbath come from? Nahum Sarna points out that it is never instituted within Scripture. Instead, it is taken for granted that the people already observe it: “There can...

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The Three Annual Festivals in Israel

Author

Christopher H. J. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 16:11, 14, Exodus 12:24–27 , 2 Chronicles 30:21–23, Acts 2:1–4, 42–47, Luke 15:22–24 , Psalm 100:1–2

There were three annual festivals in Israel—Passover along with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Tabernacles. You can read about them in Leviticus 23 and...

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Shepherd-Kings from David to Jesus

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 23:, 2 Samuel 7:5-16, John 10:1-18, Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7, Ezekiel 34:11-16

Do you remember seeing the golden sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun ? What has he got in his hands? If you remembered that he was holding a shepherd’s crook, you’re right (he is also holding a...

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The Greatness of Solomon’s Temple

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 6:7, Exodus 35:30–35 , Isaiah 28:16 , 1 Peter 2:4–5, Psalm 118:22–23 , Matthew 16:18

In the 1800s, a group of people were exploring just outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, when they came across a hole in the ground. Curious, they began to dig—and uncovered...

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Redemption in Ancient Israel

Author

Sandra L. Richter

Keywords

In Israel’s tribal society redemption was the act of a patriarch who put his own resources on the line to ransom a family member who had been driven to the margins of society by poverty, who had been ...

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The Survival of Scripture

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 40:8, 2 Timothy 3:16, Joshua 1:8, Isaiah 55:11, Matthew 5:18

Nahum Sarna points out in Understanding Genesis that it is a remarkable fact that the Old Testament exists at all. Most ancient texts have not survived. Ancient Israel did not spread its works by mi...

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Music's Human Origin

Author

Nahum Sarna

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:21

Music, vocal and instrumental, played a significant role in the organized institutionalized worship of ancient Israel. It was an accepted constituent of religious self-expression. Nevertheless, Israel...

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The Challenge of Planting a Vineyard

Author

Caroline Cobb

Keywords

It takes at least three years to for a grape vine to begin producing fruit. The planting site must be carefully chosen, the vine planted at just the right depth and at just the right time of year, the...

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It is Well

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:

If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...

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A Short History of Repentance and Confession

Author

Annemarie S. Kidder

Keywords

The history of repentance is as old as humankind. We each carry the remembrance of wrongdoing in burdensome satchels, hoping that eventually someone will ease them off our back. We each know the feeli...

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Our Stories, Incarnated by God

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 11:26, Romans 6:3-4, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, Revelation 12:11, Colossians 2:11-12

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

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Eden a Temple, Adam a Priest

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, Genesis 2:null

John Walton, in The Lost World of Adam and Eve, argues that the Garden of Eden should be seen as a sacred space (a kind of "Holy of Holies") set off from the rest of creation, with the seven...

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A Roman’s View of the Jewish Faith and Its Interaction with Egypt

Author

Tacitus

Keywords

In this excerpt by the Roman historian Tacitus, we get insight into the Jewish faith from an ancient, extra-Biblical account. We also see how the Israelites took the first commandment seriously: The...

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No Natural vs Supernatural in the Ancient World

Author

John H. Walton

Keywords

That is, there is no concept of a “natural” world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one. Deity pervaded the ancient world. Nothin...

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Ancient Cosmology

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

The cosmology of the ancient world was dramatically different from the way that we think of ours. Scholar John Walton writes in The Lost World of Genesis One , “Old world cosmic geography is based on...

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Thinking with Your Gut

Author

John H. Walton

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:10, Proverbs 4:23

If cosmic geography is culturally descriptive rather than revealed truth, it takes its place among many other biblical examples of culturally relative notions. For example, in the ancient world, peopl...

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Blessing: A Life with God

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Blessing

Scripture

Genesis 12:2-3, Psalm 1:1-3, Matthew 5:3-12, Galatians 3:8-9, Genesis 12:2-3

Blessing in the ancient world was the highest form of well-being possible for human beings. The Greeks referred to the blissful existence of the gods as “blessed.” For Israel, blessing included not ju...

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Stories of Hospitality from Ancient Cultures

Author

Dorothy C. Bass

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 4:9, Matthew 25:34-46, Leviticus 19:34, Acts 28:2, Isaiah 58:7

A Catholic priest recently told a gathering of friends about a time when he arrived in Israel late on a Friday afternoon, just as everything was about to shut down for the Sabbath. Public transportati...

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God's Image in Humanity

Keywords

Nahum Sarna writes in Understanding Genesis: Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the mythological and the Israelite conceptions more striking and more illuminating than in their respective descr...

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The Land of Israel

Author

N. T. Wright and Michael Bird

Keywords

Israel

The land of Israel is a small country. You can walk its length, north to south, in a few days, and from its central mountains you can see its lateral boundaries, the sea to the west and the river to t...

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Was the Star of Bethlehem a Comet?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 2:1-12

As early as AD 248, Origen suggested that the star of Bethlehem was a comet—and there continue to be astronomers who think that he was right. Comets are icy objects that orbit the sun. When seen fro...

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What Do You Reflect?

Author

G.K. Beale

Keywords

The Image of God

Scripture

Genesis 1:null

When my two daughters, Hannah and Nancy, were about two or three years old, I noticed how they imitated and reflected my wife and me. They cooked, fed and disciplined their play animals and dolls just...

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The Prayer of Jabez Revisited

Author

Ben Witherington III

Keywords

Scripture

1 Chronicles 4:9-10, Matthew 6:6, Luke 11:9, Philippians 4:6, James 5:16

First Chronicles 4:9-10 could be forgiven for being called the text that roared, once Bruce Wilkinson got his hands on it and wrote a little book called The Prayer of Jabez. This book, which was relea...

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The Worldview of the Old Testament

Author

Nahum Sarna

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah 45:5-6, Isaiah 44:6, Exodus 20:2-3

The Hebrew cosmology represents a revolutionary break with the contemporary world, a parting of the spiritual ways that involved the undermining of the entire prevailing mythological world-view... The...

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Meeting Face to Face with God

Author

Mike Cosper

Keywords

Israel

While many world religions worship gods in temples, Israel’s claim was unique. Theirs wasn’t simply a consecrated center for worship; it was a meeting place where the Lord of the creation actually met...

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When the Israelites Abandoned God’s Authority

Author

David Klinghoffer

Keywords

In the Bible, the children of Israel fall into disastrous behavior patterns whenever they abandon the majestic authority of God revealed to them through Moses at Mount Sinai. In fact, they commenced r...

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Comparing the Genesis Creation Account with their Neighbors

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:3, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 2:2-3, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:31

The Jews were not the only religious people in the ancient world. There were others, such as the Akkadians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and they had their own creation stories. When one compares the ...

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