This Beautiful Book

An Exploration of the Bible's Incredible Story Line and Why It Matters Today

Steve Green, Bill High

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780310356110
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

In This Beautiful Book, Steve Green - founder of The Museum of the Bible - highlights life-changing themes woven through the mosaic of the Bible's various stories, reveals a new way to engage Scripture as a whole, and inspires deep appreciation for the Bible's connection to your life.

The most popular and culture-shaping text in the world, the Bible is still the least understood book of all time.

The Bible's collection of history, poetry, genealogy lists, and mystifying prophecies often prove puzzling to readers. And when this text is read in pieces, we're left with only a half-impression of the vibrant mosaic. This Beautiful Book highlights the thematic threads woven throughout the ancient writings and shows us a new way to engage with Scripture as a whole.

Through insights gained from firsthand experiences in leading and developing the first world class Bible museum, Green invites readers to step back from the individual stories of the Bible and consider the Bible as a whole. He reveals the completeness, connection, and transformative power of Scripture. Along with stunning retellings of biblical stories, Green helps readers see the story within the story, and draws the careful connections that help us appreciate the richness of the Bible story as a single story. Each page will spark or embolden your faith in a God who speaks to us across the centuries.

A truly captivating experience, this book will instill in you a deep appreciation for Scripture and its profound connection to your own life story.

ONE

THE BIG PICTURE

This beautiful story begins with a God who creates all things, including the human race, and declares everything that he made good. A problem arises in the story when human beings disobey God. Their disobedience results in separation in their relationship with the creator God. How will they ever be reconnected with their Creator?

Spoiler alert! God, then, sends his Son, Jesus, to pay the price for the broken relationship and offers restoration to any who accept.

Now that I just told you the story, you don’t even need to read this book. You can go straight to the Bible and read it for yourself. But if you want to have a little more of the story fleshed out, then keep on reading.

KNOWING THE STORY HELPS

Today our knowledge of the Bible continues to decline. Some people know very little about the Bible. Not long ago, I attended a meeting in NYC, and a journalist from one of the major news outlets said that he had colleagues in his office who did not know what the Easter holiday was about.

It’s understandable that we know less about the Bible today, since we don’t teach it as we once did. The Bible used to be taught in public schools, but the Engel v. Vitale Supreme Court ruling in 1962 began the eventual removal of Bible teaching in school.¹

That is part of the motivation for this book. I think it is good to have a basic understanding of the story of the Bible. But the Bible is a big book and can be very confusing at times.

Maybe you have heard some of the Bible’s stories but haven’t read the entire book and, like me during intermission at Les Misérables, you don’t know how the stories connect or if they connect at all. Or maybe you don’t know any of the Bible’s stories and feel left out when someone at work brings up the current holiday, which happens to be connected to the story of the Bible.

Wherever you are in your Bible reading journey, this book represents my effort to provide a basic understanding of the Bible’s story.

Simple enough, right?

Not really. The problem is, the Bible is controversial. I realize that you can’t create anything concerning the Bible without someone criticizing what you did or how you did it. I can already hear the objections.

“Well, that is your version of the Bible.”

Or, “What Bible are you talking about? Don’t you know there are several Bibles?”

Or, “Don’t you know that the Bible is made up?”

Or maybe this one: “The Bible is just a collection of stories that doesn’t tell a single story.”

Yes, I understand that no matter how I tell the Bible’s story, naysayers will naysay. And that’s okay. That will never change.

From my experience, I’ve found that the best way to understand what the Bible is about is to read it for yourself. And I hope you do.

BUT THE CONTROVERSIES . . .

The Bible I grew up reading had sixty-six books, divided into thirty-nine Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books.

I see two main differences with other versions of the Bible. The Bible in the Jewish tradition includes only the Old Testament, though they do not call it that—rather, simply the Bible. Though there is a different sequence of books and different divisions of the text, the content of the books in the Jewish Bible is virtually identical to what I call the Old Testament. The basic characters and stories are the same. Throughout this book, I will use the terms Old and New Testament.

The other difference deals with the Apocrypha. This is a group of relatively short books considered to be part of the Bible by some faith traditions, like Catholicism. For groups that include the Apocrypha, the number varies. But the Bible of my youth has no Apocrypha.

As I tell the Bible’s story, there are many of the sixty-six books I grew up with that I do not cover. So even if you do include the Apocrypha as part of your Bible, the story that I am telling doesn’t change. For the Jewish reader, my ending is much different, which leads to understanding the Jewish Bible differently. Maybe you don’t agree with the ending of the story I tell. I ask that you humor me, if you will. Let me tell the ending as told by the New Testament. You can decide what you do with it.

Some make a big deal about the differences. But beyond the two main ones I’ve just described, the differences are minor and do not affect the subjects or theses of the Bible.

The preceding discussion of Bible versions does not include different translations of the Bible. The King James Version (KJV), the New International Version (NIV), and the English Standard Version (ESV) are three of the many English translations of the Bible. Unless you are reading the Bible in the original languages of Hebrew in the Old Testament or primarily Greek in the New Testament, you are reading a translation.

There are thousands of translations of the Bible in hundreds of languages. Some people argue over which translation is best or most accurate or easiest to read. My purpose is not to delve into these arguments. When I quote from the Bible, I will be using the New International Version (NIV) unless noted otherwise. My suggestion? Pick one and read it.

Another point of contention is the truth, or lack thereof, of the Bible. There are millions of people who believe the Bible to be true, and millions who don’t. Both sides can become very passionate about their beliefs. And both sides have published many books about their view of the Bible’s veracity. The purpose of this book, however, is not to address or have an in-depth discussion on whether the Bible is true; it is simply to tell the story.

The books of the Bible I grew up with were divided into chapters and verses. This is common today and is embraced by many faith traditions, but those divisions were not part of the original writings. They are very useful as a way of directing a person’s attention to a particular spot in the Bible. I will use those markers throughout this book. If you’re brand-new to the Bible, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the books of the Bible, because I will be making references to them regularly in this book. You can find a list in the appendix at the end of this book.

While we could spend the rest of this book addressing the controversies associated with the Bible, I will leave it at that because talking about the controversies is not the purpose of this book either.

For some of you, this book may be your introduction to the Bible. You may be starting from scratch. I think that’s fantastic. For others who might possess some knowledge of the Bible, I’d like to suggest setting aside whatever you do know about it and embracing this opportunity to look at the Bible with new eyes.

KEEPING THINGS IN ORDER

One more thing before we get into the story.

As in many stories, there’s a timeline in the story of the Bible. I will refer to it as the biblical timeline—another topic for controversy that we won’t get into. However, I find it helpful to keep things in order, so I understand how the stories fit together. Let’s start with a big timeline to which we can refer throughout our journey. The story begins with the beginning and ends with the end. What a novel idea.

The story starts with the creation of the world and everything in it. I won’t put a date on creation, but we can look at five of the main characters in the Bible and give an approximate date for their lives within the Bible’s story. And remember, when looking at the historical timeline, dates in the BC era count down, unlike those in the AD era, which count up.

The first main character is Abraham. The story introduces him early. We can place Abraham’s life at around 2000 BC.

Next is Moses. The Bible credits the first five books of the Bible to Moses. He comes in around five hundred years after Abraham, which puts him somewhere near 1500 BC.

Coming in around 1000 BC is King David, a well-known figure in the Bible.

The next character I will pick is Isaiah. The Bible places him around 700 BC.

These four figures are written about in the Old Testament. The last figure is the main character in the New Testament. His name is Jesus. Our calendar is tied to his birth. Let’s place him at AD 1.

The world history timeline begins counting up after the birth of Jesus. We live in the twenty-first century, two thousand years since the birth of Jesus. For centuries, the world has used the labels AD and BC to mark the major eras of world history. In today’s modern era, the Gregorian calendar is used by the world as a standard by which we keep track of years.

The label AD stands for anno Domini, which is a Latin term meaning “in the year of the Lord.” You may recall hearing people in official business of the state or federal governments use the phrase “in the year of our Lord.” The modern world uses this label when referring to calendar dates after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

The label BC stands for “before Christ,” referring to the era before the birth of Jesus. Though many countries and institutions do not ascribe to the religious foundations of the calendar system, nearly all agree to use it in the spirit of universal practicality. Interestingly, The Oxford Companion to the Year states, “If it is not an era of the Incarnation it is an era of nothing at all, for there is no known event in either 1 BC or AD 1 deserving of universal commemoration.”² When they mention the incarnation, they are making reference to Jesus’ birth.

The story doesn’t end with Jesus. However, much of the New Testament is focused on his life. It ends looking into the future, which goes on for eternity. This, again, is a good topic for an argument.

So from time to time, I will come back to these characters...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction: Knowing the Story
• 1. The Big Picture
• 2. Mephibosheth: The Story within the Story
• 3. In the Beginning
• 4. Letting God Be God
• 5. God’s Rescue Plan: Part 1
• 6. God’s Rescue Plan: Part 2
• 7. Mysterious Messengers
• 8. The Time of Kings
• 9. On Wisdom and Poetry
• 10. Jesus, the Unlikely King
• 11. The Spread of the Good News
• 12. The Bible’s Claims
• Appendix: Complete List of the Books of the Bible
• Notes